pursuant to section 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 of 2024 and by filing said notice in the office of the township clerk mr davis present mr duca
here miss Angel here zerman here mayor Adams here whereas Chapter 1031 public laws 1975 commonly known as the Open Public Meetings Act requires that all means public 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 participation of the public at any meeting and whereas desire the governing body to comply with the provisionous act same time to conduct its business in an orderly and
expeditious manner now therefore be resolved by the township committee township of Mapwood does hereby prohibit except as set forth in a formal agenda act of participation in deliberations of governing body by the public except as otherwise prescribed by law does limit
the public to the observations of the actions and discussions of the governing body at all of its regular and special meetings so moved second mr daffis yes mr duca yes bangal yes herman yes mayor
Adams yes thank you uh I'd ask everyone to stand for a salute to the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation
under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you good evening everyone welcome to the uh Tuesday April Fool's Day meeting of of the Township Committee
of Maplewood thank you all for coming tonight i'm sure you're just here for our meeting but maybe maybe not maybe not but I'm just going to go over the agenda um Miss Fritzen I'm going to make a change to before board and committee appointments i'm going to move the
presentations and proclamations ahead of that if that's all right okay so we'll um start by honoring youth basketball champions anybody here that's why you all are here all right i thought maybe it was a civics
lesson but apparently not so uh we'll do that and then we'll have a recognition of the Maplewood Middle School students substance use prevention videos from Adapt yeah right and then we have uh special presentations and proclamations we have
youth advisory committee presentation a lot of youth tonight that's awesome uh then we have uh four proclamations for ArabAmerican Heritage Month Arbor Day month uh or Arbor Day
National Library Week and Autism Acceptance Month then we will move to board and committee appointments we have appointments to the senior advisory committee the recreation advisory committee and the pool advisory committee uh after that we will have a
presentation by superintendent Jason Bing um on the board of ed budget uh that'll be about a 10-minute presentation so that we're all aware of our school district's plans for the financial impact on our taxes uh then we
will have public comment for agenda items only then we will move into our board of health meeting with uh Miss Davenport then we have introduction of two ordinance three ordinances uh we'll have reports from the administration uh
Mr wary we'll have Miss Credio our township attorney report and Miss Fritzen will give our clerk's report reports from elected officials will be deputy mayor Herman will be first up then committee member Duca committee member Daffis and committee member Angel
and then I go last we have thankfully with this big agenda no discussion items for tonight and then we have a consent agenda and another public comment on any subject matter and then we will adjourn but um I just want to let you know that
after the part you're all here for is over we'll take a little break so y'all can um go home or you can stay it's up to you but we'll we'll we know that's kind of a little noisy thing that happens so we'll we'll let you all go and we'll take a little break so with
that Miss Manuso you want to join me at the podium we'll do some uh some championships patrick I'm gonna let you is this Is this mic on okay so why don't you first introduce
what we're doing we have some um amazing basketball players yes um we are here to celebrate three championship teams through our MAPSO basketball program um everybody had a great season
so we did have um 12 teams and we're proud of all of them everybody played hard we had a lot of uh good sports humanansship and I thanked um the grown-ups in the crowd several times for all of your hard work getting everybody
to practices and I'm extremely proud of all of the coaches um I just want to mention our basketball director um just so you don't mistake me for him uh Mike Holloway yes he's much taller than me um along with Eddie Starzinski and uh Lenny
Grace who really created the legacy in the town through many many decades and we're very uh you know proud to keep it going and keep it growing here in Maplewood so proud of everybody but we're going to call all the winners out um by name yes Coach Mike is on vacation yeah
he'll be back tomorrow though so you can find him then all right so our first winners uh in the Suburban League were Well I think we should Yeah we should get the coaches um big round of applause for Dominic
Starzinski coach D okay so the MAPSO fifth grade boys team let's start with Gus about we're gonna clap at the end what
your hands ace at the end i think they want Yeah we'll applaud at the end ace Defrides Owen Elwood Grayson Gaus Finnegan Kendler Liam
Matson Adam Seed Ian Sheldon Abihasa Spielman and Cooper Storms grayson grayson and Finn aren't here so and Adam and Adam so that's our full 10
this is backtoback for us fourth grade fifth grade champions hopefully repeat next year which will be the second team I believe so keep working and congratulations to all the teams here okay the MAPSO 7th grade red boys team
um suburban league champions their final season record was 13-0 so all right if you could come on up uh Coach OJ and uh I would like to add that we we do
thank um you know Eddie and Lenny and thank everybody a lot but I believe that we have to add OJ to the uh to the list because I think next season is like 21 he's entering his 21st season with us
so um All right well you're not older you're not old okay you ready to come on up we'll clap and get some photos sai Beckerman Isaiah
Boyd Ethan Ation Earl Farrell Jr evan Fitzu Clay Irving Ean Jordan Nate Livce Juan
Muhammad Pam Smith and James Waller all I want to say is congrats fellas for a great season and again next year let's do it again all right okay we also have our MAPSO sixth grade
gold boys team and their final season record was 16-2 they had a great championship game and I'd like to welcome their coaches Rich Cuadrini and Brian Kadines all right you players ready to come up
and smile john Kinesise sorry if I threw up your name nathan Chan JJ Go Coleman Johnson Grant Johnson James Meade Sean Midland Becklin
Moonagle Monogle sorry and Rammy Fon couple things one thing uh one thing is there was only going to be 11 teams in Maplewood this year we were the 12th team we were the
add-on team so we're we weren't even supposed to be here no we're doing the next presentation we have the other presentation yeah we have up down here
so congrats again everybody i want to call up and do a recognition for the Maplewood Middle School students substance use and prevention videos from ADAPT miss Davenport will you join us please hi good evening everyone i'm
really proud to um introduce uh the Maplewood Middle School students who created some amazing substance use prevention videos um related to Great American Smokeout as well as um three competitions three people um three groups who won for their substance use
videos and I'm going to let ADAPT um announce the winners and give them their uh certificates of award and um please hold your applause until the end thank you hi good evening all right okay uh congratulations to our
first place winner Tande Gondo and die and die sorry all right Marley eno Luke Luke M
oh he's not here okay luke Mcuanel all right second place winners Jane Brady Claraara Hoffman Aydah Clark third place winners Theo Reed Parker
Run i'm sorry for the misprononunciations jack Bailey Adamson like to invite committee member Angel to come up do you want to say anything since you have intimate involvement only have intimate involvement as a
parent but I just want to um thank the health teachers and all of the school teachers at MMS and staff for supporting these kids and I saw the videos and they were really really fun so thank you uh Miss Davenport for honoring them today just want to make let everyone know what
ADAPT is um in Essex County we have um a group for drug um and alcohol prevention team so that is what ADAPT stands for it's part of the municipal alliance which works to prevent substance use particularly among our youth and so the fact that our youth are participating
and creating um videos that help to teach um their fellow classmates is what makes Maplewood um the healthy town that it is so thank you so much one two three and now I'm talking to
Oh that was a while back we need to honor kids at like every meeting this is so great okay so did you get Thank you you got the presentation
yes chat with him yeah it was just sent ago in the room this is all stuff y from there oh sorry that's why you're sensitive oh my i am hanging in during that
fun those are the fun kind of things we get to do right um so we're gonna move on to special presentations and proclamations so the youth advisory committee presentation Miss Angle you want to Yeah thank you so much Mayor so
I'd like to call up um Ellie and Violet come up over over to the podium so our youth advisory committee started last summer with these two um wonderful people joining and they're now our co-chairs well as soon as we pass the ordinance they'll be our co-chairs but how we've been running our youth
advisory committee is we kind of just started talking about topics or or areas where our youth thought um we can use some improvements and so these two have been working on a pitch for um a project that they think we should look into for
Maplewood so with that I introduce Go ahead take the floor hello my name's Ellie and I'm a junior at Columbia High School violet and I'm a freshman at Columbia High School together we would like to plan we would like to propose a busing
system eligible for teen youth in Maplewood currently our problem is that there is a lack of transportation in the Maplewood Trans Town township for the middle schoolers or high schoolers because they're either too young to drive or don't have access to a car our solution
is we are proposing that the township create a youth transportation program that uses existing town vehicles to fill this need for example we could start the Jity earlier in the day which would allow for the youth to have transportation for the times in which they are out in the community why
maplewood already offers a Jitney system for commuters and a bus for seniors therefore neglecting the needs of the youth youth need transportation to locations throughout Maplewood to further their independence self-sufficiency and to utilize the town's resources in order to encourage
teenagers to utilize these facilities public transportation is essential without public transportation all of these eligible resources are hard to take advantage of by geographical or age disadvantages not only would safe public transportation options decrease
individual car gas emissions and traffic congestion but would also create efficiency regarding transportation to local destinations onethird of the residents who live in Maplewood Township are under the age of 18 and most of these people are unable to drive or properly and
safely get to locations efficiently maplewood reinforces the idea that geographical location shouldn't limit your ability to fulfill your potential and without a convenient way to get around town the actions to back this up have failed these problems have a significant impact on high schoolers due
to study spaces places to eat and employment opportunities our initiative would help high school students and middle school students to effectively get around Maplewood independently and quickly it is crucial to implement a way for teenagers to have a way to get home and get to their extracurriculars and
outside of school festivities how would it work the youth transportation program would start around 2:30 or 300 p.m and occur on the hour for optimal usage it should take place up to the evening time when sport practices at Under Hill and study
spaces close in the Maplewood Village these times complement the hours where teenagers are most active are and are in need of ways to travel across the town to fulfill several duties such as jobs sports tutoring and studying without these busing systems limitations are
placed on teens ability to be active and independent especially when Maplewood is defined as a commuter town where many parents work until 5:00 p.m evidenced by the 522 Jitney bus start times what locations would it serve the destinations that would be most beneficial for the high school students
include the Hilton Branch Library Dehart Park the YMCA Baker Street Springfield Avenue Valley Street the Underh Hill Sports Complex and Prospect Street the YMCA would be a great destination for a stop because it provides opportunities for community involvement and activities
for the youth population baker Street is a useful location due to its close proximity to the cluster of shops nearby and would encourage the youth population to visit and take full advantage of what the Maplewood Library has to offer springfield Avenue is close to many shops and to the Hilton Branch Library
prospect Street would be a great location to have a stop because it is near the houses of many of the youth population in this community dehart Park would be an excellent stop because it has many opportunities for recreational activities is a community hub with many events at the community center and is
close to the houses of many valley Street would be a great destination because of its close proximity to the many fields in Maplewood being able to get to these fields and parks would encourage the youth population to go outside more often and to socialize with their friends while also enjoying the resources of our community the same is true for a stop at the Underh Hill
