like to call the meeting to order please Lisa will you read the statement of compliance the notice requirements of the open Public's meeting act for this meeting have been satisfied a copy of the annual meeting notice was sent to the Press of aling City Star Ledger posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building the municipal website and filed in the office of the municipal clerk please turn off all cell phones please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank
Lisa please take the role mayor Collins here commissioner blumber I am here commissioner horn here all right we are going to begin uh with Chief Adams and a life- saving award Proclamation sir
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all right JJ you have a tough act to follow here with our engineering report all right um yeah I'm just going to go through anything that U we've updated from are from the last meeting you have any other questions else ask um
first one on the Washington Avenue street basically we should be able getat submission then we have Federal auth so real quick while we're on that I saw the email come through today and some dialogue back and forth you and Roger yes they were asking for a
response within five days Roger was GNA respond to theas what I told okay so they don't need the actual plans within five days the way that email was worded it was resp okay great thank you um next thing is the uh walkway replacement direct facility open going be on next Thursday 13 same for the uh we for the
rest finished the survey on Atlantic Avenue that's the 2025 St project on on the um Road program that's in construction one of AR for was added got
the cont that last Chester Avenue contessing punch awful L on that punch list cross wall um we started construction on that that's in progress um Cur gutter program um contractors
anticipated last one Municipal of office improvements kind of actually is updated from this the contract basically pretty much all I have have questions no I think we're good thank you all right we will move to our
department head report Scott would you like to begin please very mayor as you know the Green Acres has authorized our removal from our Rosy list at strip of land on the end of Osborne and the beach this will enable us to transfer a title in return for 160 ft of Bulkhead handicapped access and a payment of a little bit over $220,000 to the city so you'll see a resolution on there uh seeking authorization to
have you as mayor of Margate to execute the amended Declaration of incumbrance this form has been approved by Green Acres already so the next step in the process is simply to have you record it I send it up to the state they sign it as well and then after you sign they've signed it we record it with the atan county CL and we then can go to settlement with the there's that one um you'll see also I believe it's on here tonight we're
removing the requirement of the city to uh shovel snow we had a citizen claim that the city was responsible to do that if you look our ordinance we were well there's about six or s, housing units so basically be impossible for us to do that any kind of timely matter discussed it with J our Attorneys at the they recommend we get rid of that provision that's good all right thank you
Scott Palma hello good evening mayy Commissioners um business as usual in the building department we did schedule our um first CRS meeting and they do it much in advance so it's scheduled for October so we'll begin our CRS cycle process for that um other than that y business as usual all right thank you Captain Lee
great thank you Chief Adams thank you mayor as we're you know going into the new season of 2025 we have to do some of our annual things and one of the things I'll be reaching out to each department is to get their signature on thef contract will our
minimum I will out Department sign to sign off on the contract in addition the fire department is in the process of some of our annual certification process will annual training that's that we do yearly uh in the coming months otherwise on the WEA that's coming it's kind of a CRA right now as what we're going to get
but weather change changes could getan the wether and we have any up May thank you Chief Lisa anything to add nothing to add all right so I'm just going to uh give a quick Public Works report uh with Pat power unavailable to attend tonight um so uh public work's been very
busy uh a lot of water main breaks um and you know with all the storms uh on January 25th alone there were 18 water shut offs so just a reminder to Residents to winterize your home um the public works department is in the process of rebuilding their sweepers they should be back on the road uh within a couple weeks and getting ready for the summer season uh starting to build eight new lifeguard stands and building four
relief Cabanas to be used along the Bayfront enclosures for around uh around the bathrooms there that Chief Hinson brought up a couple weeks ago and then just to you know Echo captain Lee uh Public Works has been removing that wall uh they're just to kind of give a little insight into the the wall coming down with that parking lot you know as Captain Lee said we wanted it to be more visible so people knew to park there it's been a public parking lot for a number of years um you know I can say
