##VIDEO ID:G5h59fbgnxo## I'd like to call this work session meeting to order roll call please mayor Ramic here commissioner huitt here commissioner sui here vice mayor Watson here commissioner cabon here can we please stand and salute the flag I to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all this meeting is being conducted in accordance with the Oakland public meeting Act of 1975 was advertised posted and made available to the public as required by Statute the municipal clerk is directed to include a statement in the minutes of this meeting matter clerk are there any changes to the agenda uh yes mayor just the removal of the Clos session item for bargaining unit agreement discussion for fmba thank you public comment on agenda items only if anybody from the public would like to comment on anything on the agenda of the items on the agenda please come to the podium state your name address your concerns please limit those concerns to approximately 5 minutes seeing no one I will close public comment on agenda items only discussion of Commissioners so the first discussion item is um the discussion of artc okay so last uh meeting we had Mr horn do a presentation I think he does excellent work um you know during the process of our rfps the rfps are reviewed by three people director revenue and finance the CFO the administrator and they forwarded that proposal up to the commission Mr Watson was the uh commissioner that had that put on there I made the uh motion it didn't get it seconded I don't know why you would put something on the agenda if you weren't going to vote for it that seems a little silly to me um Mr Horn's here to answer any question you guys may have uh Mr H you wanted a presentation you got your presentation uh And all I'll say is if you don't want to support it then say you don't want to support it we'll just take it off the agenda and move on well I yes we we got a presentation which is what I asked for uh two meetings ago which we had the presentation last meeting uh just for full clarity uh I watched I watch a lot of uh former mayor Quinns around town with Jim Quinn and I watched it last night uh when Mr horn was on there uh I'm going to be perfectly clear here a lot of people know a lot of people think they know uh what is going on with uh finances and stuff like that uh from here on out I look at everything that we're going to look at spending no matter who it is as to where that money can best be used for and right now unless we have contracts to do uh that we must have to run this city and such there is one thing on my mind in this city and that is to get police officers here I'm not looking to spend money on anything when there's a great possibility that I can use money that we're looking at spending to do something whether it's signing bonuses or whatever to build our police force uh that's where I stand not just with artc like I say I watch I watched last night the whole hour uh I I have a job to do and right now my job is to do all I can do in the last months of this commission to get our police force on its way to not be in the condition that it is in now so without reading between the lines I don't I'm not I'm not going to vote for it I'm just not going to uh so uh that's where I stand on that comment uh I was actually really impressed with the presentation uh I think you do really good work I mean everything looks you know really nice you know everything that we've done um and yeah uh you know we sat down and we decided on you know putting this on the agenda well you know I don't have an advertising background so I started asking questions and trying to find out uh you know how do you really determine um you know a good return on investment when advertising how do you determine that I mean if you're selling a product you you advertise it and you sell a lot more products you know it worked well how do you do that um you know when we're paying for advertising for the city trying to bring people into the city of mville um you know if we advertise something do we have an influx of people that come in and start shopping um you know do we have people lined up at the door trying to buy property to develop um so I started asking those questions and started leaning on people that had marketing backgrounds um and I'm still in the process of trying to make a good decision you know trying to if we're going to advertise make sure that the money is going to the best place there is uh so you know nothing against RC I just don't have anything to compare it to as I don't have the experience but I knew need I need the time to make a good decision uh that's where where I am so I until I can you know have something to reference or um you know really get a good answer I would like to see what other possibilities We have basically am I allowed to talk or yes Mr her go ahead okay so one thing commissioner yua just said was he wants to attract police better police or more police to the city of mville one of our goals excuse me is to stress the positive that milville has to offer we're doing that through a website we've done it before through social media we've done it through if you written a lot of the stuff that we've done has been front page of newspapers it's positive image of milville that is something milville desperately needs to attract people to come here and fill those positions not only positions for the police but for the lot of the businesses are in town and You' got businesses coming into town there some that are opening up downtown town and supporting them to bring people in that are going to spend money on these businesses and that's been one of our major goals in doing this and we do it very well I've got a great team if you looked at the paper and looked at my team and asked them some questions you'd understand what they're doing and the way they're trying to do it so I've been doing this for a long time do I know every answer no but if I don't know it I ask someone who does I've been really really doing everything in my power to move this forward I do a lot of stuff on my own time I live here I benefit from the city getting better my relatives benefit from the city getting better it's not just about me you're not going to find someone who does as much outside of the contract as I do there's going to be people that say oh yeah we can do what you want here's what you're going to charge and then there's the hidden costs that come afterward and I think you've seen it with your website you see it with everything there's always a backend cost I don't do that everything I've done has been top-notch professional it's been high level it's let people know that milville is serious about doing this and if you think I don't understand how that's not a benefit to what you're trying to do I don't understand how you could overlook this and say oh no no that's money we'll put towards something else at some point you got to address these things at some point you're going to have to you put out RFP there must have been a reason for that I was the only one as far as I know to respond to that RFP why I talked to other people that do this for a living because a lot of times when you bid on an RFP for a city it's strictly a price thing not based on the quality of the work it's like they're buying paper clips so I looked at it and said okay I know what we can do I'm going to do it for the price they're mentioning because normally it would cost a lot more to do what we're doing but I said no this is my City this is the city I live in this is a city I grew up in this is a city my family lives in and I want to be able to do something to get back to that city so we kept our prices low I brought the best people in that I could possibly find and if you look at their resumés and you see what they've done for other cities they've worked for other cities throughout South Jersey they've made a world of difference in other cities they're very smart people and we're willing to do this for a contract that I know you could spend the money on something else but for bang for the buck you're not going to get it anywhere else I know what I offer for the price I'm doing this for I know the passion I bring to this I know the expertise I bring to this and I know the talent of the people that I surround myself with and I'd hate to see you lose that I'd hate to see the city of milville lose that I've seen good people leave before for similar reasons you know this is where I want to work and do this stuff you know I've been on stuff before and not gotten it usually it's because someone been a little bit less or somebody might have been a little bit better but in this case nobody's Bing less than me nobody's going to do better work than me so I'm I'm confused and the fact that no one called me I put on the paper any questions call me any concerns call me just reach out have a conversation you know I'm not the enemy I'm not someone who's trying to steal from you I'm not someone who's not giving you your money's worth just call and ask a question I found out about this meeting two hours ago someone said are you going to the work session I said why should I well you're on it I didn't know that I didn't really know that I wasn't invited so you're going to do what you're going to do I think you're making a mistake but that's your decision whatever happens I'm going to still do the best I can but the little bit that we're getting and the amount of work that we're doing will make a difference it makes a huge difference I see the difference if you want to come out with me sometime and see the difference we're making please do I don't see you guys at my events you know I see the mayor I see Joe but I haven't seen anyone else at my events and we bring a lot of other stuff the town besides what I'm doing for this contract I had four major events in mville last year last fall they were really well attended the film festival can get better I'm working my ass off to make it better we got a lot of ideas to bring more people in for the film festival it can be a big deal it can be something that really draws people into town to spend money on the businesses that are coming into town so it at this point I don't know what else I can say I've done the absolute best I can at all times and if you think not bringing me back for this contract is going to save you money or give you money for other things I I understand where you're coming from I don't agree with it and I don't think you see what I do and what I can do you've only seen the tip of the iceberg of what we're capable of I brought people in on this new contract that are way better than I am and they agree to do it because they want to work with me they know the quality of what I do they know that I'm honest they know that I pay people on time and they know that I respect their opinion so whether you vote for this or not don't disrespect me like this don't make me feel like I'm some villain that came into town that's trying to disrupt everything I don't think you have any idea how much I've done so I'm sorry if I got a little emotional but I appreciate your time thank you Mr horn and yes I know exactly how much time and effort that you put in for working for the city M of all of last year you could just see the Outreach when our Facebook page for the city of mville was up and operational and it wasn't under attack and we were getting a bunch of negative media for it for the wrong reasons that people thought was the right reasons for them the amount of attention after every business of almost every business that you went to throughout the city of milville interviewed got to know and then where we all get our information from is social media today we don't have the milville daily anymore it's pivotal for some media that for all media to get out there and how it is it is social media you ran the you gave access to the the Facebook page and created and got the rights for visit milville NJ I mean how else do you want to grow the city of mville without promoting the city of mville with all the good things we have here I'm going to share a good story that put milville on the map in the news local news um maybe you guys saw it um but I don't understand how you cannot entice work to not entice by just not you know he he did this already why not have it again for 2025 I don't know but I support youville I support RC I know the work the well work you've done in the past and I know the work that you will continue to do so be it this contract gets awarded again um Mr horn your work is not in question at all the issue at hand to me is with all