Sports Complex except the Underh Hill Sports Complex would also allow for the youth population to utilize the track and utter field overall these locations are best suited for the transportation needs of the students due to the fact that they are close in location to the main hubs of interaction and interest for the students this form of
transportation would be an excellent resource that would allow for students to be fully committed to their activities while knowing that they will have a safe way to get home in conclusion this is an efficient solution to the lack of transportation in Maplewood Township for high school students public transportation would allow for less gas emissions and would
be a better solution to our growing global pollution problems to elaborate providing busing for the youth around Maplewood would enforce environmental sustainability by having fewer cars drive to the school to pick up students just to drop them off at a nearby location getting cars off the road would
also help with pedestrian safety this method of transportation would also provide safety and security for the youth while encouraging them to participate in more activities that they are interested in in pursuing in addition although bike lanes are are helpful they do not address this whole problem they are helpful but
insufficient to those who need quick easy and stress-free transportation furthermore explicitly using bike routes would only provide a solution to those who have access to a bike which is not a solution for everyone just bike lanes would also prove to be insufficient due to the inconsistencies of the weather and how that affects bike riders
especially after a long school day many students don't want to have to worry about their transportation after their activities furthermore this solution would also be an extremely great help to the parents that drive around town to accommodate for their active child's interests some guardians are unavailable during the day because they are
preoccupied with their jobs due to the fact that there aren't resources to help the youth with this problem in Maplewood they are forced to travel without the efficiency sorry the efficiency that vehicles provide as an aid in their busy lives high schoolers need transportation to places throughout town to further their
independence to encourage self-sufficiency and to pro provide opportunities for them to utilize the town's resources we urge the council of the township of Maplewood to consider this proposal and to take action to implement a busing system that meets the needs of its youth population thank you
thank you very much that was very well thought out and thank you for all your work on that do any of my colleagues have any questions they'd like to ask for our pres presenters miss Angle do you want to say anything i thought that was a great job
congratulations a lot of work went into that and I was hoping that Mr duca we can put this on the agenda for our next engineering and public works and planning committee meeting which is next Wednesday at 8:00 a.m so I know you're in school at 8 a.m but we can um talk
before or if you can miss and come on or we can figure it out but also I think it would be helpful to email that presentation to uh the township committee for consideration thank you so much i wanted I wanted to say well done that was really um a great
presentation and I like how you addressed the needs of the students and where you want to go um and how this will get cars off the road and help parents who need to get kids all around and also kids who want to be independent because I think that's what what we're we're trying to do here right is raise
independent self-sufficient um kids and I'm really proud of you guys for putting this together and for coming up here and presenting so thank you thanks for coming okay we have uh ArabAmerican Heritage
Month proclamation Mr daffus thank you Mayor proclamation honoring ArabAmerican Heritage Month since 2017 ArabAmerican Heritage Month has been observed in
April two of the champions of the many advocates who pushed for the formal recognition of ArabAmerican Heritage Month are the co-founders of the ArabAmerica Foundation Warren and Dr amal
David american ArabAmerican Heritage Month is about pride education and reasserting the tremendous role that ArabAmericans have played in American history and how their contributions to American culture are
irrefutable and there are many local examples of such great Arab Americans who've contributed greatly to New Jersey from Mayor Muhammad Kerala in Prospect Park Mayor Andre Sai in Patterson and
many other elected officials in New Jersey you can certainly see the local impact of Arab Americans nationally there is Candace Lightner the founder of MAD MAD Mothers Against Drunk Driving
whose advocacy led to over 700 bills passed nationwide to prevent other parents from experiencing the trauma and grief she did losing her daughter to a drunk driver as of 2020 according to Ruters
97,154 people identify as Arab in New Jersey and in the township of Maplewood we have a vibrant community of ArabAmericans like many American cultures mi misconceptions stereotypes and outright prejudice plague the
Arab-American community the Township of Maplewood is committed to fostering diversity not just in words but through community building and the rejection of marginalization or exclusion meaningful change requires
more than a single conversation protest or moment it is the accumulation of these efforts that reinforces our shared aspirations for ourselves our families and our community now therefore be it
proclaimed that I Dean Daffis member of the Maplewood Township Committee on behalf of Mayor Nancy Adams and the rest of my colleagues on the Maplewood Township Committee proclaim April as ArabAmerican Heritage Month and ask the
public to educate themselves further not only on those named within the proclamation and ArabAmerican heritage at large but also to get to know your neighbors within the community and enrich yourselves in their individual
stories thank you thank you april is a busy month so we have a few more proclamations um this one is for Arbor Day whereas in 1872 J sterling Morton proposed to the Nebraska Board of Ar agriculture a special day set aside
for the planting of trees and to stress their ecological importance and whereas the holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska and whereas in the 1970s under President Richard
Nixon Arbor Day became a national holiday as part of the environmentally friendly actions of the Nixon administration and whereas alongside beautifying our community and increasing our property values trees are a vital resource for
the continuation of the human species from building material fuel for fire resources like paper and purifying the air we breathe and whereas from cutting heating and cooling costs moderating temperature and reducing the erosion of
top soil by wind and water trees not only allow for our livelihoods but also save us money and whereas beyond our species 3/4 of the world's documented landbase species can be found in forests and according to the World Wildlife
Foundation in the last 50 years alone we've lost 17% of the Amazon rainforest which holds one in 10 known species on Earth now therefore be a proclaimed that I Nancy Adams mayor of the Township of Maplewood on behalf of the Maplewood
Township Committee do hereby proclaim April 25th as Arbor Day in the Township of Maplewood and I urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and support local efforts like ours to plant and protect
trees and the woodlands thank you national Library Week Mr duca thank you Mayor i'm going to go down there because we have some folks from the library uh staff and board if you want to join me at the podium i thought you guys were just here for the meeting
everybody's just coming for their own thing i love that you have your t-shirts on you got your branding going on love it love it love it a giant library card
this is the library basketball team yes how' they do their record is zero and zero but start it maybe we can do it outside the new library um this year library week is important
because libraries are under attack and like everything else um we just heard from the president on March 14th and issuing an order to eliminate the um Institute of Museum and Library Services
and this is an independent agency that was created in 1996 um and it's the federal government's main source of providing support to libraries and it does that most of that goes to the states and then to local
libraries through services and programs and so um the order is that this institute should be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law so right now we're trying
to figure out if this order is going to go through there's opposition to it the American Library Association has called the closing a shortsighted and an assault and said by eliminating the only federal agency dedicated to funding
library services the administration's executive order is cutting off at the knees the most beloved and trusted of American institutions and the staff and services they offer so I know our board at the
library is paying close attention to this and as we have done with um efforts to try to ban books and and censorship and everything else we're going to issue and fight whatever we can to make sure that this doesn't go forward so having
said that I want to read again what's important about this National Library Week for 2025 whereas the Maplewood Memorial Library connects people to information ideas and each other and is open for all and we
will be opening a new fully sustainable lead gold certified library building in the summer of 2025 and whereas libraries spark creativity fuel imagination and inspire lifelong
learning offering a space where individuals of all ages can explore new ideas and be drawn to new possibilities and whereas libraries serve as vibrant community hubs connecting people with
knowledge technology and resources while fostering civic engagement critical thinking and lifelong learning and whereas libraries partners partner with schools businesses and organizations to maximize resources
increase efficiency and expand access to essential services strengthening the entire community and whereas libraries nurture minds through story times programs and literacy initiatives
fostering curiosity and a love of learning and whereas dedicated librarians and library workers provide welcoming spaces that inspire discovery collaboration and creativity for all and
whereas libraries librarians and library workers across the country are joining together to celebrate National Library Week under the theme drawn to the library now therefore be it resolved that I on behalf of Mayor Nancy Adams
and the entire township committee proclaim April 6th to the 12th 2025 as National Library Week and we encourage all residents to visit the Maplewood Library explore its resources and celebrate all the ways that the
Maplewood Library draws us together as a community at all times and not just during National Library Week congratulations I just want to thank um Maplewood Township for your tremendous support of the Maplewood Library and also to ask
everybody to exercise your freedom to read your freedom of information go to your local library get a library card until April 12th we have fine forgiveness at the Maplewood Library so come in and we will wipe out your fines and and get you a clean start because we
want to see every at do it tomorrow yes we want to see everyone at the Maplewood Library this summer um at our beautiful lead certified lead gold certified sustainable library that will be inspiring for everyone in this community
so thank you with me uh today I have Amanda Igan who is the assistant director of the Maplewood Library um Robert Marchman is the president of the library board of trustees our are two Jennifers we have Jennifer
Latimer who is also a library trustee and Jennifer Hart who is also a library trustee so thank you thank you i'm not going to keep talking i was just going to move this
Sorry good way to control uh country right so with that we'll move on to Miss Engle could you read the autism acceptance month thank you mayor whereas it is estimated that 1 in 35 children born in
New Jersey are on the autism spectrum in a 2021 Rucker University study and whereas there remain not only misconceptions regarding individuals but also gender bias causing underdiagnosis of girls and women and whereas dating
back to 1972 when the Autism Society hosted one of the first nationwide awareness campaigns then called National Autistic Children's Week their advocacy has now evolved to Autism Awareness Month and in 2007 the United Nations
designated April 2nd as World Autism Awareness Day and whereas from the depiction of autism in the media to the verbiage of saying autistic person versus person with autism the way we see reference and engage with autistic people is constantly evolving and
whereas in recent years it has been advocated that awareness is not enough i am aware how I am different from the other committee members those in the audience and folks at home but awareness isn't inclusive hence in 2021 the Autism Society modified the wording to Autism
Acceptance Month there is a clear line between being aware of who is in your community and accepting them and whereas in the Township of Maplewood we are not blind to differences we don't ignore intolerance and we embrace not only people who look different from us but also have different personal and
cultural histories and despite living in the same world experience it in a very different manner and whereas Maplewoodians our goal should be to always go beyond tolerance advocate for acceptance and hold grace for others as we would want for ourselves now