that I've used it many times over the past couple years and I think a lot of people just weren't aware of it whenever I mentioned people that that's where I parked they were surprised that there was a public lot there so uh Public Works and the police department partnered together determined it' be great idea to bring that wall down um at the same time we're going to have an entrance and exit along the CER Avenue side so right now there was only one entrance uh pedestrian entrance
everybody would Park from the Benson Avenue entrance and that's where you would have to leave you'll now be able to park and then uh leave out to catar Avenue as well um if if that's the direction you're heading uh we're also going to uh beautify it a little bit put some you know flowers and and some shrubs there and and a little fence around it to to clean it up but uh the fence will be very low again to make sure it's very visible to the public um so that is it from public works and uh
we will now open up to public comment if anyone has any comment on anything discussed in this meeting please step forward to the microphone state your name and address Donna Tas 301 North Claremont Avenue um I know nothing can be resolved of it but a week ago I got my water bill was increased 22% which I think is completely absurd especially when three4
of this town is senior citizens and you're saying you're for senior citizens Well it can't be we only have one to two people in our house and we only have one to two bathrooms when these monstrosity homes have three to four bathrooms a pool a hot tub it's just absurd that we have to pay 82 some dollars for water Bells yes I'll just give a a little uh you know history of the the water and sewer
rates and you know how they were presented to the commission and and how we we came to the the increasing rates so our financial advisers reached out to our CFO and our business administrator wanted to set up a meeting to discuss the rates they were recommending an increase um you know it was brought to all three of our attention um I can you know speaking for myself I can tell you that I told our business administrator uh when you go to that meeting tell them absolutely not we're
not going to have an increase we you know had a tax increase last year the last thing we want to do is burden you know our taxpayers any further uh at the conclusion of that meeting it was presented back to the commission that we had no choice so the water and sewer utility it's self-liquidating fund so the only revenues we have that go in uh have to cover all the expenses so the expenses include um anything from you know the water main brakes that I that I had mentioned and all the maintenance of
our of our infrastructure to the capital projects that we do on a yearly basis so about 40 I believe right now we're at around 40 to 50% of our uh underground infrastructure is from the 1920s we have invested and we continue to invest responsibly to update those every time we do a every time we do our road program uh a lot of the decisions we make and choosing those roads has to do with the underlying infrastructure so that we're replacing it on an ongoing
basis so that we are you know being responsible so that we don't have a a disaster um you know hit us at at some point but how can they justify a person like myself all right now I'm down to one person in the household no pool no three or four bathrooms yeah so I'm paying the same amount as everybody you know as these other people so the the rate that that you're paying if you don't get any overage charges that is the base rate there is also if if somebody uses in
excess of a certain amount of gallons so the people with the pools the people with a lot of bathrooms the people with you know a lot of you know you know uh bedrooms and people in their household they will they will be paying more than than what you pay what the average you're saying in other words in September they're going to go out and read meters to see who accessed it so uh so the meters are read I guess monthly I'm not sure if Pat was here he could explain but we are in the middle of replacing our water meters so they're digitally read so that they don't have to go out um go out to everybody's house
and and read the meters I have a digital um yeah so I believe you know we're uh at the last take we were between 20 and 30% complete with the city with the the new water meter program so uh yeah they they are R and if you're reading annually exceeds the threshold you will get hit with what we call an overage Bill and you know the the people with pools and with you know those bedrooms and bathrooms they're the ones that that end
up with those bills okay thank you thank you you have I'm sorry you have to my name is Robert Nell I have a second home at five South marle for the past 23 years with my understanding that public comments on non issues that weren't discussed in the meeting came after yeah so the the workshop public comment is supposed to be items
just that were addressed here and then public comment for commission but uh if I would like to address the water and sewer issue also sure happy to happy to hear all right well so most utility companies that we're familiar with for example Atlantic City Electric and South Jersey Gas you get a bill that shows there's a separate two components one a component for infrastructure and for delivery of the product and then there's Aon for a
