##VIDEO ID:Xby2c-pjhsI## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e 5 chapter 231 Public Law 1975 this is to State for the record that adequate notice of this meeting has been provided to the public by posting and maintaining the annual notice of regular meetings on the bulletin board of the municipal building by mailing the annual notice of regular meetings for 2025 to the news record and the Star Ledger in December 2024 and by filing said notice in the office of the Township Clerk Mr daffis present Mr Duca here dangle here Herman mayor Adams here res chapter 231 public La 1975 Comm known as the open public meetings act requires all meetings of public bodies be open to the public and whereas section 7A provides that the governing body has a discretion to permit prohibit or regulate the active part participation of the public at any meeting meeting and whereas Zar the governing body to comply with the provision this act same time it conducts its business in orderly and expeditious manner now therefore be resolved by the township commit committee the township mwood those hereby prohibit except to set forth in formal agenda active participation and deliberations of the governing body by the public acceptance otherwise described by law does limit the public to the observations of the actions and discussions of the governing body at over regular and special meetings so moved second Mr dfus yes Mr Duca yes SLE yes M Herman yes mayor Adams yes thank thank you welcome to uh the Thursday January 30th 2025 budget hearing please rise for a salute to the flag Bud aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic which it stands one nation under God indivisible andice okay thank you um tonight is our first budget hearing for the 2025 budget our next one will be Monday evening same time at 6 o'clock tonight we will be um going over the Departments um for our their budgets individual budgets we go through them and the department head is here to uh explain explained their asks for this year's budget tonight we start with community services and then we move to the municipal pool both of which are um Melissa manuso is our director then we move to Public Works and Engineering both whom are Paul kitner then we move to Community Development with Anette DePalma Township clerp Elizabeth fritzen and Patrick W for administration then we will open the floor to public comment and then we will adjourn so um let's get started welcome Miss manuso Mr wary did you want to speak about you mayor yeah just to talk about the process that we'll be going through uh for these budget workshops and ultimately adoption um so we we have tonight's meeting like you said on Monday we'll have another Workshop where we will have the police department Health Department Library Finance uh present along with Springfield Avenue partnership Maplewood Village Alliance the Community Coalition on race youthnet and the municipal court and then on February 25th we will discuss new employee requests Revenue Capital recommendations budget recommendations open space and storm water and then we anticipate that the introduction of the budget will be on April 1st and the adoption of the budget will be on May 6th okay so why don't we kick it off with Community Services Miss manuso go ahead oh um so the pool and Community Serv is your mic on is it it was on but you you just have to get closer to it there you go I can't see the light from my angle bad um um so the department mission statement is the um to provide entertaining safe and varied recreational programs and services to the Township's diverse population in a costeffective and Progressive Manner and um we're flexible always changing based on feedback we receive we constantly strive to review improve and expand our programs to keep peace with the changes and needs of the entire Community we stand by our motto All for fun and fun for all and our focus is and accessible for everyone so uh to highlight the department Staffing we have a very robust staff especially in the summertime but year round so the department is administered by the director of community services myself we have full-time staff including a senior program supervisor manager of recreation two program supervisors of recreation art manager pool foreman and then we have part timers um throughout the year which we're very proud to work with program instructors coaches Fitness instructors art instructors building attendance site supervisors we have um one to two Jitney drivers too on our side um seasonal staff includes lifeguards front desk staff patio staff Kids Camp dur dors um assistant directors counselors and the same at really all of our camps um tennis director tennis instructors basketball director basketball staff which we've added a lot of basketball you'll hear about and just program facilitators so um we have a very large team our facilities are our recre office over in town hall across from the clerks the Maplewood Community Center the Maplewood Community pool and the Maplewood Senior Center and the parks and Fields under our purview Gordon Park the heart Park Crest Memorial Ward Park wter park so for 2024 um we continue the tradition of adding on getting new ideas um listening to Residents and seeing what they're looking to have and trying to implement um their needs so in in the recreation division um some accomplishments were we had a goal of working with some Community Partners which puppy yoga we had our first puppy yoga in 2024 and that was working with in partnership with a charity which um you know programming registrations went towards them and they're their not out Roga so you don't have to feel stressed you're going to um we worked with theor roal Park Conservancy which uh was a little scary for me I'm scared of birds of prey but to the woodlands and had like aile programming um so that was fun to work with the conservancy and we'll work with them a lot more as keeping everybody on the same page and then working with Eagle Scouts is another example to maximize Community benefit it's great for Scouts uh you know learning experience and working together some of those projects great for um they're all things that we need so this year we also and this was the administrators uh hosted our first official bring your kids a workday so that was a sign we increased pickle ball programming me demands which never have enough pickle ball um we met the goal of engaging some new age groups we uh were interested in getting Middle School schoolers involved we offered the safe care babysitting for them and we're also had a goal of doing some more like Mex Health free classes free dance free meditations um and then we also have some series that are you know registration based but we have some orientation and workshops at no cost so some of our free community events 2024 we TW little for everybody um but the end of winter event where we had ice skating bonfire s'mores this year was our first year with the um sensory room which [Music] we for the room this year face painting crafts um and that was in the winter time we had a family movie day at the Woodland more movies in the park over the summer and July August September we went to various Parks the Fourth of July we tried to add on some for all ages we had two movies at the pool we met the Olympian Jackie du National Coming Out day which first is in October the adalante art show and opening celebration was in November at the 1978 we had a free gratitude meditation for all which we hosted at Bergdorf and then of course the holiday tree lighting I think everybody is at at the Gazebo another accomplishment is our adding on to our basketball programming so that's been expanded greatly so now we have spring fall and basketball programming and this year in 2025 is our first summer having our own basketball camp so we're not Outsourcing to a vendor we have a program supervisor whose passion is basketball so it's best for his career and follow what he loves and now uh we're playing basketball all the time so that is called the SummerSlam and we're excited about that we have wreck softball with um last season 353 players 54 coaches some winter trainings off season um and then this coming year we're hosting parade I call softball Three softball little and as far as camps go in 2024 we really expanded our reach um with adding more of the maple craft sessions we had Ultimate Frisbee the tennis camp our traditional Kids Camp drills skills and thrills basketball which is what it's changing this year and then we offered Lego and stem mermaid Camp dive camp and we had two Creative Learning camps so we had a little bit over 1500 campers as far as our goals in 2025 in the recreation division we want to add some cooking and nutrition for all ages so um it was new for seniors this year now we're looking to classes and an adult class we uh created meditation and mental health Wellness Ser for all ages and that's expanded to New Age um groups so the one we're having now is 46 so we were kind of focusing on very little kids and the seniors there was all these people in between so we're trying to engage and so far that be effective and we're always expanding and evaluating our programming um this year another goal that we're going to meet is we are having the spring egg hunt and the parade and we're also working on a l bicycle so that will be with um the Health Department police including it looks like we're going to be able to teach how that's we're doing that it sounds like we're doing sounds like from I'm I missed that last part I'm sorry what are we doing doing um learning how to ride bicycles aside from like the rodeo The Bike Rodeo and then the health department is going to have um some health offerings at the health so we're either going to announce it then working towards it a different Community thank you yes in the senior division some accomplishments are the fitness classes haveed we have some attend room for new offerings and we had 848 participants like in and out of all of the classes we had 22 senior social and parties somehow a whopping 17 senior trips so there was a lot a long ago new trips were Sleepy Hollow day trip t sculpture and the seniors really want to go shopping all also they did time they sh um senior art classes have expanded so we we've had acrylics for a while we've added to that we have watercolor instructor who us a and some drawing um we had a mixed media crafts class and the adalante art show which is our senior acrylic classes works at the 1978 we added pen and in we had wery and petite floors and jewelry making classes are new to us and we expanded the pickle ball for all ejs including this some goals for 2020 I like we say lot um but we're stilling some sort of a book club we're always talking to the seniors and our underlying goal is to fight isolation um you know of our seniors we look forward to hanging senior art in the senior center and um with the various class because they're coming out with much beautiful art it can um decorate our world and we have goals to have more intergenerational activities um maybe a hike on weekends we have we're looking at Fitness classes with participants of all ages including dance happy and some of the meditation I could go right into the can I ask a quick question or not a question but um I I like how you often put like numbers of the amounts of participants but for the free community programming we don't have that data so I mean I don't want you to go back into it this year but in future it'd be nice to be able to have to know how many participants are actually attending those events as well um just to see the impact and return on investment but preprogramming doesn't do they have to sign up for it or no no yeah that's why it's hard to get numbers because anybody can just come right yes yeah so be estimated I mean crowd estimates yeah crowd estimates or cell phone data if we want to invest so are we asking questions sure so um I know you have a lot of lines here that say additional programs um additional list league fees and things like that total is about 80,000 but your overall budget request is going up um about $240,000 why why it's based on the increase of programming and I think it's going to match increase in revenues for for the new offerings so most of it a lot of it is the basketball so we're doing B fall we're doing a spring League now for the first time and adding um the maple craft Camp which was three weeks is now going and we are adding additional ultimate the tennis the ball is there's an uptick and not also and we have a vacancy you say in the art manager are we hiring another art manager and we're doing that um um we didn't have art this year right we did we were just running it like all the senior art and art camp craft Camp right but the manager doesn't work with the seniors right she did she was doing she did both right yeah do you do you ever I guess I'm just looking at you know since 200 22 when the budget was uh what we appropriated is 1 Point 2 million and now you're up you're asking for 1.7 so that's a 41% increase um do you ever look at programs and say yeah these are good programs but maybe we should roll them off and bring on new things because I I'm a little concerned you know we got problems with taxes and I'm a little concerned that we keep adding things and we're not looking and deciding whether we should instead of add maybe replace drop something um or do something differently like I'm you know the the artart we have art schools and and businesses in town that to me I would rather see us work with them than create a new program ourselves like we had before because I think it was it was competing with them so um I just would like us to think differently about how we're doing some of this stuff I agree with Vic I mean we've talked in committee also last year about getting the numbers of some of the events just so we can see how many people are partip ipating in things and getting you know uh profit and loss over events and I know not everything some things are free so not everything's going to make up the expense but I think it's important to look at how each program is doing um just moving forward so that we know because maybe there are we do so many things and I know the seniors do so many things and we talk about doing more things I know that we don't have that many staff and there's just a lot of moving parts and so I just feel like sometimes it's about quality versus quantity and reaching the most amount of people I think is important we keep healing like for middle schoolers for example that there isn't that many things for them to do I know we've talked about some of the trips like the seniors have done and everything like that but it always just feels like we don't I don't know I agree guess that's what I'm saying just to you know just look at them a little bit just if I could ask Mr weia um you're going to go through this and make recommendations on each of these correct yes yes so where's we're just seeing things sort of raw numbers right now right we've gone we've gone through with all the department heads to work out what we think at least is realistic in terms of numbers or what we understand um the township committee would not want to consider and so what's left here requires more refinement absolutely but we have gone through it uh once or twice with the department heads and with the CFO I'd also recommend that when we talk about revenues because with Miss Mancuso's programs a lot of those those expenses are tied with revenues and so when we discuss revenues we'll be prepared to talk about how they they offset uh expenses of programs because that might be helpful to consider and not all these Miss manuso are your desired new programs like teaching people ride bicycles did not come from you and other ones don't come from you so I think you don't you need to not be afraid to tell Township committee members or residents that like no we can't add that program because we're not replacing one that we already know is popular and successful and with something that is brand new we can't have it both ways we can't say do this do this do this and then say don't add new unless you're taking another one away so I think I think don't be afraid to I just want to push back on that riding bicycle one for a minute because like that come from a public safety perspective and we've been talking about how to make it safer to ride to it I'm just saying you on one hand we can't say don't add new programs and then be asking for new programs no I think it I think what Mr DeLuca was saying was have we evaluated current programs to see what's successful saying but I also heard what you said and I also know that new requests are coming to this department and it's difficult for an employee say no to elected officials sometimes so I I'm just saying if you