therefore it be proclaimed that I Deb Angel on behalf of Nancy Adams mayor of the Township of Maplewood and the rest of the township committee do hereby proclaim April 2025 as Autism Acceptance Month in the Township of Maplewood and implore our businesses our citizens and
those beyond our borders to recognize and act on the effect you can have on a person's life and whenever possible choose kindness give grace and seek understanding thank you now we'll move on to boards and committee appointments um I'm going to
turn it over to Miss Herman because you have all of them yeah thank you everyone for bearing with us through this meeting i hope you had a lot of fun um we've got three committees that we're going to be appointing to and um we're going to start with the senior
committee kate Riley could you please come up to the podium and tell us a little bit about yourself and why you want to be on the senior advisory committee good evening good evening this has been a a fun evening yes we haven't even
gotten to the business yet smaller crowd right now but it'll continue to dwindle yes um my name is Kate Riley i've lived in Maplewood for about five and a half years now i got in just under the wire in 2019 before all the madness um uh was
formerly a federal government employee so did not really get involved in local government or you know restrictions on federal employees in the past were a thing um but uh so you know as of last
year I left uh the federal government uh I'm an attorney uh to go into private practice good choice started practice yeah I did it almost exactly a year ago now so I I guess I had a I don't know I hate to say that I I
saw what was coming but on some level I did i worked for immigration too so and I'm an immigration attorney um but I have one of the reasons I decided to leave leave federal service is because I was interested in getting more civically engaged irrespective of how the election
went it's just sort of been uh a lot for the past you know many years and uh you know just wanting to be able to be more involved um so yeah so I've you know been educating myself and getting more
uh engaged locally and uh joining the senior committee is one way I'd like to do that um I was asked a couple of times why the senior committee i'm not a senior myself obviously um but I think you know seniors are an important part of our community that can often be
overlooked uh you know and I've seen family and friends as they've aged you know uh either get pushed out of communities or become very isolated and I think not only does that negatively affect those individuals but it affects
you know everyone around them uh seniors provide a lot of value to the community um when I when we were kids my not not myself and I don't remember why I didn't but my sister I grew up in Jersey City my sister when she was 14 years old or
so got a job with a youth and elderly services uh program in Jersey City where I mean the job was as a 14-year-old kid to go and and you know visit with seniors in the community you know maybe take them shopping or just kind of sit with them and you know it was a the kids
got a lot out of it she got a lot out of it and the seniors got a lot out of it and you know like finding those ways to engage people in a community I think is is so important so I I would like to be a part of the senior committee because I'd like to be able to understand I
understand a little bit of what the concerns of the senior community are in Maplewood um but I'd like to understand more and uh maybe be able to provide some perspective and help in how to engage and help this great population thank you
thank you would you like to move yes i move we appoint Kate Riley to the senior advisory committee a second mson mr davis yes mr duca yes zangel yes mr sherman yes mayor Adams yes thank you
for stepping up and thank you congratulations Kate thank you our next uh individual is also for the senior advisory committee James Collings Colding please come up to the podium and tell us a little bit about yourself and
why you want to join the senior advisory committee and just to explain the senior advisory committee can have members who are not seniors themselves the ordinance allows um for both which is a really great intergenerational way of working yes thank you thank you so much uh my
name is Jane Collins Colding and I'm here to be on the on the senior committee and I would love to because number one it's personal for me and I'll tell you a little bit about myself because of course I'm running for township council as well and if you go on Facebook you will see my bio i don't
want to bore you too much but I worked with Brightar right on 515 Valley Street many years ago and that's not part of my portfolio but I worked with them and I worked with a lot of seniors so that's what really started my um curiosity of taking care of seniors and I visited
their homes i've saw how vulnerable they were and then I come from a very large family where my aunts have aged my mother is much older and I'm taking care of her so there are some issues that I personally experienced um programs and
thank God I was able to find a uh a home in West Orange which is the U.Ja that has all the programs built in there's a wire right across the street uh many days she have she will have two or three programs and one of the things I think we don't have here I didn't see she has
a political news program where they go and discuss what's happening politically in the world today and what you know what's happening on the news so I said that's interesting because it keeps her engaged and it keeps her energized so I really like that so um part of taking care of my mom was all the things that
she needed and I didn't know about so I really had to dig deep into Medicaid Medicare medicines quality programs that were available for her and we have no help and having senium projects and programs available to seniors you know
let's say you you're young twice when you're a baby and when you get older and the quality of your life you know reduces significantly because family is not so present in your life and seniors are very vulnerable they nowadays
they're more anxious and they are very much alone there's no one to take care of them the programs are not readily available to them so seniors really need our help they need all of our help in implementing and helping them with a quality of life that they are deserving
of you know the lived ones and the life still continues it's not until you know you get older you start to just age and the things you used to do you can't do anymore so we really all it's just not the people who are sitting on the committees we all need to get involved
in senior care because it's a big portion of our lives and if we all can put in little time in helping getting them out getting them exposed exposed to um different programs that are out there i love that they do the yoga program i love all the programs to do but we do
have to give more quality of life and also to the board and the trustees and the committee I would like to say part of what we need to do is make sure they have equity on the table when they do the budget programs that they are not being cut because that's a very sensitive and serious um uh uh um uh um
programs that we need to keep for our seniors some of the things we need to really make sure that they have those programs that are continuous for them that's that's the lifeline those are the things that depend on daytoday i get calls from my mom saying "I'm going to this program today you can't pick me up
today because I'm going to my political news program today." I really like to and it helps me a lot that I don't have to pick her up daytoday and ask her "Do you want to go to the mall do you want to go to the supermarket?" So that is a blessing in in disguise so hopefully you
know the committee continues the programs and we Kate and I as we join will bring a fresh perspective to the program and we'll be able to engage more and a little bit about me uh running for city council i am running for city
council just want to let everybody know and I have I'm a mom of five and I have been in um Maple for about 5 years and I'm a I've been married for 27 years people say "How long have you been married for?" Lots of questions about my
personal life so I just want to let you all know my information is on Facebook you can you know tag me on and just let me know thank you thank you thank you Jane i love that idea of a um political discussion group that's wonderful um so
I move that we appoint Jane Collings to the senior advisory committee second mr daffis yes duca yes sangel yes herman yes mayor Adams yes thank you
we'll move on to the next yes congrats Jane the next committee is the recreation advisory committee thanks for your patience i'm going to call up um Gabe you're gonna have to help me with your last name gabri Mid
Midheim Gabri yeah like that deborah Medlin deborah Medlin like he said it hi uh hi i'm Gabe Gabberetin um Hilton uh uh I live in the Hilton neighborhood
my wife has knocked on your door many many many times she's probably knocked on your door anyway um I've lived in Maplewood for 10 years i uh have a 14-year-old boy and an 11year-old girl uh they he plays soccer
uh basketball done baseball she plays softball done uh basketball as well uh I'm gonna actually go home and tell my son uh that if he had won the championship he would have been here
oh oh oh i by day I'm a revenue operations director at a a software company so I help corporations uh figure out how to be efficient and be effective in
generating more dollars uh and then by night uh my wife and I are Uber drivers because my kids go in many different sports activities that they have um so anyways I uh I want to be the board
member for uh for the rec committee uh obviously because I have a firsthand experience uh with my kids um and having been part of a lot of these wreck programs it's incredibly impactful uh
but then obviously there are also a lot of challenges in terms of accessibility facilities fields you name it uh also I play soccer uh whenever I have free time so there's a group of 100 200
dads that go all over Maplewood and South Orange West Orange Floren Park to find space to to actually um um kind of play the game that we love uh so it means I also have a firsthand act uh experience um around the challenges that
that we have uh in terms of access and uh equitability so so that's thank you thank you thank you so much um I move that we appoint Gabe that's good enough to the rec Gabe G i'm going to work on
it i'm going to work on it to the um recreation advisory committee second Mr davis yes Luca yes Sangel yes Sherman yes Mayor Adams yes thank you Gabe thanks so much congrats Gabe thank you
for stepping up and our next um individual for the recreation advisory committee is Miguel Cervantes please come up tell us a little bit about yourself and do it in song if you choose yeah Miguel you can sing you can sing
your pitch in my other life I'm uh very qualified to be on the rec committee because I went to school for musical theater so you will skills I learned in theater school no um uh I grew up uh in Texas i went to school for theater was on Broadway for a
little while in a little show Hamilton for a bit um heard of that is it still allowed to be on i don't ever since I left I hear it's gone way downhill it's really terrible um but uh I have uh I'm actually one of the co-founders of the
adult softball league here in town the co-ed we started that a few years ago my son plays baseball my daughter is moving into uh playing softball i own dingers we started a batting cage because after Broadway is batting cages right clearly so uh I am sort of surrounded by the
youth of the town uh and all of the uh activities uh we we house soccer and so soccer baseball uh all kinds of different stuff there so Joe and I are very understanding of uh the needs of the community both uh facilities wise
and accessibility wise and um I am really uh interested in helping to further the conversation about what those of us who parents who are there every day and and look at what's going on um and have ideas lots and lots of
ideas but no way to figure out how to get it done and if there's anything that I like to do is to ask someone if I can do it myself so uh that's why I'm here and so hopefully we can help awesome that's great great thank you forgot to mention Little Allars yeah and I was back when you taught some of those kids
that were up here before I got Hamilton i started a company where I would teach four-year-olds to play baseball now granted I don't really know how to play baseball i I've learned since then but but it's baseball is like children's theater it it was it was children's theater baseball style
awesome that's great i move that we appoint Miguel to the recreation advisory committee i'll second second mr davis yes luca yes miss Engel yes sherman yes mayor Adams yes thank you um
congrats Miguel and thank you thank you i'm not going to say how tempted I was to ask you to do a number you know there you go there you I know most of that too i want to hit a home run
Miguel we try really hard not to get Mr delucative don't get nice guys hold on one second because I want you to I want you to meet the um the next person who is going to join the recreation advisory committee um Kate Phillips Rumley
no you can you don't you don't have to she'll be on the committee with you you might you know it's nice to meet you hi so my name is Katie Phillips Rumley i love having to follow a Broadway performer easy um so I've lived here for
almost 20 years now i have a 19-year-old who went through all the public schools graduated from Columbia last year she was in MMA Mia many of you she starred yes she was amazing mama thank you uh I also have a 13-year-old son who has been
out of district since kindergarten um due to his special needs and that is kind of the primary thing that brought me here is that I really want to see more opportunities for all children of course in our community um recreationally but particularly it's