component for how much you use in the winter the gas pill is high it's very small electric are used by the in the summer High electrical bill no gas bill because of air condition so my query is it looks to me like your water usage is not at all based on usage which the most utility companies are if uh if
250,000 gallons for over use over 120,000 gallons you know my 20,000 gallons of gas or water use would be a water bill of about 50 bucks sewer wise again you're talking about 250 for over the usage okay so my sewer bill would be
about4 these charges don't seem to to my way of thinking to have rationale they appear to be rather arbitrary and I I sympathize with you know that you know at the 120,000 gallons of use there are very few people that use residential area use 125 that's a very high level of standard
usage not met by full-time or part-time res so I I think this is really something that not do not sense doesn't seem to be air based on actual yes so I don't I don't know specifically the percentage of people that go over and and what that what that number is but I I will say that you know when the data was presented to me and
I'm assuming the same for commissioner blumberg and commissioner horn and uh you know we knew that a rate increase was necessary in order to uh to not have a deficit in that utility and it has to be self-liquidating so we did look at numerous ways as far as um increasing uh lowering the threshold and and charging more per gallon and different things and you know there were a few different ways presented to us you know from our financial advisors and and
ultimately this is this is the decision it is it is not it it it can't be so it's a again it's a self-liquidating uh self-liquidating utility it cannot be we cannot use any money in the water and sewer utility for any other project other than water and sewer absolutely that your expenses 100% yes thank
you Steve Alman 9003 amst Avenue Market as you know being on the advisory committee I've been approached by quite a few residents on the subject of the water utility uh and I have discussion with them because I've had discussion uh uh with other uh heads about this in the past
the comments that I think are most cogent to refer back to you is the suggestion that um for example on my bill I only use onethird of uh the basic amount of water why don't we have a program that encourages conservation is one thing that I'm hearing from the community the second thing that I'm hearing is what's going on here today with your
explanation that something could be put out I'm sure when you got your report back from those people who were discussing this a lot of these issues were explained to you the same thing should be available uh in maybe something that went out with a water bill or could be sent out now work in the future um explaining why I'm paying 800 and something and only using
one third of my allotment and who's using my other 2third allotment you know that sort of thing uh those are the kinds of responses I'm hearing a lot of and I just wanted to pass that on thank you Stephen I I will say that my direction when this rate increase was going up was that we need to notify the residents let them be prepared I was under uh the belief that that was
happening uh it did not I do not know why but I've had discussions with our administrators as to try to figure out why that didn't happen so we're we're on and I I agree that the resident should have been made aware uh the one thing we did do was typically I believe these get sent out in March they were mailed earlier than normal uh to allow people to budget a little you know in advance knowing that it was going to be increase but but I agree the the knowledge and and the background as to why it went up
and the reasoning for it should have and and you know we'll make sure in the future that is done one question that I was asked is does this relate to uh the mandate to all cities to replace uh pipes in the street that are that have led yeah and I and I guess the best answer to that that is yes and no so um the capital projects that we do that affect our
utility are are what leads to to our rates um in 2020 when the last rate increase occurred our financial advisor said this will carry you to 2024 that was their estimate they were correct we needed a new incre in we needed an increase in 2025 um as we look forward I asked them actually uh last week I I reached out to get a little more information about this again because I knew everybody was concerned about it um
and I said will this carry us through for another five years because typically as I was told every five years or so is when we have a rate increase rather than doing you know so we have a one increase every five years this year it was 20% would it be better for our residents to do 4% a year instead of hit them with a 20% in one year so uh you know these were questions I asked and I also asked how long this increase will carry us through and with good certainty last
time they thought five years now there's a little uncertainty because of this lead pipe and all of the questions with that so um we're still trying to get information on you know the full scope uh JJ can speak to it we just actually spoke about it this week you know the lead pipe is going to be a significant undertaking and one that um that could be very costly and we're we're looking at ways to uh the burden on the taxpayer but um you know so it it potentially does
