April 14th, 2026 uh meeting of the S County Board of Commissioners. Uh Luke, can we have a roll call? >> County Commissioners Bartlett >> here, D'vor >> here, >> James Magalia >> here,
>> here. >> Deputy Director Cruz >> here, >> Director Lazaro >> here. And >> ladies and gentlemen, the notice requirement of the open public meetings law has been satisfied with respect to this meeting specifying the time, date, and location, including the annual
notice adopted a reorganization meeting followed with the county clerk, post an administration building, and mailed to two newspapers in accordance with the provisions of the law. >> Okay. Um, >> commissioner,
can you lead us in the flag? >> Please stand and join me. >> Pledge of allegiance. >> I alian to the flag of the United States of America to the stands nationy
and all. >> Could we have a moment of silence, please? Oh, wait. What would you do though? >> Oh God, who provides for thy people by thy power and rules over them in love, be gracious enough to bless thy servants, our county commissioners in
this county of Bisay, that thy people may dwell in peace and safety through our Lord. Amen. >> Amen. >> And a moment of silence to remember all the men and women who have died while serving in the United States armed forces. Thank you.
>> Can we get a motion for the approval of the minutes on March 24th? >> So moved. >> Second. >> You know, I know this is out of order. We lost somebody who was very uh much involved at Pay County, Bill Gervin's
from West Milford and you know he was on our planning board for a long time and he was a friend to all of us. So I just want to let you know that maybe we can have a moment of silence for him also. >> Thank you. Okay. Uh, roll call for the
motion uh for approval of minutes. Uh, County Commissioner Bartlett, >> yes. >> D'Voore, >> yes. >> Remagia, >> yes. >> Trat, >> yes. >> Deputy Director Cruz, >> yes. >> Director Lazar, >> yes. >> Uh, could I have a motion to approve the
proclamations? >> So moved. >> Secondia, >> County Commissioners Bartlett. Yes. >> D'vor. >> Yes. >> Remagia. >> Yes. >> Stratz. >> Yes. >> Deputy director Cruz. >> Yes. >> Director Lazar. >> Yes. And now I'll turn this over for our
administrator for his report. >> Yep. Thank you, director. Uh the first and only thing on my agenda is our quarterly board of health meeting. So I'm going to call up our health officer, Ariselli Patel, to do our presentation. >> Good evening everybody. Thank you for your time. Um, so today we're going to
be doing our 2025 annual reports um of the activities that we do, the services that we provide for the county. But before I do that, I just want to um raise awareness of National Public Health Week, which took place last week.
And actually last week we had our homeless connect day um which felt, you know, perfect in everything that we do in public health. We were serving a very vulnerable population. We provided them
with necessary services and resources, not just the health department. It was various partners, including internal departments that we have here at the county. So, I just want to say thank you to everybody in the health department. Thank you to human services, board of
social services, buildings and grounds, senior services, um and of course our commissioners, our administrator, everybody um in the community that we partner with and also um just experiencing that event. It
shows to us what we can do when we work together. So, National Public Health Week, ready, set, action. We we definitely were in action last week, April 8th. So P County annual report I'm going to discuss the division activities. So for
P County we have six different divisions. I'm going to start out with mosquito control. So mosquito control they protect us. They are always on the road doing their surveillance of the mosquito populations that are here in P County.
um they do a lot of inspections um through their surveillance as well. Um so for 2025 they did a total of 14,319 inspections. Um in addition to that, they're always out there testing pools
um of water to identify if there's any communicable diseases that might be emerging within our county. So, out of the 257 pools that were tested throughout the county, um 21 of them came back with
positive mosquito pools. So, in in this is where our our division goes into action. Um if there's any treatment that's required, um you know, they'll treat it if necessary. Um but in addition to that they provide mosquito
um they fish stock certain rivers and ponds so the the fish could eat the larvae that might be there to reduce the population of the mosquitoes and then obviously reducing communicable diseases
as well. So mosquitoes are the number uh one animal that are killers to our human species uh because of all the communicable disease that they are able to transmit. So mosquito division season is coming and they're going to be very
active again uh starting in May. Our division of environmental health um we have three subdivisions under this uh division. We're going to start out with SEIA. So, SIHA is our county environmental health act. Um, and SIHA,
we work together with NJD and NJD provides a list of different inspections that we are to conduct in Pay County. Many of them are dealing with odor, um, noise, safe drinking water, um, hazardous material incident
response. So, they were pretty active for 2025. um they completed a total of 725 uh site visits and the images that you see here is some of the responses that that they attend to. Um so we have our
duty officers on call 247. They work together with sheriffs and also with our other um emergency response personnel throughout the townships. Um so here we can see there's some oil spills that take place. Sometimes they're stumping
of unknown materials. So they respond to that and they try to find the the owners of the properties to get this resolved. >> Do you have questions for the end? >> No, you can ask question. >> I I directed through through the chair.