want to evaluate all the existing and then evaluate what comes in new because I say the same thing my day job like the board will say we want to do this I'm like okay what do you want to replace this with you know like because of that reason for Staffing and for for bandwidth for money so I think with regard um I'll just speak to the bike program I believe this is just something she's looking into that um would be partnered with another organization and not something that we would be doing from scratch so it's not a hard lift and it's not like expense it would be um so it's something that I'm I believe she's just looking at but um I I applaud looking at different things that come up and different options especially when we see our community really getting involved in these areas like biking um I just wanted to say I two quick things I wanted to say um I love that you're engaging new age groups and that you want to do more on accessibility um it sort of ties in a little bit with what Mr Luca said is I wanted to make sure that we focus on getting more attendance at some of our events um like for example the national coming out day and then our um event with the Olympian I felt like both of those could have had like more people and so I don't know if they would have benefited from more advanced planning more publicity now that we have a Pio hopefully we can get that more publicity and really get more people to come or maybe look at the time that it's offered because I recall I think there were both like 3:00 but the time the time is something we keep bringing up because school doesn't get out until doesn't get out until 35 the last Maplewood Schools get out at 3 at at 350 and everything starts at 3:00 so you're missing MMS huskin Seth boen so the national coming out day I thought yeah it could have um you know thank you our our department that was a resident who organized that we work on that and few years in a row I've mentioned to we start later so that the school the kids could actually attend because MD mid even middle school students have to are technically supposed to be there till 3:15 so when an event starts at 3: and they're not really going to get there till like 3:30 and it only goes to like 4: 4:30 and then the other thing I wanted to say was um I love um that you want to do more intergenerational programming and I think that actually could work really hand inand with what Miss Engle and I have been talking about trying to get more teen you know more Middle School and High School programming because I'm I'm seeing like the the seniors got to go to Willowbrook Mall I mean I think teenagers would love to go to Willowbrook Mall and how wonderful would it be to have are seniors and some teens on the bus together um it sounds like a disaster I think it would be if we're trying to get intergenerational people together like jewelry making class like that's something I feel like pretty much everything you have for these seniors I mean these are these are amazing programs they're very lucky um sounds like you want to do some of these classes maybe I do maybe you could be the intergenerational not not a senior yet um but yeah I mean something just some thoughts to think about listen um 210 line accessibility gets moved over to the pool side so it's just like a trans towards the bottom of that line where it says pool uh pool accessibility it's we don't have numbers on the there's no numbers so you could make it a little bigger but it's the the $25,000 line that's the municipal contribution to reduce full user fees while we're talking about lines um 101 37101 which is Administration staff last year we appropriated 405,000 this year we're talking about appropriating 556 th000 that's $150,000 more I don't see how that happens that so that that's another one that I'm flagging for you to come back and explain yeah and i' I've flagged it already and we'll go through and um is that the additional um staff for the I have no idea why don't we get the answers let's not gu I'll just say that for any of the salary and wage lines if their new employees at the late February meeting will discuss new employee requests if it's a result of Merit increases at that meeting we'll discuss Merit increases and so uh we that's aot of some of why salary and wages is isn't a final number there's still some consideration to be given for salary and wages not just in this department but across Ross all of our departments and then I also just wanted to say I like the idea of using the senior center more as a a meeting spot drop in type thing and and I would just suggest that you know the monthly book club we have a library that does book clubs all the time so let's break down the silos and work together I I think they would be very interested in maybe having a staff person come over to the senior center and do book clubs there as opposed to us thinking that we have to hire new people or have other people you know our current people do that so let's let's work together yeah Mr wary to that point I think um when you're going through each Department's budget look at that kind of overlap and where they can do it together rather than just a note on that salary wages line I just want to do mention though I do feel like some of our wck positions are underpaid and we see a revolving door sometimes we can't retain talent because the salaries are so low like one thing I know we've talked about or brainstormed is even changing the structure to have someone more senior with more money one I'm just bringing that up because you flagged that line so I just want to make a note that it's been hard to retain people I think because of the low yeah I agree ages agreed so does anybody have any other questions for the lines or anything for miss manuso miss manuso you do a great job with all the programming and all the ideas and stuff too so even when we get or what not I just want to mention that and you always have like a smile and a cheery personality so thank you I do want to mention an item in salary and wage and item in other expense which is Two Towns uh currently we don't have a two Town staff person and we aren't incurring a lot of expenses now in that line I know that'll be a discussion with the the township committee and that you know may change what's appropriated I'm sorry say that again I know the Two Towns or the S Two Towns for all yes I know what it is currently staffed right so so that position and towards the end of last year we were incurring less expenses in that position um I expect that Township committee will have a discussion about how that continues and so that may affect these lines well we're waiting for guidance from both administrators of both towns yes for um yes yes and as you're aware we've scheduled a meeting to follow up on that but I just want to highlight that in that it's on the page in front of you and that number may change okay and I missed that because I thought the two towns was under your it's not under Administration budget it's under Community Services budget that's right yeah and the other thing is um this 40,000 is just for salary right because there's money in the pot the Som Two Towns for all ages pot that we haven't all fully expended for programming isn't that right another 15 another 15 at the bottom oh right thank you thank you yeah okay what is that um um under League another team or League fee what's that for where we have enough kids we used to just feel like gra made the cut didn't enjoy W basketball but now we can two teams run both leagues so I think um three of The Voice we double Fe but those are those are covered by the fees to be in the league or no by the partici spin yes yeah that's great that it's growing yes yeah Mike's all into it I love it oh I want to I'm jealous um anything else before we move on to pool p i mean Mr weary no okay uh go ahead Miss mosive on to the pool some accomplishments are we had the resurfacing project completed and we time so weekend and yay so thanks to engineering worked on that project and got us going forem Day weekend we met the goal of increasing weekend swim lessons for the older AGS also we only um had for three threey olds and we increased based on some feedback to have been for we increased the amount of adult no learn to swim based on the success the previous year and um we are really proud that Ellis our instructor taught I think the oldest um it went from 18yearold in the adult class was thought a lot um and now she gets home with their grandkids so that's what changes the whole experience expence of water if you don't course so we the pool staff um successfully handled the Heatwave days and we had increased attendance at the pool a little we had a lot of um registrant this year we hired a new pool manager we have three pool managers on the team and one had moved on so it's always a little bit scary to get a new manager there's a lot of hours and a lot to learn but he did a great job um joining joining the team we accommodated 370 swim lessons so that's a big part of our mission versus water safety the swim team uh the makos had 83 swimmers and we had a winning season we had really great season for the makos the dog day of course at the end of the summer we [Music] had time we uh executed the pool accessibility MERS which expanded membership II so thanks to the sunship committee making these um accessible for a lot of people we yielded those applications and got memberships from them also we have a family changing room now so we're enjoying that very much we hosted 9,90 members so that's not memberships but so a lot of people that were stilling this here didn't just feel like it a lot of people um and 484 people got to benefit from the subsidy that's a lot of um accessibility for to come enjoy the water we applied for some grants this year for the first time learned to swim grants from USA swimming and the swimming home team they are in process right now I did learn that they should be letting everybody know by April 1st if anything is being great we conducted in Training Services for all staff and we did have two Employee Appreciation events at the pool which we changed a little bit to include some on land fun um because we weren't having as much participation with front desk and Patio staff because not everybody likes to swim so we were doing some land things too to make it you know they're appreciated not just like card so trying to um get every fun and we're very grateful they keep coming back we conducted an end of season satisfaction survey to gain important data and feedback from pool users and then non-p poool users asking a little branch of questions to them too why did you not sign up so that's useful data I'm still um a little bit of a geek to go through all of the open-ended questions because I them all nosy and I love it so two uh 2025 goals are hiring a full-time pool maintenance worker to assist the foreman to close the gap in coverage since the day is so long it's like a 500 a.m. till I say 900 p.m. we close at 8 but there's things to close up and lock up and sometimes stragglers get people out we hope to expand membership and enhance operations make everything easier um to a larger outgo and then we have a larger bther load daily so we're always learning with that with the water chemistry too so between our filtration our nice surfacing it's going good so we just have to get the staff up to speed and I think we're in good shape we plan on increasing weekend swim lessons uh where that's possible we are going to eliminate the 10:30 a.m. weekday swim lesson slot we tried it one last time last year and it seems it's it's too late in the day so we're going to get rid of that and use our resources in another time thoughts on the weekends recruiting and operating new seasonal staff um onboarding them and cross trainining to understand the complete operation which is hard to do when you're at you know constantly at the pool there's not many like teachable moments about different areas of the pool like the the demand is very high everybody needs something there's whistle blowing don't eat on the upper deck all these rules so um I just like for everybody to know all the rules and to keep the managers helping us to keep members talking to managers and not lifeguards watching the water and you're like when's Adult Swim is there hot dogs at the you know food stand so it's like they have to watch the water we're going to try to have a manager swiftly there um to help the the members and keep everybody watching water and safety of paramont we hope to retain strong staff members promote internally and really get the swim lesson um we're so proud of it last year with the curriculum and card and really having like benchmarks for lesson so we hope to to keep that up and keep enhancing that and we want to transform the locker rooms a little bit to you know a cleaner more inviting space so when you survey you hear everybody's high points points a lot of them are the same over all of the years but we would like to change uh the locker rooms a little bit just make them more inviting and um maybe make a better use of the space and the future can be created so this um if you have the pictures is one of the favorite pictures and so our goal is really to keep having fun so from January when we had our forums uh visions of the inclusive playground which are very engaging and educational to our December tree lighting for the seniors we are all here to address the needs of the community and help them experience maybe things they never expected all year long it's always fun when a senior is in a float for the first time on float night um or going down the water slide at the senior picnic this year was pry funny um from heat advisory swimming to the racing registration of ski club which of course is 300 strong if not um our team has surpassed all goals and expanded a lot of Hearts so I really just think our uh key to success is in the staff everybody so we have the best staff around they're well trained they support participants love what they do they feel supported so we have open communication which is really important in this department and we're grateful for our seasonal and part-timer commitment they work hard in the sun it is is not an easy job and uh their ability to keep us safe and willingness to make more memories add on like now we're really up for the challenges and uh we couldn't do any of this without them we love working alongside uh multi-generational different events which is our goal again for next year the Community Partners including our own Municipal Department uh make everything very fun when we partner with the library and health department expire comes out um you know to camp and other things the DPW of course keeps everything going for us in the Parks and our facilities the police and really all the Departments they help teach our youth about the township offer services and let everybody know it's open communication in the town and we continue to work with and take into advisement The Advisory board that I'm which is Rec advisory pool advisory and Human Services sub committee your advisory open space trust and um we're looking forward to committees or subcommittees that might come up along in 20 we're very grateful for the support of administration and the government body mayor and Township committee people and some of these pictures we're adding to the fund and we want to increase you know services to keep the model of all for front and front for all um along with the increased programming continue ideas and new registrations rolling in we brought in on the programming and pool membership side about $1.88 million in 2024 and there's uh programming grid there and then we actually brought in more with the facility reservations also which there zeroed out in here and then there's just some pictures an example bring your kids to workday where we all the Departments come out and show the kids DPW um um police fire Administration members of the TC made that a fun day and then there's just some other stff photo just sharing um what we're doing all year round with everybody in the community great thank you does anyone have any questions for the pool budget Miss MOS I the uh in the in the pool budget um 501 102 line it's this is the one maintenance uh salary and wages so you bring you say you're bringing on a new employee that's going to be a full-time employee for the pool um that's the request okay and we had a situation last year where the man where the uh head custodian was working a lot of hours are we is this budget going to resolve that yeah the pool for and that's the expectation and so so it's it's important I guess understand how it's set up currently where we have a full-time pool foreman and the assistance to the foreman are um seasonal employees and we had difficulty getting the last year