impact impact that rate I don't know that there's a direct impact to this point yeah that was one of the things one lady at the library said to me couldn't they have increased it uh over four years or five years so that we the increase wasn't all in one year but I I'm glad to hear your response yeah and I think again feedback like this from the residents is important so that we can make those decisions going forward to say what's what makes the most sense
thank you thank you 772 murst Avenue your explanation again is that you're we in contact with a group of people that made this decision when when were you notified that going to raise at $140 with the Flatline uh that I I couldn't pinpoint
the exact date was it in 2023 or 2024 do you recall commissioner if it was if it was not in 2025 it would have been the end of January 2024 would be my thought I mean it this okay all right so in it hasn't been a we haven't known for a year or anything like that it's been pretty recent okay so this group that comes to you so we get our bills in February I had my bill already and paid it that we didn't you know it's due in June so for
them to have these bills made up and everything someone had to know last year that this rate was going to go up $140 so the the preparation of the the bills going out I mean it's as far as the time to print them and mail them yeah that takes time but as far as changing the rate on the because reflected the new rates and everything correct yeah so that's just a quick change on the you know in the computer before it goes to printing so that's so what I'm saying is that I was given I've
been getting one of this information about these unfunded ordinance that we had which you and I had a discussion that was only like $1.4 million but I get something from our CFO that says we had 10,366 250,000 worth of unfunded ordinances going back 10 years which are now funded so my question is is that these are done in your budgets from 2024
2025 and of course an increase in our taxes so with all this going on why wouldn't we have done something earlier to incorporate this problem with the lead that you're telling now we have a dredging projects going on which I think is going to cost us money because I keep asking how much is this citizens of Margate are going to be responsible for this dredging project nobody said Ed
used to say well it's too early in the project well now we have all the approvals what's it going to cost us on top of what we've already budgeted over10 million have a $30 million Bond you know a tax increase what else isn't it time to maybe shut down some of these projects well I think when we can if we we stop investing in our town it would be a big mistake so we are investing with the future in mind and trying to be
proactive and and again on any given day we just had a capital meeting this week on any given day we have 30 million dollars of projects that are wish list we choose the ones that are high priority that are you know most effective for our for our residents and but your projects you're selecting for instance you're saying that we have led and the g who is here from the public works gives an impression that we don't have the lead problem if you remember
the meetings three meetings ago that we had a public official and said there was like no problems with lead don't be concerned so now you're telling me you have this lead project that could be crucial to people here that you may have a lead problem right so the federal government is mandating that any lead pipes be removed you know again this is all stemming back from the Flint Michigan incident a number of years ago so and I don't know as far as preparing for this I don't know that I mean JJ maybe you know when this uh initiative
was started the lead pipe 2021 so um right okay question we have how many new homes have we put up in in the last two years 50 60 new homes about that more than that more than that okay so every one of them
required the street to be opened to have a connection to that the Main Street would are not our Public Works would have known by then if we have a problem like this with all these new homes with new connections to the streets again every time every time we open up a street we're we're replacing the infrastructure so don't have these issues so Remington and Vernick is uh they're in the process now of identifying and trying to have a uh I
believe we're going to have a website or something where people can self check their homes and and we have we have a database of of the streets that we don't have to address so there's there's this big number out there that says if we replace every pipe in the ground here's what it costs that's not what our cost is going to be because we've replaced a lot of those over time I'm trying to say is so okay so so that's so that's where the uncertainty comes from from because we could sit here and say you know how much has been replaced if over if houses
have been been tracked for every new house going in I know my house going because of the storm Sandy I know my I have copper piping under my home now I don't know what feeds the main feed out there because I I mean I have a meter that's unfortunately is half buried by the sidewalk that's where my water meter at and Dennis this is why again you know I'll say Remington Vernick is so valuable to us they have the history they've been with us for a number of
