Is council president following? No. Okay. The following is the agenda for the regular burough council meeting of the bur council links mayor council municipal corporation in the county of the state. The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. on September 24th, 2025 in the
municipal building 25 ways. Consistent with the open public meetings act, the meeting will be open for public comments and shall be in accordance with terms and conditions of the bureau's municipal code of bylaws. Please stand for a flag salute
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. Please bless this mar council as they deliberate on the best of pomp.
In conformance with the open public meeting of all public law 1975, chapter 231, adequate notice of this meeting setting forth the time, date, place, and purpose of this regular meeting through notice posted on the bulletin board in the municipal building, mailed to all requested and paid for same and published in the suburban trends. Roll
call, please. Mayor here. Council president is excused. Councilman Cruz here. Councilman Hinton here. Councilwoman Ken here. Councilman Clint
here. Councilman Bennett here. With us this evening is our burrow and our administrator. Okay. Thank you. It's always my pleasure to swear in a new volunteer to our great fire department. You know, like I've said before, we have one of the best
fire departments around and adding new members is the vital life of the whole thing and bringing new people in. So, I appreciate every member that decides to join that. With that, I'm going to ask you to step forward.
[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
Hi. State your name. State your name. My name is do solemnly swear I swear I will support the Constitution of the United States. I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New
Jersey. Constitution of the state of New Jersey. I will bear true faith and allegiance. Ice and allegiance allegiance to the government established to the government established in the United States in the United States and in this state
and this state under the authority of the people and the authority of the people. I will faithfully I will faithfully and partially and justly and justly perform all the duties of perform all the duties of
Compton Lakes Volunteer Fire Department. come from late or acquired. So help me so far. Congratulations. [Music] Thank you again. Want to have some of the fire? Yeah. Come on.
Come on. Anybody wants to come up? I got it. You got it. Everybody was coming. Cheese. Cheese. [Music] [Music]
I got it in under the five minutes. Pretty good. See, I know how to do it. Okay. Can I have a motion to open the meeting for public comments? Motion. Councilman Bennett. Second. Second. Councilman uh Hinton. All in favor?
Against. Anyone like to present? Just give your name and address and five minutes if you can. [Music] Hey, Mr. Mayor, council members. Keith Parian, 181 Ridge Drive. We've been having an issue with the bottom of
Hemlock Road leading into the Hamburg Turnpike. We had come to a council meeting, a number of members of the community with our concerns of uh repaving just the bottom part of hemlock that belongs to the town. Um we were told we were on the list and it would be
taken care of. Well, a year and a half or more has passed. They've patched it a little bit. It's still pretty much a wreck. But more importantly, at the bottom of Hemlockk, right before the Hamburg turnpike, there's been a uh water sewer water
great that was pulled up um about maybe 4 to 6 in out and left like that. It was surrounded by cones, which was very safe and good. We appreciated that. Everyone coming from Hemlock, everyone coming down from Ridge, um we were all wondering, it's been there
for about six to months to a year. We were wondering what's going on with this sewer drain at the bottom of hemlock. Uh recently, within the last maybe 2 months, the grates have been either lowered or removed and a iron plate
maybe 6x6 has been put over the um the sewer opening and again cones put around it coming further out onto Hemlock. It's creating a traffic hazard at this point. So, you got this terrible condition of at of the bottom of just the bottom of Hemlock and you've got
this I don't know what's going on. You know, it's been going on for so long. Uh it's concerning if you're if you're traveling south on the Hamburg turnpike and you want to make a left going into Hemlock. People that are coming down Hemlock who want to make a left and
travel continue south in the Hamburg turnpike, they've got to stick their nose out a little bit just to see traffic coming northbound. So when I drive, for example, and I go down that way, if there's no cars behind me, I always stop and, you know, wave on one, two, maybe even sometimes three cars if
the northbound is clear. Of course, many times I've got maybe five cars or more behind me, so I have to make a decision. No, I'm in the turning lane, so these cars are going to be going right by me on my right. So the person with their nose out is going to have to wait. If