and the year prior a qualified person in there who wanted to do it just for the summer and so miss Mancuso's request is for that person to be full-time annually uh with the expectation that we can get a qualified person who wants to serve in the role of a certified pool operator and last year we had a we hired an outside company to come in and do that which is difficult because it's expensive and we have less control over it um yeah no I see because you have reduction in the season also yeah yeah the big piece of that though is what they do in the offseason and we want that's a big piece yes yeah so we got to figure that out because uh you know we now have our Forman here working on stuff here and I don't know you know there's stuff at the pool I'm sure that needs to get addressed and I don't you know just going to have to get that done too yep uh the other thing is just we had talked about reducing the fee 10% a year that was our goal y so if if we were to reduce the fee this year this this these numbers uh Mr kog that you plugged in here this doesn't take that into account is that correct increasing the subsidies okay so if we wanted to so if we brought in 800 well let's say we bring in a million bucks if we wanted to do 10% we'd have to put another 100,000 over okay well the caveat to that though is there's a limit to how many how many total members we expect to get at the pool just people who are interested in going but last year when we cut rates we actually made more revenue from those memberships now there's a point where that that can continue all the right but we don't know where that is yet exactly and so it's it's really hard to figure okay and and that's why these small cuts are helpful to us so that we don't see like a a big shock one year by you know let's say cutting rates 40% I think that's why the 10% is helpful to us yeah but I think that was our goal so when you come back you'd have to plug that in and see what the numbers look like and if you have an alternative if it isn't 10 if is it five is it eight or something like that yep yep and is the pool Pals line in here somewhere that's in the other budget 25,000 right yeah so we make a contribution in the community services budget of 25,000 to the pool subsidy and then pool Pals also raises money for the subsidy oh that was the pool accessibility that was what you talking now it makes sense my head this if you're looking on the revenue side and we'll discuss this again in the February meeting but um you can see that there's the the last line pool deficit due from current fund last year was $251,000 this year it's $400,000 um that's a result mostly of not having the American Rescue plan money of 250 that we had last year so we already have to put more Town money in just to make up for what we lost on the federal money absolutely and then if we want to do any kind of reduction of fee that would be an addition to the 400 that's right 350 and on this Revenue page the one thing that will be added in is last year we hadn't picked up as Revenue to the pool the $21,000 that we generate from the parking lot lease to New Jersey Transit so that'll be added here it'll be a a reduction in the that $400,000 number it's a wash because we're not going to be able to realize that in a municipal budget but it's it's a more accurate account you're looking at the 2024 got look at the 2025 line the left column admin zero for 2025 is she saying because last year I'm saying the 250,000 was the American Rescue plan money and then there was another 251 ,000 which I thought was part of us lowering the fee so now it's 400,000 so that's the 250,000 from the American Rescue plan plus another three three whatever the math is so is that not already accounted for it's accounted for but we had generated more in membership fees last year than we had expected and so and I guess Revenue in general that that due to um due from current fund is kind of a balancing act that number is going to change as we increase expenses decrease revenues um so it's some of that number not being as not being 500,000 is because we did better than expected on the on the other Revenue sources right you like any other questions I I have a question that's sort of related but maybe it's not yeah that's the question um the Maplewood cares fund who administers that that's not through Community Services right is that through Administration the because that is not for pool subsidies we have pool Pals and we have Maplewood cares yeah that's the health department that's the health department that's for like emergencies that people have and so on and so forth and it's not a very big line which is why I'm not we'll talk about that when we get to the health department thank you anybody else I just wondered if you know um for the Heatwave openings do you know how many we had and like do you have any idea of like how many people yeah I oh that would be really helpful because I think as we talk about accessibility of the pool it'd be great to be able to um you know um to lean on that right because every year when we have to do it we get some public narrative push back that we we don't have the capacity but the qu but I don't think that's the the case right all them back in you know like the stand here so learn yeah I want to look at that because I I don't think we're gonna see a decrease um cooler isn't it it's happening earlier last year the problem also was that there were heat waves before school ended so everyone was around and everyone was coming to the pool at the same time getting lasting longer I think Miss manuso and the pool staff did a good job pivoting and and changing the policy a little bit in order to make it more sustainable I also want to just applaud this curriculum the swim lesson curriculum um I don't think you did that to do justice in your report so congratulations on creating a great swim lesson program and I'm happy to hear you're going to expand weekend swim lessons yes yes expanded swim lessons on the weekends for our adults I think we saw a big demand in both areas anybody have anything else for the pool good go home and take care of your sick daughter hopefully her fever's breaking had a high fever for a few days daughter 103 wow SC and she's still refusing the flu medicine oh yeah okay a trct thank you thank youo thanks very much okay yay DPW got here on early 6:45 it says oh hello no you're taking it um Mr Han want to pull up a chair next to you I think would be a good idea with and share the mic Mr worry here I'll grab this one I think he's saying you're old don't let yeah you know not all the Departments have a lot to ask about but this is one of the biggest departments we have well then uh yeah maybe whatever just make sure he has a microphone to use or he can stand at the podium too want thank welcome um Mr kitner Mr heran we're going to go to public works first so want to give a brief overview of 2024 and then a brief preview of 2025 for public works and then we can go into the members thank you mayor so 2024 was a productive year for DPW we got a lot done I think starting with tree planting we planted almost 300 Park trees and trees just short of that we installed two high-capacity EV chargers at the DPW building we also expanded our electric Fleet with F-150 pickup truck and a senior bus an electric senior bus that was recently delivered um you know which we will never see we've worked hard with our normal programs such as spring rout Reddit day leaf pickup that's all typical but this year was a little different we built we designed and built in house all the outdoor stories on Maplewood Avenue so that I think was a project that was overall I think successful hugely successful I think it it made a big difference in the village for sure well this man sitting next to me Mr heran our superintendent he was one of the people building it so I think he has hand in it I would have hired you to do my deck but I paid somebody else we also we also worked on pathway projects uh you know certainly yeah uh Memorial uh Park we added the pathway there yep and I think that was successful as well so very uh Road repairs we filled over 2500 potholes 2,000 uh miles that were swept with our sweepers and we also removed 13,000 cubic yards of leaves so it's a big up or down from last year um I think it was actually slightly more and I don't have a reason for it yet I think it was slightly elevated okay trees you're planting yeah oh okay that's a lot less am I right or is my math it was a little more this year okay I misheard you then a couple hundred cubic yards anyway yeah um you know some of it's compaction too it's it's it's close enough um you know we also worked on Utilities in storm water we jetted miles of of uh piping and cleaned all these catch basins perform Building Maintenance and uh we'll get into the DPW abatement project during engineering terms of goals uh you know we want to continue to integrate our departments uh engineering and DPW I think we've been working very well together um you know we want to continue to look into electrifying our Fleet making it Greener more sustainable uh that's certainly a push of ours we want to uh certainly update the recycling contract for 2026 and that's something we're going to work on I'm sure hand inand yeah we'll have a meeting soon absolutely uh we've been upgrading Park lighting to LED good there's a big push last year for that but we're going to continue that push this year and you know we're always trying to evaluate our storm preparedness you know I think it's during some of these more intense storm events we've been experiencing you know people feel it and we do everything we can to get it ahead of the storms by cleaning catch basins and anticipating the the rainfall and the storms we should use our new information officer too by the way Mr Ry for storm prep to get people to do their own catch basins I don't think anybody really thinks of that just thought of it because he said it so maybe yeah we've been talking about that and like with the tip Tuesday and just she's been using Instagram and socials to put out some of these tips things how homeowners can do like we've even talked about like you know sweeping the sewers before storm or whatnot yeah but when you know as part of the storm prep before if we know something's coming I think that's a great idea and we've already taken advantage of Miss price and her um we want to continue planting trees try and certainly in impacted areas certain sections of our town are more impacted than others we want to restore the tree canopy as best we can with some these trees and try to lower the overall heat index uh of course purchasing equipment that's more efficient and Greener that's always on our list including small equipment we've migrated more towards electric string trimmers and blowers and you know we're we're actually touching on chain SS electric chain SS so we're trying to make that push it' be nice to start seeing um a year-over-year comparison as we transition from fossil fuel equipment just to see what we've saved on the fossil fuel purchases and if we've I I doubt sincerely any of us who have electric cars don't see a huge increase in our electric bill but we save $3,000 a year on gas right so just be nice to see it to make sure it's sure yeah absolutely you know the technology is getting to the point where it's it's getting closer in terms of performance well and you adapt right makes the switch easier yeah um also lastly um you know a big push for DPW is also in Street uh striping placing the worn out crosswalks stop bars parking striping you know and and that's I think to put push harder this year do we still have the capacity to do that inhouse we do we use latex paint we don't use thermoplastic so this is better for neighborhood streets that are less Mr heran did you want to add anything uh your goals um I think Mr ker you know pretty much said it well I mean like a like he said I'd like to see more you know Street tree planning throughout the town you know we enjoy doing that M and like I said any other projects that you have for DPW in terms of Pathways and bathing I mean you know we enjoy doing that as well do we have the ability in house to do the tree plantings I remember asking this nine years ago when I first got here about because we we hire we buy the trees from a contractor plants them so I don't know if we've I know that DPW does plant trees but not a lot of them right we've done it in years past it's difficult um you know I try to encourage our contractors if they can to try to find be root or potted ones you know bowl and burlap it's difficult for us to uh you know kind of do on our own it's really but we have done uh you know Street tree planning in the past but to use a contractors they're a lot more you know efficient at it than we are oh yeah they're definitely more efficient but you get fewer trees at the end of the day yeah it's almost like a yeah understood yeah and I know you do plant some even yeah I mean definitely in the Parks and stuff yeah yeah um great I just want to say thank you very much Mr heran for your um leadership at DPW um I think it's been um just your uh responsiveness and your ability to like work with the conservancy and other areas of town I really app Maple Crest neighbors just to um you're I don't think you've ever said no and you're always there to respond and I appreciate appreciate anything I can do and anything Public Works can do to or the very much appreciated anyone have any questions on DPW or comments well just to know because you're talking about tree plantings we've also talked about how they are creating door hangers so that when trees are planted Street trees they can let a res know how to take care of the tree so I think that's going to be a really good um program we have a vendor lined up who's going to be uh you know making those door hangers for us graphic design we get that under way yeah that's good I know we were just doing Flyers but sometimes people don't read them and then they let the tree die we'll have that done for the trees before spring great okay so I just want to follow up on that that's a really good point about the uh the door hangers right and educating the residents on how to take care of the trees and maintain them that we put in um however I I think what happens in some instances depending on the tree of course and the location where it's planted some of these trees we don't um you know through the years we lose sight of or track of and they uh become hazards they become hazards to the street they become Hazard to the sidewalk the resident then is required it's they're responsible to fix the sidewalk if it you know what I'm saying right and we also live in a community where we have a lot of Aging residents who can't afford to do that so uh it's important to replace our canopy 100% And I think our residents appreciate that and want that we will continue doing that but um I wonder if it's worth having sort of a database if we don't already tracking where we're planting and what we're planting and having some sort of plan for maintenance from the Township's perspective pruning before storms uh so on and so forth right that helps us sort of get ahead of the problem many in def I think that's a great idea we actually do have uh the inventory of trees yeah on an spreadsheet that would database but it's that locations and things in which it was planned so yeah we can certainly expand on that and I think the maintenance portion of it is is well taken so thank you when we go through and choose the uh you know the locations where we're going to plant you know we look at the area make sure there's no overhead wires obviously you don't want to plant a uh you know a shade tree when you've got communication and power lines above and areas like that we try to plant more ornamental we also look at the width between the curb and sidewalk area again it's another area where you don't want to plant a large scale tree where the roots are going to upheave the sidewalk so we take all those factors into consideration when you know we're choosing where these trees are going to go MH thank you I wanted I had two things I wanted to ask about um I'm glad that um first of all those Streeter amazing they look really really nice and um I also love to see what you're doing with all the EV um in the fleet um really excited about that um I wanted to ask about the um restriping of um crosswalks because um I just wanted to emphasize that I think this really needs to be a top priority and I want to make sure that you have what you need to get this done because there's so many um crosswalks all over town I feel like I'm constantly seeing that are they're very faded and so I've seen a couple like that are in front of awood middle school and I feel like we need to really take a you know