This is the July 15, 2025 council meeting here in the council chambers. Would the uh clerk please read the statement of compliance? This meeting is being held in accordance with the open public meetings law duly announced, advertised, and posted in the municipal building. The meeting will
adjourn no later than 10 p.m. unless a majority of the council members that are present vote to extend the time. All rise for pledge of allegiance. Council I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. You may stand for a moment of silence. Let's just remember those people in Texas with the flooding.
Thank you. Uh, roll call. Mayor Kamala here. Council President McCann here. Councilman Pignatelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose here. Councilman Saliani, present.
Councilman Slinski, here. Councilman Talini here. All right. For the mayor's report, uh I'm going to I was going to lead off with the carnival, but I see uh Chopper Russo is here, so he has an extensive report. But I just want to say thank you for all your hard work and your committee did. It was a absolute success. And also I want to just
recognize the access for all group. They had over 350 people that had signed in for the two hours for special needs down at the carnival. And it was really it was really nice to watch these these people with disabilities really have a good time and with the ride slowing down. So, thank you to your group and
access for all. Uh, the new playground, as you know, there's a new playground that goes was being replaced down at the recfield down by the Danny D building. I'm happy to report that the rubber surface was uh completed yesterday, Monday. It's going to require 48 hours to set. Uh, the contractor will be
coming back Thursday for the final inspection and walkth through. And once he clears it with the burrow, the playground itself will be open. And it's got very nice patriotic colors. It's red, white, and blue with a blue rubber floor, which is nice. Uh the Oakland paving 2025 road paving
program has concluded. Uh all the roads have been built and paved in Oakland for this year's budget cycle. Uh Yawo Avenue uh currently Yawo still will be done this year. I just want to remind everybody this is a separate grant with DOT. uh DOT they expect them to sign off
I believe at the end of this week or next week and it's then going to go out for bid uh once the specifications are ready and we expect to do paving and milling and paving and fixing up that corner sometime late summer early fall. So that that's in the works. Uh the
flood buyout houses I'm happy to announce that New Jersey D finally after years has issued permits uh for the houses to be torn down by the Truman area. Uh right now Boswell is currently working up plans and specifications so that we can get that out for bid. Once
they go out for bid, we'll have a meeting and those houses will be coming down. Uh Patriots Way bridge update. Okay, so here we are. As you know, you've seen my letters that go out. Uh we really got hit with a lot of rain delays in the summer here, but I am happy to report
the crews are now working six days a week. They are working on Saturdays. Uh the southside parapit has been completed. Uh they're currently working on the power pit on the northbound. That's the Jersey barrier that you see on the side of the bridge as you're driving across it. If weather holds out, they expect all the concrete work to be
completed at the end of next week. So that's good news. No more concrete work. Once that's completed, they will be putting in they'll be milling and paving the road. They have to put in the guide rails and they also have to do some scoring on the bridge itself. But uh we're making good headway now that
they're working six days a week. I'll have more updates in the August meeting. uh Burger King property. So uh as I report in the past, the planning board had asked the property owners to meet with uh members of the planning board, our engineer and the property owner. Uh
so we met up there last week. Uh some of the recommendations that were made to make it more palatable and more presentable. If you look up there right now, the light poles have all been taken down. The the sign boards have been removed. The site's been cleaned up. They're still working on the street signs and some of the garbage has been
removed. And uh they're also be going to be planting some trees up there along the the rightway. So uh they are working on that. It was a positive meeting with the owner. Uh Oakland Drugs, it was announced at the last planning board meeting last week that uh hopefully the looks like the Oakland Drugs application will be coming in front of the planning
board next month. So if that happens, we're going to see that property get developed also. So we have another vacant property that which will be moving forward in our downtown quarter, which is really good news. Uh Truman Lights for the recck program. Uh D issued permits last week for the Truman
lighting project. Uh so right now Boswell is working on specifications. Hopefully that'll get ready to go so we can get that done for the fall soccer season. Uh McDonald's. Um I signed the developers agreement last week and I'm sure people have noticed they're currently working on the site preparation right now. They have
machines out there. The uh down tree service was out there. So they're getting the site ready for uh for construction. So it's moving along very well at this point. We expect to be done by the end of the year if everything holds out. And I want to give the council a report on the senior bus. As you know, the council decided to
allocate an extra $10,000 for the senior bus usage. I'm I met with Ariel uh last week, discussed it with her. I'm happy to report that ridership is up 43% from January July from last year to this to this time this year. It's being utile
utilized by our seniors for medical appointments. So, if they need to go to their doctors or hospitals, it's being used by uh taking them shopping to different shopping locations. So, it's really uh the seniors, this is really a wonderful move by the governing body to allocate an extra $10,000 for our seniors and it's working out really well
and it's really a good program for our seniors. And with that, that concludes my report. Thank you for your patience. And do I have a motion open to public? So move. Have a second. Second. All in favor? Mr. Carlson, what can you tell? I go first. Yeah. No, you go first.
My name is Nico Carlson. I live six Ganono away. Uh, today I'm here to confess that I'm a dream stage musical composer that's been harassed by the police, sheriff, and FBI for 40 years. They
amplified my mind. A Norwood police detective amplified my mind 40 years ago to try and listen to me compose music. They didn't have the technology. My father's kept it secret and I'm
disenfranchised where I've received no money for my work. I've been told that the Sony company's the one that's collected the proceeds, but I haven't been able to get any lawyer or any representation.
And as far as the police and sheriff, they're all mental health. I get put in the mental hospital. So they can just leave at that time. I'm a musical dream stage musical composer.