the other issues that are facing our city right now and I do believe that this money can be used in better areas for right now so I'm not for it not for it for this year I'm not saying again next year maybe but we have issues that we need to do in this city and it's a start so this money is coming from Economic Development can this money be used for anything else other than economic development we change it in the budget but let let me point out something else on this agenda tonight we have a a uh resolution to a word uniform bid if you look at some of the original quotes you could bifurcate that and save a couple thousand so why aren't we doing that to save a couple thousand I don't know um some of the economic development money probably comes from U money I don't know what if it does now it did so you wouldn't be able to use that last time we tried using that to pay the police department there was a problem because people worked out of the U area and that created a problem so there's other stuff that we spend money on which is a lot less efficient if you guys don't think that getting businesses in here is important to have a tax base so you can pay your police officers and you can pay your firemen and you can pay the rest of the people that work here you're mistaken now if you say you didn't have an opportunity to talk to anybody you could have looked at any of the businesses that Mr horn did those movies for and you could ask them how it impacted you could have called Innovative Foods you could have called the flooring place downtown MGM carpet yes could have done any of that mission Spirits El guac you could have called any of those companies and see if it impacted their businesses and if it's important to business I don't think you did that uh so what I'll say is if you know like Mr horn said if you don't want to do it there's no point in embarrassing but there's also a utility truck on here for $154,000 do we really need that I don't know that was approved last year it's just the uh change was what it was approved last year yeah you're buying it now you don't have to buy it just because it was approved doesn't mean you have to buy it that's not how it works so I know that's for water or sewer cuz when I look at the account number it starts with a five so you know there's all kind of ways to save money doesn't seem like we're very efficient at doing it and to not attract businesses here is a huge mistake but if we don't have the support then I suggest we just take it off the agenda and we avoid the sesow that ensues when we don't have a second or whatever so you guys tell me I support it well that's only two might as well remove it right well if you give me some more time maybe I'll reach out to everybody that you know we need a profile on and we can look at it at the next agenda so I guess we're taking off the agenda okay sorry Bill mistake it's okay you're going to take it off the agenda I think the mistake is you think that people that come around with the passion and talent and what we do all the time you think a year from now that we may be available to do this again you need it now you don't think you do you don't see the need for what we're doing it's so very obvious to everyone else though that there needs to be a positive message coming out of the city of milville you save 20,000 you think no you're not you're costing the city way more than that because we have affected businesses coming into this town we have done things when I do a video on the businesses that are here West St any of the ones we did they've all said the same thing the quality of what you're doing it says a lot about the city of milville it makes us want to invest more in the city of milville because we did something right we did it to the best of our ability and I think it's very very shortsighted to say oh we're saving 20,000 by not bringing him back no you're not you're going to lose way more than that in the long run the ideas that we have for next year the stuff that I could do to bring people into town to actually spend money to visit the places that need to be have money spent to keep businesses in town to keep restaurants booming in town you're looking past that you're not seeing that and that's scary to me that's actually frightening that you don't see that that that's needed right now so you're totally going to ignore this whole thing and say okay we would deal with it another year may not be around to do it another year there may not be people that can do what we do in another year and I'm sorry for that because I really do think I can do a lot to help milville I do care about this town it's my town too so by doing this you're not only affecting it affects everyone so you made your DEC decision I totally disagree with your decision I don't think you're seeing past the little so you get 20,000 to do what you're going to hire somebody for 20,000 a year to do what I don't understand how you think that and the stuff I'm doing for other organizations like the Leo I do all their photography I do their video they know the impact my work has they see how well it's doing for them and the only thing I get from them is a couple tickets to shows that this point because I believe in what they're doing I believe in what a lot of the businesses in mville are doing I believe in what the restaurants are doing I believe in what so many there's so many things going on and we're the only people providing a calendar that lets the citizens of milville know what's going on in their own town we're the only ones doing that and we weren't asking for that much money to keep it going I've been paying it out of my own pocket so far because I know it's effective you know Bill it's it's it's s it's sad that we have businesses that invest hundreds of thousands of dollars here and we're not willing to invest to bring more businesses here with $20,000 it's a sad day I I'm totally shocked to be honest with you I really am and I don't know how much I can do without just makes s sense way the guy that stood up a couple meetings ago Tom McGinty and said we shouldn't do this called and asked me for a job last week he looked at my website he looked at what I've done he saw what I'm doing and he said I want to work for you I want to do video and photography for you because he saw it so he stood up and said don't do it before he even looked at what I was doing so I don't know how many of you actually know what I do if you've seen everything that I do or if you actually did you call my references the city of Ocean City the city of Chelsea Atlantic City did you call anybody did you look at any of the things I provided you know that's kind of common sense I would hope you did that before you made this kind of decision and realize how much you're getting for the money we're charging ex I'm no it's not just exactly you there's a lot of other things that have taken priority I basically the time to you know really evaluate is this the best decision I mean so I've have inquired about advertising and how we go about doing it uh but the issue is is my time has been focused on trying to help other departments that are in need of a lot of different things uh you know we're at risk of losing a lot of good employees because you know the situation that they're in you know overworked and underst staffed and the biggest priority has been Union negotiations I want that done immediately and I'm sorry that my time and mostly for the past two weeks have been trying to stick together glue together some of the people that we have here putting in that time doing that just to make sure that the city is okay and it's going to be good to run and trying to get Union negotiations settled um it's been the main focus other than trying to learn departments meeting with engineering uh working with sewer and water um you know so there's a lot of different steps and I'm not questioning your ability and your quality that's that's no question I i' seen it it looks amazing but I don't know anything about advertising so I need a little bit of time to inquire make these phone calls but unfortunately other things have been taking priority and I'm sorry that you feel the way you do um I have no problem trying to bring this forward I'm just asking just for a little bit of time for understanding and for me to get my background done give me a little bit to try to reach out to these other companies and your references and I'll be able to make a good decision mayor all my point was for exactly was exactly meaning exactly for the amount of work that he does is the price that's except that he gave us for this municipality could he charge us a lot more yes would we probably accept it probably not but that's my point on exactly is only the amount of work that Mr horen does and provides for the city is worth and you know I don't know what other talent I mean not Talent AG we're not hiring actors here um other marketing agencies go for but I'm sure not that oh I don't know either that's why I have to do a little bit of homework on I have one last comment Mr Mayor four of us up here voted for this contract three other times three of us voted three other times four of us voted two other times the new commissioner hasn't had a chance to examine it all yet I don't know why it takes three years to ask a question and that's all I have well I will comment on that I did do some research and I looked up I'm not disputing his work at all I just don't think it's the time for milville right now and yes I did do research I see his work I see what he did in Ocean City Ocean City has way more probably ratables than we have here in mville it's not a question of his ability discussion item number two please so we have a discussion of the milville public library so if I may before you start Courtney so I saw things on the library where uh I was being blamed for the library closing so I went to the library then I went up to the desk and the young man there didn't know who I was I said I hear the library is closing he goes yeah so then the other lady goes well who are you I said well I'm commissioner Sue I'm the one that's getting blamed for the closing of the libr she goes would you like to talk to the director yes so it led to a very nice conversation so I I will tell the entire story at the end of the next meeting but for now please go ahead all right thank you thank you so first of all Yes uh what commissioner suie said is true there is a lot of chatter on social media um lots of speculations and rumors and misunderstanding swirling around as social media seems to take the most heart in doing and so after speaking with Mr suie I said yes I would love to come out and make a statement and thank you very much for the opportunity to kind of set the record straight so um and saying that the board prepared the statement that I'm going to read milville Public Library is not closing one major stipulation of getting the $3.2 million in matching funds from the state to renovate and expand milville Public Library was that the entire area that was renovated or expanded must be used for a minimum of 20 years as a library if the City closes the library or uses any part of it for a different purpose they will need to refund the $3.2 million to the state the grants that were not awarded if the city applying for the grant did not agree to those terms and in addition the city of milville added $770,000 to the matching funds required to obtain the grant since the first realization over 15 years ago that the building housing the milville public library was in need of major repairs and had outgrown its current space one of the top concerns of the Board of Trustees was what would a renovation and expansion do to our monthly operating expenses including the fact that we would not be able to increase the number of Staff members The Architects designed the building around those concerns taking into account the placement and visual range of the front desk restrooms elevator seminar rooms the light fixtures Etc and again when they chose the energyefficient heating and cooling systems their projected operating costs were taken into account when we set our fundraising goal when the pandemic hit everything including the grant was delayed by almost 3 years during that time the cost of materials Etc soared as did employee health benefits and utility costs minimum wage Rose by over $7 an hour over the past 5 years we were able to cover most of the overages by soliciting more donations applying for and getting grants and drawing down our endowment unfortunately not only have all those things exceeded