I just um >> can you share and doesn't have to be right away when you get a chance the breakdown of uh the site visits uh like where in the county? Oh yes, they were. I mean, you don't have to be specific addresses, just the towns.
>> Sure. So, they usually respond to all throughout the county. >> Um, so there are some inspections that they might be doing up in West Milford. >> Um, what? >> Just send me an email. >> Okay. I'll later. Yeah, we have that listed. So, you share it with the board
if everybody has it. But the 725, >> yes, >> the breakdown by town or city. >> Thank you. >> We'll do. So the other program that's run under SIGA is our right to know program and our right to know program they also do
inspections where they visit p private businesses um to make sure that they're you know in compliance with right to know. Um in addition we at the county we train our employees regard regarding the chemical hazards that are taking place
if any and also how to identify them and also protect themselves uh from these uh exposures. Uh in addition we provide free free radon test kits to county residents. So we're we're always doing that. Um, if anyone is interested in getting a free
radon test kit, they could call our health department at 973881-4396. And this is a small kit. You put it in your basement for 3 days and mail it off to the lab and within two days or three days, you get a response and they inform
you whether if radon is an issue in your home. And here we have 389 requests. Um this is uh regarding Oprah requests. So SIA responded to 389 of them.
Office of Consumer Protection. This is our other subdivision. This is where we have our RHS's. They do inspections of restaurants, recreational bathing all throughout our towns that we have shared services agreements with. Uh so 2025 we
had a total of six towns that we had shared services agreement with and they completed 635 food establishment inspections. Uh 70 reinspections and those usually take place if a business is not up to par or up to code and you
know we give them the opportunity to get a sat satisfactory rating. um temporary events. They completed a total of 191 uh bathing inspections, a total of 38. So this includes um pools,
um swimming areas, uh spas. So anything with recreational bathing, they inspect septic inspections. They completed a total of 381. 166 uh reviewed plans for septics and also 121 permits were provided to our
residents. Um and complaints. So we do get nuisance complaints. Um a little bit of everything. Um so they completed a total of 127. And these are just some images that when the inspectors go to the facilities or
the food establishments, they want to make sure that the food that's being served to the community is safe. Um, reducing any foodborne illnesses that may occur. So, as you can see, these two images, these are from actually from our inspectors. They went to two different
locations. Um, and in one of the locations, the temperature for the food was at 65, the other one was at 69. And unfortunately they were in that realm of the danger zone which is any temperature between 40 and 140 degrees. Um so if
they were to find this you know they they um speak with the owner and unfortunately this food cannot be served to the community office of solid waste and recycling. So they completed a total of 36 recycling collection programs. So, these are our
collection events where we're collecting tires, um collecting hazardous materials, um metals. So, if there's any of this in your homes, you know, look out for the flyers that come out through the county website. Um we are there.
We're active in collecting these materials um to get them out of your home and we can, you know, get rid of them in a safe way. Um, we also have an education environmental education program and our
educators, they conducted a total of 245 programs in our schools, camps and recreation areas throughout the county. Um, and in addition, they reach a total of 5,458 students. So, they're pretty active out there.
Emergency preparedness. So, this is our other division. Um here we have our staff, they're always getting trained and preparing, you know, for for the next big event. Um under emergency preparedness, our team obviously
responded to CO 19 during the pandemic. Um so we're still in preparation going through our plans and all of that. Uh but one of the important things that we have under this division is our medical reserve corp volunteers. So these are
residents of P County that take their time to volunteer with us in anything and everything that we do including clinics um dealing with our extravaganza events, translation um you know helping us with registration
for large events um and in P County in 2025 they provided us with a total of 371 hours of volunteer time. Um, so that in economic value adds up to $13,318. And we keep them engaged. So we also
provide them with training and workshops um just so we could, you know, also keep them up to date and um informed of what's going on in our emergency preparedness sector. Communicable disease and nursing. So this is our division that's run by our
nursing and our epidemiologists as well. Um they provide wellchild clinics, vaccines for both children and adults. Um they conduct different types of screenings as you can see. So for 2025 they did 160 lead poisoning screenings
for both children and pregnant women. Um 997 blood pressure screenings, 301 glucose screenings, 219 cholesterol, and 138 uh eye vision screenings. Uh but also hearing screenings because we do
them combined. on a monthly basis. Communicable disease continued. So our nurses, our epies, they're always under surveillance making sure that everything is running smoothly in the county with communicable disease for 2025 21
outbreaks were managed and this is throughout the towns again that we have shared services agreements with. Um and we also have individual cases of communicable disease. So for P County as a whole, there was a total of 18,820
individual cases of disease. And P County with our six towns, we responded to 2,419 of those cases. So we do the followup making sure that they're getting the treatment that they need and also trying to identify any exposures and you know
trying to reduce those exposures in the community. directed from a the uh West Milford and Monikue. Is that based on the two nursing homes that are >> Yes. So that's inclusive to our nursing homes. >> Okay. Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. >> Welcome.