there's one, two, or even worse, three cars waiting to make that lefthand turn onto the hamburger turnpike to go into Wayne. I've got to go around the one with the nose out. Then I've got to come back in to miss the cones,
kind of slow down to 1 or 2 miles an hour to slip sneak by and then I'm off and on up to Ridge Drive. And that's, you know, okay, Mr. Mr. Mayor and council members, it it's an accident waiting to happen. I know it's an old cliche, but it really
is. It's a dangerous turn. I'm sure I'm retired, so I'm not I I make it my point never to go out during rush hour in the morning or in the afternoon if I don't have to. But I can imagine what a uh how dangerous or how dangerous it's going to become or hazardous I should say um
around that turn. So, please consider not only paving the bottom of hemlock finally, but find out what's going on with that sewer drain and get it taken care of. So, it, you know, it makes it safe. Uh, between the yellow line, which
divides, you know, the down and the up. Uh, coming up, there might be barely enough room for the width of the car where the cone is, how far the cone is coming out. You have to cross the yellow line to go up Hemlock and on to either continue onto Hemlock or go on to Ridge Drive. That's all I have to say. I want
to thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening. I'll answer at the end. What's that? I'll answer your questions at the end. Oh. Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Anyone else from public like to address? I see hands. Yes, please. Hi everybody. Paula Kelly to Summit
Avenue. Um, recently I read uh in the New Jersey there was a New Jersey Spotlight article stating that the state of New Jersey has received a $2 billion DuPont settlement. Um, my question is, and I apologize for not being as first
as I should be. We haven't really been directly affected in the 40 years we've been in town um with DuPont. However, um I am curious to know what if any amount of that money has been awarded to Pmpton Lakes. Um what will be done with it and
um how is that determined? So I'd appreciate um if you could address that. Um additionally, I would like to thank Councilman Lin Cruz for his communication um with regard to ordinances in town um
allowing roosters. Uh, additionally, I was I was hopeful that uh that could be revisited and that we could come to, you know, a conclusion on maybe why we shouldn't have them. Um, and additionally, I wanted to see if we
could have conversation about feeding deer on private property. I do know that there's an ordinance that we're uh not to be feeding deer on public property. However, in my neighborhood, um, we are
inundated. And I feel like I'm sounding like a person that doesn't like animals, and that is not true. I know we have to cohabitate. It's really fine. However, uh, the population has become hazardous. Um, my husband and I, we walk uh, the
neighborhood daily, in addition with our grandchildren in a stroller. I've been approached by Buck. I've been um I'm you know I'm not a deer whisperer so I don't really know what their you know uh behaviors are but I don't want to find
out the hard way. Um so you know it's a challenge to get around that. Um and also to um it's it's creating a mess. there's just feces everywhere all over
the street and um it it's hazardous and I think we need to find a way to cohabitate but I feel like we're outnumbered lately. So I would love some conversation about that. Uh, and one more thing I would like to thank Mike for his communication with me with
regard to um the possibility of getting a discount from the Wayne Community Center on how we could, you know, possibly get in with their gymnasium and their and their programs and whatnot. And I know there was discussion about that in the past. And um, we haven't
really gotten any answers on that. So, I'd love to have that addressed as well. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] Good evening, George Paul, 11:04 Kolfax Avenue. I'm here this evening to say
thank you. My family and I want to say thank you to the burrow council for placing a temporary plug stop on the pipe at 11:02 Kofax Avenue, the source of destruction of my pro of our property
for 16 years. With 2 to three inches of rain predicted tomorrow, it will test the new 30 300 foot plus horizontal pipe that the town put in from Kfax Avenue to Miller
Pearson Drive. We hope the solution truly works. However, the burough is procrastinating as far as ascertaining the value of the damage caused to our property for 16 years. A destroyed and totally deteriorated pipe is the
cause. It is not on our property, but in the burrow easement next door. We could not fix it. The burough paid $10,000 for the houser engineering study and solution full blueprints
to fix rebuild the retaining walls the right way on our property. The administration knows the contractor's proposals proposal levels to fix our property received in 2024.