the projected costs but the library has been flat funded for over 10 years forcing us to eliminate programs materials and activities that we had hoped to be able to offer once we had the space we have been beyond fortunate that many patrons realize the importance of the Library without them many of the areas and services provided would not be possible the computer compers that are heavily used purchased with donations and grants the Audi visual board and projectors donated and Grant funded family seminar room for child counseling Grant funded the list goes on and on for the last couple of years in February blank red hearts have been available for visitors to use to write a love letter letter to the library these were then displayed throughout the library showing visitors at a glance how important the library R is this year in celebration of the completion of the renovation and expansion and as a reminder of how money allocated to the library directly positively impacts the lives of the taxpayers in the city of milville the milville public library Board of Trustees asked to have why I love the library questionnaires distributed instead of the hearts we have asked our director Courtney Reese to share them with the City commissioners when she presents the annual Library report at the February 18th City commission meeting our goal is to help them see how much of a positive impact the library makes in the lives of its citizens how many services the library provides and how vital a thriving library is to milville and so the long and short of it is we have no plans to close the library in my um as far as I know there's not a City Commissioner sitting up here today that plans to close the library we're just struggling along like so many people are um in these uh difficult financial times but I thank you very much for your opportunity to speak so I just want to call your attention to the paragraph where it says the library was flat funded for over 10 years yes and a conversation we had yes and I told you who was in office and it was me and L prer comperry Bill Davis Dave venison May San dieago it was me that got it on the agenda to amend the agreement with the library to actually fund them more so this nonsense that I hate the library it's just that anybody tells you that it's nonsense so you guys can go back and look at the record if you want to go back and look and I'll address some more of this stuff at the end of the regular meeting thank you thank you thank you all very much and thank you to all of the people in the room who are tax payers and help to fund the library as thank you Courtney Reese commissioner H uh Courtney thank you thank you for coming out uh We've run across each other at times yes throughout the city uh I want to State something and make it perfectly clear that's running around on the other other governing body of new of milville oh there has been and will not be any discussions of moving the milville police department to your building that's all over out there too that is crazy talk that is crazy talk but I just want to put that on the record and I know I don't have to tell you that no but I I reconfirmed that today between meetings here in City Hall I didn't have to reconfirm it but I just want it on the record well that was part of the reason why I stated that in my in my remarks was that I know y'all don't want to have to come up with $3.2 million to give back to the state of New Jersey uh so and that that would be what would have to happen if you were to take any part of the building and so I knew that that wasn't a reality for the general public I know I don't tell you right that's just get it out there as a matter of public record exactly and thank you for what you do oh thank you thank you uh commissioner please continue with your discussion if you have any for the work session uh no I'll wait till the regular meeting we've got a closed session we need to get to discussion of commissioner sui anything nothing else commissioner casabon nothing vice mayor Watson um I don't have social media so I don't really know how this generated I could just tell you that we have to be very careful what we say we're up here in this commission uh you know about certain places and I think that's probably where it generated from so for any um mixup or misunderstanding that anybody misread coming from this commission I apologize uh there's the return on there's the return on investment is uh serving the people when it comes to the m Public Library that's the return on investment um I have no desire to see that Clues uh it's actually uh spent a little bit of time there after high school I to walk there with a good friend uh we spend some time in there you know after school so uh I do have a history with the library so don't want to see that closed but uh just a good reminder for the Commissioners to make sure they watch what they say so there's no confusion with social media or any impacts on the city and to uh piggyback what vice mayor said you know as I do have social media but you can see on social media that I always have been at every big popular Library event there has to be um and I enjoy it and I know a lot of people that benefact from the library and beneficiated towards the library there's a giant board that says all of your donors for this new building project right when you come in the new way in the back um and it's very nice it's very organized inside and I know the library will continue to do great things and provide great support to the city of mville through the school kids through young adults through old adults I'm sure still today there's not everybody that learns how to and knows how to use a computer um but that's something that Melville Public Library could teach you and it is probably even more pivotal moving forward um throughout any new business uh no mayor public comment portion we have now reached the public comment portion of our meeting anyone who would like to address the commission please go to the podium state your name address your concerns and please limit your concerns to approximately 5 minutes Mary messic right Mary messic here of milville my thing with for both presentation well discussions one yes I understand the needs that the city has I've I've lived here for a little over 23 years and I've seen things that most people really don't understand or have seen before yes I know we need different things yes I know we need to get more police out here so we can have more boots on the street but also too I've said it many a times we need to emphasize what milville has and a good prime example of part of announcing or advert izing what milville has tonight from 5: to 5:30 on channel 6's news they're doing a segment on our Army Air Museum that's something that we should be very proud of and we should be shouting it to the top of the hills milville has a great history to begin with we've got things here that most people don't even realize mcti is a trade school that'll teach you heavy machine operating how to be a medical assistant how to be a nurse's aid and other courses that's out at the airport 10 to one there might be maybe three people in the room that's here now that they know of that existence without that and without some form of advertising what milville has to offer nobody's going to really pay attention to the city of milville they're going to deal with all the rumors the negativeness that everybody seems to be showing for milville oh you don't want to go here because of this you don't want to go there because of that what about the good things we've got major highways we've got an airport we've got a railroad we've got waterways we're only maybe an hour's drive to the shore maybe a half an hour to to a maybe fill or something like that they're good points why not emphasize them yes I understand that amount of money sounds like a lot and yes we could do a lot with it but if we don't sit there and start showing what we have how do we expect to bring more people in to spend money here much alone get ratables and I and as far as the library goes yeah I love the library it also offers a place for people that are in a domestic violent situation who can talk with their Advocate who can't do it at their home for one reason or another they can go there and I know that for a fact because I've actually taken a person to meet their Advocate there for for domestic violence and mental health program that library is important and six weeks out of the summer the library is there to offer kids books activities and things to get them so they're better in reading and they can end up getting better grades in school because yes our kids are the future and I thank you thank you Mary sorry if I'm out of breath see the equivalent of running from a vinent gym to here go ahead Greg uh Greg KS 409 pach Drive mville New Jersey uh first on the library I just want to say I didn't expect to say this it's a great asset um personal story I was a member of the first class out of milville to get the Congressional award in noville um and my first volunteer place was the library I did my first 100 hours under former Congressman londo's supervision and librarian Richard King's supervision direct supervision uh to help me get that bronze medal knit three years later I was sitting in in Congress getting the gold I can't think the library didn't help get me there the second second thing I want to talk about um first I want to say I am not here to speak on behalf of an organization that I may be a member of or I am employed by I'm here to just let the commission know I believe that you just made the biggest mistake possibly of this fiscal year by letting Mr horn Go part of my job in my professional career is managing a calendar of events I know exactly what it takes to advertise a calendar events I know exactly what it cost in staff time to make a calendar of events happen I know exactly what it takes to communicate Outreach to make a calendar of events happen Bill Horn was cheap he was very cheap and I'll be honest the organization I work for Mr romnick I've seen you you came to my kayak uh my candy kayak as a matter of fact there hasn't been an event in this count that I have been at that I have tabled at that Mr horn has not been at be it a fundraiser for a nonprofit organization be it a community Fair be it school activities he's the guy that's there he's the guy that's in the community he is the only thing that is literally showing anything positive in this town and I guess this country is all about money now so ratables I guess we're going to have Doge mville that's all Patricia kier's 409 pach Drive um I too want to address the issue with Mr horn I know that $20,000 can go a long way and I thought about this all day today um and reading Facebook and the social on all and all the sites everyone is so negative and I'm guilty of putting negative comments out there too but Mr horn gives some positivity um if the money is coming from Economic Development I would really like to know if that money can be used for other things and if it can't be maybe that's where it should go the 20,000 um I volunteer for a couple of um nonprofits in town and one is mville Women's Club one is uh citizens united for Mars River and my weekends are tied up with those and I see Mr horin at them routinely and then I look at his posts and I am impressed with his work and the more I think about it the $220,000 maybe a good deal um instead of taking it off the agenda or voting outright no perhaps you could table it for two weeks while more research is being done especially where the funding is coming from because if it is from Economic Development and it can't be used for other things like the police department the fire department or employees salaries that I really want to see these people get decent contracts because we need to keep the people here and we need to um really reinforce our safe Department of Safety so um I've kind of done a 180 on this and I I think Mr horn is a good value to the city thank you thank you Mrs K Deb Malone 1304 GLE drive I'm here today as a taxpayer and concerned citizen not as a school board member I just want to clarify that uh I was home watching this and I got so upset I had to come down here I am ashamed that you are getting rid of something that is so important to the city people complain all the time that we have bad public relations that only we see only the bad stuff here you have the opportunity to keep good news out there and you're turning your backs on it $20,000 it's not that much money believe me I know I I work on a