been challenging for my son to get him involved in the community where he's been born and lived his entire life um especially being that he isn't in school here um I really want him to feel like he's a part of this community and to
walk down the street like all kids do and say "Hey you know I know you." Um so with a particular lens on helping kids with special needs find community in our amazing community um yeah that's beautiful thank you Katie thank you so
much i move that we appoint Katie Phillips Rumley to the Recreation Advisory Committee second Mr daffis yes luca yes sangel yes miss Herman yes mayor Adams yes thank you
congrats Katie welcome thank you and welcome we have two more and we're now done with the recreation advisory committee not one more no we got one more maurice John oh um Maurice John is out of the country and won't be able to make it to this meeting but we still need to
appoint him oh can we do that in his absence of course oh all right maurice John um is a um longtime member of Maplewood who lives in the Hilton area and he is on a adult soccer team as well and is
interested in joining our recreation advisory committee he couldn't make it tonight i believe his wife is here because she's um joining our pool committee so um I move that we appoint Mr john to the recre recreation advisory
committee i'll second well Mr davis yes luca yes sangel yes miss Herman yes mayor Adams yes one more excellent all right and then we've got two two more for the pool committee um so I'll go to
Miss John tatiana john if you could come up and we won't make you tell us about your husband you can just talk about yourself and the pool committee no no no I was joking no just talk about yourself um I've actually been a resident of
Maplewood for 31 years and ironically this summer was the first time I ever went to the pool um so I feel like coming on I can come with a a new perspective a new viewpoint i went to the pool as um um through the
soma justice getting my kids um swim lessons my kids my daughter's 15 my um son is 12 and they were kids who were afraid to get into the water and by the end of the summer my daughter would nice my son all day every day when we
going back to the playing to open the pool like no sort of I can come with a you know a new perspective a new viewpoint maybe um ideas of getting people like me who are in Maplewood who haven't come to the
pool for whatever reasons whether they're scared or just know about it don't have people so you can meet other kids my kids were able to meet other kids they go to private school so they don't know a lot of the kids in the community but they were able to meet some so you know I feel like it can come
with you a different viewpoint that's I love it i think when we talked you said you're you didn't come because you weren't like we're not pool people and now you are well that's so great remember Action Park i almost drowned in Action Park years ago so but now I got in i got my husband
who we've been together for over 20 years and he got in the water and I was like I didn't even know you could do anything in the water so no it was like a it was a great experience it was a welcoming i got to meet other people in the community that probably live you know a street over from me but I've
never met and I got to so great great thank you i'm so excited for you to join the pool committee um I move that we appoint Tatiana John to the pool advisory committee a second mr davis yes mr duca yes bangal yes
zerman yes mayor Adams yes thank you very much last one thank you Tatiana one more person for the pool committee as well leotine Harry please come up and tell us a little bit about yourself and why you want to join the Maplewood Pool
Committee good evening everyone my name is Leantine Harry um I'm currently a I'm pursuing my um public administration degree at Ruckers so my masters so my kids are both from Maplewood my daughter is actually
graduating this year um from Maplewood not Maplewood Columbia i'm nervous it's okay you're good so my kids learn know how to swim so I got introduced to the Maplewood Poop through Soma Justice um
as an adult swimmer learner still learning um but one of the things that I noticed as I you know gradually became familiar with the pool is that um I noticed folks that didn't look like me at the pool so often every time I went there they didn't look like me um so my
main interest also is like what are the barriers um as to why when I go to the pool folks don't look like me that often right and even when I invited my kids also they don't want to come to the pool either they're like I don't want to come to the pool there's no kids there
there's no kids my age there also so that was one thing also I wanted to like to bring um to the table as to why the kids also are not engaged in the pool because mostly when we go to the pool I go for swimming folks are there you know relaxing and you know reading their books and things of that nature um but
there's no kids in the teens or you know early 20s like what what is what is the barriers like why are the kids not going there and they said the pool's just for families so if you know if I'm not there they're not going but if I'm going they're still not going either right
because their friends are not going either so um that was like one of my main interests is to you know um bring to that perspective uh understand the barriers as to why folks are not at the pool is it something where it's financial reason is it something whereby
the pool is not being advertised um also folks not knowing um I recently just started to go into the pool like two years ago and I've been a part of this community since 2019 um so I usually drive past it and that's just basically it um but for the most part like that is
the reason why I want to get to that understanding and also try to like put some of my learning also that I'm learning in school into this field as well um try to understand it more like the firsthand experience as well as what I'm learning in class also so that's
like my main reason why so why that's great thank you great thank you i move that we appoint Leotin Harry to the Maplewood Pool Committee second mr davis yes mr duca yes mangel yes herman yes
mayor Adams yes thank you very much congratulations thank you for stepping up thank you and good luck with your studies look out Pat he's coming for your job right all of our boards and committees
um you're welcome to stay but you don't have to okay we're going to move on to uh presentation uh Mr weary can you please move over for as a panelist Mr bing and uh Ammani
Moody is the BA mr bing would raise his hand i will move him over to panelist and also the BIM and yes same with uh Mr moody if you'd
raise your hand I'll move you over to panelist why all right if you would unmute yourselves and if you want to turn on your video I have your slide presentation i'll bring that up uh after your introductions
hello everyone everyone we just wanted to give everyone an update on the 2526 budget i want to emphasize that it is still a work in progress you have to approve it April
24th i do want to introduce uh Mr mani Moody he is our new business administrator i will pause for a round of applause welcome thank you thank you for that um not
quite sure how we'll be uh sharing the presentation i believe we've sent it over i think our administrator is received it yes can you guys see it okay yes yes we can yes we will we will
adhere to the uh the 10 minutes we promise turned over to Ammani thank you you can advance the the slide or um essentially what what I want to do um again thank you for that uh warm welcome it's uh been a pleasure learning
about uh uh Maplewood Recreation and the pool business and and stuff but we um being new to the district uh as recently as December my start date we really do dove into a process here to um
engage in a great deal of discovery about what has taken place prior to our arrivals really and to learn what was in the 2425 budget uh that our predecessors uh set up for us for the school district but then to engage in a very deep budget
development process on our own for the 25 26th year uh we took a bit of a different approach so I'm just going to give a kind of a um 30,000 foot view of of how we engaged in that process because actually um we uh met and
decided to to really do a groundup budget build zerobased budgeting to really look at every line uh account line every area of the school system uh all 10 schools and all of the various different departments all the capital
budgeting needs and the like we then projected out our revenue uh and looked at what was likely to be our new revenue for the 2526 year uh as folks know there's a great deal of change a foot in the macro environment and the the federal level and uh a lot of
uncertainty around state aid and the like so we we engaged in a process that was really granular and detailed and and sought to to make solid projections for revenue uh as well as enrollment uh the likely enrollment that we would uh face
in the school district for the year to come uh we then took a look at the broadspectctrum sets of expenditures um for the prior 25 2425 year uh and did research into even the 23 24 year and and really everything that we could do
discovery on to be certain that uh we had um the best picture of current situation and what is working and then likely uh best rationale for projection for the new budget year 2526 and then we
gave consideration to given all of our decision- making what the commensurate tax impact would be and we set up our budget calendar and powered forward so next slide uh next slide please yes so we've had our we've had various uh meetings around
the budget as you can see from this slide including town halls various community conversations a lot of surveys uh board meetings uh board committee meetings and so forth trying to be as transparent as possible during these difficult times uh I think you've all
read the headlines whether it's West Orange Monontlair or East Orange um a lot of districts are struggling this year we anticipate the same over the next few years as the uh current state formula just doesn't make sense for South Orange Maplewood School District
we've been doing a lot of advocating down there our parents have been writing also to advocate so hopefully the formula will be changed within the next few years years that would better benefit us but uh as we've been discussing with our folks in house and
uh with our community uh it's going to be very lean years uh for the next uh few years go ahead thanks yes next slide this is a snapshot of our budget calendar kind of calendar we're kind of in the latter stages of this with uh an next date
being April 16th our finance facility and technology committee meeting we also have uh our final budget review with our full board and our our board presentation our board public hearing presentation for the 2526 budget which
is our final budget presentation um next slide uh next slide please okay so our preliminary budget was submitted to the county on March 19th uh it was a a gargantuan effort really to get everything settled prior to that date we
we were able to get that in it's still uh a work in progress we're fine-tuning and making some refinements uh based on new information that's coming in and our final version is due to the county end of April next slide please uh as Mr moody uh noted one of the advantages or
opportunities we had being so new was the fact that we could do a zerobased budget for 2425 and 2526 meaning we really looked at every line item especially the large ones including uh transportation which we're currently looking at uh and a few other
very large line items with an emphasis on keeping our facilities line items intact uh as we all know the buildings uh are not in the best shape uh we did not want to cut all funding from facilities so we wanted to keep an emphasis on making sure these buildings
are a great uh learning uh excuse me learning environment for our students absolutely thank you Superintendent Bing and actually power continuing through this this revenue picture there uh a lot
of discovery rendered uh things like you know of course we we know that we uh were able to get a 2% tax levy here we were able to get an enrollment adjustment to soon about 850k we were blessed with about 600k in additional state aid a lot of municipalities and
townships and cities did not get uh what we got there so uh but you know we also have found that given our need to keep up our facilities and to do the necessary maintenance you know we really did have to also tap into our
maintenance reserve a little further as you can see that was done in 2425 to the tune of 1.5 million and we had to uh earmark special one-time projects from a maintenance standpoint that we would leverage 2.5 additional million from our maintenance reserve budget budget to
address um so this calls upon a larger challenge that the district is facing and that is around the reserves and the fund balances that exist uh they've been materially depleted over the the the last several years and you know we need
to kind of turn the tide there we need to start uh saving experiencing savings and adding back the fund balance to be good fiscal stewards for the school district moving forward and not just next year and you know in the the years ahead uh as you can see unassigned fund
balance for this budget year uh we had to tap in to the tune of 4.459 million uh to supplement our expenditures and to keep the the level of curriculum and instruction moving forward and to provide a thorough and efficient education so uh other highlights are
that you know uh there was a lot of um borrowing prior to our arrival for those facilities needs and that borrowing or there were there's an array of bond issuances from 2014 through 2024 uh and in order to pay the principal interest
debt service on that you know we do get a bit of debt service aid from the state to the tune of 2.8 million we had about 1.1 million in uh remaining debt service fund balance but there's also an increase to the debt service tax levy to