The updated bids are coming in at the same levels. I trust the burough and my family can come to an agreement in the very near term. The collapse of our shed platform is imminent. Retaining walls are severely leaning and the patio is
breaking up. Our emotional and mental stress of having dangerous property right outside our back door must end. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from public health? Can you
step up? Oh. Uh oh. Okay. Yeah. No. Go ahead. Go ahead. Jim Kelly, uh, two Summit Avenue, Pop Lakes. Um, I was here several months ago about the U stop sign at the corner of
Compton at Summit, which um is constantly abused. Uh, Councilman Deline had Michael procure a illuminating stop sign. It's not working. People just run through that stop sign. I know we had
complaints about ebikes not stopping at stop signs, but how about we stop vehicles in stop signs? I walk this town every day. Um, and I think I represent a lot of the walkers and dog walkers and
uh so forth that we have a speeding issue in town. We have a speeding issue on Lincoln. We have a speeding issue on Cannibal. We have a speeding issue on KFax. I mean, where is it there speeding issue? and we need some enforcement. I'm glad the officer in charge is here. Uh
I've complained to past chiefs, uh past traffic department people, and you know, I'll get a police officer for a couple hours and then it's gone and and never comes back, but the abuse still happens. So, it's an accident waiting to happen.
Um, I just think if we can't do it, I see our patrolman uh out with, you know, vendors that that work in the town. Maybe we could set aside some money to, you know, especially most especially pedestrian crosswalks. I don't think
people realize that that yellow sign with the the man or woman in the sign means stop in the crosswalk. I've only at least two times I've almost been hit, you know, by cars that just went landscape trucks and went through it.
And it's just not fair. We need some enforcement of these uh traffic laws. A stop sign, you know, when you come to a stop sign, it means stop at the stop sign. Doesn't mean to go through it, roll through it. That's a violation
under motor vehicle laws. So, I just like I'm glad you're here because it's important that we get some enforcement because something in this town is going to happen sooner than later. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else like to do your comments?
My name is Trevor. Hi, Mayor Council. Um, Michael the other day. Thank you for uh opening up comments on the YouTube. if you don't mind. Uh there's months and months back of the comments still being blocked on older videos. If we can go
back and fix those, that would be great. Um reason I came tonight was because I wanted to ask a few questions about the uh burough social media commenting policy. Uh first off, in the policy it says that uh comments
with bolder language uh can be removed. Um uh can you clarify what the bureau considers vulgar? Um secondly, the uh policy prohibits personal attacks of any kind. Uh
you also clarify what that means. Uh a little bit more personal tax is bit vague there. Um let me see. Also, is there an appeal process if someone gets their comments removed from that? Is there an appeal process on
that? And lastly, the uh social media commenting policy. Is the town lawyer looked at that? Was that uh looked at by the town lawyer and given the thumbs up? So, um that was it. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public
like to address? [Music] Mike Tortoisel, 106 Kax. Uh good evening uh members of the council. Just wanted to stand before you tonight uh to bring to your attention similar to resident Jim Kelly uh the need for more track
safety and traffic calling measures especially on Kfax Avenue. Over the past several months, within the thousand block of Kfax Avenue, there have been multiple reported vehicle accidents uh that were result of speeding, carelessness, or an intent of driving uh
causing real property damage to Prompton residents uh that were parked in stationary vehicles. I'm aware of at least four reported vehicle accidents and other uh within the past 6 months uh occurring in March, May, September, and August. One of which was to my personal
vehicle or my my work vehicle resulting about $10,000 worth of damage. Driver is doing fell asleep 8 a.m. doing about 45 and a 25. Uh moved my vehicle 7 ft down the road. That was just happened to my neighbor. I have it on video from my
other neighbors. So the issue is uh those four accidents when legally parked vehicles. I spoke to the council back in April of 2020 in CO and at that time I complained about the lack of or the amount of speeding and the lack of speed enforcement. Since that time I think the
problems actually has only gotten worse other than the street smart campaign that I think we implemented in 2019 2020 where we put the crosswalk signs in place on KFax the additional uh striping uh little else has been done or no effective sustainment of that campaign
has occurred. Uh it's pretty obvious and I walk my dog, my wife walks the dog and people blow through the crosswalks all the time. Uh you know, people hitting uh as well. Uh poles uh utility poles on Kolfax. Several been hidden. Uh and it's