ton of budgets I know $20,000 used for negotiations what's that going to give the police a dollar a piece two bucks a piece that's nothing but you have the opportunity to put milville in a good name out in front of people and you are squelching that opportunity I am ashamed I am furious and I am totally embarrassed by this commission thank you thank you Miss Malone if we could keep the comments uh short because we have a closed session we have an attorney from Massachusetts that's waiting to speak to the commission and uh otherwise we're going to be uh late for the 7 o'cl meeting is this the place where I should speak in favor of a resolution then well you can you can do it during the public comment of the regular session if you don't mind this is only so this is only the work session I'm sorry that would be fine I thought get this late no regular sessions are come after we'll be starting soon thank you thank you closing comments of Commissioners commissioner Sue uh two things first I stand by what I said and I will explain that at the end of the next meeting second you guys have to realize that a lot of things here you're thinking in one dimension you can't think in one dimension there's 28,000 people there's a ton of different needs ton of different departments everything has to work and mesh and go together you should understand that by now if you don't and you need a little more explanation I'll be more than happy to sit down and talk with any one of you progress no just thank you everyone for your comments I will take them under my advisement thank you commission H nothing just time Bas mayor Watson Greg thank you I did not know you have Congressional Medal um big thumbs up for your comments appreciate those same with Debbie sorry Mrs Malone um thank you for all the comments and the right positive direction that the city needs to move in resolutions okay we have a resolution authorizing a close session for the following matter the drba lease under contract negotiations and attorney client privilege make motion second got a motion in second roll call please commissioner huitt yes Vice May Watson yep commissioner cabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor Ramer yes okay motion carries e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e --------- ##VIDEO ID:3P_Z_S4dBKM## I'd like to call the regular session meeting to order roll call please mayor romic here commissioner hu here commissioner sui here vice mayor Watson yes here commissioner casabon here may I please have Reverend Brian Robertson come give the invocation and can we please stand and afterwards salute the flag in addition to being pastor at First Methodist Church I just want to note that I'm also glad and proud and humbled to be one of the chaplain for the police department here in the city of mville and also for the fire department would you pray with me God as we come together tonight to take care of your business for our beloved City I ask that you would give all of the Commissioners wisdom tonight to seek your face for it Lord to keep in mind the good of our entire community and city as they deliberate the things that are before them tonight and Lord that we as the folks who also care and love the city of milville so much would be blessed because of the work that they do where there is fear we ask for peace where there is anger we ask for calm that your decisions would be the ones that get made here for all of us we pray it in the name of your love amen amen amen I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all this meeting meeting is being conducted in accordance with the Oakland Public meetings Act of 1975 was advertised posted and made available to the public as required by Statute the municipal clerk is directed to include a statement in the minutes of this meeting Madam clerk are there any changes to the agenda uh yes mayor we had two we had the addition of resolution number 12 authorizing a Professional Services contract with McManaman Scotland Bowman to serve as Redevelopment Council services from June 8th 2024 through June 7 2025 and an amount not to exceed $50,000 and also the removal of resolution number one which was awarding a professional service contract to artc thank you bills make a motion to pay to Bills second motion we have a motion to Second pay the bills roll call please commissioner huitt yes Vice May Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner Sue yes mayor romic yes a motion carries minutes make a motion to approve and dispense with the reading of the following minutes and proceed with a regular order of business January 7th 2025 close session January 7th 2025 reorganization meeting January 21st 2025 work session second motion we have a motion and second on the reading and the suspense of the minutes roll call please commissioner huitt yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor Ramic yes your motion carries public comment on agenda items only we have now reached the public comment portion for agenda items only if anybody would like to come to the podium state your name address your concerns on what agenda item and please limit your comments to approximately five minutes thank you yes my name is Fred Jacob I live at 7 oral Lane and I practice law at 600 West Main Street I'm here to speak in support of the resolution that commissioner casabon was gracious enough to introduce and I believe that is resolution number 19 Roman numeral 3 so what I'm here to seek is the city's permission to make improvements on the island on oral Lane at the end of the cues act and Jean Claire works for my office as the receptionist and she will give each of you uh a diagram that will make it it easier to understand the history and and what I'm trying to do we do have extra copies if any member of the public would like one thank you so if you look at the first page that's going to show you on the bottom orial Lane and the culde acts to the right and the left of it on Heron and teal the property that I own is lot 17 right up here at the top and the island is right in front of my house at the top shows a tax map of what we call Woodland Shores that which is in yellow is Phase One when the Mars River Company determined that they were going to develop this area along Union Lake and phase one is in yellow uh they deed the property uh to a developer in that they controlled in 1965 the other areas the one in tan is Phase 2 and they submitted that in 1973 sometime later the area in green was done now we may as well call this Wawa because Wawa really is Mars River Company and the developer and so forth and their plan was not that this would fall on the city but it would fall on the homeowners through a Community Association and the Union Lake Association was formed for phase one and all the property owners were supposed to contribute maybe 30 35 $40 a year towards the islands so all of the property owners in phase one had a share in all of the islands it wasn't just the orol lane residents controlled what happened on roial Lane but the association didn't meet apparently and they stopped paying dues and in the early 1980s a superior court judge said the Union Lake Association is defunct and they can't enforce anything I mean there's covenants and all the Deeds can't be enforced in phase one so if you look at page two that's a diagram of the orol lane Island and where you see these little dots I would like to insert border stones and you can see them in some of the other pictures and I I'll come back to page two but let's look at the pictures and you can see I mean they're pretty big and they would be inserted into concrete the reason for this is that makes it so much easier to maintain I purchased the property in front of this nine and a half years ago and Dr Davies who used to own my property had at least 20 aelas uh planted in the inter circle and or the Outer Circle and the Inner Circle had rododendron and Laurel but they reached their 45 to 50 year life cycle about two years ago and they all started Ed to die and it looked terrible and it was costing a fortune to maintain because I don't have the time to go out and do it so I had to pay landscapers to do it so I think you can see this particular picture is looking north to south and there'll be borders stones in this area and we'll plant a couple of plants in there and then this inner part which has the dead raded dendrin that used to be beautiful every June uh that has to be taken out and we'll put something there it's a little bit more sun resistant rododendron really isn't but you might see Dr Davies put a sprinkler system so he could pay to sprinkle the island and I've been doing that for the past 9 and a half years but there's nothing there to maintain anymore so I think it will be beautiful uh if you allow me to do this I think it'll set an example for the other Islands uh the last page is the house that Dr davies's built and that I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase that looks toward the lake and so I will do it all at my expense but the city now owns it the Property association is defun the other two areas at Woodland Shore has Mr Jacob can you please wrap up yes I will do that uh so I'm just asking your permission uh the city now owns it and to do something like this I feel like I should have City permission to do so thank you thank you and real quick I'm looking at a picture from Google streets from June of 2023 and what you provided they don't look anything alike so hi uh Greg KS uh 409 Peach Drive uh milville um I just had a question about resolution 8 um it was I noted inside sorry I got to pull up this citation I noted inside of the um resolution it noted um NJ uh 7 colon 3-26 and I just just had a quick question um I I know under that law there's a provision that if Green Acres is changed um sometimes there's a chance that like the state H like the city has to put that comparable amount of land into place somewhere else or joining and I wasn't sure if the city had done that and if the city hadn't what they had done in L of it to like I'm not that super familiar with the law so I guess I'm this is part of me learning some something a little bit too from you guys but my question is um like how like is the city going to like set aside another amount of Green Acres land or do they not have to like is there something else in the law question might be more for Brock I'm not sure um that's my question if I may Greg this is you'll notice there's a plump station yeah right so this that area should have been cordon off or whatever a long time ago somehow it it doesn't appear on the Green Acres maps and so it's a matter of re that's that's the out okay was um is any other land that's comparable being added on or is there I think wherever they had it or whatever but it was through engineering so yeah I wasn't sure if like there was another piece added on or if there was like we had the state paid us for that land or they did want us to pay for trees or something for something else this is all this is all all that has to get done from the I understand that I was just curious if there was more if that comparable amount of Green Acres land was being added somewhere else or ajoining because it seems like under that statute it's required but only under there are circumstances where it's not I wasn't sure if we F yeah engineering would know exactly so okay thank you sorry seeing no one else I will close public com public comment on agenda items only presentations presentations uh we have none petitions and letters please I just need a motion to receive and file a letter from Drew Scarpa resigning from the Zoning Board of adjustment effective January 24th 2025 make a motion second motion we have a motion a second on petition is letter item number one any comments uh yes Drew was a great addition to the zoning board he just has other conflicts and would like to prioritize his time towards that roll call please commissioner hwit yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner casabon yes commissioner sui yes mayor Ramic yes he motion carries reports of Commissioners commissioner huitt go ahead well it has been a uh bit of a tame two weeks since the last meeting as far as uh fire and rescue goes fire mostly rescue is always busy uh police department like like always is uh is very busy uh that's really just about all I've got uh I don't know if people realize it or not but I'll put it out there election time folks next week if you want to get interested Ed in pulling petitions you can call our Clerk and give her your name and address cuz petitions are ready for