I have been since childhood. Thank you, Mr. Cross. Thank you, Mr. Russo. Hi, Chopper Russo. 392 Rampo Valley Road. I brought some handouts. I didn't count right. So, not every You're going
to have to some You're going to have to share. So, you got to share. I think you gonna share. I got to give mama on his own because you know what he's from city. I am not messing
with her. I know better. All right. Oh, wait. Thank you, buddy. Okay. To piggy back what you said before, outstanding job with access for all,
there were actually 350 people that did attend. Um, you know, Jody did that. I don't know all the other people I helped. She had other people helping. Um, I think it worked out really well that there was a break in between. We may re realign it and adjust it um to go
maybe a little bit earlier, go 2 to 4 and have the break between 4 and 5. Um, we did find out from that that the people that are there aren't really there to eat or whatever. So, you know, everyone with the 501c's with the food,
you know, really wasn't worthwhile for them to be there. So, I think what'll happen next year is the the Midway people, Blue Sky Amusements have two trucks and they'll be there. Plus, we provide we provided uh water.
And yes, Rich, that's one of the bills in there. Listen, for years we did it three days. We decided to go to a 4-day platform because we couldn't afford to take the insurance. So, the extra day was for insurance for things that may occur. All
right? Because we do have the nonprofits and that's what really makes it better. Instead of having to come at 5 in the morning, at 5 in the evening on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we ask them to come at 6 because so many of us work and we're all volunteers. So, we
kind of cut down in the hours, but we stretched out to other day just to give you some past history. Um, I I got to give credit to Maim and Joe and Danny and and uh Jimmy and so many
that were there. Oh, um Kevin, I'm going to mess up all the names, but I apologize. You know, it's a group effort. It's a team effort. We got we really have a good good synergy. Um, God blessed us on this one because as you know all the different events that
we do throughout the year, Halloween, Easter, Christmas tree, manora, toys for tots, Memorial Day parade, Easter egg hunt, uh environmental commission, we do some films and and generally like um if someone like
Yeah, townwide cleanup. So, you know, here's our only challenge. We can't keep up with inflation. Let's just talk about like the guy with the bouncy castles. They were like 450 back in the day, Rich. They're about 8 900 now, right?
They've gone out significantly significantly gone up, you know. And one of the things that I've tked the team to do is our next meeting is in September. We're going to go line by line on everything that we do and we're going to
determine why we're doing certain things because like when I started our responsibility was carnival which brought all the money and the events that we ran were were Halloween Christmas tree manora
Easter egg and we financed the memorial day. Well, since then we picked up fever pitch. We control. When you say control, we run the whole Memorial Day parade and then we're doing Toys for Tots and
environmental and not not that any of that's wrong, but these became legacy things and just like we were approached to do something with the um with Great Oak Park. like we'll help like finance the opening for food and refreshments
and things like that, but we didn't want to get painted in a corner where now I got to we we have to sponsor two or three bands every year, you know, because the income's not there, you know, and and the fact the inflation is
killing us, you know, so if it wasn't for the team, it wouldn't make it work. We have some great people there. Um, what's our new kids, Nate, that works at Walgreens? Brian. Brian. Brian. He's great. You know, we we got
people coming from all over. We just got a new applicant. By the way, we're doing thing things a little bit differently. I mean, we always want warmblooded individuals to be participate, but we'd like them to meet with us first because some people come with aspirations. They
think it's this way. They show up one meeting and they're gone. So, we want everybody to buy in on it, you know, and it's good because everybody has their little who likes to do the Halloween, who likes to do Easter, Christmas tree, and that kind of thing. So, there's some good synergies there. So, I hope I'm not
over the time. Anyway, here's the sheet. Just to give you a little background, our advanced sales were $12,145, which was below average and it was all water uh weather related because if you
look on Wednesday, we got whacked. We closed down at 8:30 on Wednesday between the lightning and everything else. And we only took in 12,000. And then on Thursday, we were closed at 8:00 because of the rain and
the lightning. And then the skies opened up and God blessed us and we took in almost four. I'm so so upset. We only took in 39,897. I needed 103 more to say even 40,000. But that was one of our top day grossing
days ever. Um and then on the on that Saturday, we closed out just shy of 30,000. So the total gross dollars was 106,497. If you compare that to 2023, we were up 12.6%.
Which it never felt it. I mean, the beautiful thing about those kiosks not handling cash, it's more efficient. Very rarely we have a line, you know. Um, and then 2024, we're up 11 and a half%. So those
numbers are good. Uh, our expenses were the tents. We we had to re revisit the tents because of the new fire rules and things like that, which nobody likes change, but that's another thing. You guys all gave you guys had a lot of odd
initiative with this one. Um, between the fire and the insurance, it was kind of nuts. But the tents were only 6378. The bathroom is 48.95. That's something we're going to look at. Um, you know, our experience has been that when you had the plastic bathrooms,
I would see people that I know like, oh my, I'm not letting my kid use this bathroom. I'll go home and I'll be back. They never come back. So, that's kind of the commitment there. I know we have the bathrooms over by the hockey rink. We're going to discuss that. Get matrons. And
then we had some additional supplies. That's the other thing to save money. We're cleaning the bathrooms because the guy's whacking us like 600 bucks to clean the toilets. I mean, come on. You know, so we bought mop and cleaning supplies, water, ice, and ice and water.
A lot of the water we we gave out to um the people that came for access for all, which again to Jody, hats off. That really took off. I mean, she came off a good foundation and just took it to another level. So, total expenses 11,498.