it's dangerous. And lastly, there are several young school age children on my street uh to my house on the left, house on the right, and a house across the street. really it's only a matter of time before and I hope not a similar accident occurred in Oakland in New Jersey this past summer that it's going
to happen here unless you all decide to take some type of immediate action. I don't try to be doom and gloom but it's to me it's pretty obvious because we're not we're not fixing the problem. Uh so I'm just requesting that we try to do some type of traffic calming measures or
study traffic calming measures uh on Kfax and other areas of town to try to reduce the amount of speeding to make better driver awareness. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public address? Seeing no one can have a motion to close
the public session. Motion Councilman uh who was that Councilman Quinn. All in favor? Against. Okay, let's talk Keith. Let's talk about Hemlock. Yes. Uh, I'm going to let our administrator attack that a little bit, but yes, we're aware of the
situation and I'm I'm certain I think our DPW did put the grate there. We are in the process of getting engineering to look at it, but I'm going to let Michael address that a little bit. Do you have any more information on I was not expressly aware of it, so I'll follow up tomorrow and get it fixed. Okay. But was it uh did we put it So, my
question is on I and I just looked it up on the on the computer. Is that a county road where that grade is or is that a is that our road? I believe it's a burrowed storm inlet that we that we were fixing as part of our annual inlet repair program, but uh I have to follow up. All right. So, we will follow up with
our DPW having to go out there and take a look at it, start the process to make it fix it because I know I, you know, I drive by that all the time and I see what you're talking about and those cones are in the way when you're trying to make that turn. So, we do have to repair it. So, thank you for bringing that to our attention and we'll move forward best we can. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, council members. Um, uh,
Paula, uh, we'll start with the DuPont situation. I explained this at the last couple council meetings. There was a $2 billion settlement, but the settlement, part of that money goes to the cleanup of the property on site at DuPont. About I think it's 12 million. 86 million goes
into a a pool of money that's kind of like a penalty for the pollutions that they've done. And I've been fighting for 10 years that a percentage of that money should stay in the town where the poller is polluted. Unfortunately, the state of New Jersey does not see it that way. And they take that money in and use it at
their as whatever they feel to do. It doesn't stay. And there's, by the way, in this settlement, there were only four towns that were mentioned in the settlement. So, it's not like there's a lot of towns that have to split it. I've asked our legislation and even up to the governor. I called the governor on this to tell them, make sure he understands
what's going on here. Even 1% of that money should stay within the town where the situation happened. So, I'm going to continue to push for that. But unfortunately the answer that I don't like to hear and you don't like to hear is right now none of that money stays here in town. Um I I can't let you ask it right now. But uh but let's go to
your other questions. Um let's go back to the deer feeding. So yes, you cannot feed feed any uh wild animal on uh public property. Unfortunately, and I'll reach out to one of you two can answer this. I don't think we have the jurisdiction to say you can't feed on
your own property, on your personal property. And I know there are residents doing it. I mean, I I drive through the town and I see a herd of deer sitting in one area eating corn. That's cuz somebody's feeding them. You know, uh I don't think we can stop that, unfortunately. But we'll look into the best we can. You know, this whole deer
problem, I've said from day one, has to be a countywide program that they put in place that the county follows and all the towns follow it. Cuz trying to clean up our deer in just our town, doesn't really help if the town surrounding us are not doing it. They're just coming from other places. Um, you know, having
a shoot is is, you know, very controversial and a lot of people will be up in arms over that. Um, but at the end of the day, and I've talked to the county also about this many times, they've got to come up with a program that we can follow, that we can join in, and if we have to help pay for that, and all the towns have to help put money into that, that's something we should
look into. So, we'll keep you more posted on that. uh the um talk about the uh chickens. Yes, we're going to have another conversation on the number of roosters allowed and um the number of chickens that's in the ordinance committee, I think, right? Probably there still so
that is still a discussion that we're having. We're going to refine that a little bit and work with that a little bit because we we understand that people want chickens and there's a need for chickens, but maybe there's no need to have more than one rooster, you know, or a rooster at all to be honest. So, that's something we're going to look into. Uh did I miss something?