a concentrated effort to like really look at the ones around schools and make sure that they're bright um um I love the pictures that I saw those the new ones like they're beautiful and they're bright and white you can see them really well and I just feel like we need to make sure that we have those um you know in in parts of town where we have lots of pedestrians where we have the kids especially walking to school um like even I think it was like last night my son was crossing um Maplewood Avenue uh they parked in the the parking lot by the train station they cross over by Starbucks to go over to Greenway and he said it's very faded and I was like wellow okay I'll I know I'll tell somebody just did you'll tell someone you're resp I'll let somebody know well I think it was his his father said oh well do you might know somebody that you can um go to about yeah exactly so um Herman we actually have a RFP package about right now for Maple ad we recognize that they were amazing see what you did there actually out and we're hoping to get that awarded in the near future uh but we agree you know it is it's an important safety feature but at the same time it's also an increase in maintenance and responsibility and and that's one of the reasons why we ask more traffic coming this year and our Capital requests in engineering so yeah I was going to wait until the engineering but I'm just goingon to Echo what Miss Herman said um especially on Prospect Street I know we're planning on redoing Prospect Street in 2026 but those crosswalks are really narrow and really hard to see and with the cars backed up you can't see them and multiple people have gotten hit on Prospect now over the years so I don't know if that can wait until 2026 um so I'm just making that since it came up yeah I would I would I would agree with that um the second thing I just wanted to ask um is about Fields um and I just um I wanted to make sure you have what you need to make to meet your goal to continue to improve the maintenance and management of our athletic fields um you know because that's that's really important want to make sure that you um you're getting what you need on that so mran speak in a second I just want to say one that we are working on a plan for deart and we actually met the Consulting engineering company this morning had Mee that so and you know in terms of field maintenance uh you know I think we are focused on over seating fertilizing the the proper way and you know brass cutting of course is a important aspect of it so we're focused on all the aspects of the maintenance and there are certain fields that are used more than others that maybe need a little more attention that's something we can look at this great thank you anyone else yeah uh just a couple things do we still have a uh storm fund are we putting putting money in that every year or do we not need to do that we are okay not as an appropriation in the budget but as cancelling unspent expenses from years and uh Mr weary could you just uh go into a little bit of our plan we do have something new in this budget and that's 290,000 for the uh storm water utility so you'll see this on the last page of the DPW spreadsheets um this is the Township's respons responsibility to pay for the impervious surface that we have in our RightWay so our our streets especially um the expectation is this will be our $290,000 payment and then when we set up the utility we will also use that to pay out $290,000 of expenses that are currently in our DPW and engineering and that way residents don't see the the effect of this storm order utility both in the storm order fee but also in the impact it'll have on taxes as a result the municipal budget so and I'd recommend that that continue in any future years that whatever the town is assessed for our own contribution that we offset that with expenses that would otherwise be in our operating budget anybody else DPW Lines no you can have all the money you want apparently until engineering comes comes up you want to move on to engineering it's up to you he's not sure well it's always so much fun with all the money you always ask for so yeah I I asked everyone if they wanted to if they had any questions on anything in front of them and other than Mr DeLuca there wasn't any so I think we're good mayor we have someone in the audience who came for engineering DPW and I just think if we can uh after Mr kitner is finished if we could give her an opportunity to ask any questions Mr kitner I didn't know okay appreciate it all right Mr bear thank you um we were certainly busy last year I know it keeps you from Idle Hands you know keep you busy like [Laughter] that that is a benefit terms of accomplishments under Road under the road program uh we paved just over uh roads we did have a number of tra coming projects we work on many of which we completed Maplewood AV was one of them in West Parker that intersection added rapid flashing beacons and a crosswalk of that location Academy Street we did and Beach Street we did a bump out by the school and um the rapid flashing beacons are also installed I believe at that location to oh okay so so we still have uh the rapid flashing begins to be soall because the contractor is waiting for parts everything's up back order but um you know that was a that was an improvement also other parts of Maplewood have uh you know we rework the entire stretch from uh you know Jefferson to West Parker so I think that was a a big project Newark way GA a crosswalk net a we added three separate rap rapid flashing beacons uh by the community center by the church and uh and you know I think it made a difference um we also worked on a bike layout for the township a bike yeah so that's getting worked on now and perfected um the traffic data was also collected for a number of different intersections this is important because we need baselines for the streets and the intersections and having this data allows us to switch gears and and int and Implement traffic coming with less work and less time okay terms of building improvements uh you know we did a number of improvements in in our buildings you know Memorial Library we removed a 2,000 gallon underground storage tank there prior to construction at po we resurfaced the pool three of three of the pools were resurfaced uh Town Hall we made certain plaster repairs and uh East Building we're working on a heat pump package which we're hopeful to get on the street in the near future we're just waiting for the the funds to clear Senior Center we added a crosswalk um an ADA crosswalk and ramp um we was a big a big uh push for us certainly that advancements in Maple terce a 3D model was built 2D R for that loc and we modeled that with a Consulting engineering company um and obviously the storm water utility that's the big push for us as well okay um so DPW we removed uh a bunch of contaminated soil from prior underground storage tanks that had you know contaminated that area and that work was closed out to complete um Memorial Park we completed the duck pond Bridge construction and we talked about the walkway um so there's a lot we worked on I just want to talk briefly in terms of accomplishments on grants right that's an important part of our job I yes we try to ease the burden on residents in terms of their tax burden so UT Municipal aid grant for Springfield AV both sections uh 2023 and 20 $873,000 of approved funding from them uh we also received the sepy grant for the police building heat pumps we spoke about that briefly that was $250,000 M we received the dot Municipal aid grant for Prospect Street that was $498,000 and then Mikey Cheryl you know we received for Kendall La for drainage improvements which we're looking forward to working on and that was 96,000 do we know when we're getting that I'm a little worried it's going to be stopped no well we we did De we did coordinate with EPA and we filled out the that was Reed so's I mean I don't know what the line is where you know it's safe from no one does at the moment no one does my P very good point okay fair enough so we also W A $65,000 Grant through DCA field redesign and an inclusive playground we worked with the recreation department and wey in fact and we received 750,000 all much appreciated and you know if that one is yeah is that safe Jakes playground is that a state was a state one but de though a lot of this money that we get from the state is pass through especially so it's like all this needs to be looked into further so in terms of goals uh you know obviously we storm utility is a big Focus for us uh you know we want to bid out design bid out our road program for this year that's we want to look at Capital planning and I'm sure Mr kog would appreciate us five years investing more time in that five and 10 year Capital planning is that right CFO would be we're pushing to get the deart designed this year complete yes that's one of our goals to and uh we'll see where construction lands terms of timing um obviously traffic caling initiatives are always Paramount and important as as our uh you know this bike lane project that we're looking into as well for the town we're continue with that we want to finalize a design for the library bridge and we're obviously going to keep seeking funding and grants where they're available so that's the smallest Bridge though that we're doing so it shouldn't be as much as the other right um I'm trying maybe more you could just say yes a log few years later we have some repairs to our storm system and uh you know there's we also want to look at trying to identify elicit Connections in our sanitary sewer system so we're going to entertain smoke testing certain sections of the pipe what smoke testing I said that'll require a better that'll require a lot from our EO yes if you see smoke don't call the fire department you know we should put this stuff on the website people should know that stuff they don't know they're not going to look either no but they might well they do they look they they ask us where to find the information like the accomplishments this is amazing let put it up there Grand fing is nice I mean you didn't have grand on here the township address can we get a safe roots to school Grant you heard was that last year safe roots to school Grant all right let's go through uh yeah lines is there any questions does anybody have any questions or comments or explanations for any of these line items under engineering well you know I'm happy that you put bike lane as a priority yeah this isn't in C this capital's not here yet right so that's where you really kill us yeah yeah I was wondering if I could get a list of the Ada um improvements that you're making um I'm happy to see that though I'm just curious yeah you do them every year in a couple different areas but we can put them together right so you'd get them through where Paul cdbg cdbg Ro our regular Road program are our income level in Maplewood has gone up so we can only use that money for ADA compliance so that's we get it every year and we that's what we do yeah I'm just wondering like what where they are pretty much every corner in crosswalk right same we're ahead of the curve comp to most expect years cogram improve ramps down to a point where now we're doing roads like oh these ramps have been done and updated so right yeah yeah and this this is something we may look at in in accessibility committee so um I love to I love that ramp that you put in at the senior center I have a question did I see that you write in here somewhere that Jitney ridership is increasing again or did I just make that up how are the Jitney riding numbers these days so they're filling up again people are going more on Mondays too now than they were a year or two ago it was like Tuesday through Thursday since Co and now it's Monday through Thursday where people are commuting m that's helpful yeah anybody have any Lin they want to ask questions if I if I could go back to D um DPW real quick there was a one line item that I was just curious about for streets and Roads overtime and the note said increase in Township events so I was wondering if we did we like increase a bunch of events and so that's going up wellow so yeah events that occur throughout the year and dpw's asked to participate in those provide services so we advertise that on our board it's it's awarded by seniority in our garage and uh you know depending on how many people are required there's there's a fairly significant amount of cost in which is mainly labor right that's and that's what we've noticed is it's just there's so many events that it's increased our cost and we've and that's reflected in this number from that okay right thanks they do a great job having worked with them on some events so thank you yeah anybody else Mr daus you look like you're looking at something no okay all right thank you though thank you that was great good job in engineering we'll give you more work and ask for more money mayor did you want to open up for the oh yes I'm sorry thank you for reminding me I'm sorry didn't know you were here for engineering but please let us know who you are and go ahead and ask your question or make your my name Aras and I am here for the DPW engineering portion of the event um I first of all I'd like to to just say that your tree planting initiative that you did um gwe Terrace benefited from that tree planting and I thought it was a great initiative I I am saddened to see that other blocks that the residents have not taken care of these trees and I've watched trees yeah die so I don't know whether it's communication that you need I could very well have missed the communication but I didn't know I happened to just be at home when the tree planting was being done and walked out and said what are you doing um and we have a beautiful tree in our front yard but I think so you know I think that there are other families other residents that um could have probably stepped up and taken care of the trees because now they're yeah now they're dead yeah um so I attended the last meeting um and I've visited with the Department of the DPW on a couple of occasions I'm here to talk about gway Terrace the last time I was here um I spoke about the fact that the street is in terrible repair um you kindly members of the committee I don't know if mayor if you came out but people came out and looked at the Block and acknowledged the fact that we have an issue on gwe terrorist there was Patchwork that was done we appreciate I actually went out and talk to the guys that were doing the patch work and thank them for the work but sadly with the weather being the way it it it's been the patchwor is being washed away or ground away so um I was hoping that I was going to come today to hear the list of roads that were going to repa be repaved and that garwe Terrace was going to be on the list for repaving um but I understand that you're not going to be presenting that list day but you've got a good pitch going do you have do you have the list do you have the list you have the list I mean List there was a list somewhere presting that right we don't it's on the list so now it's our yeah you can look at us pressure us now yes because he's done his job well he ranks them too right the operative word on on in this whole conversation is currently on the list right current list yeah um we really appeal to you as I've said before we have young children on the Block we have kids that walk to school we have little ones that play on the street we have handicapped and elderly um and it really is it's become a liability so we we app U appeal to you all please please keep garwe Terrace on the list for repaving Mr wary can you remind us when the capital projects budget hearing is so yes that is on February 25th so that's what we'll be talking about at February 25th you mentioned three sets of dates February 25th the capital presentation April no uh so the it's we have three budget workshops We Have Tonight next Monday February 3rd and then the final one is Tuesday February 25th and then the later dates are for Budget introduction and adoption okay the whole budget February 25th is when when we present the capital budget on so present again and he'll have that list and he'll say can you give me money to repave these roads and that's when we'll talk about it to seeing you all again on February okay we look forward to it recognize my face yeah app I've only seen your face on Zoom before yeah it's nice to see you in person she's been here before right you came with neighbors you read a whole letter so sorry I don't know I can't remember myself thank you Mr kitner how many streets are on your current list by the way yeah I know and total 1.7 and normally we budget around 1.2 I want to say okay do you know um in your accomplishments we have in Road improvements do you know what