Our net proceeds $23,459.98. I mean, look, if if you just Halloween, Christmas tree, manura, Easter egg, and the parade, that's like six grand each. The parade's
what, about 10, 11? Yeah. You know, um, so we really got to watch. I mean, if we were fortunate that Wednesday and Thursday came out good, if we didn't have that Friday and and Saturday, we might be coming to you guys to give us some money, you know. So,
we've been very frugal. And I know that Ally says fireworks are no good for the environment. And I know Maddie wants them. Thank goodness we have not done fireworks. We would be hitting you up for money. It's not just the cost of the fireworks itself. It's the additional
DPW, additional police, and the amount of parking that would lose. So, if you like fireworks, come up to Erskin Lake. I do them every year. All right? And I don't charge. But, um, you know, I love doing it. Even though everybody aggravated the heck it was that close to
saying, but anyway, all I worry about is when I see the kid, the youths of Oakland, they come up and they go up to that thing and their head hits it and they light up. That was me several decades ago. I'm not gonna go into the numbers, man. All right.
Have you ever uh thought about or knocked around an idea about asking for corporate sponsorships? Yeah, but I wouldn't want to do it to Carnival. No. No. Because it impacts us negatively. It doesn't help us. We lose 350 parking spots. Then I got to get we got to get
the buses plus the bus driver. I mean, ask them to help us finance it. That would be fine, but there's not. We don't see the benefit. But it hurts the carnival. Hurts the carnival. Yeah. To have the fireworks at the carnival. Talking about fireworks. Oh, as a standalone thing.
Jason, I'm talking about the fireworks. We've talked about like doing possibly an Oakland day. We got a um an anniversary coming up, you know, but we got a plan now. Mhm. You know, we're going to address that at the next public event. I mean, Yeah. So, when's our next big
one? 15th, right? two two Yeah. two years next year. Well, I'm not talking about the Fourth of July. I'm talking about for It's in two years. All right. So, we got to plan it now. All right. I'm cool with that. Yeah. Just don't do the fireworks at the
carnival. It's more of a negative impact. I didn't mean sponsorship for fireworks. I mean sponsorship just for the carnival. Yeah. Well, uh, talking about sponsorships, uh, Craig Popus, my neighbor. Oh, I didn't mention him. He helped out, too. He's going to go
looking for sponsorships to dress up the veterans park. We did some drones and gave it to him. So, we'll see. Rich, no cost. Just have to run through Jeff. Anyway, I'm going home. I didn't eat dinner. Thank you, Chopper. Thank you to your team. This is fantastic. Thank you. It's
all for the youths. Do I have a motion to close the public? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. All right. We're up to approval of minutes. We have June 17, 2025 minutes and June 17, 2025 executive minutes.
Excuse me, mayor. Sir, when which ones did I not make? July third one. I did not make the You were not at June 23rd. June 23rd, the special meeting.
Yeah. And then you were not at You were at ex exec I believe. No, you were at the third I thought. I think there was one I was called out on ambulance call. So I I didn't attend.
No, that was the June 17th meeting. Okay. That was the one you left at in exact was June 17th. Okay. So I have to abstain from that those two. Okay. Minutes and exec. So I marched that first. 23rd and then June 23rd.
Thank you. All right, we have June 17th, 2025 regular meeting minutes. Anybody have any changes? No. Motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? I All right. June 17th, 2025 executive
meetings. Do we have any changes? If we do, it has to be done in executive session. Not seeing any changes. I have a motion to approve. So moved. Have a second. Second. All in favor? Abstain. Do we have to do a roll call? I'm abstaining.
All right. Say you want to roll call then. All right. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pignatelli. Abstain. Councilwoman Rose. Yes. Councilman Saliani. Yes. Councilman Sinski. Yes. Councilman Talamini. Yes. Should I go back and do the roll call over?
June 17th. Regular minutes. Regular minutes for June 17th. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pnatelli. Abstain. Councilwoman Rose, yes. Councilman Saliani, yes. Councilman Slinski, yes. Councilman Talamini,
yes. Thank you. All right. June 23rd, 2025 special meeting. There's a motion to approve. So move. Second. Any discussion? Roll call. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pignatelli. Abstain.
Councilwoman Rose. Yes. Councilman Saliani. Yes. Councilman Linski. Yes. Esteain. Councilman Talamini. Yes. June 26, 2025 special meeting minutes. Do a motion to approve.
So move. Second. Any changes? Discussion. Who second? I'm sorry. I do. John. Steve's laughing as a distraction. Council President McCann. Yes. Sorry. Councilman Pigmanelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose.
Yes. Councilman Selani. Yes. Councilman Slinski. Yes. Councilman Telamini. Yes. All right. July 3rd, 2025 special meeting minutes. Have a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Second by Mr. McCann. Any discussion?
Not seeing any. Roll call. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pnatelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose. Yes. Councilman Saliani. Yes. Councilman Slinski? Yes. Councilman Talini? Yes. All right. July 3rd, 2025, executive minutes, special meeting. Do I have a
motion to approve? Second. And John for a second. Any discussion? Not seeing any. Roll call. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pignatelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose, yes. Councilman Saliani, yes.
Councilman Sinski, yes. Councilman Talamini, yes. Thank you. Okay, we're up to special announcements. Franklin Lakes Rotary Park sign. We look like to put their sign up from 8:2125 to 9:2125 for the car show. Motion to approve. So moved.
Second. All in favor? I Okay. Was that Carol? Was that Kevin? Yeah. All right. We're going to do the resolutions. I'm going to pull out 2522. Uh does anybody else wish to pull any
out before I run down the through these for an exempt consent agenda? Okay. All right. 25211 refund Oakland Senior Center. 252 212 refund Oakland Recreation. 25213
refund of taxes Vanetta Title Agency. 25214 refund of taxes for Co. Catali Catali. 25215 refund of utility payment. 25216 acrewed t time payout for mmuri.