years they have the houses that uh that have been replaced they have the water lines and that's going to all come off the list so we're going to have this this big list of every pipe under the ground we're going to take off the list of things that don't need to be replaced so what so have we looked at what project should be stopped for instance I mean this dredging project has been going on for what 10 years I believe they've been trying to and Scott would know better than I would but they've been trying for seven years permits and everything I mean I
and we still don't have permits we everything is submitted to the state I believe but we still do not have the perm going to if we go through with that project then then it's going to be additional cost that's going to raise these ordinance it's a lot of money 10 million when things going back 15 10 years excuse me back to 2015 I mean I don't understand taxes everything cost when I we had our conversation I said the water bills oh you just said the water bills don't go
up and the water bill went up and that was less than a what four months ago when we had our conversation yeah and again at that time I was I was honest with you I told you the information that I knew right and then okay but it's something that we the people here look at and say we don't meet the requirements the number are people who have second homes down here only are here for 13 weeks out of the year so they're not going to use the full 120 because they shut their
properties down for the next nine months so where is $140 I mean you could tell me the water main breaks that we have what's the cost we're paying how many watermain breaks do we have a week one a week I mean the the one on uh Benson Avenue and Winchester cost that was okay it was a couple months ago couple go how much what is it $100,000 I believe it was in excess of $100,000 okay understand it
okay so that's one okay that could have been something that could have been budgeted into this1 million and subtract something that was in here but again the utility is separate Dennis so you have you have General capital and utility Capital they are separate the utility Capital can only be funded from our water and sewer rates so that's so then you're telling me that there's possibility that your this water rate's going to which when I bought my home back in
2001 was around like $500 a year in the last four years has gone up $300 so again Dennis we we will make decisions uh with you know with the taxpayer in mind as we make you know as we go forward um I think we have very amazing drinking water amazing uh services in our town and we are uh one
quarter of some of the neighboring towns for water and sewer so I think I think there's a lot of where I came from in Pennsylvania they have amazing water also but my bill was not for that was $90 maybe $360 understanding a larger area living in a population cuts down the cost but the problem here is that we do have what if we take our nonseasonal people here we should have around what 7,000 people
in the area year round population not year round year round we're well below 5,000 I know that but when we have a when they're here on season about 7,000 people we're we're in excess of that yeah 25,000 okay so we grow by 20,000 people because we can't seasonal people here are now below 5,000 it's the fact that you still get the same amount of
money if even without us five and there's 20 I can't see where if you take that what the increase of 20,000 of $140 minimum that's a lot of money it's like what my math put over a million dollars close to$ two million am I correct I don't have the I don't have my calculator with me but I'm saying got 2 million is that not enough to repair your your um this is what was needed to move forward liquidating ility the money
that was used year before this raise of 140 what was that money used for is there something an itemization that shows what that money went for the what so you're saying it could only be used for infrastructure our our budget will be um introduced in March our budget includes all of our utility costs all of the expenses that go into it all of the capital everything everything part of that so every year when our budget comes out there's the our regular budget and our utility budget and it
goes through every goes through the employees that you know provide the the water and sewer surface goes through our maintenance costs goes through our Capital costs goes through I'm sorry Lisa is not here because I had questions concerning the cost of living rat which is not the same thing as what cost of living is course the living race does not include like I had a line here saying promotions some people got 18% cost the living raises yeah that information that was
provided that's what I had emailed you because it that was not a cost of living but that's what I had asked her what cost of living was here it also so we take a cost of living and include it in a merit raise we used to call my company so the the cost of living that's built into our contracts again and chief Adams and captain Lee probably know better because of their contracts and their knowledge of it but I believe it's between 2.25 and 2.75% somewhere in there that's that's that's that's the
number you were looking for yes well that but that's not for everybody correct well there are some people that are getting more than that getting 4% 5% well there's contractual steps there's contractual promotions there's all of those things so that's where where those other increases come in but then that's not a cost so what my question to her was what does the average the person here that works us either department head or an employee so it end up around 2.5% somewhere as a ballpark I