this list of 11 cost you're not going to have that off hand that was about 1.3 million that was about 1.3 million right there okay okay there we are do um do you have anything further that you'd like to have we probably should have done the capital you allotted a lot of time for him it's supposed to go till 8:15 and it's 7:25 but luckily Mr Palm is here yes I was noticing that you walked in and then we have the clerk and the administrator all right let's does anybody need a five minute break I also have six kids at home yes please um so I think we're done with you until February 20 until next time thank you for your great work really thank you as you thank you know that's the one we don't like him at that's the fun one we don't like him the big dollars yes yeah operating is a lot easier lot yeah we're taking a five minute break yeah e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e oh looks like you're ready they were nice all right welcome back the mics are on so so are we so we're back with Community Development Mr Palama welcome thank you for coming in this evening would you like to give us an overview of 2024 and then a preview of 2025 and then your any numbers you want to let us know about can you speak into the mic so um you know very quickly so the Department of Community Development encompasses five different divisions um included in my narrative is the uh Construction Division Property Maintenance zoning land use Administration and Fire Prevention um not going to go into a lot of detail probably very little unless you ask me questions but essentially so the five divisions essentially touch every piece of property in the township uh except for taxation so in terms of property maintenance um you know um Property Transfers and all of that it all happens upstairs and um you know we have a very very good team and one of the things that we've tried to do is even know everyone has discreet skills and some of the um Personnel in the department are licensed there's a lot of cross someone in Construction Division for example knows how to handle registration form someone um it's it's pretty important because we all have at General away are doing and more importantly how it uh impacts your own piece of work up so it enables us to be holistic in the way we do services in terms of property so we we like that a lot um the Construction Division we're now fully staffed we have a construction official and we have two technical a construction official um both of whom are you know trained and skilled in that uh it's going to be very useful this year I'm kind of integrating what I hope to do for this year I'm going to back up for one second so um it was four years ago when I was made the head of the Department of Affairs kind of had a fiveyear plan um there were things that you know could have been done a little bit better there were best practi that had changed over the decades and um you know the staff that was there um was perfectly fine um but we needed to sort of you know re-calibrate I guess for lack of a better word and uh during the pandemic when you know we were constantly um reacting to executive orders and edicts from you know the state of how to do things differently it kind of gave us the opportunity to pull back and look at the way other municipalities were doing things and so we saw that there were some successes that were worth duplicating um so we were able to take care of zoning land use and property main so construction is kind of the last par for the Department in terms of you know really uh implementing best practice so for 2025 uh there are two related things that we would like to accomplish one is um to change the designations of all the land in neighborwood from mailing address designation to block and M Block aot is definitely the way to go because there's no ambiguity M right and it will also enable us better with both the tax tax col um and the state most of the municipalities across the state do um describe their properties by block and Lun so it's going to be a very big project um but we have the staff to do it and I'm confident that we will make big chunks in that transition in 202 the other related thing is um we want to do some digitizing we like to completely uh and we're starting to do a deep dive into the state record retention uh act because they're very specific requirements Construction Division it's framework it works to some extent alongside our local code but of course because state law it does Trump oh don't Trump does sued thank you thank you those are two big things we want to do in the Construction Division we had a lot of big projects last year I listed them in the report big construction project projects um and you know we take a lot of time not only plan reviewing for you know infection stage but also in compliance stage and I'm just going to segue very quickly into land use Administration um so we have a land use administrator who you know sits on is the administrator of the zoning and the planning boards and so it's kind of very easy to think of that person as many years does great job and I don't mean to single everybody out every upst um um but the the gearing up for the meetings themselves is only a very small piece of what happens tremendous amount of work with the app place and feel comfortable and there's hand holding and all that St right um but even the bigger job is after the meeting when you have the resolution that reques there's a lot I'm going into more detail than I set [Laughter] yes I'm just agreeing so other than salaries and wages which are governed by either collective bargaining payments reflect certain hiring that we had to do um my budget is either flat or a little bit lower it is it is okay then good see you later yeah we appreciate that right I'm afraid to ask questions I guess I'll ask what goes into changing it from mailing address to block and lot like is it just a lot of paperwork and like change it like what I don't know so yeah I mean there are many steps first you have to actually get the so if anyone who's been upstairs you see what we as a jack so for example each construction project has a jacket and it's UCC jacket and then inside there are sheet so all of the tech sheets and they reflect whatever kind of permits people have taken now electric plumbing building fire chip for years or whatever over the years they all need to be transferred into block and mon individually and then put into the file theoretically and I'm hoping we can do this it should all be scanned so we can get rid of a lot of the paper and then we have to remig Del uh the database has to be the modules have to to be adjusted to uh catch up with the paper that's just a small part soon as I and I don't even fully understand the way the process should work yet we're still charged we just want to do it once and we want to do it right but I'd be happy to tell you what it is as soon as we are 100% sure about St okay anybody have any questions line item questions work questions go ahead um couple things when uh when we shifted from the fire department doing the inspections uh of the life safety and non-life safety um you know with the fire department it was being done by uh Captain um and then we had a part-time P he the fire captain did the life safety and we had somebody doing the non-life safety part-timer and then he eventually grew but anyway when when we negot iated to bring on the the um inspectors our Fire official ourselves we talked about the fees and the projection was that we were going to raise a pretty significant fee from the non-life and life safety inspections and I think we've been lagging and I know we talked about this at code a couple times about you know how are we going to go after people who aren't paying their fees and I think we've got to put that on the 2025 priority list because we now have two full-time people there correct yes so we've gone from one and a half we've actually gone from a firefighter and a inspector to now we have two full-time people sort of we're creeping up again but we're not bringing in the income so we've got to pay attention and figure out how are we going to get those folks to pay the fees that they're have to pay yeah so there are two separate things and both people in fire uh prevention now the Fire official and fire inspector are actually they're both former fire fighters also so you know they're amply um but there are two separate issues though there's one which is maybe raising the initial fees right and then the other one is collecting whatever aers there are that's been working a I don't know why but all of a sudden we seem to have a little bit of a spike in that's great yeah but um but yeah we do need to um figure out a more streamlined way of doing it we had some conversations with Mr bankr the court administrator about whether we should do it through our court because venue is in municipal court on the other hand it's kind of easier to get it all in summary motion so however however I think we should just and then think of something else too other fees that we've been talking about uh in the Construction Division which it not not the permit fees because we're pretty much in line with like municipalities are they governed by uccc the permit fees or no um some some I think there has to be a relationship to the cost to the fees yeah ex right yeah but there's not a fee schedule got it but um one thing that we've been kind of talking about upstairs is is how we can make sure that the cost of Renovations uh reflected in the permit applications is uh a little bit more accurate than sometimes we think it is so there's there's a New York city ordinance that during Bloomberg actually was passed about asking for upfront um uh projected costs and then before you close out the permits or issue the CM get the actual cost paid out because there's a potential not getting of Revenue there that we're not so that was my next point was the fees because I think we need to look at them because if I remember Mr K in your last report to us we were we were down in UCC fees from this year to last year correct I correcting that yeah yeah like half yeah significantly yeah so and I know you know when you look at your reports that we did you know 1,500 permits and $27 million in renovation fees a renovation cost but you know we bring in half a million dollars in fees um it's just that I think you know we got to take a look at those what we're charging and really put it to what we're you know what's costing us to do this well we did do that most recently we did it when I first started we did it again about two years ago did it meaning looking at the fees and the fees are okay I think I think the bigger problem is in what I was just talking about the Under reporting of the cost of the job okay but in terms of having you know roughly half the revenue we have it's because we don't have you see all those big projects we did in 2024 yeah those permit fees came in in 20 right so we had almost as many permits but jobs were small I have a question are all payments still have to be brought to the building department to your department or do we have are we digitizing that so you can pay online no we still we we are we are a hold out go back and you have to bring you have to bring the upstairs and we go back and forth about whether we want to accept credit cards or whether we want to you know use with pilot no no Edmonds Ed Edmond m m pay or unay yeah I thought we were trying to move everything over to edmin the thing is though we we have no audit issues that's because you don't beautiful thing um there seem to be you know the electronic payments seem to come with lots of problems well just to the to Deb's point the trying to make it easier by go being able to pay online but is there anything that is needed to be in person with regard to construction permits and things like that that or not really the problem in construction or not problem but the the the reason it hasn't moved over is because it's a paper process generally now the state has is now requiring that we have the ability to do electronic plan review but still much of the plan submission and the permit submission is done physical hard copy and that's how we take our and that's just the nature of the industry yeah that doesn't mean that we shouldn't right but that doesn't mean you can't pay on I mean I've had done projects where you have to bring the paper in but you can still pay online I'm just mention I know something to think about I know the auditing problem because we've talked a lot with Mr CL about that too about what the systems and how they talk and how that works um the other thing though is that most of the people that we take payment from uh certainly in construction the overwhelming majority probably 99% they're trades people yeah so you know they come in they like yeah talk construction officials well and they don't bring they don't do online payments they don't do online payment they bring get what and in fact you know we're having such a hard time because you're supposed to request inspections online now it's a state mandate and people still come in and and you know I couldn't get through so we're having a hard time just having even people do what they absolutely have to do online because they like to come in and you know what about like rental registrations and all that do I was gonna talk about that Reed or is that no can you do that online no you can submit the applications you can get an application you can email it to us um but you can't go online and fill out an application and then render payment no but you know what the thing is with with some of those too I'm sure other departments have this and probably have figured it out but we haven't gotten there yet but um we have to make sure that the applications are really Complete because like a lot of times what happens if if somebody is registering let's say multiple D like a three family house and they didn't put down their tenants and they have to put their tenants down so what winds up happening is if we don't have the application right in front of us with the applicant right we don't get the information and we spend more time trying to cheack people down so I'm not sure if it's if it's yeah and I'm not yeah so can I jump in this conversation um I think this department is an exception to our general policy that we want to go and make things uh more friendly online and allow people to pay for their permits and licenses online and not have to come here and make it more uh user friendly right I just think the nature of the business in construction in Property Maintenance in zoning requires some sort of interpersonal interaction and the users in this interest in this particular uh scenario they want to come in and they want to have that kind of interaction as community development director dama noted so I I don't want us to I mean we we we can make certain parts of it as digital as we can but I do think it is an exception uh and I'm okay with that so I have two things I have a compliment and then I'm going to add to your 2025 goals like uh Committee Member Duca did so number one I just want to say that um obviously you've been through this process many times before and in addition to being our community development director you're also our prosecutor and that shows you're very seasoned you uh don't need to look at the paper you get to the heart of the matter there's no unnecessary uh narrative or word salad um and you're confident in answering questions and you make ey contact with every member of this committee thank you and because you do all of those things guess what else you're doing you are the best Advocate and representative of your amazing team that makes all of this happen behind you of course you oversee it and you administer it and you make sure that it's happening and everything is happening the way that it should but you are representing all those terrific folks upstairs every sing day that most people don't have a lot of interaction with even though as you say the work of your department um touches almost every property in the township so that was the compliment so thank you and now the the 2025 goal for me and and you know I'm a broken broken record about this and I I bring it up at code all the time but um so forgive me in advance but I do think we need to focus on how we can up our um rental registrations and inspections I know all the challenges involved it's really really tough we're not the only municipality that's not doing it um and it's not that we don't want to do it there's so many challenges to it but we are now becoming more and more of a uh suburban community with more renters and Renters of all kinds right we have that from our Census Data most recently L and so I want to make sure that we are getting to that part of this job and making