to service those bonds uh next slide please so this is kind of like the picture of revenue in broad strokes here uh as you can see around 83.3% tax levy 7.9% state aid uh
maintenance reserve at about 1.5% of the the budget and then uh you know budgeted fund balance 6.7 uh and then local revenue around.7 we also got a little bit of semi- aid but it's like almost negligible due to the the changes in the
funding formula that brought that uh revenue down some to about uh 22,000 so next slide here we have just a picture broad picture of our enrollment and the uh the trends really over the last 10 years as
you can see uh moving up towards the pandemic times we peaked out this is just the high school but you'll see the same trend across middle schools and elementary school we did have a decline in enrollment and then uh a turning of the tide moving back upwards and
actually for the district our state has uh whereas we have a current enrollment of around 6,831 students uh we're projecting 7,143 for the coming year you can take it through the next slide to middle
schools and similar patterns there uh and then elementary schools next the district will need to engage in another demographic study in the coming year our our current one ends 2526 uh so we'll probably engage in
another demographics 5year to 7-year demographic study as you can see uh through this slide uh the decline uh since 201920 however as Mr moody noted uh according to the state software uh we're looking at a possibility of around
200 increase of 200 students in in the upcoming uh school year go ahead next slide so in terms of expenditures this is the the the full uh the full budget for regular sorry general general fund
budget these are the broad categories uh you know by function uh as is clear here our largest expenditure is around $82 million in salaries of course our greatest asset in our district are our
teachers and staff and uh then you you can also see in benefits $22 million it's kind of like the second largest so that's around a h 100red million of the $170 million uh is uh earmarked towards our teaching staff and and and the folks
that hold the the district together of course we do have uh tuition costs to the tune of about 13.6 million uh we have custodial costs around 14 million what we found to be the case across um
our analysis of the budget is that uh a great deal of outsourcing had taken place prior to our arrival and so a great many of the sets of services are in fact out outsource uh that being you know transportation custodial security
uh you know pretty much everything that's you know not teaching staff you know food services and the like so uh a large part of what we're have endeavored to do is to rightsize those service contracts and just make certain that we're we're being appropriately covered
and and in gathering the sources of funding and directing them towards their most highly impactful uses uh you can go to the next slide so some of the um the the uh phenomena that we faced here is or was
present in this budget is we budgeted at um for for salary increases that are projected based on our current uh rates of negotiations with our SEMA union so based on where we have a tenative agreement we're still working out some
things but uh this is the basis for the projections around salary for the coming year we also projected increases in health benefit costs around 15% same for utilities and insurance costs there are great many perspectives out there on the
likely growth in those costs but all of them are you know on the higher side uh about 5% in custodial costs but we also took a look at very detailed look at visible trends uh and across our different sets of
contracts and we looked at the language in those contracts and and we're still you know discussing and negotiating with our vendors and choosing our vendor options to make certain that we've optimized things and we can um be be very efficient in terms of our distribution of resources but then also
you know get the value and uh and and lower costs next slide please we also projected our costs for special education out of district placement for tuition we looked at all of the existing demand uh for services
and even made solid uh you know rational projections for the coming year and then based our decision-m on on that next slide transportation uh as I mentioned another one of the the outsourced uh services for the district we are
anticipating an about a 3.57% growth in cost there but we are reviewing and exploring every way conceivable to be more efficient in the administration of our transportation services you know up to including uh
evaluating a hub system to enhance efficiencies and and also re-evaluating all the different district routes and exploring opportunities to to refine uh but also optimizing bus sizes and capacity utilization of our our buses next slide uh this is kind of like
just a um a summary slide that talks about our operating levels and our special revenue and our debt service and shows that both the revenue and the expenditure side are balanced next slide so some of the budget challenges I mentioned before were um you know uh I
talked about our fund balance and how we we are called upon as fiscal stewards of resources for the district to to really be mindful of how much we have in the way of savings year-over-year and while those those savings are there for the purpose of uh dealing with any threats
or opportunities and as you you know as we all know um you know circumstances can change drastically so we have to be prudent about our fiscal management so in the 24-25 year where we have engaged in this very detailed uh you know
granular approach to managing the budget and extracting value uh we're we're likely to return around $9 million in savings to to fund balance that said we can only really budget from about uh 4.8 million in total for use in the 2526
budget year out of that 4.8 we are leveraging in our current presentation around 4.45 45 million uh to be allocated in the 2526 year i mentioned earlier that urgent maintenance needs have led us to identify one-time maintenance projects uh totaling around
2.5 million that are slated for for to to be completed in the 2526 year and then on a case-by cases we will evaluate them over the year and then uh engage in that process also um and you'll see a little bit more clarity on this in the
next slides but about 6 89 million in audited fund balance was earmarked and that's around 2% earmarked out of our audit process for use in the 2526 year our prior year
audit process rendered a $7.044 million required fund balance use so each time we have an audit uh it's incumbent upon our auditors to earmark two subsequent years of 2% dollar amounts for use in the subsequent years
so those were numbers that uh kind of predated our our arrival um but they are earmarked for use in those subsequent years and it'll become a bit clearer when we go to the next slide so this next slide looks at those reserves and we look at uh the June 3024
balances and we are hovering around 33 million or so but you know that audit process renders 7.44 million to be used in 2025 that's this fiscal year as well as our predecessors had decided to dip
into our capital reserve to the tune of 4.267 million and our maintenance reserve for the 1.5 million so that's already almost $13 million of our the $33 million that was in fund balance as of June 3024 that was slated for use in
25 uh I mentioned as well that we're projecting uh to add back $9 million in this fiscal year 25 ending June 30 but then you know our our audit for 24 uh rendered that additional 6.89 million
which is to be budgeted in in 2026 if you add that to the 4.45 45 million that I mentioned earlier that's where you get to the 11.3 million in for use in 2026 along with the maintenance reserve use of around 2.5 so that's an additional
$14 million in uh you know fund balance for use which takes us down to a projected June 30 26 fund balance of around 14 uh.7 million now uh we like to be very cautionary about this because
this is what we found after a tremendously granular process of managing the budget for 2425 and then identifying savings and then attempting to add back for the 2526 year but you still see a rapid decline in fund balance uh projecting that forward we're
kind of looking at fiscal cliff scenarios here that that a lot of the uh neighboring districts and municipalities are facing so we we are kind of we're rising to the challenge and planning to be even more fiscally prudent in the year to come and to try to engage in
more in the way of savings while still providing uh a world-class thorough and efficient education next slide so I I mentioned that um you know we engaged in the reduction of expenses vendor contract optimization there are
vacant positions that are unfilled due to demand there's retirements uh some of which are are not being replaced due to uh reallocations and internal transfers and the like i also mentioned that we had this year several you know increases
so we got our our 2% tax levy we did have an enrollment adjustment of 850K uh miscellaneous revenue increase extraordinary aid increase of 500K and we did get our state aid at a 6% level of 619K as well as an increase in preschool
revenue of about 1 million next slide so what we what we have here is this is the 2% tax levy going from 2425 level of 138 million to 141 million for
2526 uh if you when you put in the uh enrollment waiver that takes it up to about 2.2 2.62% growth uh our debt service tax levy in 2425 was 5.6 6 million and it's projected in 2526 to
grow to 9 million that's really as a result of what we encountered you know another thing that we encountered when we came to the district is the district was facing a debt service tax levy increase due to a what's called a yield arbitrage restriction liability that had
been eclipsed prior to our arrival essentially uh with the issuance of so much in the way of bonds in the prior um you know 5 to 10 years that money then sat with asset managers and then incurred
interest and returns that were larger than what's allowed by law so the district was called about called upon to return uh about $3.5 million in excess earnings on that money back to the IRS
so it it it then reshaped how the tax levy had to be formed in order to continue to uh to pay down that debt that was decided upon um in prior years a lot of the projects that that debt went to finance are trending towards
completion and we're we're monitoring all of that very closely next slide this is the array of bonds that I was referring to from uh issued in 2014 through 2024 uh totaling the
13.033 million in principal and interest payments in the 2526 uh budget year next budget highlights so kind of in summary here we I referred to the 2 and a half million in maintenance reserve
for one-time projects we talked about rep prioritizing additional projects for future potential Bose bond issuances or even other forms of bond issuance like EIP bonds like energy savings improvement plan bonds which you can
borrow and then do energy enhancing projects and then track the savings where that bond issuance then pays for itself um we also did not budget for unfilled vacancy positions where the demand is not present and we held to our
uh driving uh kind of northstar here of of having zero reductions in staff in the 25 26th year given the prior year budget cycle well I mean as you can see um over the next few years we're going to have some difficult decisions to make
um you know our goal is to uh engage the community around these current and upcoming challenges as noted we see districts right around us facing those challenges as of today uh we are hoping that we can get through this year and look to plan out for the next few years
uh to avoid any major layoffs or major or major program reductions as as you've seen in the headline headlines as of late um we are trying to ensure that all resources are being utilized sufficiently and effectively as Mr moody
noted we are right sizing whether that's staff courses materials technology um facilities uh curriculum and instruction service contracts we are looking at everything uh over the next few years to uh ensure
we'll be able to balance this budget and meet all of our students needs some of our opportunities as Mr moody noted obviously our energy savings as well as we're in the midst of starting to write our long range facility plan uh we'll be starting our strategic planning over the next few months uh and also working on
our five-year technology plan uh we do appreciate the time all thank you so much thank you Mr bang and thank you Mr moody for that comprehensive look at your budget um I would ask if there's any questions but I don't think we want to
engage that here can members of this group can attend the board of ed meeting and ask questions or reach out to Mr bing or Mr moody offline if that's okay all right yes please do thank you have a
good night thank you gentlemen all right with that we move on to first public comment agenda items only come on up uh yeah you can um introduce yourself and you have three minutes to speak okay great thanks my name is Karen
Elliot i saw you guys here last time um and I'm here representing single folks um child-free folks uh in this meeting we saw so many wonderful representations of diversity of acceptance inclusion
equity and equality and that is why I have to ask you all to vote no on the pool fee schedule tonight and send it back to the pool committee for reworking and the reason is because this schedule as proposed is discriminatory and
substantially disadvantages individuals and child-free persons based on the proposed fee structure individual members will pay 138.5% of what couples pay per person
180% of what a family of three pays per person 238% of what a family of four pays per person and it just gets worse from there additionally the fee rules require that couples who sign up live in the same abode while making no such requirements for families with