would say so the other ones were increases because of job titles so I used to call them could be job title increase could be you know contractual steps remember what you's ran on you were supposed to be controlling the salaries that was one of the things you's ran on with no raises in taxes and you have not met that yes yes it was the ad that was sent out that said there was a problem was that they were going to look at the salaries of the employees and everything
and try to maintain them they were not maintained they've increased let alone there was no tax increases that was also part of it I can inter the current admin contracts are currently negoti PRI to
ad but there's been contracts with people hired new hires new new titles position under exis employes Association Poli officer fire that's fire that's different please what about a business administrator that's not
under your contract am I correct no and we hired a business administrator at much less at a significantly lower rate than we had before I took office so you ended up the only reason that was because the person was relieved okay so I'm saying so it's but I inherited not the L you got to pay the person out you had to pay their salary out so that's not significantly it was it was significant financial savings to the C March we'll have the budget for 20 budget introduction is
planned for first meeting of March worst case scenario I could see it being pushed back one meeting but we are with within a timeline and I don't think we can go beyond the second March meeting now there'll be something that we can read ahead of time because this thing about the meter spres or not there's no information shared with anybody your website doesn't have anything on it today I looked at the website there was supposed to be something about shoveling you know for $100 12 hours after the the
full of snow that was on the website was one of the ordinances they're not on there now it was dropped because I was upset because the fact that that's on the agenda for tonight so you're gonna have an ordinance like that there there was an ordinance that was written who knows how many years ago that was brought to our attention that we revising tonight because because of that okay now that's what that's what solicor Abbott brought up in his in his
uh report okay so that'll be next that'll be the next thing I can discuss that okay thank you thank you Dennis Steve Al 9003 ERS I didn't want a cross conversation out of respect for the commission but I'd like to point out that I've lived here since I was uh a boy I went to school here and I can tell you sir
that no disrespect to anybody on the commission but uh the previous commission did not uh increase our taxes uh and we had a lot of buildings that needed uh repair and um one example of that would be the municipal Goods needed which used to be Union Avenue School that needed a lot of repair and our taxes remained low
for a long long time I'm going to say five years but it's probably longer Marty seven years 10 10 okay and repair should have been made but now you and I and everybody else who lives in Margate is going to be pay for the repairs to buildings the previous commission did not repare so you're going to see this going
forward where our taxes inevitably have to go up am I correct and I think it's I I I think not only the commission but the uh department heads should make that kind of information more available to us because we are in that problem and we need to know ahead of time and I I I listen to you and you're right but there there's a lot more going
on over the last 30 40 years that I've lived here I I I look young but I'm not really young all right then if you want to come back up and speak after he's finished you can but thank you thank you commissioner thank you Steve Dennis just please state your name Dennis 772 people assume that because we
come up here we're not residents I've been here and I can remember the movie so you would probably remember that since you're a long time resent right down the street from where I live at Del I remember when the Margate trivia question down do you know what it was before yeah was the right but we people here are saying is that what the other commission did was wrong what they did they had
projects they should have not done they should have never given a 50-year lease to the parking lot acrossing the CVS when we had a parking problem even back then okay what I'm saying is that we are doing projects now when you're right we're going to have new homes but new homes are paying larger taxes than your home my home because I don't have five five bedrooms four bath whatever for seven days so those houses should be enough the taxes that are being
collected now and with the increase that we had we brought in2 million more this year but that should have went towards infrastructure not to go in for new basketball courts I understand that we things need to be done but not to have projects select the projects you need okay thank you thank you
Dennis is there a motion to close public comment motion second mayor Collins yes commissioner blumberg yes commissioner horn yes is there a motion to adjourn motion second mayor Collins yes commissioner blumberg yes commissioner horn yes the end of the next meeting