2527 resolution to extend fire code assistant temporary position. 25218 authorized lean for property cleanup. 25219 chapter 159 opioid settlement CVS Allegron and Tevia 3-year 25220
temporary hire construction office 2520 25221 resolution fixing the bid threshold persist pursuant to NJSA 40A1-3 and appointing qualified purchasing agent
25223 appoint municipal alliance staff liaison 25224 Four, authorize grant submitt leaf composting 2025 NJD and 25225 award auction bids. Have a motion to approve.
So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Second from Caroline. Roll call. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pnatelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose. Yes. Councilman Saliani. Yes. Councilman Slinski. Yes.
Councilman Talamini. Yes. All right. 25222. The reason I pulled this out, this is a resolution authorizing the appointment of municipal representatives to the Bergen County Development Regional Committee. Uh I have two appointments. I've appointed uh bureau administrator and our CFO. The
council needs to appoint two members as well. Currently, Mr. Saliani and Mr. Sisinsky are appointed these positions. Question for council presidents. Do you wish to appoint somebody new or would you like to keep them the way it is? I would like to keep them the way it is. Okay. So, if that's acceptable to the two who are
serving. I'm fine with it. Thank you, council. I'm fine with it. Thank you. I'm fine. Thank you. No further discussion. Okay. At this time, uh going to move 25222 resolution authorizing the appointment of municipal representatives to the Bergen County
Community Development Regional Board Commission. Motion to approve. Mold. Second. Second by Mr. Saliani. Roll call. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pignatelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose. Yes. Councilman Saliani. Yes.
Councilman Slinski. Yes. Councilman Talamini. Yes. All right. We're up to ordinances. We have 25 code 971 for introduction. This is the filming ordinance. And as you know, we uh recently passed a resolution
for filming in town. Uh Mr. Coons, you want to just walk us through this? Uh, sure. It's essentially for the most part the same uh set of regulations that you adopted via resolution at the last meeting. This will make it permanent by the adoption
of the ordinance. Uh just a couple of things were changed after staff review. We actually added a provision concerning the use of burrow uh water and fire hydrants uh and established fees for that as well regarding water meters and
a regulation that um it must be DPW staff uh that operates that hydrant. Otherwise, it covers all of the same things in terms of fee structure, uh that you need to provide proof of insurance, a safety plan, proof of notification to affected property
owners, uh and basically just sets up some regulations there to make sure that it doesn't become a burden on the community. Uh and I want to point out that uh the timing was ideal uh in adopting the resolution. We had a production company come in. I think it
was the following week. Uh and they did uh some filming up in Ramipo Park and it netted us $1,000 for the for the permit. Okay. Anybody have any questions? Not seeing any. Do I have a motion to
introduce 25 code 971 filming ordinance? I'll move. Mr. Pnatelli, do I have a second? Second. Mr. Sisinski. Uh roll call. Council President McCann, yes. Councilman Pignatelli, yes. Councilwoman Rose, yes. Councilman Saliani, yes.
Councilman Blissinski, yes. Councilman Tam Talamine, yes. Final adoption of public comment will be August 12th. All right. Next, we have for introduction 25 code 972, amend 9-2.3 fee schedule for recreation fees. And I
believe this has to do with roller hockey. Mr. Uh, yeah. relatively straightforward change recommended by the rank uh committee for the upcoming season. Uh it changes the grade structure uh a little bit and it reduces actually reduces the fee for
participants in grade 10 through 12 um because they have a shortened season. They play less games uh and they still wanted to do something that was uh you know at a I think at a price point that would attract enough players to to run the league. Anybody have questions, concerns for
administrator? Not seeing any. Do we have a motion to introduce 25 code 972 amend 9-23 fee schedule for recreation fees? So moved. Mr. Talamini, do I have a second? Second. Second, M. Rose. Okay. Roll call.
Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pignatelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose, yes. Councilman Saliani, yes. Councilman Sinski, yes. Councilman Talamini, yes. Final adoption will be August 12th with opportunity for the members of the community to comment. Okay, we're moving
up to the final adoption of 25 code 969 forward planning committee. Do I have a motion to adopt? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Do we have discussion? Not seeing any discussion. Do I have a
motion to open to public? I'll move. I'll second. Second. All in favor? I. Not seeing any public. Do we have a motion to close? All moved. All second. All in favor? I
All right. This is Do I have a motion? Do we have a vote? Do we have a motion to uh approve the final adoption? Oh, we did that right. Roll call. Roll call. Yep. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pignatelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose, yes. Councilman Saliani,
yes. Councilman Slicinski, yes. Councilman Talamini. Yes. All right. We're up to final adoption 25 code 970 tennis court regulations. We heard the testimony about this last month. Do I have a motion to adopt? So moved. Mr. Pnatelli, do you have a second?
Mr. Talamini on the second. Any further discussion? Not seeing any. Do I have a motion to open to public? Some moved. Mr. Talamy, do you have a second? Second, Mr. Talamini. All in favor? I. Not seeing any public. Do I have a motion to close?