>> And then we have CO 19 test kits. We're still with um our kits. We're distributing them. Uh for 2025, we distributed a total of 21,960. So again, if our residents or anybody here today is interested in getting a
kid, feel free to give us a call, stop in, and we have them available for you. Health education promotion and wellness division. So this is the team that goes into our six towns and they provide all
sorts of education programs. Um you can see the list. We have anything from chronic disease, lead prevention, injury control. Um, and for 2025, we completed a total of 173 programs and reached 2,281
participants in those programs. Um, and every year we try to hold our extravaganza events both for the men and women in P County. Last year for women's health, we reached 70 plus uh women. They were screened for um clinical
breast exams and other types of services. Uh men's health extravaganza. We screened for prostate cancer and we did the blood draw uh test. So for that when we reach a total of 80 people. So we're going to do this event again. We
have the safe uh the date uh flyer going around. Um we're finalizing our vendors. So soon we're you're going to see all of the services listed on our flyer. Um, but we're doing this event on May 2nd and June 6 for 2026.
And then our last division, we have Weights and Measures. So, this is a division that's taking care of our uh money, our personal money. Uh, they look at different businesses. They do inspections, making sure that uh whatever prices are being advertised are
the ones that are being charged to us, the consumer. In addition, they're making sure that if we're paying for a pound of rice that we actually get like a pound of rice. Uh so they do weigh and they do measure everything out there for
us. So for 2025 um they conducted 11,867 devices uh inspections. So they check the weights and the scales to make sure that they're measuring accurately. um they conducted 136 price verification
inspections and out of those it resulted to 604 violations. Um they did 121 commodity audits. Uh and from this they identified 4,069 packages
in violation. So unfortunately we are finding um businesses that have these products are not in the correct weight or you know the scales are not measuring correctly. So they're taking care of us in county weights and measures.
And lastly I just have a update. New Highlands Regional Service Center is going to be coming soon. Uh we're going to be located at 11 Edgar Drive in West Milford and we're going to be there not just the health department, we're going to have our um senior services or human
services providing all of these necessary services to our our residents up northern county. So, we're excited and can't wait to move in. Any questions? >> I have a few. >> Um
>> I'll defer to you. um through you, Madam Chair. Um I have a pair of questions that are both sort of about value and cost. First of all, I know superb work as always, amazing numbers. Uh and I'm so glad to see my
newer colleagues really getting to understand the range of work that your unit does. Um we we uh are the health officer for I believe seven of our municipalities. What kind of savings does that represent to those municipalities? and what kind
of um value ad could we be for the the remaining municipalities? And maybe that's a Matt question, maybe that's a you question. Um but then the second piece of it is we've also suffered at least one lost federal grant in the public health space uh during the
current presidential administration. And I wanted to know if there are any others expected or that we're concerned about and what are we doing to uh protect public health notwithstanding um some of the less sciency ideas that are coming at us right now.
>> Great. So I don't if you want to answer the question that >> I don't have all of the numbers offhand but and correct me if I'm wrong I think we were saving Bloomingdale something like a million and a half over the length of our 10-year agreement with them. Yes. um and providing greater
services, right? So, Kelly has how many employees in your department? >> We have a total of 38 staff. >> Yeah. So, we have a full robust department with a number of divisions as she just ran through. Um and most local health departments, right, only have two or three employees. So, we're able to
provide more service and greater integration within other county departments. So Ariselli is working with human services, senior services, other departments and reaching more people and and more residents in those communities because of because of those relationships. >> Great. And for the second question,
yeah, 2025 was a challenging year. Um there were some grants that were reduced. um some as you mentioned that weren't you know aren't active anymore and some that are going to be finishing up soon in 2026 and we won't be getting
funding for that as well. Um but I think with our administrator with the help of Rich we've been able to um you know keep us in a good balance at the county um to continue serving our county residents. >> Yeah. I I I I I hope that the the the
instability with the federal funding has has leveled out and last year was challenging, but I think we're in a position now where we have contingencies and we can ensure we're serving not only all all of our municipalities, but specifically the seven that are now contracting with us.