those of you that are willing to come up here and take these seats just want to let they not ready but I'm taking names and numbers for when they are ready they're under legal review correction not ready ready that's it mayor thank you commissioner hu I was going to be like wow it's February 4th and we're nowhere near the primary but I was like 569 signatures sir are you yeah do you have something to do commissioner H yes I'd like to receive and file the yearly uh end of the year EMS and fire department reports for the year 2024 make motion second have Motion in second receiving file the end of year for fireing EMS roll call please commissioner huitt yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner casabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor romic yes motion carries now anything further that's it mayor thank you commissioner suie yeah so last week we started taking down the Christmas decorations unfortunately the bucket truck broke and it's out for repair we did order we do have a new one on order but it's not here yet we should have the old one back by the end of the week we also held the royalty party on January 25th had a great turnout the children had a great time we want to thank the river Riverfront Renaissance Center for the Arts for hosting us and colonial forest Florest for Their donation of flowers our next Recreation event will take place on Saturday March 1st which is the annual snowflake Plunge at Union Lake starting at noon and just a reminder we are still accepting pet photo contest entries until February 23rd your photo can be dropped off at the senior center located at 1500 South 2 Street or here at City Hall that's all thank you thank you commissioner suie commissioner casabon all right streets and Roads 36 tires collected 14 appliances collected 281 electronic waste received 125 Christmas trees collected 2750 bags of loose leaves collected the move out of the 15 Street Warehouse is complete are salt building is now full and ready for the next storm loose Le collection is now over the next collection will be in April residents to place loose leaves out the last two weeks of March for the April collection brush collection will be in May residents are to place the brush out the last two weeks of April for May collection any questions please contact streets and Roads 825 7000 extension 7388 recycling in January we replac 13 damaged cart nine missing or stolen carts we delivered carts to six residential units that previously did not have them we exchanged one set of carts for a resident who wanted a smaller one there were 12 carts purchased by residents 20 notices of violations were issued in January one ticket was issued in January from July through December of 2024 we recollected and recycled 3, 3616 lb of a cover electronic this will result in a revenue of $3,610 for the city this will go into Solid Waste utility please remind residents of the county has started a reusable shopping bag recycling program the bags are sent out to be cleaned sanitized and donated to the local food banks these bags may be dropped off to streets and Roads at 15th Street between 7 and 3 Monday to Friday except for holidays please remove any tags receipts Etc from bags before dropping them off please please remind residents that the acua has been instructed to not pick up recycled parts that have contamination trash in them residents can get a list of items that are acceptable curbside on our website or at the streets and Roads office at 416 south5 also please remind residents that they can bring their TVs computers and other small electronic devices to the 15th Street along with used motor oil and antifreeze that are uncontaminated and they may be dropped off between seven and three Monday to Friday except for holidays that's all we have for them thank you commissioner casabon VI mayor Watson uh just a touch base on just a couple things we have going on um water department would like me to uh let residents know that they may be receiving letters uh for their meter upgrades uh it's going to be for the first phase uh the company is going to be called metertech um that's who you're going to be scheduling your appointments through uh I believe it's through phone or by email uh again this is for automated metering Services uh it also has a couple other things like alarms uh you know that basically if there's a high water usage it'll send a notification to the water department uh to investigate you know things of that sort um for the sewer department been in contact with them over the past couple weeks uh s has been providing engineering department uh with information on sludge disposal um hopefully we can have like again a presentation um you know to increase what we're doing so far with ordering our uh new um rolloff truck um the progress that we made with cro um basically we would like to see new equipment installed uh you get better solids quality uh get a cheaper prod or or cheaper cost to dispose of our sludge at the sewer plant so uh nice little project to work on with s and Wayne from engineering uh engineering they have a lot going on I'm just going to touch base on a couple things uh was water treatment plan upgrade which would be the uh third secondary clarifier um there was a couple potential change orders uh had to do with ordering some products uh as far as like um different um pipes with different Linings uh the issue was basically um you know lead times how far out we can get these materials uh so engineering department is continuously working diligently uh you know doing what we can to make sure this uh project continues we have uh the iron Avenue Force main um making Headway that with that project uh one of the things that were brought up was maybe uh doing a route adjustment um so interested to see where we end up um there was uh SSI Crews performed these tests on January 17th 20125 pits were done at the pump station in the yard and on the roadway to locate existing utilities for the Force main pits were were also done along Ireland Avenue Arlington Avenue and the alleyway the route adjustments were made to allow for the existing Force main location uh the field measurements were taken at Park Avenue and Fon Street for determining the required pre-cast manhole depths um and once we get some more information uh we could probably move forward with that route change um also engineering has been working with the contractor um when it comes with refill material uh instead of hauling DGA and we could just material that we pull from um you know basically the job again meeting with the engineering department uh they're working with water department um on a plan to uh Place well 15 and 16 back into service increasing the water system capacity um beginning stages uh there's a lot of work that has to be done to determine if you know cost and you know possib of doing that including water tests uh lot to really highlight uh but I think we'll just kind of keep it keep it there for right now thank you thank you vice mayor Watson the first 2025 public hearing of fiscal year 2025 2029 Community Development block grant what we commonly call cdbg annual action plan and the continuation of the home H re investment partnership will be held on Thursday February 27th 4:30 p.m. right here in City call commission Chambers the information received from interested persons at the hearings will assist the city Committee in the preparation for the 2025 annual plan the hearings will address housing community and economic development needs and development of proposed activities all Community organizations applicants are encouraged to attend the February 27th public hearing for this consideration and as a note the next meeting on the 18th I will say this as well for another reminder for those on January 29th in coordination with the parks department Melville Babe Ruth had a visit from major league pitcher Chase Petty he went to mville school system till he's about 14 and then moved outside of the City and continued playing baseball was first round draft pick 26th overall um for the Minnesota Twins got picked up by the Reds reason I'm saying this is because his Chase Petty the chase Petty Foundation is all about giving back to Melville and all about giving back to Melville bab Ruth that's where he's realized where he started his adult playing career or young adult playing career and he gave a check of $3,000 to milville Babe Ruth milville Babe Ruth does a lot through what they can do and what what the city parks department can help out and I know the dedication that the parks department does for all the sports athletic teams but to seeing some seeing one of our many professional athletes truly give back to the city of mville in that specific way it means a lot to me I have the state of the city address on February 12th at New Jersey met Sports Park General the greater mble Chamber of Commerce always puts that on I hope to see a lot of our city employees there throughout all of our um departments and I'm excited to what I have ready to be sharing I talked about the great news um I will wait till the end of the meeting to popular news that's on social media and on the local news channel but I'll wait for the end to say that ordinances in the first reading okay so go our first item is an ordinance author authorizing amendment to motor vehicle and traffic regulations Municipal Code article 10 schedule 21 to remove parking for Reser parking reserve for handicap persons at 207 East Broad Street make motion second motion we have motion second on ordinance in the first reading item number one any comments roll call please commissioner hwit yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner casabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor Ramic yes motion carries resolutions Okay so item one is actually going to be a resolution approving Towing operators license application for the period covering January 1st 2025 through December 31st 20126 for the following applicant on man Towing and Repair LLC of South Second Street mville New Jersey make motion second motion we have a motion to second on resolution item number one any comments roll call please commissioner HT yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner sui yes mayor ramik yes motion carries uh we have a resolution authorizing Frederick a Jacob Esquire to place border Stone set in concrete on the orol lane Island at his own personal expense make a motion second motion we have a motion and second on resolution item number two any comments yes I I I want to thank you Mr Jacobs for doing this it's you know been a long time since I had a conversation with you but thank you thank you for doing this you know you see people do care about what's going around you the baseball player so you see that kind of stuff so it's great thing yes as I will say uh it's a thank you for coming here and showing what you uh plan to do and as I said I looked at a 2023 picture um and I assume that picture is uh more current um to this presentation so I look forward to seeing uh the progression of the project and when it's done assuming this passes roll call please commissioner H it yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner sui yes mayor Ramic yes okay motion carries item four is a resolution authorizing the award of an opioid education mini Grant to the milville board of education and the amount of $19726 120 signed by our CFO Susan Quinones second motion we have a motion to Second any comments roll call please commissioner huitt yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner sui yes mayor Ramic yes motion carries item five is a resolution awarding action Uniform Company LLC for all items at the prices listed on the attached bidder price sheet and an amount not to exceed $21,000 for the period commencing February 4th 2025 ending February 3rd 2026 make motion on resolution item number five with that I do have certification availability of funds in the amount of $21,000 signed by your CFO Susan Quinones second motion we have a motion to second on the resolution any comments yes I like the fact that we're one company now I guess we were in past Year's various different companies so it's all one so I think we can well we did that to save money before save that's a great idea yeah no I mean separate them before save money yes roll call please commissioner huitt yes Vice May Watson yes commissioner casabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor raminick yes he motion carries item six is a resolution awarding a profession Professional Services contract through a