Some moved. Mr. Mr. Speaker, do you have a second? Second. Mr. Talamini. All right. Uh, all in favor? All in favor? I. Roll call. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pnatelli. Yes. Councilwoman Rose, yes. Councilman Saliani,
yes. Councilman Sinski, yes. Councilman Talamini, yes. Okay, we're up to work session. Code amendment property maintenance. Mr. Coons. Thank you. Uh so this is a follow on from the discussion brought up at the last meeting uh regarding residents uh
routinely parking cars on their lawns. Uh and indeed in the property maintenance code there is language currently that prevents such a practice in commercial zones but not in residential zones. Uh this change basically aligns the language in both
sections uh to prohibit parking on lawns uh throughout the community. Uh it also makes a couple of other technical changes, adds a job uh a position title to the enforcement section. And oddly enough, in our burough code, the
regulations concerning how how high your grass can get was actually not in the property maintenance code. It was in a different chapter. We're just moving it over there while we're doing this cleanup. uh it's just going to make it easier to administer going forward. So that is the uh sum total of the changes
for the property maintenance code. Discussion Mr. Mr. Pigell. Yeah. Uh I was under the impression we only had one complaint regarding parking on lawn. Uh Mr. said has been more than one.
Uh yeah, it's my understanding from talking with uh the property maintenance officer that it has been, you know, much more than one over the years. Uh and I think that this would give them the enforcement tool that they need. Uh you know, I don't think the issue here is
such when, you know, maybe somebody has a July 4th party or some gathering, you know, oneoff, something like that, but it's just routinely using their front lawn or side lawn uh as a parking spot. So, we're going to have exemptions for holidays
and birthday parties and anniversaries not explicitly. But what I'm what I'm saying is the complaints aren't about those occurrences. It's about people routinely doing it. And, you know, there's procedures set forth in the code too if you need additional parking spaces. There's, you know, you can there's
standards there for creating a driveway, having a legal parking spot on your property. If I remember correctly, uh, a discussion came up similarly about overnight parking and we said, well, if you have a special occasion and, uh, uh,
your car breaks down and, uh, they would be exempt. And the and the police department said, look, either you allow it or you don't allow it. So, I say to you on the parking on the grass, don't say we're going to say it's okay for
parties, anniversaries, birthdays, because that doesn't cut it. If the law says no, the the answer is no. So, uh I mean, if if if a person has five cars in the family and there's a driveway with
five cars, the first person down all the way down the bottom needs to leave first. You got to park all those four cars out of there. When you're talking about holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Hanukkah, rashana,
yankapor, I mean, we could go on and on and on about holidays. Yeah, we're going to allow it for them. You're going to wind up with 20 exemptions. And I'll tell you the truth, the police department's not going to like it. It's either you can do it or you can't do it. So, I'm not in favor of an ordinance
prohibiting parking under grass because that's when there's a special occasion, the cops are going to give them a summon because that's what the law says. Pat, my point was that the complaints that we've had have not been about those
instances. They've been about people regularly doing it as a standard practice. And I and I understand about not having a driveway big enough. I have a three-car driveway and I have four drivers in the family. So, when everybody's home, which is often, somebody's parking in the clubhouse
parking lot or on the ring road where there's striped parking. So, I you know, I understand that. If it's no, it's no, you can't say it's no. However, so people are not going to be able to park
for a party, graduation parties. Uh there's usually a lot of cars for them. The answer is going to be no. Can I just share something with you all? Um, when residents call the clerk's office saying, "I'm having a party and I'm going to have a lot of people. What
do I need to do?" We refer them to our traffic officer. They report to the traffic officer what they're doing or if they need overnight parking for 3 days or whatever, and then the traffic officer allows them to park and no fines are written to those people. So there is
a procedure in place for people who are going to have extenduating circumstances of needing parking to let the police department know that they work with. So I just wanted to share I think it's ambiguous. I can't I I think it's ambiguous. Perhaps a solution to what you've raised
is to not allow for parking in front lawns for more than 24 hours because that would eliminate any special occasions or something like that. But you would. Yeah, I I do think that there's a legitimate concern with people just storing cars in front lawns,
especially nonoperational cars if they're registered. There's nothing you can do about it. No, but that that's the complaint I've received, right? There's people who leave cars on the lawn for longer than 24 hours. And it to me it's an eyesore. It's not fair to the people who upkeep.
I think it I actually think Matt uh Matt the burough attorney's revision makes more sense. I I think we need something else though because if you're saying 24 hours, somebody can use it as a routine parking spot. They park on it at night, they leave in the morning, it's not 24 hours,
but it's being done on a regular basis. That's the sort of thing that we're going to get a complaint about that we get complaints about. Mr. Do we want to take this back and maybe work on this a little more with our Well, well, listen, the the other thing I'm going to say is whether it's a police officer or it's the the property
maintenance officer, there's discretion afforded as well. Okay. And there's and and for parties, there's on street parking as as well on most streets. Discretion title 39. I really don't see that discretion for
title 39. Am I right, Mr. Attorney? Are you saying the police have discretion in enforcing title 39? Some Yes. Theoretically, they should always be enforcing title 39. I think there is some discretion given, but the law itself does not allow for discretion
in Title 39. But we're going to allow for discretion on RAS. Okay. It's to me it's ambiguous, but look, I'm I'm one of five one of six people to vote on it. I'm just telling you my concern.
That's all. Anybody else in the council wish to comment? Does the council wish to move forward on this? I I move to move forward. Okay, Mr. Coons, she has to get a vote. If you have a vote on it, don't
Well, no, this is just discussion. Is there a way we can reward it? Well, is it if if if the council feels that there needs to be some specific carveout, we can work on that language and bring it back and, you know, move it towards
introduction at the next meeting with some sort of specific language. I mean, I I get what you're saying as far as like, well, they could just expand their driveway, but for someone like me, like I tried. Oh, you can't always I you know so you know and when my husband was live there were times
when we would have to park you know on the grass but you know so I can understand somebody's circumstances and in doing that you know but what are we going to say you can do it one day a week but the other six you can't
but Pat using that we we made a law regarding regarding uh not having not having Airbnb in town based on the number of cars in the street and parking laws. That was one of the things we took into consideration, right? So then we're being hypocritical over decisions we've previously made using the same circumstance.