caregivers this situation this discrimination seems pretty plain and simple and I I can't even believe it would be tolerated by by a town that that invests so much in equity and equality um I'm a an avid
pool user as are my neighbors who are singled child-free people um and I think that it would be great if the committee the pool committee and the uh Maplewood Town Committee would adopt a standard adult fee and standard child
fee for residents that would make it e equal equitable across the board additionally um we have a tendency to do these uh pool these open access on hot days and that's kind of challenging for
those of us who pay to be members and go use the pool um I would request that the pool committee take into account uh limiting some hours making it not after 5 and definitely not on weekends i know it gets hot our hotter days are coming
more and more frequently but those of us who are paying are paying a lot of money out of our own pockets and frankly I have to save all year to afford my pool fee so when I see folks coming in and and it becomes like a hot human soup in
that pool it's kind of disgusting and I don't really want to you know use it uh cuz it's dirty and it's really really crowded i think that there can be some bumpers put on that that make it workable for everyone i also think that um I'm going to request that the pool
committee and town committee remember that this is a community pool it's not a families with children pool and there are many adults in Maplewood who live in child-free homes who use the pool and our concerns should also be included
when the pool committee meets uh it appears that there is an ins insufficient representation of single child-free voices and diversity in this case is not only racial ethnic and age inclusive it should include single
persons as we are people who pay for the our pool membership um one of the newly uh com newly elected committee members to the pool um Leantine Harry's comments referring to um her own race age and
economic concerns made me think that the pool should possibly engage in an audit or a study of who's actually using the pool because um more information should be gathered we should have actual real information i don't see the same thing that she's
seeing i see I see an abundance of diverse individuals there of all ages of all economic statuses and I think that it would be great if we really knew what was going on thank you so much for your time i know I went over thank you
uh anyone else want to speak to the township committee uh online or in the room if anyone on Zoom would like to speak in public portion on agenda items please raise your hand now moving over Alana to
panelist welcome to the public portion alana you may unmute yourself and address the committee hi everybody i I just wanted to uh thank Karen for speaking up and also just add that I've done an audit myself of the
surrounding pools in the area and anything that comes close to the rates that we're charging um has significantly longer hours and days in which they're open many of them opening as early as May 17th uh to the public and and I
believe last year we opened like June 19th or 18th or something so that's a whole month longer um which you know seems to justify the rates that we're charging a little bit more than what we're currently doing so I just wanted to add that um I'm happy to ex share the
re research I've done in terms of the hours and the rates um I've looked at about 10 other pools in surrounding towns both both in this county and other counties um some of which uh you are not even allowed to bring a chair because they supply them for you um and and you
know our pool you are required to to bring a chair pretty much because there's very few to be shared um so just wanted to share some additional information research I've done on this matter as well appreciate it would you uh email it to uh anyone on the township committee or
um our clerk sure i've emailed about this matter a couple times before and no one's responded is there one email that works better than the others to the clerk to the clerk it's Liz Fritzen so it's L fritzen F R I T Zen
Maplewoodnj.gov great thank you thank you anyone else mr w yes moving over Diane Escowski to panelist while we're waiting I'll take a motion
to go past 9:30 second mr daffus yes luca yes sangel yes burman yes mayor Adams yes thank you welcome to public portion diane you may address the committee
hello uh everyone thank you um for uh taking the time uh to listen this has to do with the um the pool as well and I believe that was um Karen uh and Alana who just uh spoke in reference to it and
you know at uh I'm a single um childfree uh person in the community which I've been here for about like seven years now and I have also done you know some research um as well that goes with uh Karen and Alana's
um information that they provide and again as a single person you know the the fees are um quite high for an individual childf free but in addition to that I just wanted to mention also or
maybe just you know as a suggestion um you know I know there's like swim meets uh which you know that are held at the uh Maplewood you know community pool and I I think that's great um but the thing is you know it's it's held um like right
smack in the middle of the afternoon sometimes and that's kind of like the high point of um especially on like you know on the hot hot days um and you know honestly I I feel that could cause like you know a a hazard um having that many
people you know at the pool and there's you know there there's kids there of course you know um and it's just you know I I would suggest you know maybe having like the swim meets like you know prior to you know the pool you know
opening um you know for the day um it it might be a little safer um I appreciate you taking the time you know listening and um I definitely agree with Alana and Karen about the uh the pool fees um you
know as a individual child-free uh household thank you thank you is there anyone else Mr wary anyone else would like to speak in public portion please raise your hand now
i see no other hands mayor okay thank you with that we'll close the public comment for agenda items only and I'm going to turn it over to Miss Eno for a board of health meeting probably the latest board of health meeting we almost forgot about it i lost
my agenda i need the agenda all right I got it i got it okay pursuant to section 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 star ledger in December 2024 and by filing said notice in the office of the township clerk mayor Adams here
here mr duca here surman here miss Angel here whereas chapter 231 public laws 1975 commonly knows the open public meetings act requires rulings of public bodies be open to the public and whereas section 7A provides that the board of
health has a discretion to permit prohibit or regulate the act of participation of the public at any meeting and whereas desire the Maplewood Board of Health to comply with the provisionous act same time and conduct its business in an orderly and expeditious manner now therefore be it
resolved by the Maplewood Board of Health the Township of Maplewood that it is hereby prohibited except set forth to the formal agenda active participation in deliberations of the Board of Health by the public except as otherwise prescribed by law does limit the public
to the observation of the actions and discussions of the board of health at all regular and special meetings so moved second mayor Adams yes mr daffis
yes zuca yes herman yes zangel yes um I move to approve the board of health meeting minutes from March 4th 2025 second mayor Adams yes mr davis yes
yes surman yes miss Zangel yes take it away Miss Davenport hello good evening um I just want to say a few words um based on the current situation that's going on right now in light of the federal funding cuts to public health of
11 billion this week we are seeing the decimation of the federal state and local public health workforce on behalf of the whole health department and my colleagues around the state I just want to acknowledge you and thank you for your steadfast and unwavering support
for public health workforce both Maplewood and our sister town South Orange standing with your local health department demonstrates that you value a healthy town that everyone in the community deserves to be healthy to live up to their greatest potential to love
who they want and that we believe that we are stronger together and more than what divides us so thank you thank you my first slide is um what we acknowledged before the seventh grade class of Maplewood Middle School and
their Great American um Great American uh smoke-free videos as well as uh their vaping videos everyone can see their videos here if you click on the slides and they'll be available on our website next slide really proud of them for the second year in a row proud
of us Mayor's Wellness Campaign has won the Healthy Town designation whoop i'm happy to present from on behalf of the mayor's wellness campaign and the New Jersey Healthcare Quality Institute this plaque to the township of Maplewood for your commitment to improving the
health and wellness of your community provide that to you thank you so much another photo well yes would you like to do another photo sure there's a banner first and then do the photo okay good idea
we've gone over at this point on May 3rd we are happy to say that we are going to have a Maplewood Health Fair and we are partnering with our Mapwood Police Department and Easy Ride to provide a bike rodeo which are all free um free health screenings free food and activities live music and giveaways
raffles and prizes this will be held at Deheart Park um from 10:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m and we also want to acknowledge our um partners at the Hilton Neighborhood Association who are helping us uh promote the health fair as well as for our nursing update um for
the month of March we investigated uh five reportable infectious diseases our nurse was able to provide um immun five immunization reodits of child care centers and provided 12 senior building health screenings on March 28th next
slide let's talk about measles in New Jersey so this is just um an example of the where the outbreaks are around the state uh around the country excuse me um next slide i just want to emphasize here that um
when I reported back to you in February the number of cases across the country was 164 currently in March is 483 cases of active measles um most of them are of unknown or unvaccinated
status and there have been two deaths in 2025 um due to this outbreak this is the importance of public health and we have to stand by public health because we are failing our communities when there are deaths due to vaccinereventable diseases
on that note the next slide shows for um Essex County residents the vaccines for children program which is available um you can call the number 973-8778456 for vac free vaccines for children next slide if anybody would like to help the public health community
the Ethics County has a medical reserve corps which is open to uh uh medical professionals as well as non-medical professionals to volunteer in times of need in your community to improve public health um for more information you can go to the website um and sign up to to
join we encourage that especially in light of what's going on right now as we move on to the aven flu H5N1 update here's the current situation there is no persontoperson spread that is uh currently very low um as for the public health risk to people um there are 70
cases in the US and one death um occurred i'll tell you more about those 70 cases on the next slide these 70 cases occurred throughout um the United States mostly due to occupational hazards those people
working with um on dairy farms poultry farms and other animal exposures next slide so we also would you know just want to let people know how to reduce their consumer risk of exposure to H5N1 um which we've gone over before but the
next slide also talks about um occupational hazards and the if you have um phone numbers you'd like to call to report any sick or dead um domestic and wild animals in particular birds next slide as for our
environmental health update for the month of March um our inspectors did 19 restaurant inspections uh we'll be moving on to mobile food trucks so you'll be seeing more of those as we get into the warmer months and more of our activities and we issued um and
addressed 12 complaints and issued um six NOVs and two summones next slide as for our crisis intervention social worker report um for the month of March our crisis social workers saw 14 cases with five
co-responds we want to um emphasize and um raise awareness of our partners at Binka Charity International this is a group that's based in Maplewood they're running um a food uh pantry giveaway on on these particular dates so I want to make sure people know about this this
will be held at the community fridge on Saturday April 12th May 3rd and June 7th at 3 p.m so we'll be putting this out into the community so that everyone knows um they're a great organization and they'll be at our community fridge giving out um food to those who um would
benefit um so please come next slide lastly is our make the right call um sign um again just want to emphasize if people are in need that they can call the mental health crisis hotline these are all 24 hours a day seven days a week
and that mental health crisis number if you just want to talk to someone um is 988 um and 911 for emergency services 211 for social services and the number there for poison control and I'll be calling the 988
number after this so that's it thank you thank you Miss Davenport any questions for our health officer from my colleagues uh yeah I do i could the um the effect of the federal cuts um that we're going to be looking