fair and open process appointing Allen Associates to serve as broker of record for employee benefits for the city of milville for a one-year term make a motion on resolution item number six with that I do have certification of availability of funds based on the percentage of premiums uh signed by our CFO Susan Quinones second motion you got dollar it balances out yeah through there thank you for the insurance any comments sorry I got a motion in a second any comments roll call please commissioner huitt yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner sui yes mayor Ramic yes and motion carries item seven is a resolution amending resolution number 16822 and changing the contract purchase order from Allegiance trucks to Route 23 auto mall for a not to exceed cost of $154,200 for the purchase of a 2024 utility service truck make a motion and with that I have certifications of funds from Susan corones Chief finance officer in the amount of $154,200 second motion we have a motion in second a resolution any comments yes this is for the water department uh it's to replace a utility van that has transmission issues uh this piece of equipment goes out uh you know to service water main brakes emergencies and or uh scheduled planned repairs uh so you know if you want water we need the equipment to uh make sure that gets carried to your home roll call please commissioner hwit yes Bas Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor Ramic yes he motion carries item eight is a resolution authorizing support of the State House Commission final application to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for minor minor diversion of Parkland and Riverside Spring seta Patriot Park block 123 lot one make motion on resolution it Number Eight Second motion have a motion in a second on this resolution any comments yes this is all for the replacement of what we call City Hall Main Street Bridge roll call please commissioner hwit yes Vice May Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor renck yes motion carries item nine is a resolution appointing Kevin Hall as Deputy Emergency Management coordinator to fill Sherman Taylor's unexpired term which will expire July 31st 202 five make motion second motion we have Motion in second on resolution reporting Kevin Hall as Deputy Emergency Management coordinator any comments yes uh Kavin alone would being a paid firefighter here in milville he is also a dispatcher cand County dispatch and he will make a great addition to our office of emergency management roll call please commissioner hwit yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner C saon yes commissioner sui yes mayor Ramic yes commission carries item 10 is a resolution authorizing a purchase order with Aon Consulting Incorporated for gb75 Actuarial valuation services in an amount not to exceed $29,500 from January 1st 2025 through December 31st 2026 make a motion and with that I have certifications of funds for $29,500 from Chief Financial Officer Susan Quinones second motion we have a motion to second on the resolution any comments roll call please commissioner huitt yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner sui yes mayor Ramic yes motion carries item 11 is a resolution authorizing adjustments to the tax and utility records make motion on resolution item number 11 second motion we have a motion in the second roll call please commissioner huitt yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor ramc yes okay motion carries item 12 is a resolution awarding a Professional Services contract through a non-fair and open process appointing McManaman Scotland Balman LLC to serve as Redevelopment Council services in an amount not to exceed $50,000 beginning June 8th 2024 and ending June 7 2025 make a motion with that I do have certification of availability of funds in the amount of $50,000 signed by our CFO Susan Quinones second motion we have a motion in a second any comments roll call please commissioner hu yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner casabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor Ramic yes a motion carries new business I just need a motion to authorize the following social Affair permits which is the milk elk Sports Frolic at the Elks Lodge on February 17 2025 from 5: to 900 p.m. and the milville Elks comedy show at the Elks Lodge on May 3rd 2025 from 5 to 11:00 p.m. make a motion second motion you have a motion to Second any comments yes okay I was going to say I didn't want to break bu good I think he can okay yeah uh yes I have a comment I enjoy going to the sports Frolic uh every single year um they always have great speakers and that's what I just asked the secretary of the office I am the secretary make sure I got it right I didn't know if you're treasure or not um Secretary of the Elks uh I didn't know if this was public knowledge or not uh but it I guess it is now so uh for more Eagles great uh Ike Reese will be the presenting speaker of the meville sports Frolic um I know it does sell out it's always a great turnout and uh I look forward to uh being there on September 17th roll call please commissioner HT yes vice mayor Watson yes commissioner cabon yes commissioner suie yes mayor renck yes motion carries public comment portion we have now reached the public comment portion of our meeting anyone who would like to address the commission please go to the podium state your name and address your concerns please limit your comments to approximately 5 minutes thank you I have other is that Debbie Malone 1304 Gil Drive Melville uh just want to bring up the resolution that we did take off the agenda for this meeting we did speak about it 19.1 at the work session and I just want to reiterate my statement from the work session that with the exception of commissioner sui and mayor rinck about the artc and Bill Horn um PR dep PR PR business I I am again still shocked at the shortsightedness of this Commission in this um I just want you to take a minute look in front of you do you see anybody at those tables I have been coming to these commission meetings for over 50 years when I would come I usually came with my husband who worked at the time for the local cable TV and would um take on his camera and shoot the whole process there would be Joyce vanaman sitting there two or three other reporters even sometimes the radio station they're not here now so what we have to rely on now is social media and we all know sometimes how that works had that with the with the poor Library this week with the lies that were going on so I just want to say that we need to rely on social media we need a good positive way to get the news out because we don't have that when a business comes into town you know what they look at they look at meetings they look at businesses they look at what's going on what are they going to see they're going to see a big zero they are going to see nothing this city commission I understand is being a Pennywise but you're a dollar short on this it's very narrow-minded Mr Watson you said you needed time to review I heard you say that I was getting in my car to come here you needed time to review how long have you been on the commission two years now and you haven't reviewed or studied this shame on you I'm sorry it's $20,000 you said M Mr hu that you know we might need that money for the police budget for salaries okay can that money be used for police budget I know how how budgets work some money cannot be used for certain things so are you sure is that $220,000 really going to matter in the scheme of things is it going to come out to what one two three bucks for each cop no it's not so I just want you to think about you need and I have said this I I actually sat in a meeting with uh Lisa orendorf when she was mayor with Tony trongone as the superintendent with uh Mr compari and I think Mr Davis was there as well and we discussed how important PR is and good PR so I want you to consider that um we need as a commission to become aggressive with presenting this city in a positive light instead of the constant negativity that we are always seeing thank you so much thank you Miss Malone uh Greg KS um 49 pach drive again I want to State I am not speaking on behalf of an organization that I am employed by or am a member of that being said I believe this was this decision by the commission to even remove this let alone it was cowardly not to vote on it frankly in a political sense but to remove it when there's literally nothing thing but bad news coming out of milville for instance we just watched a post go up on social media the primary new source of milville it was talking about how our police are leaving here and finding better places to go this is in the same week I watch my landlord get assaulted in front of me and I work right here on this block so I can't help but notice you find 50,000 to pay an attorney somehow possibly could that have been spent better than maybe having like an associate a partner and a paralal look at it when maybe you could have just done some positive advertising like I said in my profession part of my role is organizing an events calendar I know the amount of staff time and the cost that goes into it you guys were getting a steal because this man showed up everywhere and you know there aren't really many people that have civic pride in this place anymore there's a lot of fake stuff there's a lot of social media fakery a lot of the attention economy of it but there's nothing real this man was real he cared about here he had a genuine care and what did you do doed it that's all hi Cindy Cook valine I got a couple comments first of all I didn't even know that artsy was going to be discussed at all I didn't look at the agenda but I W I had come to the meeting planning on complimenting bill bill has done a phenomenal job of covering activities in our city he is at every single show at the the Levoy photographing fantastic pictures of what's on stage and the different acts publicizing what's going on in milville I think he needs to be commended and I think we owe him a round of gratitude now the other thing I would like to say is this is not meant to be critical okay what I'm going to say now is not critical I honestly would like an answer right now on social media there's a lot of discussion going on about the city of milville and our library I would like it addressed once and for all are you planning on taking over the library in two years and making it into a court system or something or what's going on after we did the donations and the funding and the fundraising and everything for a library it kind of upsets me that there's rumors going around and like I said I am not saying this being critical of y'all I think this is a rumor that needs to be put to rest once and for all is our library remaining a library thank you that's I will I we wait till everybody gives com well I'll address this at the end Courtney thank you though I just would like to thank three of your Professionals for working with me on this island uh project Bob Thomas is an absolute treasure he does the tax maps he's the best surveyor and his knowledge is amazing uh Ryan Rosenberger the tax assessor is the consumate professional always so polite always so willing to help and the other Treasurer who worked with me is your solicitor Rock Russell he is always available he is always knowledgeable he is so capable and you would never be able to replace what he brings in his knowledge of the city he grew up here his family is from here uh he's an Irreplaceable resource in my opinion so thank you thank you Mr Jacobs how how it's good to see you guys again uh William Jones 610 East mbery um I just had a question for you guys about uh if the city had a a actual like working animal control guy uh the reason is because the cats in our area down where we live like within four or five blocks are destroying everything like I mean spraying houses constantly mating getting into garbage spreading it all over the place and me and a few of my neighbors have even gone around and started like getting gloves and picking up trash in the area we're just trying to see what's going on cuz I've called the number that's on the website at least a times and left messages and nobody's gotten back to me I'll be more than willing to like bait the traps and let them know when it's full like when there's a cat in there but I haven't gotten anything that that's all I had I appreciate it thank you Mr Williams Mary messare of milville once again I'm going to reiterate what I stated during the work session as far as the