I what I also could suggest is that I'm I'm sure that other towns have ordinances similar. So perhaps we engage in looking at what some other neighboring towns around us are doing to address this issue and see if maybe bringing that back to the council and see what language the council likes
based upon what similar municipalities are doing in regards to this type of ordinance. My again my biggest problem is that if the law says no the answer is no you can't do it not no however I I think that the issue that's trying to be too ambiguous
I agree with you councilman that perhaps we need different language but I think that everyone agrees here that the issue that's trying to be addressed is people just parking either inoperable or idle vehicles for weeks, months, years at a time in their front lawn as opposed to,
you know, I have a friend over and they're parking on on the front lawn. So, I think that yes, we can craft language to address that, but I think that there is a valid concern in addressing the idea of people are just using their front lawn as automobile storage. One of the things you can do in the
ordinance is you could give the police department the option of issuing a warning or a citation since it's a municipal ordinance violation. Okay.
No further discussion. Well, and and and to that point, right? So, this is not under title 39, right? It's under the property maintenance code. It's the burrow ordinance. Yeah. Right. And so the normal process used to remediate those issues is to issue an ov
which gives the person time to correct the violation. Right. So we're not just issuing a summon. Correct. Right. There they have a period of time to correct it. So you know property maintenance officer works with that person. They make a good faith effort to
to remedy it and it's done and it's over. You know, again, another garage sales, yard sales, moving sales. I mean, they had an estate sale up the street from me the other day. There's cars parked all on Riulo Valley Road,
you know, causing, you know, traffic hazard. So, you know, these are other circumstances where you get a lot of people parking, you know, uh um not only garage sales, what are yard sales. What's the other one? Estate sales. states.
Yeah. Funny. I mean, is the same situation with that? They call the office. I tell them, "Call the police department and let them know what you're doing because if you expect a lot of traffic, they need to be aware." And and that, you know, Pat, what you're describing there is potentially a traffic hazard. You're parking the
roadway, you're blocking traffic. That that's more of a motor vehicle violation than what we're talking about here, which again falls under the ospaces of property maintenance and how you keep your property. Okay. Mr. Vote, Mr. C, you want to work on the language on that for next meeting?
Well, what would council like to see? Have something talk more about. So, I I I thought um limiting the time makes sense even even if it uh maybe 24 hours or or consecutive days or
something like that, you know. Um that that makes but I like I like the the warning rather than the issuing that. And and I really don't think like the police aren't going to be driving around like, "Oh my god, they're parked." I I think it's going to be more someone's
going to call up and say, "Oh, this guy's been parking a car here. Can can we do something about it?" Um so I I I think if if it's not bothering anybody, it's not bothering anybody, you know. Um
I think um but I but I think I think it's it's it's quality of life kind of thing, too. It's you buy a house, you don't expect to have somebody parking three cars on the lawn and uh you know
you got to think about your neighborhip with with as the property maintenance issue generally is worked with a notice prior to any enforcement and with putting in the option uh of
issuing a warning for the first violation. that would that would obiate any need to um put in any kind of time restriction because it's really aimed at the serial abuser.
So that that would give that would give the code enforcement official and the police department plenty of leeway. I I I can see Pat's point also. Well, that but that but that's the point. Pat wants enforcement and that's what you need.
Yeah. So you get so the way you do it is you you you ex you you you put it in the property maintenance as you do anything else and you stick to your procedure as it's laid out and you do you can add that extra
um piece of it by putting in the discre you know first first time violation may be a warning. It it doesn't have to be right. If if the if the person gives you know the officer a hard time or if has no rational explanation, the officer has
the discretion to issue the citation. So that would obviousate that that that brings full enforcement the way to full enforcement that Pat seeing and it takes care of the problems that you may have had uh with your property. to take try
to take into account all the people that it might make sense to to reach out to other towns. So see see what they they have done with the parking. I had an experience in another town in Pose County where there was uh Morris County oh excuse me it was Morris
County uh where I parked I went to a party and I parked on by a sidewalk front of a house with no driveway apparently no garage no curb cuts. There was some rocks in on the front lawn
there in front of one of the rooms to the house. It wasn't a garage and I parked there and I came out and I had a ticket for parking in front of someone's driveway. That court hearing is set for the end of the month. It's a parking ticket, but but they you
need a lawyer. I know. No, but it was it was a little odd because um there's there's nothing in the in there in that town's ordinance that even remotely says you have to have curb cuts to have a driveway.
And so the or it's a little funky, but um clearly not deserving of a ticket, but let's not use their ordinance. Correct. Just so what would the council like to do? Move forward on this. move forward with
the with the caveat we're going to review of the town's ordinance and in boarding accordingly. Okay. Should we put it to a put it to a vote? Yeah. All right. Do a second on that. I'll second it. All right. All in favor or you want to do roll call?