sure that um you know we can we can register more units and be on top of what's happening what are the housing conditions of our renters who are becoming more and more uh a bigger population share of of Maplewood um so thank you that's it anyone else have anything more for community development director I have two comments on the budget if you'll allow me mayor just I want to make sure that the council committee is aware of one thing in that we have a shared service with Milburn for the inspections of Plumbing and Electric and so those are employees that are employees of Maplewood and they do actually less than half their time inspecting in Maplewood the remainder in uh Milbourne and we we share those costs so that's a uh great benefit to both communities the other and we always like shared service so I want to make sure that um we make note of that the other thing is um Mr Duca had discussed how um fire prevention had been in the fire department when uh we formed scfd fire prevention stayed in the what was our Maplewood fire headquarters because we didn't have another good place to put them we do expect that we'll move them out of fire headquarters um this year when we have availability in the OEM building bu after the library uh moves back into their the permanent library on Maplewood on Baker so we uh will be making that move uh maybe July of this year so they'll be up here or no no they'll be at the OEM building that's right yeah unfortunately we don't have other space for them and that's a suitable space for that uh operation okay I think you're done thank you so much thank you all right we go to clerk first oh were you going to do the prosecutor or not oh yes yes I'm Oh I thought you weren't doing prosecutor now joining us is our municipal prosecutor it's not on the list is it not well no it's not she it is the only place she is on the list and this section was included in the files that I had sent you I don't see Court okay oh there it is so yeah making Ryan come in late so again you know budget here is except um I asked for $ thousand dollars more in Publications because the uh cost of uh subscription services and hard cover books which are not available so crazy more expensive was and sometimes I buy them every other year but a book that was like $250 years ago did you see the price of eggs go ahead but otherwise the budget is there they've actually I'm trying to find is Court still uh virtual is still except for and we don't particularly like it um but our Visage is making us um so it's virtual except for it is um DUI please uh trials and any trial and um uh you know cases of magnitude where someone is facing jail and those are iners we have at least one inperson session a month we wish we had more they they're easier and they're better um sometimes to um if we have you know little backlog in the C we may have but we one of those oh and by the way our um report is going to be not on Thursdays but Wednesdays for the month of March oh okay I thought you me judge has to do judge school and it's on Thursday okay judge school I love that judge School your your breakup I mean in terms of your your hours yes yes so um overall what would but I generally the percentage of your time you dedicate towards uh being a municipal public defender and towards Community Development because they're very different roles and both very demanding yes thank so uh probably the number of hours a week I spend on uh Prosecuting varies between uh 10 and 20 sometimes as much as 25 you know depending and at the same time I do minimum 35 hours of um development stuff because so it comes out to be uh much more than one single full-time job significant and you're telling us this because she's just like us she's just like us yes you asked her too that because of the salary lineup they they're that but I think they're very different roles and I think it's of course they are yeah it's important for the town committee to understand how Miss Pama spends her time yeah I think we do yeah um so also I you know I do some legal work that is not prosecutorial too it's it's a very interesting job I think so because there's a lot of yeah like like going to court for those I have one question um you know we did a shift change with the police officers uh is that helping any kind of Court appearances or hurting too soon to tell okay just started and um so we'll see I mean you know I guess I guess it well a downside from my perspective is that there is more a there are more say it yeah there are more yeah there are more consecutive days when a cop is off and sometimes that's problem all right you'll figure it out because of how the schedule rotates right they may be off multiple Thursdays are now Wednesdays a row where the otherwise you know may have it but the flip side of that is we had officers who may not have worked Thursdays at all and so now there's an opportunity for them to work Thursdays and when they issue tickets generally they will they will issue the court date on a day that they're working at least that's the idea right Mr that's theoretical but yes that's the idea you know but really just started so I don't okay okay thank you I do have one other just so the reason I asked I'm sorry I had to run out because one of the HPC people came here instead of going on Zoom so they have a meeting tonight um with the in court if you go back to Inc court and if we have these uh situations where the uh Federal ice agents are coming into public buildings and stuff do we have a protocol I mean that's really maybe a question for the court administrator but so can ask a Monday yes can't bar any and we now and with some regularity we have in our session and they can they have the right to be in our session we don't know who they are why they're there but it's a public court session so um and not the judge uh makes clear that you know are there as a member of public if they are there in any kind of official capacity but you hopefully we won't get we Hado so we'll see is the answer okay all right that's all for Community Development and prosecutor thank you thank you bring it back Mr Duca doesn't have any more questions I'll mail them to you yeah he I think he knows how to reach you with a check I'll drop them off with a copy clerk's office miss priton you want to come up front and center okay what's next okay okay you're drink water sorry I have some more [Laughter] chocolate Lord okay rain this in good evening Miss fritson why don't you tell us a little your goals for 2025 and or your achievements you don't have to go through everyone because we've had this so um go just highlight the ones you want highlight I do but I first want to go over uh just a few things on the mission statement especially since we have um a new Township Committee Member and you know some of the things that it's a responsibility the clerk's office and the Township Clerk bylaw statutory um that we have to achieve and uh secretary to the municipal corporation uh Secret AR to the governing body chief administrative officers Officer to all elections the Township Clerk is responsible for running all of um the elections in the township primary General and any uh extra uh the chief registr of all voters uh administrative officer uh Records coordinator uh certifying officer um and the one that I think is most important and I've stressed through my years here is uh public relations and the fact that the township clerk's office by far I think is the first office um in a municipality where a new Resident comes somebody comes who um doesn't in particular know um which department would help them best and I think that myself my staff we take great pride in you know welcoming new residents um directing them and assisting them so I just you know want to go over that first I think that is a strong suit of the of the department um and we look forward to continuing that so um mayor um going to do the 2024 achievements first and again you have them all and I'm just going to highlight a few of them and uh you know we've really progressed in the last year as far as uh all of um our permits applications licenses and so forth that are now all online and uh we transition the documents um from ecode and the township clerk's office has transitioned to ecode as a depository of our resolutions our ordinances our agendas and more um I also want to go over nearly all the applications are online uh we did the residential bulletin which um the deputy Township Clerk worked in conjunction with our uh summer intern and we put out a pretty uh good residential brochure for people that was lacking we didn't have one and and I think that um that would be another example of trying to serve new residents that come and make them feel welcome um so again all the parking now uh can be done online parking Jitney the uh overnight parking lots the um merchants and and knew this this um term was the Jitney Passage you could actually get your Jitney pass print it out at home and have it and not have to come to the office so you know kudos to my staff very Progressive have done um great work this year and um you know I'm proud of the department we uh successfully administered a primary election in June uh we successfully administered a November election which was a presidential election and you know that's huge we had huge amount of Voters in Maplewood and the day went error free it really went error free um we've done a lot of Licensing the cafes the canning the sidewalk retail sales taxi and limousine permits um all the ABC permits for uh both the annual and the social Affair um there's a lot of permits that the clerk office handles that maybe um the residents may not all be aware of you know um dumpster permits um I mean those are just things that you don't think of but the office of the Township Clerk takes care of a lot of permits including the ones I just um listed so we have updates on the codification and um the open public records request we we are handling over a thousand a year and that's a tremendous number and if you don't handle them correctly and in a timely fashion you know that's on the township and certainly on the Township Clerk so um we've really been able to administer that with um people going online to file in open public record requests we uh um also have the registar in the office who handles you know over 150 marriage licenses certificate certified copies this is in total amendments Corrections death certificates um so I'm going to stop there and now I'm going to go to uh our goals for 2025 so um I'm not going to read them all you have front of you probably had a chance to look at them but again uh reviewing applications to see what can be further streamlined um we want to scan more of of our old resolutions and ordinances and the long-term goal is to have all uh passed ordinances and resolutions available through the ecode eventually uh improve Communications with the public uh post more things on the website and uh convert some of our pages into subpages to make it easier to find answers um especially for those who Google information and in addition we're going to work with the uh new public information officer to get our information out further uh again I talked about the ordinances resolutions uh we want to continue to serve the resident to the township serving the residents with more remote applications and forms and providing more on online uh document scanning coordinating the posting of all materials uh that relate to Township committee meetings the backup um and um the outcome of um your particular meetings including meetings like tonight um and we do an event Management program uh Township Clerk and the office we host the event planning meetings on a regular basis uh to see that the township sponsored or um events that that come in also remotely on online asking for um organizational events we have a planning meeting for virtually anything that has over uh 50 people at it um so it's not all mundane it sounds like it is but you know we coordinate special events as well and uh we've had some successful events that the clerk's office runs and those would be the Employee Appreciation uh function every September we have a volunteer appreciation dinner and uh recognition program we have a wonderful one wonderful wonderful Veterans Day program every year we have um over 20 years on that uh your reorganization meeting try um you know to make that special uh the Memorial Day parade and ceremony and uh any other popup special events committee deems um appropriate for an event during the month uh and then finally I just wanted to say that of course uh education is probably the most important thing that I rely on and uh my staff uh attends uh programs courses classes both within the county and the state and uh the clerk's Association of the state of New Jersey and I'm a big proponent that the more they're educated the more they know and um yeah education is hugely important for knowing how things change in a clerk's office and keeping up to date with um you know everything election for example everything um statutory regulated and I'll now open it up to you for any comments thank you very much um can we explain the difference I was looking at the line items between the um the 20 24 uh actual of 400,000 for expenses and 471 so 71,000 more line am I looking at that right look like she's looking at the totals I'm looking at the totals totals not any one line yeah so but I can't I don't really see it in you don't see it in the lines you mean that I don't see it in the lines above in the O well the OE you're doing you're doing with actuals right yeah I was looking at actuals comparative budget it's easier to see on yeah because postage was down so I mean it's great if they're not spending as much as was budgeted which is fine but it but we're still asking for 30,000 more well I noticed that the green fair was on the clerk's budget which I was happy to see that because the environmental advisory committee was talking about what events we can do and do we have a bud budget for it so I think they'll be happy to hear that there is a $5,000 line item for that so that was one thing that wasn't spent there yeah but that to the mayor's Point that's so that's 5,000 that wasn't actualized right there's some salary increase yeah I mean it's otherwise pretty tight so is the question the question that we're spending less than doesn't look like in the lines that there's that big of an increase but in the total it seems yeah so to go from 442 to 471 the majority that's in the salary actual salary and wage because we had some decreases uh in uh the requested for special events uh election expenses well we've been raining in a little bit of our special events as far as us comping people this past year so uh 400 actual is it am I just the only one seeing this no but it's in the it's in the uh o and no it's in the salary and wages going from 2 281 to 315 yeah yeah so that's where the bulk is okay we don't just so everyone knows the the total for the Township committee it's for five of us is $26,000 for not getting not each five yeah and we all and a lot of us have jobs and then have the some of us have two jobs how many meetings and yeah I think I had 22 meetings in January I think I did the math and it turned out to six cents an hour don't don't ever do that six cents I don't know if I did my math right I didn't have Mr CL check it but an hour hour well I think it's important to mention though because yeah government system is not very inclusive for people who don't can't afford to or Miss angle are you proposing that the township committee get a raise no because we don't have enough money in our budget it gets a raise the same we instituted that whatever the employees get the township committee gets right yeah so that's been the way we've been doing it just a matter times 10 and that's been reflected yeah yeah I think it's just a system thing that it's hard to be right it's a terrible system because it's not inclusive because you have to be able to able to be financially afford be able to sit here well I mean other towns pay we could if we decided right yeah we could I just think it would be irresponsible because we don't have that much money to put towards other things no I don't I don't know that I mean there I don't know that it'd be irresponsible there are other there I it would be irresponsible if we did it like some cities that have staff each council person is full paid salary staff a car yeah that's five miles east of us yeah we have Miss fritzer I I don't even have a computer or an iPad well it wouldn't be bad to throw in a couple another percentage point for us and give us seven cents an hour um just saying um any other any questions besides mine for Miss fritson oh I do have one before I let other people um when was the last time we raised the fees for Comm