Public Relation were the advertisement I've come to these meetings for quite a long time and I've said it time and time again we need to publicize milville on a good note stop the negativity yes we've got businesses that are now starting to come into the city how much more can you get with nothing to show the good a business card says something about you about the business well we don't have a business card that says mville is a good place so we need to advertise it I'm tired of seeing the commercial for vinin L Love New York come see uh Mississippi see all of those commercials but we don't see nothing that says come see milville why I can answer that because we don't have a public relations I've said it time and time again as I said before we've got highways it's easy for stuff to come in and stuff to go out as far as material equipment products we also have an airway we've got a Waterway we've got railroad other than that what do we got word of mouth Yes we have events and yes sometimes social media can be a very nice thing but the majority of the time it's a Debbie Downer and I do really believe we need to invest in that I'm not equipped to do the advertisement yeah yeah I can network with people that's easy enough to do but we need somebody that knows the advertisement business and needs to be able to do this and I thank you take a minute somebody see what's going on yeah I heard uh Joe S 51 dors Side Avenue uh I'm here as the coordinator of the mil Municipal Alliance committee and let's just know that um this Friday we're taking a 15 kids up to the Elks pure leadership conference which uh they they'll have a weekend they have workshops uh they bring presenters in from all over the country I'm not sure how long the Elks have been doing this I know we've been going up to it for 30 years and uh I'd like to thank you for uh making that happen this year because uh during covid the the governor took a good portion of our money from the alliance not just our alliance but all the alliances and uh without the support that you have shown us uh we would not have been able to do this this year and so I thank I also like to thank you for uh the uh program with the the schools to bring in speakers again they're going to bring in speakers from all over the country and uh without you we would not have been able to do that so uh thank you very much thank you Mr Souther Mr MC hi Tom McGinty I'm from milville um I just have another question uh last meeting we had the thing with the uh emergency hads M removal and has anybody determined what the material was that needed to be disposed of so rapidly and what happened to it and what did it cost that's the first question I have um I've been also uh made aware through private entities that the there is a serious homeless problem down on private property off of the railroad leading from Second Street on out practically to the uh Edge of Town out there by uh uh Orange Street and so forth um we looked at it went out drove around took some pictures talked to some people and then I talked to representatives from the city I I sent some pictures to uh different ones and made them aware of the situation that was at hand in the last week There's been an additional six tents come in there and I don't know how many other people um Atlantic Electric got involved because the uh they tried to I don't know they set fire to one of the poles out there it's a high tension line that runs from Second Street on out so now we got Atlantic Electric involved um we have uh the Winchester and Western is concerned that they're going to come through there at night at 2:00 in the morning when they do and run somebody over along those tracks um there's drug use there's theft they're burning wire which presents a real problem um just look that up up and they've destroyed the woods behind this uh business that spends Millions a year um in taxes here and uh uh an aggregate I should say um and in addition um complaints from the area businesses out along 7th and e8th Street um they break in uh the Phenom Factory I spoke to the representative from there because I heard she wasn't too happy at night when they're leaving there they had to escort people out to their cars because the homeless come out of their tents and uh their uh pallet homes and whatever else they scrap together out in the woods and they generally they practically accost people uh the woman is really upset and she's lost business because there are older women women that used to come to her Zumba classes and so forth and so on she said they can no longer come because she's they're afraid to come in and out of the building out there on 7th Street um one minute remaining we get de okay the uh this was brought up before I tried to do a presentation I got cut short then too but uh to make the long and short of it something needs to happen you know we've been kind of looking at this we pass an ordinance and to my knowledge not really anything's occurred um I spoke to a couple of the policemen they were very nice they're proactive but somebody's got to take the leash off and let them get out there and do their job thank you I got pleas seeing no one further I will close public comment of the agend the meeting closing comments of Commissioners commissioner huitt yes thank you mayor uh I'll hit a couple things quick then I got one thing to spend some time on uh Mr Williams uh if you'd like to see me after the meeting give me your number cats are a very touchy situation we do have an ACO ACO I'll get your number I'll get in touch with him he'll call you and he'll explain the cat situation with you it's not like dogs and stuff uh so get with me before you leave if you would please Cindy can you hear me Cindy can you hear me okay just checking earlier no no I'm not being funny folks uh earlier in the work session we discussed there was a discussion about the library you weren't here so I can't blame you I'll repeat myself again cuz there are other people here in the chambers there has not been there will not be any discussion of the milville PD or the courts moving into the library I mentioned that earlier when I was talking with Courtney uh that way you you know and Cindy like a lot of people are in here you have my phone number reach out especially when it's the Facebook commission that you're looking at thank you uh Tom we had a talk the day didn't we yes bear with me here I followed up on this with the chief the chief went out there today this is his text to me after I followed up with him in person this is his text to me earlier today just to follow up I went out to the A Street area and walked through the encampment I also sent officers out there in the afternoon today to identify and give notice to anyone that out there of future trespassing complaints we don't sign trespassing complaints we talked about this the other day the owner of that property and we all know who it is must step forward must sign the complaints anybody goes out there and decides to take like I've seen on Facebook again the Facebook commission is going to fix everything folks going to go out there and put bar wire up electric fence Bulls you're going to be breaking the law the owner knows sign a complaint the police will then do what is in their power once a trespassing complaint is signed now I know for a fact yeah you talked about the Phenom Factory and we talked about this to an extent the other day so I'm a little bit beside myself there's a house down on the end of the road on the phen 8th Street that I used to go to a lot till my friend passed away and I watched the people moving in and out and in and out of that old building along the railroad track shoot I've even watched them ride what I call the mville Express right into town when the trains come from Down Below in sand plants this stuff that's going on I realize that the owners of the property are upset the owners of the property need to come forward they need to sign the complaints we're not the calvary like people are suggesting suggesting we don't just go out there and round them up guess what they found the other day when they went there also one person now I know they're back there and I know where they are in the rest of the town so so do most people but come on man this uh you're on you're on that Facebook post too uh we got to work with the PD to do things the correct way to get something solved next thing you know we don't do that we'll have people coming here and hammering us what's PD doing they're like Renegades well I'm not going to listen to that follow the rights follow the rules I think I told you the other day I wouldn't know Mr Harris unless he came here and introduced himself to me I remember his dad well when he had the dealership down to bottom the hill but come on man uh a little bit of help here Mr MTI this is his time to talk okay little bit of help here there are people that are pushing this it's they're always pushing we had a lot of talking tonight about correcting Facebook uh you can't talk for the gentlemen you can't you can actually get yourself jammed up bud come on I know you want to help I know your heart's in it but you can get jammed up out there trying to inter interact with these people let them sign a trespassing complaint the PD will do what is in the realm of them legally doing with that all that mayor progress thank you commissioner hu commissioner cosin no I just want to thank everyone for their uh feedback to us and I appreciate it thank you commissioner suie yes first I'll talk about the Bill Horn situation um had him on the agenda before a motion did not get seconded I did not want to put him through that again so that's why I had the resolution removed from the agenda I sincerely hope that my fellow Commissioners reconsider their position if you can't see the relationship between good publicity the advertisement of businesses that have come here particularly new ones the advertisement of small businesses that are here to see growth in business if nobody knows people are coming here nobody understands that other other people won't come you really need to look at that as an investment not as money that could go somewhere else because the investment is what allows us to pay our employees and our police officers our firemen our our Park workers our office workers that's what allows that to happen you're increas in ratables if you just leave it to raising taxes there's not going to be anybody here all right with that I'll move on to the new building we don't have the environmentals yet complete I hope we get them um something else the public should be aware of and in addition to the $8500 a month rent that we're paying under the lease we are also paying the taxes so that's approximately 11,100 bucks onethird of that goes back us that Parts a wash so it's really closer to 9,400 Bucks 9,300 bucks as a cost of the taxpayer per month now on to the librarian social media so I remember my grandfather told me about an event and this event occurred in 1938 so I was pretty young I don't think anybody here was actually present for the event but some of you probably remember hearing about it and this event was a live radio broadcast by oron Wells the broadcast concerned an invasion of the Earth by aliens The fictional work was called The War of the Worlds I'm sure some of you remember the movie starring Tom Cruz well even though it's several times during the broadcast it was announced it was fiction people actually believed it it caused a mass panic and that reminds me of what happened to the library this week so I'm going to take you about back about three years when myself and and uh former business administrator comper met with met with a couple members of the library executive board and we were informed that the library needed more money to operate there was no other extra money at the time there was no land sales at that time was really no money to give them in subsequent meetings we suggested the library look at other attempts to create other revenue streams now some of them aren't possible because of the uh the grant but we suggested maybe a business center or coffee shop or there's others ideas I'm sure there's other libraries that are creating a revenue stream somehow so those those ideas were then rejected we were told that the library itself and that is that separate entity with its own bank accounts would run out of money in a few years if they didn't get more in talking with Miss Reese after I went into the library would I I'll get into that she informed me that if they don't get more money they're going to have