You can do all in favor. All right. All in favor? I All right, Mr. Cumins. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're looking into it. All right. All right. Next one we have uh code amendment work session and outdoor dining. Mr. Coons. Sure. Uh some of you may recall the
issue of outdoor dining which really first came up in earnest uh as a consequence of the pandemic. Uh and that was allowed on a temporary basis. And then in 2021 we amended the land use code to provide some parameters for permanent outdoor dining at our
establishments. uh and subsequently the state passed a their their own statute regarding it and criteria for that. Uh we never went back and kind of amended our code. Uh, and I think that there's another restaurant that's coming in and they were looking
for the application and code enforcement zoning officer was looking at it and uh would like to see some changes to the code to make sure that aligns with the state statute and make sure has some things in there in terms of requirements um that better enables us to make sure
that the restaurants are doing what they need to do. Uh, so this includes uh the current ordinance just has a licensing procedure. It's sort of a permanent thing. This would change it to an annual license uh with a lower fee. Uh it would
provide uh hours of operation uh matches you wanted to pass you wanted to match the state more or less. Right. And they did look at some other towns too uh especially where the zoning officer also worked and picked up some provisions. There's some
things in there about what would qualify for a revocation or suspension of the license. um regulates signage, requires, you know, four feet of a clear pathway on sidewalks, you some things of that nature. Yeah. Give it a little bit more specificity.
Did the new state statute prohibit us from having local ordinances in this area? Uh honestly, I'd have to go back and check. I think we should I think that's the first threshold question. Okay. Yeah. I just don't recall. Sometimes when they pass an ordinance
like a law like that, they still give discretion. Yeah, it with us matching the minimums. Let's just see what that I have a question for clarity on on the time. It's 7 a.m. They're allowed to have outdoor dining.
Am I Am I wrong? That's what it would be. 7 a.m. Breakfast breakfast. Just open it'll be right. 7 a.m. Maybe outside. So, if there are residents in the area, 7 a.m. on a Saturday and Sunday, they're
going to be eating outside, hanging dishes and glasses, and they've been doing it now for the last 5 years. I didn't realize it was 7 a.m. though. Is that with the state? I believe so. And that that's, you know,
conforms sort of conforms with our hours of operation now, at least in the morning. Uh but I can I can check. Sure. And the only reason not not the only reason but like when someone comes for uh uh they want to uh construction work on a Saturday, we don't allow them to
start at 7 a.m. I mean that could be different because that's really residential area. I understand that. But uh I'd like a little clarity on the state's time that they can start outdoor dining. Please.
And I was reading about the preparation of food and and is that serving drinks too? Like they're not allowed to prepare food outside, right? So basically, you know, you don't do that inside, right? You're not you're not in the dining area preparing food. Well, I mean, if you're a habachi
steakhouse, but uh you know, other than that, it's the same thing here. I think that's a actually more of a a health code issue there that it's a dining area. It's not a food prep area. And but like drinks, they can serve drink like they have like little bars set up. I don't think so.
They have to extend their alcohol serving permit. So they would file with the ABC for an extension as well as doing our application and then the ABC would allow them to have the outdoor extension. And I believe it runs from
April to November, right Rich? Something like that. Yeah. To April to November. But they have to get approval by ABC and extend their alcoholic beverage license to be able to serve alcohol outside. They don't have a bar set up out there. Everything comes from inside to the
outside. And and Mr. That's state regulations, right? That's And Mr. Coons, this has to be renewed on a yearly bas basis. It would be an annual license. It's an annual license. Yeah. Calendar year, January to December. Uh, no. Liquor license runs July 1 to June 30th.
No, we're not talking about the liquor license, Wendy. talking about the outdoor driving license. I'm sorry. Okay. Any further discussion? All right. I'll I'll go back and make sure that we're not somehow preempted here by uh by state statute and uh and I'll set the time
back to you. Sure, please. So then we would discuss this again in work session at the next meeting. Yes. Okay. Okay. New business. Anybody here have any new business? I do. Mr. McC. Um, I would like to uh make a
pass a resolution this evening appointing Kevin Silinski uh the new council president for the remainder of the year. Uh at the beginning of this year, uh Kevin and I sat down uh the uh uh in a caucus session and we agreed uh
that this year uh we would uh share that position with the burrow. Given Kevin's schedule, work schedule at the beginning of the year versus my schedule at the beginning of the year versus my schedule the latter part of the year and his current schedule. Uh we thought that it would be in the best interest that the B would be served uh that we divided the
year up and we agreed to that and uh I would like to u make a motion to appoint Kevin the uh uh new council president for the remainder of the year. Effective immediately. Effective immediately. I will second.
All in favor? I I Okay. Congratulations, Council President. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, John. You're welcome. Do we have any other new business? I have one piece of new business. Um,
obviously, as you know, there's a lot of work taking place downtown. We have the building next to the Exxon, which is going in and fortunately, we put a streetscape ordinance in place last year. Um, also with the drugstore going in, it's going to have to comply to that. Currently, it runs from Franklin A
up to Oak Street. I would like to see the streetscape ordinance do go all the way down to Post Road so that we have our commercial district down there including the porttoelloos, the tire shop, whatever goes into the parking lot
of the uh the Burger King so we can capture all that and start really creating this downtown look and feel of Oakland. Input from the council. I think that's great. Yes. Everybody's in favor of that. Yes. All right. So miss uh for the bureau attorney this goes what to the planning
board or do we just do it here? We have to introduce it as an ordinance then it goes to the planning board. Okay. All right. So we'll have that ready for next meeting then. Okay. That's any other new business? Okay. Anybody have any old business?