into more um this week as we discuss the budget um other towns have I just want you to share what other towns that you've experienced or you've heard from your colleagues in other communities and what's happened to there yeah I think
it's important for everyone to know um about what is going on and how as you as the elected officials and our administration have stood by local public health as of Friday last week um we were notified from the state as well as our um professional organization that
our funding has been cut in Maplewood that impacts um almost $179,000 of funding that was to fund our nurse RHS um local health outreach coordinator and administrative assistant all of these to serve the public and the the greater
good um in other towns as of this weekend um they have had to deal with um firing um local health department staff um some staff are um the workforce is
gone in some towns so it's really vital and important that people know what's happening and the good that local public health does and how it is disappearing like right before our eyes in the state of New Jersey and around the country this is we are not isolated in this incident everywhere um around the
country we are losing public health as we speak so this is a dire situation yeah thank you Tom it's uplifting anyone else have anything any questions from Miss Davenport i have
a question about um measles and immunity so I know that people are wondering should people get checked on their immunity levels if they got vaccinated you know when they were way younger or what's the protocol for that sure so most people have either um had illness uh from measles if they were born before
uh the vaccination and if they've uh gotten vaccinated you would normally have two vaccinations um you might have more if you're a healthcare provider or someone who's in an occupational risk if you want to test your titers for u measles you can get a
blood test to do that um but it's not really necessary during this time um if you've been exposed and we've had to do some suspect exposures of measles vaccine of measles um in the last month um we ask for their vaccination record
to approve um immunity status thank you the vaccine by the way the MMR is um 99% effective if you've received all full doses so it's it's a it's a really effective and um well um tested vaccine
so if you had the measles when you were little your vac your immune good yep check in months had them all like in a row thank you you're welcome um anyone in the room have any questions for our health officer
will you come up to the podium and just introduce yourself again my grain has gone away but I had a quick question about um the miso in the US he said 435 cases how many cases do we have in New Jersey three cases that we were looking at um
one was a main a primary case and then two were secondary cases exposed to that singular case um you'll remember in the in the news recently that someone was on an Amtrak train um on the east coast who had measles and so all of those people
on that train had to be interviewed and you know asked if they have their measles vaccine so that's something that we've been doing um as local public health and I think the last question I had was uh how concerned should we be about the cuts in the health department
and you talked about other township cutting staff how concerned should be maplewood should feel very confident in our elected officials um who've made the decision to stand by public health and um to fund us so that we can keep fighting the good fight and um keep our
residents healthy thank you um Mr wary will you help facilitate if anyone online has any questions for our health officer if anyone on Zoom would like to address the board of health please raise your hand now see no hands okay then I move to adjourn um board of health into our next
scheduled meeting on Tuesday May 6th second mayor Adams yes mr dis yes duca yes m herman yes zangle yes thank you thank you oh yeah and a photo oh photo all
right we're going to move to introduction of ordinances miss Fritzen we have the first one 12A uh yes Mayor uh item 12 introduction of uh ordinance ordinance number 3149-25 is an ordinance to amend chapter
123 of the code of the township of Mapwood entitled fees municipal pool establishes 2025 municipal pool fees i move the passage of this ordinance on first reading its publication according
to law in the Maplewood South Orange News record and a hearing to be held on April 15th second mr daffis yes mr luca yes miss Angel yes herman yes mayor Adams yes next
ordinance 3150-25 uh yes Mayor item 12B ordinance number 3150-25 is an ordinance to amend section 6-25 of the township code entitled Recreation Advisory Committee this
ordinance amends the recreation advisory committee to reflect changes in the number of committee members promote diversity within the committee and clarify the purposes of the committee thank you i get a motion i move the passage of this ordinance on first
reading its publication according to law in the Maplewood South Orange News record and a hearing to be held on April 15th second mr daffis yes mr duca yes sangel yes sherman yes
mayor Adams yes next ordinance 3151-25 uh yes Mayor 12C ordinance number 3151-25 an ordinance to amend chapter 72 of the township code of the township of Mapwood entitled Youth Advisory
Committee this ordinance will revise provisions of the township code with respect to the composition of the Maplewood of the membership of the youth advisory committee i move the passage of this ordinance on first reading its publication according to law in the
Maplewood South Orange News record and a hearing to be held on April 15th i second mr davis I'm still here no I mean yes mr duca okay gross mangel yes murman
yes mayor Adams yes thank you we move to administrative reports mr wary thank you Mayor first as has been discussed we found out after close of business last Friday that the federal government had cut $179,000 of our funding as it also
affects other communities it affects South Orange and we have a shared service with South Orange for some of the staff in our health department so that's impacted as well um we had planned to introduce the budget tonight but we'll need some time to um work on
the budget to account for this reduction in uh in grant funding and uh so I I would um recommend we bring the budget back before the township committee for introduction at the next meeting instead of uh this meeting as originally planned and the other item is we have a
few resolutions on tonight for the hiring of employees we will be hiring crossing guards a jinny driver and a deputy tax collector so we welcome them all to Maplewood that's my report thank you mayor thank you anyone have any questions for Mr worry
seeing none we'll move to our township attorney Miss Cordio you're on oh no now you're off yeah now you're on uh brief report mayor um with respect to our fourth round affordable housing obligation as you may
remember our first step was to adopt a resolution either disputing the DCA calculation or accepting it accepted the DCA calculation of 216 units the declaratory judgment order was uh entered on the 24th um which puts us in
good shape to you know move to the next phase of the process determining how we're going to meet realistic development can you send me a copy of that so I can get it to the affordable housing board in our for our next meeting thank you we should send it to the whole township
committee any questions no seeing none Miss Pritson uh thank you mayor just a couple things i want to report that on um March 24th was the uh date for primary election filing
uh for the township and uh two individuals file for township committee uh Jane Collins Cing and Maxwell Kravitz i have certified both uh
petitions there were no uh uh challenges for either petition uh as far as Republicans uh no petitions filed and uh there'll be a ballot position drawing on Thursday at 3:00 right here in this room
um for position on the uh Democratic uh ballot okay um also uh we're starting to get um streeteries uh applicants are filling them out and uh we'll be proceeding with uh directing the various
departments to do their inspections so uh we have two already and we're progressing um we had just a busy week with event planning meetings or five uh two down three more to go and um I'll
be able to report to you more on that after this week okay any questions for our clerk i like hearing that all the event planning meetings because it means summer's coming yes except it seems like they become all
year round yeah true that thank you all right thank you Miss Fritzen reports from elected officials we'll start with Miss Herman thank you Mayor since our last meeting when we talked about pool fees the Maplewood Pool Advisory Committee met and we hammered out the
pool uh fees like guest passes swim team dog days etc that uh we uh passed tonight in or we uh introduced tonight in the ordinance today's agenda includes that ordinance it spells out what the fee decreases that we talked about at our last meeting look like and is previewed the family pass would fall to
under 400 and no one would pay more than 500 crucially seniors would see their their rate fall from 191 in 2023 to 150 using the early bird rate um I've heard from residents that are looking for day
passes and um wanted wanting to look at the couple rate which is often used for one parent and one child but I do want to point out that that rate will be just 340 this year down from $440 in 2023 so that's a savings of $100 and a single rates which were brought up tonight
would be 235 this summer and that's down from 295 in 2023 so um so we are seeing decreases across the board note that guest passes are staying the same at 15 for children and 25 for adults and while some residents have said that those fees
are on the high end it was the decision of the pool advisory committee to focus on lowering pool user fees to make the pool more accessible and leaving these fees the same um and so you'll see um dive camp swim team dog days all having
slight increases because again the focus and the priority is on making the pool accessible for more people also lowering the user fees and then you know trying to gather revenue where we can on those other sort of additional um uh fees in summary I'm pretty confident in saying
that everyone will see some relief from pool fees this summer and that is something to celebrate um I also want to clarify um some comments on social media that these cuts to the pool fees are being paid for by reducing our funding to Soma for two
towns um that's not correct these are completely separate we did talk about both things at last meeting but the pool fee reductions are not related um we had a lengthy discussion at our last meeting about SOM for two towns which ended an agreement to reduce the budget line on
that position you know that's all the budget is still in flux as you heard and we're going to be you know talking about that more next meeting but um this has not been eliminated so I just want to clarify that for the public um that is still an open discussion i've been getting feedback from residents and if
you're listening and you have feedback send it to me i'm listening in recreation um I want to say another congratulations to all of our basketball teams that's so exciting um to celebrate them all tonight and I just wanted to point out a couple of things coming up
with the community coalition on race um some dance classes are coming up r&b soul sessions April 6th and April 13th and get this Greek line dancing did you know about that april 27th and May 4th
very exciting african line dancing will be held at the Junth celebration on June 14th at Duran Heden and um next Tuesday CCR is hosting a volunteer appreciation reception for community members to come and find out more about CCR and how they can volunteer and get involved that'll
be at the parlor at the Woodland um that's uh next Tuesday um and finally mark your calendar for May 13th when the annual conversations on race program is going to focus on the backlash against DEI so this is a really um relevant
program and I believe my colleague is going to be on the panel so that's exciting mark your calendars and then finally I was able to spend last Saturday at Princeton attending the annual bike and walk summit i was so happy to see some other Maple Woodians
in attendance specifically at panels directly related to making our roads safer for pedestrians i got a lot of details on what other towns are doing um in working to implement complete streets formalizing strategies to reduce speed limits um look at no turn on red speed
humps other traffic calming measures and I also attended a session where I heard from parents who lost their children or one uh his spouse in car accidents and these stories are tragic and heartbreaking and completely preventable so I look forward to working with my
colleagues to make our streets safer for our children walking and biking to schools all across town and for all of our residents seniors um and everyone else who are who enjoy walking around our beautiful community thank you thank
you any questions for deputy mayor all right we'll move on to committee member i'm sorry yeah I you know I'm I'm thinking about I well I have a comment about the comment that was made earlier about opening up the pool for heat emergencies and I don't know if the pool
committee has spoken about that but um I think we have to understand that the pool is a community resource and public funds are now being used and have always been used to support the pool and when right we see a heat emergency and have a
resource that can provide a healthy and safe place for people to be we would be wrong in not opening up the pool i think there is some room now to make some decisions about times and manage that a little bit but the pool
should be open because it is a community resource and it's paid for by taxpayers and fee payers and I think that's important to continue to push out there and I would hope that the pool committee would con would talk about that too and and send that similar type of message