parking permits and jitneys it's been several years I recollect um I'm not sure if it's three years ago yeah three I feel like it's more than that could be even more it's more than that because I was I think it was after I think it was right after um Co yeah I'm thinking three years but again yeah I think it's five I think it needs well as far as Jitney go though like I mean I keep talking about advocating to get less cars on the road and I think public transportation is a way that we can increase like decrease cars on the road so I don't know that raising the Jitney price right but right now they pay $2 if they're B paying at the time and then it's nominal otherwise so we look at it at engineering and public works and we can do that so the the policy that we tried to adopt at one point is similar to right sort of New Jersey Transit and MTA and that the fair box provides around 30 35% of the cost right and that allows people to make a contribution and it does what you're saying is that encourages people not to do a single occupant drive down to the train station place for we'll take a look at it because our costs have gone up and our Fair hasn't gone yeah so we'll take a look at that any other questions for anybody two uh items I'd like to Note One under special events you'll see there's a decrease from 60,000 to 45,000 that's because juneth will be celebrated in South Orange this year and they'll have the fireworks which run us about $220,000 the other one is that uh we this year last year was the last year we had funded uh Som TV and so there's not a expense for that to oh I had one more question for advertising illegal the 25,000 is that for public notice and what is that what that's for and will that go down with newspapers going away isn't that mostly legal ads yes those are legal ads will it go down it won't be free to it depends what they do because if they if one they find a way for us to continue to advertise in in print papers two they could require that we advertise online and I would expect those to charge us something maybe it's not as much but maybe it's something um the greatest benefit to us would be if they allowed us to post either on a like say a state page or on our page but um I don't think there's much hope in that happening thank you okay anybody else no good okay thank you very much Administration go and thank you Miss fritzen and your staff for doing such a great job and I agree with what you said about don't say that gota say we like britson too she gets compliments all the time she does right and she ask for them as well she didn't she did not ask me I did that all on my own nothing go to the videotape hi Miss Perez I'm good you look lovely this evening I like your green outfit you guys coordinated green it's green yeah da is it a green day oh you did coordinate did I miss something I think we are Co coordinated but I don't think we coordinated this wasn't an active choice but maybe I was inspired because I put it on after I saw her uh suit so maybe I was there you go yeah you're inspired well your wife's the one into fashion so but she doesn't pick out my clothes oh that's good all right so go most I'd say welcome but you've been here the whole time okay so to review 2024 uh accomplishments first I I think the the biggest thing is Staff we are fortunate that uh Miss Perez is coming up on her sixth month here six months wow time flies right FES yes she thinks so too and so uh you know we've we've been able to accomplish a lot in the last six months we've been able to start to get to things um that Administration and myself hadn't been able to get to before so we thankful for her um the other compliments to that are we have a we had a new Pio uh last year and so that's taken uh some of the work off of our plates but also dramatically improved the quality of the content and the frequency of the content that we're putting out and that's with a staff person that is just working us with us 15 hours a week right so just in those 15 hours um they're really able to reshape what we're doing uh with our public information news output um and so we're very excited about what that looks like uh this coming year and then we also hired a new arts and culture manager just this month we saw them at their new very big uh event this past weekend uh at lunar Fest and so we're excited for the work that they're able to do and again that's another um opportunity for the work to be done better but also for it to free us up to do more so we're really excited about um where we are Staffing wise and then in our department we also have um a human resources manager uh who does a tremendous job so we're forunate to have our in terms of our 2024 accomplishments um we I mentioned uh the hiring of pio we had successfully negotiated uh a few of our collective bargaining agreements and have a few more to go that takes a lot of time and the big one was in transferring uh or moving the uh the police department to a 12-hour shift which we're um looking forward to a u a more even distribution of officers throughout the week and throughout the day um and that was you know not an easy thing to do because of the impact that it has on officers so we accomplished that this year in 2024 we also moved to the uh from the state health benefits plan for insurance coverage for all of our employees to the uh a health insurance fund which operates like our joint Insurance Fund on the property casualty side and that has been very successful so far it's been a a really seamless transition um and we uh I sit on the board as well for that the executive committee of the health insurance fund so we're able to to make a lot of impact for our members the we had we're instrumental in securing the U grant for the inclusive playground and we're we're working closely with engineering and Community Services um to to roll that out with the design public input and we're excited this year we'll be able to uh to break ground on that uh and we've been involved in you know some other issues like historic preservation um at the Woodland developing the plan there and working on a Redevelopment study down in Maplewood Village and then I'll uh I'll let Miss Perez review the arts and culture accomplishments for last year so for 2024 arts and culture very busy um as you can see they collaborated with various organizations and Community uh leaders to um pull off such wonderful events um like lunar fast uh dwali Fest Holly fast Habibi Fest a lot of cultural um based events uh the Soma Middle Eastern and Muslim Community introduced their annual uh Ramadan Moonlighting event um last year um we hosted the second annual mapso uh Foles in November drawing over 400 attendees which was beautiful event um we successfully organized six exhibitions at the 1978 art Center um we produced and hosted uh the summer gazebo series um celebrated Black History Month uh with a successful art exhibition and multiple jazz concerts um inspiring the Jazz at the gallery program uh we redesigned the mapso art registry uh we also held a successful uh women's history month events um exhibiting the embellished art uh Art Exhibit and the chuckle path comedy event we also organized in uh the pride month activities including fluid form art exhibition mapso lab undergraduation and the queer you from and for the income that we generated last year for the Woodland 99,2 8325 for the Berg dwarf 3392 725 and we had special event sales at 1,855 are we going to look at uh the fees for the Woodland and and our other facilities this year we're actually reviewing them as we speak mhm yeah I think maybe yep CU that's just like two doors at the Woodland you know what I mean yeah yeah they're expensive me buy them that'll be more Administration goals for 2025 uh we have a few collective bargaining agreements to negotiate um we are looking uh have to revise our employee handbook which seems like a hopefully a simple thing but that it will be very very involved as it hasn't been done in a little over four years we have a lot of new policies to um to include in that um we are uh working closely with the uh compliance for the next round of affordable housing and so um you know part of that will be the 100% affordable project that we're working on um and then there are just you know other things required for compliance with the fourth round um numbers and and the fourth round reporting that is uh required of us we are working now on the historic preservation element of the master plan and uh we're just kicking that off um and then we'll be able to do some small things like double-sided printing which is on here but one of those green initiatives we want to see and I we expect Miss Perez and I that as we have more opportunity with the the staff um that are taking on some of the load that we had carried to to have more direct engagement and proactive managerial engagement with department heads and our staff and also more direct engagement with the public and so um that's will be a focus of both of ours um throughout this year and for the arts and culture uh goals for next year this year um we want to expand a programming to develop engaging uh culture and artistic events that celebrate diversity and inclusion um we want to maintain the 1978 nonprofit to continue hosting program events and exhibitions at our Gallery space to utilize funds to improve the gallery and install a permanent ex um exhibition infrastructure a hanging system for instead of having to paint um every year every time there's a different exhibition going on um we want to support um events and programs of local Community Partners and art organizations to achieve CommunityWide goals and um we want to create a a new signature Maplewood Community event um for all to share we'll see with um our new um Andrea a new Arts manager she has some pretty good ideas and we want to increase culture and Heritage programming to incorporate events such as the Day of the Dead interesting one so can I go back to the uh 1978 hanging system have we kind of explored that in terms of cost and infrastructure requirements to do something like that thing that Andrea is looking into right now because we just uh found out about the uh friends of 1978 and um what it goes to uh to fund so anybody who uses the art EX um the exhibition um gallery has to give 20% of their um event sales to and donated to the Friends of 1978 which in turn comes back to um arts and culture the gallery where where is that written I never heard of this before it's on she's just she explained this to me today who who's the he she Andrea or arts and culture manager she explained it we're reviewing the agreement for the 1978 and how it's utilized and that's part of it um no no no you look into that that is not so there was a nonprofit that ran it and then a few years back actually be just just before it must been 2020 because that's when the it was just before the pandemic happened anyway the town runs it no one should be getting any percentage of anything no I've never heard of that right okay they're that doesn't matter it should never go away we'll look into it we'll we'll give you a report what I do know is that with the frequency that we rotate um exhibits through there it it's a lot of wear and tear on those walls so so so to bring it back to where she started on is looking for a system where every time we're not putting holes in the wall patching repainting ever stun um it would be good to see something that was uh didn't require such an upkeep 100% other former art managers culture managers have mentioned that as well it's just a lot of upkeep in order to change out having a system is a good idea something else um I forgot about my other thing is it may or may not come back to me it may have not been that important so it's okay thank you mayor we all know how that feels if I could run down some of my line so fortunately uh admin ations we have some money in this budget that may not be used and gets transferred out throughout the year and so if you look at the 2024 appropriation line that's after any transfers that are made during the year so could you say that again because it kind of yeah yeah if you look at the 2024 appropriation and this goes for any Department that's that includes any transfers that are made in the last two months of the year so for example the salary adjustment line where this year we're requesting $20,000 we' received 20,000 last year but it was transferred out to cover up other expenses we're we're um in other departments so we're requesting it again this year it has provided useful um in previous years and if we don't need it it it could provide useful to other departments um under administrative and executive OE there are lines there for Community Coalition on Race Springfield Avenue partnership Maplewood Village Alliance and youthnet um they all have the same request that they did last year and they will explain those further next Monday and other areas of note um I we do expect some change under the It lines we met with it R it consultant in October um they'll be recommending some upgrades and they're providing some U budgets for that some some estimates for that so the it line may change a little bit it's a big line just because of um the amount that we have to pay for protections backups firewalls um our our service contract is actually a pretty low number compared to all the software and and backups Hardware that we pay to keep keep up every year and we have email in the cloud and so all that is under that software line which is pretty big um under Township attorney uh we we have a higher line there than we have in previous years as we continue to um negotiate for some of our uh our Pilots um and I know know under seed uh we have some lines these are always of interest to the township committee for redevelopment planners um we have some for master plan expenses uh we had budgeted that last year but not used it because we were fortunate enough to receive a grant for the Woodland preservation plan and now this year we have another grant for the historic um element of but we have that money available uh should we need to fund anything for the master plan um implementation and then this is a a the last line on that page is a $50,000 line for um affordable housing Rehabilitation contribution so that was discussed as a um to cover the expense for housing rehab that is required of the fourth round um of for affordable housing and is something that we we one we have a number that we need to reach but two we have an interest in providing this Rehabilitation um funds for residents and so this will be a contribution from the current fund to the affordable housing trust that we then Ed to pay out of the trust um for those programs and doing it that way um is beneficial for us because then we're not uh we don't have to spend all of that money this year and so it provides us some flexibility contributing to the trust and then using it from the trust so in the past we used to do it through a capital a capital line Mr clo and I discussed that and talk to our okay as long as you did that's fine about it yeah yeah if there's an opportunity there to do that we may the um line whatever that is cultural um programming um we just said that in the clerk's budget that we don't have juneth here this year so but you've accounted for based on what was spent in 2024 it looks like you accounted for an increase that may not be necessary correct so the only thing in the the clerk's budget is the fireworks for juneth so if we did anything else around juneth it would be charged this line and the line is somewhat of a catchall for all programs throughout the year if you're looking for okay but I'm just saying if it just take a look at what we spent on juneth separate and apart from the the 15,000 for fireworks and then maybe deduct that bring that down a little yeah if we plan to not have any um also historic preservation um where is the legal fees for all these uh demolition reviews coming from not to that line so we've charged the court reporter to that line but otherwise the if we have any legal expenses associated with it they get charged to our regular they get charge to what a regular legal line but what that's just if they using our Municipal attorney that's right yeah so they are going to be coming Monday night the historic preservation commission to make a presentation correct on their budget request they will be yes yes so for two things just structurally we haven't we haven't put them in the agenda so they're not on the agenda yes okay so that has because we had planned to have them come tonight because they're in the administration's agenda but there's a hearing tonight on a demolition review so they couldn't come tonight so they're coming Monday so they have a specific request that we haven't seen yet because we haven't