All right. Committee council liazison reports. Uh I'll start this then. Councilman Rose. Okay. Thank you. um tree committee met yesterday at 7:30. Um our adopt a tree program is getting very
popular. They uh planted 23 ch trees um recently and they have a second round coming up later this year. Uh the forester put in 51 hours, issued 28 permits, 71 trees were removed, nine replaced. Next meeting is scheduled for
August 4th at 7:30. Um, arts committee meeting is coming up on Monday, July 21st at 7 p.m. The outdoor market is doing well. Um, the next one is scheduled for Saturday, July 26th. Um, free outdoor concert is scheduled for
August 20th at 6 um to 8:30 p.m. at the pavilion at the Great Oak Park. And that's all I have. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Mayor. Um, from the library, uh, summer reading is in full swing at the library for adults, children, and
young adults. They have dozens of programs, too many to list here, so patrons are encouraged to check out the online calendar where you can find the events and register for the ones uh, they want to attend. Uh, a big fun
event, um, is the dueling pianos live on the library stage this Friday at 7 PM. Tickets for this event are $10 each and available at the library while they last. This is a terrific high energy concert that sounds amazing on the
stage. Uh, just a reminder, it is never too late to sign up for summer reading. They have prizes for participants in all age groups. This also helps keep young readers engaged while school is out so they don't read regress. Uh special
shout out to the OPL players, uh Oakland Public Library uh summer drama club. If you have a child who's interested in being part of this performance, have them come down and get them signed up. Uh and lastly, uh just a reminder that
while it's always great to read books, OPL's digital library is open 247. That's uh roundthe-clock access to ebooks, digital audio books, e- magazines, and more whenever you uh wherever you have an internet
connection. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you, Councilman McCann. No report. Mayor, Council Salani, I just want to thank the public events committee as uh as Mr. Russo was here at the beginning. a great job from the
carnival and everything that that group did for the carnival and and to get to get working with the federal C3s and get everything set up. So, um I just want to echo his comments to the team. What a great job they did. um for the um Oakland Communications Committee. Um we
had our last meeting on July 7th and one of the key aspects um that came out of that meeting is we're looking to uh there's work to there's work that needs to be done in the for the um in the control room and we're putting an RF uh
request for proposal out to certain vendors to make sure we can get the best price for for services to keep the town's uh keep the town's cost down. we there had not been RFP for the last uh three or four years and it's it's about time we do that to make sure we we keep our vendors straight who serve the OC.
Um I do also uh the OC was very very much present at at the Oakland Carnival. Uh want a special thanks to Rich Sassin for talking to all the different non-public organizations in the carnival and then working with the public the volunteers the public events committee
and access for all getting information and putting together film for the carnival. It was a great job. If you if you do see on the OC, if you go to YouTube or you go channel 77, they did live film and video from the carnival and they actually went to all all the
513C vendors, took pictures, talked to them, gave them a chance to send what their platforms are, what they do for the town. I thought that was very nice of them. It was able for the 51c3s to reach out to the public and ask for volunteers and get their messages out there. So, I really appreciate the OC
for doing that. Um, if you want to be part of the OC team, we are still taking volunteers on several committees. Please email OCC at oakland new jersey.org or email myself at uh at my council email address and we
will I will forward it for volunteers. And then last note, the non the nonprofit board that that works for the OC for fundraising, uh, one of the things they're currently fundraising for is they want to fund raise to get additional cameras so we can start putting cameras in the senior center.
Um, that that's one of their goals and the nonprofit board is the fundraising arm for the OC. they are looking for a volunteer who wants to join, who has experience in fundraising and uh look looking to help the town and give some better communications. So, if you're
interested, please email uh myself or the OC. And then our next meeting is September 10th at 7 p.m. right here in Oakland Council Chambers. That's all I have. Uh Councilman, I did receive an email from AA Bugami. Okay. Okay. I did uh chat with her. I did
forward it to the OC mailbox in contact with her. So she's interested in joining the OC. Thank you very much as a junior member. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Uh again, uh I'd like to echo what Council Salani said to the public events committee did an
outstanding job. I mean, they work so hard to make sure every detail uh uh is is at at 10 or above if you can uh do that. But, uh public events, outstanding
job. Thank you to DPW, Police Department, um and all the uh nonprofit organizations that took took part in it. And it just was a it was a great night, great, uh four days. So, thank you so so
much. Uh for the senior citizens, uh July 31st at 1:00 is a presentation uh by a physical therapist on joint replacement and rehabilitation. And here's the best announcement I've heard.
August the 7th, National Root Beer Float Day at the Senior Center. I'm canceling all my appointments that day because I'm going to definitely be there uh for national uh uh root bear float day. Uh but we are uh senior citizen does ask
center does ask uh please RSVP for either one 2011 405 7731 and again I'd like to echo what the mayor said about the uh senior citizen bus uh 43% increase and uh uh people use
it for uh medical appointments, shopping also to use the senior citizen center more frequently. So it it goes a long long way having that bus for an extra day. And one last note, environmental commission is asking
for volunteers. Um anyone interested, I know a lot of people are interested in the environment are in the environment. So, please, if you'd like to uh volunteer your expertise and time or um just come down to the environmental commission, but go into the uh clerk's
office first, burough clerk's office, and and get the volunteer uh form. What's the official name of that form? Citizens leadership form. Citizen leadership form. I didn't say it correctly. Thank you, mayor. That's it. Councilman Salami, no reports, mayor.
Excellent. All right. Bills to be paid. Bills to be council uh bills to be paid $1,96,387.32. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Council Pigmentelli. Roll call. Council President McCann. Yes. Councilman Pigmanelli?
Yes. Councilwoman Rose? Yes. Councilman Saliani? Yes. Councilman Sinski? Yes. Councilman Talini? Yes. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. Second. All right. All in favor? All in favor? I.
All right. The next council meeting will be held Tuesday, August 12th, 2025, 700 p.m. here at the council chambers. Have a good night, everybody. See you in August. Thanks. You're welcome.