out absolutely thank you for bringing that up Mr duca the pool committee has discussed when the pool is open on the high heat days and it is it is there's broad agreement on the pool committee over the need for making the pool accessible to all residents on those
days and um there's no um there's no debate over that so thank you for bringing that up you're up thank you mayor i have uh five things quick thursday night April 3rd at 7:30 p.m at the community center in
Deart Park which is at 120 Bernard Avenue we're going to have a presentation on our plans to reconstruct Dehart Field um I know a lot of people have posted things on posts that I've
put on pa you know on different pages on Facebook so I have a good idea for you come on out and speak in person and share some of those ideas share some of those criticisms and hear what we have to say after the third we will talk about it at the planning
engineering and public works marathon meeting now with all these agenda items and we will kind of frame where we are and what more information we need and then I will put it on the agenda for our next meeting to just take a temperature of where we're at and whether we have
agreement pretty much the agreement is uh keeping or eliminating the ball field the softball field that's where we're going to have to so that we can give some direction to the um uh to consultants number two uh we've had three community meetings virtual
meetings on Parker Avenue bike lanes um each meeting got about 60 people participating we had anywhere from 18 to 30 comments per meeting and um we are going to sort of touch base again at our
public uh our meeting of the u engineering public works committee see what we've uh what we heard another agenda item yeah another item uh see what we've heard what other issues uh we want to explore with the consultants and
then that'll be also on for the 15th to see what we want to do and how we're going to move this forward or not um and you know we don't have to make a final decision on the 15th but we have to just keep discussing it and moving moving the ball trying to figure out how
we're getting to an end point uh number three the middle school traffic pattern uh it started on the 24th so we're in our second week we had some kinks in the first couple days i was out there with the students it was you know at 7:30 it was pretty cool uh to see it all happening and the students were all
excited um so it is working well the today the students did their presentation uh for their award in a competition and that worked out very well and we'll see hopefully they'll they'll um you know do very well with
that uh number four they we got an email from Mr kitner today that the Prospect Street Ballards are up um on you know this is where we put the cones and temporarily uh place the cones there they're at the intersection of Prospect
and Oak View and Prospect and Oakland and these are white ballards that are in the in the road it reduces the lane to one so you can't go around and I have to tell you I drove tonight and I stopped for someone and someone tried to go
around me in the other lane but I was uh quick to move my car so they went nowhere but it's just amazing people need to slow down oh my goodness these ballards are up now and um we'll we'll continue to monitor that
situation and the last thing I want to say is I want to give kudos to our senator oh I was going to say that i was going to announce that um spoke truth to power today he spoke
truth to power 24 hours plus uh at 25 hours 5 minutes library services we heard cuts to uh health services and basically what he was talking about is the priorities need to be on those things things that we serve people with
and not on massive cuts for rich folks and that's what he spoke about for 24 hours plus it was a record um and I think he it was amazing to watch him as our you know and I know I know Booker from Newark days and you know he came
here in Maplewood he got a warm welcome when he started to run for Senate many years ago and um he really stood out today as a New Jersey representative and a leader in the Senate uh a place that we need some leadership so thank you
Corey Booker yeah thank you Corey Booker it's about time we had somebody uh stepping up stepping up being a voice yeah we really need that on the federal level any questions for Mr duca i'll just agree that the white ballards look great i texted Mr wary because I
saw them putting them up this morning when I drove to work and I got really excited can't miss them well thank you i saw I saw a pedestrian walking up and shaking the ball what is this thing here and then and then he he got excited and then walked across the street
i also noticed the ballers are back up on the greenway entrance so thank you for Mr kitner and his team for that as well is it my turn mr duff mr duff's turn thank you Mayor um yeah I think it's important that we acknowledge uh our very own New Jerseys United States
Senator Booker for his extraordinary accomplishment and speaking truth to power as committee member Duca said uh according to the reports he added 48 minutes to the record he spoke for 25 hours at 5 and a half minutes so he
broke uh Senator Thurman's 1957 speech by 48 minutes um and he and Senator Kim have really led the way of speaking truth to power uh and I hope that folks out there will uh be inspired to engage
in protest in uh civil disobedience in speaking out and standing up um because the threats are really real as you heard tonight um our health department our very own health department is threatened directly because of the cuts to the uh
Department of Human Services and the CDC that were announced over the weekend um I want to take a quick moment to acknowledge our colleague Mayor Colum uh and congratulate her um earlier today it was announced officially that um
gubernatorial candidate uh Mayor Fulip is uh uh adding her to his team as his uh lieutenant governor running mate and that is uh pretty impressive uh and we're happy for Sheena and as a friend I
really want to congratulate her uh on the record that's really exciting for her and her political career here in New Jersey and beyond New Jersey look out she's only just getting started uh here locally I want to thank everyone who came out uh to support Trans Day of
Visibility last night uh we had a beautiful gathering of 50 to 75 people who came out despite the questionable weather uh to gather to hold space together to be safe to celebrate each other um and and it was really a very
powerful and moving experience to see our trans youth in particular speak out um come out a couple of them came out uh on this occasion um and I want to thank uh my fellow organizer in that effort
our trans activist our local Maplewood resident Shannon Cuddle and I want to thank uh township administration and support staff that uh helped us put on that event as as they do all the time uh and that's my report thank you thank you
any questions for Mr des seeing none Miss Angel thank you um I have a quick report and you might say this mayor but just in case on April 7th the board of school estimate is being convened at 6:30 p.m at the board of
education administrative building 525 Academy Street um and it will also be available on the WebEx from the district and no action will be taken but it's an info meeting for the municipal partners at border school estimate that make up the board of school estimate um and then
just save the date for April 26th is river cleanup day put on by the environmental advisory commission um more information will be coming but since it's April already I just wanted to get that on everybody's calendars i also saw and you might be mentioning this that there's painting in the park
that day as well so it'll be a nice day to be a memorial park thank you that's it that's my And the parade parade softball softball baseball oh that's in Maplewood this year too so it's a great day same day same field same 9 a.m pretty busy it's also my daughter's bot
mitzvah so I will not be attending any of these things but I will be celebrating Marley who hopefully will not be on crutches still that's my report any questions for Miss Engle nope seeing none all right i just
want to remind the public that tomorrow night at 7:30 we have a presentation and uh by New Jersey American Water um we will be representatives from NJW will be here to present their plans for
extensive work on sewer lines in not sewer lines water lines in the um in the municipality we may have as many as four to 5,000 lines being replaced and they want to do it all at once in Maplewood
get it done and it's really important it's replacing lead lines feeding to the houses um so there's a lot of information there will be a lot of questions undoubtedly uh so and this meeting will be held here tomorrow night
7 or 7:30 Mr w 7:30 and uh it'll be hybrid that's why we're holding it here so that uh folks can watch it at home and it'll also then be up on our website okay um secondly I just wanted
to uh make a statement there's been some um we're really fortunate to have uh residents interested and engaged in Maplewood Theater Redevelopment Area throughout the process we've benefited a great deal from the community from our
discussions about the plan and with that has come some misunderstanding of what the plan is and what the plan can do or can't do so I wanted to clarify some things for the public first about the plan itself the purpose of any redevelopment plan is to provide a
framework for the redevelopment of properties the draft plan provides a zoning framework that would supersede all current zoning in that area just like a typical zoning ordinance the redevelopment plan permits certain uses
it states bulk requirements like maximum heights for example it sets parking requirements and it provides design requirements such as maintaining or reconstructing the movie theater facade this is a non-condemnation area
in need of redevelopment as we've said numerous times this township owns two lots in the redevelopment area the Burgdorf and the merchant parking lot that's behind the theater all other lots are privately owned
the redevelopment plan can permit a use like a movie theater but cannot require a movie theater as part of the project ultimately any property owner makes a determination about the best use for their property in compliance with the
zoning it is important to remember that the redevelopment plan is the starting point establishing the framework for the area the specific details about a project would later be negotiated in a redevelopment agreement to correct some residents
misunderstanding the draft plan does not permit a fully residential building at all it specifically calls for the retail to remain on Maplewood Avenue stretch of the block and encourages the same along Inwood
second on the existing conditions the Maplewood Theater has not been in operation since 2020 and the Bank building has not been in operation since 2022 while the plan is aspirational in that it permits a movie theater and new
uses for the bank building it must also be realistic by allowing other permitted uses to the area if the plan does not include a range of uses that are appropriate for the space we risk having no movement forward activating these
current vacant spaces lastly about the process from here we will have another public meeting to discuss the latest draft plan and to receive more feedback then the plan would come before the township committee
for introduction and referral to the planning board then the planning board will have its public meeting on the plan and evaluate its consistency with the master plan and make any recommendations to the township committee then the township committee will consider
adopting the plan and talk about it so that's three additional public meetings for that allows for public input once the redevelopment plan is adopted the township can designate a redeveloper for the property the township and the redeveloper would then
draft a redeveloper agreement among other things the agreement will specify the nature and extent of the improvements to be made and their timing and phasing as permitted within the plan so it may also
include a community benefit provided by the developer and again that's part of the negotiations between the township and the redeveloper who's designated so I just wanted to say that because we know there's there's a a strong desire
out out there to have a movie theater to bring a movie theater back but there are there are parameters that we need to follow to stay in accordance with the law so with that that's my report if anybody has any questions or comments
why are you looking at me no no i thought it was a good statement but I do have something very important to say that we all missed the egg hunt is on April oh the the egg hunt oh they were at the senior center oh I
got to put that on my calendar is for anybody who has not been there it's fun at 12 and ends at 12:01 yes yes the kids are pretty fast time because literally it only takes three minutes and every
egg is Yeah and there's a lot of eggs hundreds of eggs no no no thousands thousands thousands of eggs we have community volunteers at the senior center here stuffing the eggs stuffing the eggs yes can't believe we didn't the
volunteers i You know we missed it what are we going to do we have a lot all right we have no discussion items yay you're welcome and um I'd like to get a motion for the
consent agenda please i'll move it i'll second mr davis yes mr duca yes zangel yes miss Herman yes mayor Adams yes thank you we come to our last public comment on any subject
matter um there's is there anyone in the house who'd like to speak all right we'll go to online mr wary anyone on Zoom would like to speak in public portion please raise your hand now i see no hands mayor great can I get a motion to adjourn our meeting then i
move that we adjourn second mr daffis yes duca yes sangel yes furman yes mayor Adams yes thank you our next meeting is April 15th have a good night or you'll end it