gotten that Monday night package um for services so we'll hear that Monday night and that would be an addition to this legal and historic preservation architect or something or a consultant Planner yeah yeah okay at six what's that I think the first thing we would do there is to see if we depending on what we expect those expenses to be this year see if we can absorb them in any other lines um but just because it gives us a great amount of flexibility but yes we can um should we also talk about and whether or not we can um for a demolition permit to have the applicant absorb some costs I don't think we would do that Monday night no not Monday night I'm just saying yeah I'm not sure I'm not sure that I want I want it to be thought about um so we can think about it they're also going to be a asking for authorization to go for a CLG Grant too that night so so the grant that they're going for for new element isn't that going to cover consultant fees yes but I think that's already they they received that Grant yeah how much was that for 15,000 I think so I know which we're talking about is this the historic element of the master plan that was less than 40 thou or maybe around $40,000 and we awarded that we awarded the contract at the last meeting right so that's right that includes planning Services right just for the historic for the historic element cont is with Barton Ross a planner and yes it is uh that will be all the planning Services needed for the historic element of the master plan I think what they are looking for is uh assistance on um designating and having more of that for yeah as opposed to just the historic right which is different than the new CLG Grant which is to um do another survey of uh a portion of would see if it qualifies they do District surveys District survey like having a historic district yeah okay got it thank you for clarifying all of that so I have a just a a question on the affordable housing so the um the attorney is we're going to be taking out of the trust fund the planner is also coming out of the trust fund you don't see those expenses uh in my budget okay are we going to see them somewhere I guess we see them because we approved the document the contracts with them that's right yeah you typically no you wouldn't see them otherwise I mean they're included in the audit uh but right they're ra they are funded outside of tax levy anybody else I just um go back to the seed so we have Redevelopment attorney $5,000 if um and it's likely we're going to move ahead on the movie theater Redevelopment this year do you think that's sufficient to to cover our cost for that right now for an attorney um yes well last year we spent a little more than $5,000 right we didn't have this is going to be a pretty complicated situation because we have property there and all that so just think about it you can take another look yeah it doesn't hurt and goes somewhere else you know like to the township committee salaries I was going to say we're saving money on double-sided copies now another percent to Sal we talked about that we talked about that at our sustainable maplehood and M Perez made it happen so thank you go I can't believe we haven't been doing it it's been hit or missed now I think it's becoming a policy right okay so I have something to bring up tonight um as we look at our budget for the year and I think this is the right place to bring it up um cryptic and you all can tell me otherwise um so this is something that municipalities are dealing with right now across the state especially Suburban communities like ours with aging infrastructure um what is that it's this situation when there is a displacement a mass displacement that occurs of residents due to action by the municipality action that needed to be taken by the municipality I'm not talking about acts of God like floods or storms or that kind of thing where you have your own insurance you do or you don't and so on and so forth I'm talking about you know um having to go in in because of fire safety violations or because of structural con issues and and declaring a building uninhabitable and those folks have to move out immediately they're displaced and um the law of New Jersey we may have never dealt with this before right uh but again because we're getting more and more renters um a lot of our new renters are are going into the the newer buildings of course but we have aging buildings with renters and uh many of them are of middle or lower income households right so the law in New Jersey requires the municipality to assist those displaced residents if the action was by the municipality and then the municipality can go after the owner of the property to to become reimbursed so I just want to do we have such a an assistance fund or if we were to like put some money aside like rainy day money for a situation like that where would it Go who would who would administer it what about the uh what do you call it that fund where we have extra money Maplewood cares no you would reference ear no because that's just Don no I just mean the um what's it called the Surplus the rainy day money yeah Ian that's not couldn't use Surplus in the current year budget I mean I think if it's if it's an exceptional cost uh Joe will be getting ready to to answer here but if it's an exceptional cost we could incur it this year and and just realize it as a deferred charge to be raised in future years and hopefully at that point we would have recoup those expenses from whoever was ultimately responsible because we we wouldn't want it to be budget we would want it to have a budget impact now thankfully we have enough fund balance to where we can absorb those in a year but we can't we can absorb them only from a cash flow perspective we can't we can't appropriate that money in the middle of the year for that intent but what would end up happening is we would run a deficit that would have to be um funded in future year budgets yeah I would think that is is that the most realistic outcome there do you think Joe yeah I think that that would be Mr B I think that would be the the simplest approach I don't know how big a dollar amount uh we're talking about uh commit but uh we do have the ability after we adopt the budget to pass an emergency appropriation which says that we did not adequately uh fund something because we didn't anticipate having to fund it uh that would go in and then as Mr worry said it becomes a deferred charge and we're basically promising that we will raise it in the tax levy the following year uh to which we would then be able to use fund balance to to sort of upset it so that would be the mechanism but if we know that we're going to be doing something it would be far more fiscally prudent to budget something for it if we know that this is going to happen well I don't know if this is going to happen but I do think we need to plan for it I mean uh I'm working with five or six municipalities right now in my other capacity who are in a public relations disaster because they're they're dealing with this and they sort of uh walked away from it and they were like go after the landlord go after the property owner you know and then they came to DCA for money and DCA was like wh wh and um and then the lawyers got involved and they imposed the law on those municipalities and those municipalities are like oh wow we never planned for something like this so it made me think about uh so I'm just bringing it up I think it's a prudent thing to think about what kinds of things are you talking about that that the township might do that would require people to vacate yeah housing housing you got to put them up in house yeah I mean it's a temporary assistance thing for a little bit you're not like reestablishing them or buying them a house but you have to you can't just walk away and say call the Red Cross Oh no you're saying about like if the house that they're in is suddenly unhabitable because by like because of flooding no he's saying if it's condemned if the building department goes in and says you can't live here anymore because your house is going to fall down or because it's not safe because your landlord's not upkeeping because the elevator's broken the fire code there's like a whole lot of let's say we go in and do a rental registration and inspection that's what I'm saying does this go back to doing a better job of so we do have or we used to put money in the budget for um private resident repairs like people who don't cut their grass and stuff like that is that still in the DPW budget yes yeah it's like a little amount and then we go after them get get put a lean on and stuff like that yeah and then that money ends up coming back into that same budget line so we don't we don't actually see much of that cost impact right but there could be there could be a similar allocation where you x amount of dollars into some kind of emergency fund yeah and then um you spend it if you have to not at the end of the year it just goes into fund balance yeah right what I would have trouble wrapping my head around though is like what does that number look like you know and and only because it's so unknown I'd hate to have money that either we put in you have some vehicle annually that we just never use and someone's you know that's the first thing that might get cut one year or we put it in some kind of a trust and it just it sits there with no use and and doesn't benefit other Municipal uses I think we should have an approach because I wasn't aware of this requirement um and I'm interested to know more about it right so that should this happen like we know what we're going to do we we've had the conversation with the township committee and with Mr clj and I and we know what our approach would be and we're not left kind of flat footed there i i d is that do you have any idea what other towns are I can get some information and come back helpful also the duration I mean what right what period of time do you have to put someone up yeah because even after a fire red cross is not a permanent solution no it's only two weeks have a square bedroom yeah yeah but that's that's interesting it certainly would it would have a a budget impact so I'd want to understand more yeah sure but presumably if if you put a well if if you put a landlord on notice that we're making their building in you know uninhabitable that um they have a certain amount of time to fix it to bring the people back right but sometimes go after him for yeah this but we'd have to be have some we'd have to have our lawyer look at it make sure we're on strong legal standing before we take it yeah because what happens with some landlords uh is that first of all it's hard to get to the landlord they LLC you know spiderwebs of llc's and you can never get to the actual owner um or the owner says I'm not going to go to court and I'm not going to pay the fine and good luck we do have some we do have some people who live in their home and rent out like an apartment and they don't really have the resources to fix stuff up right another issue right I wonder if there's something like the affordable housing trust if there's something there I don't know I guess that gets to be messy because that money is set aside for yeah for COA stuff yeah I'll look into it more and come back with more information thank you all any other questions I was just curious Mr weary what um your community engagement um ideas were boost to boost interactions with the Department of administration and community and the public um is that like um meetings regarding like the accessible um playground or just other sort of things that you had in mind so I think when we this is my idea I think we do a pretty good job when we have prescribed moments of interaction when it's necessary right so we when we did those Community engagement sessions around the all access playground um that was I think that went really really well and um but no so that's not my idea was a little different I think that I always enjoy talking to Residents and I feel like it my the interaction I have with residents make me better at my job and I think that you know we have residents who seek me out for help and and I think that I'm able to help them and so I think the more opportunity I have to interact directly with them and I would think it's in a more informal setting would benefit me in my position and I would hope would benefit the residents in the type of service that they're getting and I think think that's true for all of our department heads right I think that some of our department heads have a greater ability like our um our community services director has a greater ability to get right out there I would say that our our DPW superintendent um and and director of Public Works and and engineer probably don't right and so I think we should be looking for opportunities for not just myself but also department heads who wouldn't normally have that interaction um to have it I don't think think it's um but and I think that you know there are some times when it will be maybe formally prescribed but I would hope that a lot of it is informal and just people know who we are and we have an opportunity to know who they are I love it great I think it would be great for more transparency in our um town and I know um a lot of these meetings used to be in person I understand and it's certainly um very productive and efficient to have them on Zoom but when the public comes you do miss that oneon-one interaction and some of the relationships so I love it and it would be good to have that interaction before they have to come to my office because something is impacted them so greatly that you know it's pushed them to that and and so that's the Hope yeah I'm sorry I was just going to give I mean I've noticed you out there in the community and going to events and stuff which it's been nice to see because I don't know that I've seen other administrators be part of the community um so it's been nice and me too Miss press both of you been I was going to say that one of the things we might want to put on sort of a back burner for 2025 is figuring out how to make some of our other facilities um capable of doing hybrid meetings because right now the this is the only room that we can do a hybrid meeting yeah and so having some other either portable equipment that we could go or you know some somewhere that that will allow us to do that we've been talking about that for planning board because there's a desire from some members of the planning board in person yeah but also the hybrid helps with viewing the documents plans yeah think the hybrid I think I think virtual makes it more inclusive too because it gives people the chance who wouldn't be able to come in person to be able to come like I would never have been able to run for office if things weren't virtual I wouldn't be able to go to my committee meeting so I just want to bring that part up I think it makes inclusive much easier yeah absolutely but the hybrid does offer the opportunity to have both yeah well the hybrid hybri doesn't works so well when you're not in the room though if you're the one virtual and everyone else is in the room hybrid is not as successful yeah I think the the uh the limitation we have with this room is there's a lot of Technology here and so um it takes staff from Administration and from the clerks to run this and trying to figure out how that would work with some other boards with the technology we have here maybe to much so finding a lower um techn like a less uh complicated ensive complicated solution would benefit those boards yeah I don't know if we've ever looked into like having a partnership or arrangement with the co-working space that we have in Maplewood that has a lot of Technology if they would be interested in being a community partner and helping us do hybrid meetings you mean Deputy clerk Allah doesn't want to work every single night in our other facilities to do this guarantee he does not no no um I can guarantee he doesn't thanks to him we have what we have here uh so yeah that's what you know so for planning board we're talking a little bit about whether or not there's somebody because it would require a staff person to be here so so there's expenses involved so back burner as Mr Duca said anything else from anyone anyone buer okay this online oh is there anyone online we do have two people joining us online that's great so if anybody online would like to speak in public portion please raise your hand now Township employees no kind of a person I see no hands mayor great i' had a motion to adjourn till Monday so moved you good night everybody oh when are we gonna get the um packet for Monday not in any hurry whatsoever to adjourn huh I move that we adjourn oh you're voting V oh yes oh yes yes yes I thought I moved angle yes yes yes mayor Adam yes that's go