>> Wonderful presentation, Dr. Question. Mosquito testing, how long does that last? the pool test. >> You have to test it. >> So basically >> twice a summer or >> I don't have the the full process but
our inspectors they basically go they identify places which have been known to have issues with the mosquito population. They identify any water sources that might be around. >> Um they leave their um their traps. So
with the traps they're able to capture the mosquitoes um and identify what species they are, what communicable diseases they may have. Um so through all of those um by the use of the traps, that's how they're
able to identify that >> the random kit test. Uh do we offer any assistance? It might be a Matt question as well. Any assistance if the tests come back positive that the house has radon? >> Is that for for radon? Yeah. So for us
directly we don't um there might be services at the state that we can connect people to. Um but again it depends on allegibility criteria. So it wouldn't be open to to everybody. >> Awesome. My last question the COVID
tests 25 2025 21,000 plus distributed. Do you see that number decreasing or flat now that we are into 2026? because it seems pretty high that we're still giving out COVID tests in 2025. >> We're still giving it out. Um, so
actually there's been a reduction not because of the lack of need. It's been more of a reduction because that's what we're getting from the state. So their quantities to us has been reduced. Um, so last year, if I remember correctly, we distributed a total of 61,000.
This year we distributed 21. Yeah. January to to December 2025. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Arselli. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. Great job. >> And director, that's all I have.
>> Okay. So, we'll move on. Um, okay. Commissioner reports. I just want to echo what Arisi said about the homeless connect day. We had so many departments come together to offer services to unhoused
people who live in our county. Um even people who aren't unhoused but on the verge of becoming unhoused. And not only did we feed them hot meals, but everybody who was there offered them
services to help them move past this point in their life. And we served about 250 people that day. And I just can't say enough that how and I say this and I said in our meeting today how inspired I
was by how everybody came together and worked so hard to help people. We hope to do it again toward the end of the year. But you know what? A huge shout out to everyone who was there. You did a great job and I applaud you. That's it.
Thank you. >> I don't have >> I don't I don't have anything uh today. Go to the director. >> Commissioner Bartlett. >> Nothing. >> Commissioner D'vor. >> No reports today.
Commissioner Remaglia, >> no report director. >> Commissioner Shretz, we'll move on. Can I have a motion? >> Let's go. Can I have a motion to open the oral? >> So moved. D'vor
>> second. >> D'Vor, >> county commissioners Bartlett. >> Yes. >> D'vor. >> Yes. >> Maggalia. >> Yes. >> Stratz. Yes. >> Deputy Director Cruz. >> Yes. >> Director Lazaro. >> Yes. >> Anyone wishing to come up to the podium
is welcome to do so now. You have three minutes. Please state your name and address. >> Seeing no one at the podium, I move to close the public portion. >> Second. D'Vor Cruz and D'vor.
>> County Commissioners Bartlett. Yes. >> D'Vor. >> Yes. >> Remagalia. Yes. >> Stratz. >> Yes. >> Deputy director Cruz. >> Yes. Director Lazaro. >> Yes. >> Okay. We're going to move on to the consent agenda and I believe we have a couple of additions. Yep. Director
Thuyu, we have two late starters tonight. There are um L61 and L62 will be added to the consent agenda. We'll start with L61. It's a resolution authorizing the county's participation in a grant application to
the LEAP implementation grant program administered by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Division of Local Government Services pursuant to NJSA420-1 and L 62 resolution authorizing the county to apply for and accept if
awarded a grant from the LEAP implementation grant program administered by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, Division of Local Government Services, pursuant to NGSA 2040 colon 20-1. We'll add these two to the consent agenda.
>> Okay. I have a motion to add to the ring sound. Okay. Have a motion to add L61 and L62 to the consent agenda. >> Second.
>> Magia and Bartlett. >> County Commissioners Bartlett. >> Yes. >> D'vor. >> Yes. >> Magia. >> Stratz. >> Deputy Director Cruz. >> Yes. >> Director Lazar. >> Yes. Can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda L1 through L62?
>> So moved. D'Vor >> second Bartlett. >> County Commissioners Bartlett. >> Yes. >> D'Vor. >> Yes. >> James, no. I'm sorry. Remaglia. >> Yes. >> Stratz. >> Yes. >> Deputy director Cruz. >> Yes. >> Director.
>> Yes. >> Okay. Do I have a motion to move the personnel agenda? >> So moved. Second >> Cruz and Bartlett. >> County Commissioners Bartlett. Yes. >> D'vor. >> Yes. >> Remagalia. >> Yes. >> Tratz.
>> Yes. >> Deputy Director Cruz. >> Yes. >> Director Lazar. >> Yes. >> Can I have a motion to move the bills? >> Move the bills. >> Second. >> Cruz and Bartlett. >> County Commissioners Bartlett. >> Yes. >> D'vor. >> Yes. >> Magalia. >> Yes. >> Traz.
>> Yes. >> Deputy director Cruz. >> Yes. >> Director Lazar. >> Yes. And can I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. D'vor >> second. >> And Cruz. >> County Commissioners Bartlett. >> Yes. >> D'Vor. Yes.
>> Magia. >> Stratz. >> Deputy director Cruz. Yes. >> Director Lazar. >> Yes.