to cut programs so that is what I mean when I say we built a beast we cannot feed we have to have the means to Fe feed that Library which goes back right to Bill Horn and attracting businesses and more ratables and all that stuff so after seeing a bunch of comments last week on on social media stating the library was closing and the building would be used for police in court statements that are not true presently I went to the library yesterday so as as I approached the counter there were two people working I approached the young gentleman nearest to me and I told him that I heard the library was closing he said yes that's what's happening then the other individual there asked who I was I said I'm commissioner sui and I'm the guy that's getting blamed for closing the library so she said would I like to see the director I said absolutely so then I went back to Courtney's office and we had a nice conversation and then I explained to Courtney how I had an intermediary contact a member of the library executive board to support econ Economic Development publicly at a meeting the answer to that request was no the reason was that they didn't want to make a city a city commissioner mad by doing so well I you know sorry but that's a little shortsighted on their part I believe and Miss ree also pointed out that the library had not received an increase in funding for about 10 years and I asked her if she knew who was responsible for that increase and she said no well I knew who it was because it was me I put the resolution on the agenda my fellow Commissioners at the time approved that increase and that was the first increase they had in many many years then so I remember the executive board returned my call yesterday and uh you know I stand by my statement we we need a library that works with us a board that works with us to Foster Economic Development because not to do so is the antithesis of of creativity and Trump and worship it's required for our city to succeed all of us to succeed so however much I disagree with them not supporting it some good has come of this so you know M ree talked at the work session and how they're doing a fundraiser great you guys like the library contribute please please contribute now for all those on social media I'll go back to the War of the Worlds and it was mentioned by somebody else here you know in 1938 radio and newspaper that's how you got your information you didn't get it from TV it certainly didn't even from social media now local news that's how we get it here we get local news now through Social Media newspapers don't cover TV covers very little except I know Mr Romney's going to talk about something they cover so and it's unfortunate the falsehoods and lies are believed more readily and more easily than the truth this is especially true when comments and explanations that give opposing points of view are not allowed or are removed by the administrators of those Facebook pages I urge you to use caution when when when when stating something on Facebook when spreading those rumors really look into it I know Mr Worthington had a post where he said email commissioner Sue nobody emailed me not one email concerning the library not one so please check your facts you know there's there are some social media pages that say no bashing no police bashing name calling or personal attacks well that seems to only apply to certain people now I left that page I left it in hopes that the attacks would calm down but they didn't they increased so when I asked to rejoin that c that page my my request was deleted I I sent a message to the in in uh to the administrator and I told her that if I weren't allowed back on I would address it at a public meeting I'm sure some of you saw the post that she put up there saying I threatened her well I know that there are many people that redefine words but me talking about posting on a public or not a public it's a private web page but posting on Facebook certainly should not be construed as a threat there was no no uh implication of harm or any such thing like that so you know someone else said on the page let the defense on the field and I fully expect not to be let on that page again and that's okay but keep in mind that you're getting a one- side point of view and that page is M the good the bad the ugly and it doesn't always deal in fact keep that in mind folks please now let's see so at the end of the last meeting something happened that should never happen at a commission meeting at the end of that meeting Mr Wan approached me and without my consent placed his hands on my shoulder and my breast I might even have felt a little squeeze now I don't condone or nor nor will I tolerate unsolicited non-consensual physical or sexual contact I don't expect any of you to not to tolerate that either so it's okay to talk okay to get angry it's okay to have a discussion but please no more physical contact and with that progress thank you commissioner Su face mayor Watson uh touching base back on the RC um past couple years I did support artc um you know but more recently and beginning month of December uh is when advertising fell underneath my powers and duties uh as I've stated before there's other things that have been taking priority for me to inquire and investigate this um and I well to give you an example trying to keep a good solicitor here with us um many other things that i' again want to refrain from speaking about um because in my eyes it's mostly just damage control uh so moving forward with RC I do want to take the time and make a a good decision uh something against Bill Horn or RC I think they done a fabulous job as far as you know their presentation what they have to offer and uh you know what they're doing with the Levoy um so I'm just asking for more time that's what I was asking for um to answer one of the questions that was at the podium uh the material that was at the warehouse we went over this already uh but it was 120 bags of limestone 60 bags of fertilizer 150 tubes of commercial adhesive sealant 55 ground 55 G drum of liquid uh that had flammability and health hazards on it other than that was unidentified five gown bucket of flammable liquid eight bags of ver I can't even pronounce that word vermiculate yeah vermiculate thank you very much blood pressure is getting there got uh partial pallet of boxes containing an assortment of hand sanitizer a partial pet of boxes containing sanitizer wipes uh I don't remember the what the price was but I think the not to exceed amount was 25,000 phase one environmentals did come back uh and the recommendation was to do soil samples soil samples were already taken we were waiting results for that uh you know I love how we keep uh as man I love how we keep bringing this to attention uh it's like a child throwing a temper tantrum um but if you didn't want to pay taxes and you didn't want to pay lease maybe you should have went with the idea I presented a year ago when I wanted to buy or use city-owned property and put brand new structures up for our departments other ideas were presented uh and at the last minute we were lucky enough to work with a good family like the gelli to put this building together for Parks Department social media I'm not a social media fan uh but that doesn't have anything to do with the business aspect of it and advertising for the city of milville um I do it more so because I'm trying to set an example for my children I don't want them have social media because I believe that there's too many people in this world to influence them and it's already hard enough being a parent so moving forward with that and advertising I don't have that background so I need to inquire about it ask questions I guess I would start by saying all right well if artc is making this page or this website let me see how many views it has right I guess it's a good start maybe call around the businesses like commissioner suie recommended and you know seeing what their feedback was and it was very um you know positive and thank you for those that you know spoke at this Podium and I'll take that in consideration um and touching base on social media and even what we say here at the commission to feed into or respond back to messages on Facebook right I believe any residents can you say what they want to but us as professionals us as Commissioners us that represent the city of milville should probably refrain from some of the things that we say at the meetings and on Facebook that's we're elected officials we should represent the city well and sometimes what I see when people send me pictures of what's posted it's an embarrassment and I think that alone would probably push people away push businesses away because we have somebody on our commission that wants to respond in that manner and uh I think before my blood pressure gets any more I think I'm just going to end with that thank you vice mayor Watson Miss Malone thank you thank you for your comments at the work session thank you for your comments here Greg K I think if I called you Mr K they sound like your dad um so Greg thank you for your your comments on positive advertisement and the positive of what Civic engagement can do for the city Cindy Cook I think you got your answer for the library and what we previous discussed um I didn't want to interject I wanted to hear what you wanted to say fully and we had a full response ready for you uh Mr Jacobs thank you for what you are doing and what you're going to continue to do and I thank you for thanking the city employees of those that helped you um to get to this step and in ever and and for any future endeavors Mr Williams think you got a conversation with Kirk after this Mary messic I thank you for your comments in the beginning of the work session or at the work session and at closing comments to the public closing comments I really thank you Mary Joe thank you for all that you do good to see you back in good health I enjoy when you come here and get to talk about the mmac it reminds me of you know only becoming a commissioner to realize what mmac stands for yet it was my main sponsor during when I played Babe Ruth and uh we called it MC because we were 133 and didn't know what it was but uh the milville municipal Alliance committee does a great job and I thank you Mr Southerland state of the city is on February 12th I get it it's less it's uh 8 days away um if you can go please go if not you can always somebody was talk uh commissioner H was talking about uh watching uh Quinn's uh broadcasting it'll be live broadcast on Quinn's uh broadcast channel if you do not wish to publicly engage the good news about Moville that is on local news Outlet I just would like to see a raise of hands who watches CBS News regularly spontaneously sees a post do you I know it's not my go-to I have a I use another app when regularly but thank you to CBS News Philadelphia on January 31st they came down to the city of milville to interview me and my family why because my family made a Snowman and that snowman was named snow Quan Barkley by My Little My my little cousin and it got over you're talking about social media attention uh on a Eagles fan page it got over 18,000 likes over 1,200 comments and over a th000 shares from my aunt posting a couple pictures of a snowman that had Eagles dve raped raped all over it so we had reporter Nikki D Martini de mtii come down with cameraman Tom and uh they did a nice story about us uh it was about an hour and a half long it premiered on January 31st at around around 4:45 p.m. and it highlighted milville and uh during the interview I said who I was and the video broadcast doesn't have you know my name or any of my family's names in it but the news article does um people see that we're excited obviously you know I appreciate all fandom of any sports um but I see like Mr McGinty wearing green um I don't have any professional enough looking to wear green um so City Polo it is uh but definitely you know we might are probably a town that bleeds green obviously I see residents um and my friends even that support other teams but uh definitely go Eagles and go birds and always reminder that you know commissioner hu made it if you're interested in running for uh this city commission seat you know elections uh for this year are November 4th um and always elections have consequences so I thank each and every one of you coming tonight I thank each and every one of you that are watching tonight may God bless the city of mville maybe God bless the United States of America I have a motion for adjournment make motion so move now I can exercise