Nope. Okay. Okay, Mr. Papa, been many years to hear you finally say thank you for what we've done. So, I appreciate the thank you. Um, it's taken a long time. I apologize for that. I apologize for the time, but at least we got it done. We're working forward. Hopefully, the water damage has stopped and now we
move forward with you working with our administration to come up with a number that you're going to be happy with and that we're going to be happy with. So, that's going to be an ongoing negotiation between you two. Doesn't really have anything to do with this council at the end of the day. it's going to have, you know, the negotiation and hopefully you're happy with the number and we're happy with the number.
Uh Jim, uh speeding and this is going for both everybody who brought up the speeding concerns. First, let me just say that, you know, we have four officers on the road at any given time. Okay? They can't be in every street at at any at all times, but I can tell you
I drive the town a lot. KFax does have police officers stopping traffic on Koffax. Now, they're not there all the time, no question. And we know soon as the police officer leaves the street, people go back to going through crosswalks, go back through going through speeding. Um, you know, the
whole crosswalk thing with the stop signs, and I'm going to let our our acting chief step in in a minute. I I agree with you. There's there's no there's no reason anybody, and I said this at the last council meeting, there's no reason anybody should be blowing through a stop sign or a crosswalk. And if a police officer sees
that, I said this at the last meeting, even if it's a an adult on a ebike going through, which is what I brought up last council meeting, they should be stopped and they should be ticketed for that because they're going through a stop sign. They have to follow the laws. Um, we are going to have more discussion
about ebikes on this council. That's something we are looking at changing a little bit. Um, but I'm going to let Chief address any concerns. I know we did a Didn't we do a speeding study on Lincoln recently? Yes. So I So while you were up there, I was looking through uh some emails. Last time
come up to the mic. The the the last time we did uh traffic division did a traffic study on Kfax, it looks like was uh July this year, but it was it was more the wannax area. Um, so you know, some of the things that we're
doing, um, since I took over was trying to look over and give you, like I said, give you guys the stats on where the most of the accidents are are taking place. And we're looking at, uh, we're looking into that more in depth than that we were before. Um, so we're making
changes to attack the situation. Um uh you you you know like the mayor said um depending on the time of day and the calls that we're getting, we can't be everywhere uh at every time. And then we
don't have really a dedicated full-blown traffic division. We have a lieutenant that's in there and just one special officer who's basically part-time and retired. Now, that obviously doesn't um answer the questions or solve the issues
that you're seeing on a daily basis because obviously you're seeing it. That's why you're coming up and you know, I walk right by where you're where you're talking about uh where your where your house is. So, you know, um if there obviously there issues that you're
bringing to your attention, I will make sure that we uh check it out, do our best to get out there. And uh you know, you said that you lived on uh the What was your address? Uh 1067. 1067. So, since we haven't done a
traffic study that far up on KFax Avenue in a while that I can find, I can most certainly put that together and uh give you guys the the results on that area. And uh you know, you should if you look that whole line actually
all the way past about where George uh lives, that whole stretch uh it's there's a corner or a curve. It's almost like a blind curve. Then I I the four exits I I go right my house and then you
should see my truck uh and then across the street. It's just they come around that corner. So we can't really have communication after you speak. That's why but he got the we got the point. But yeah, so regardless of the point, I will uh I'll address those issues and
then I'll make sure that uh that uh give you back the results. Okay. Well, while I'm talking about it, let's go to the coax. more traffic signs that say 25 miles. We can we can address that, too. But let's go to the traffic situation on Kfax. Now, look, Koffax is, you know, I
I see that I do see speeding on Kofax. I do. There's no question when I'm driving on that road, there is speeding. When there's an officer there, though, I know they're stopping them. It's just that they're not there all the time. They can't be there all the time. Uh, you know, I I think people are are, you know, pushing the envelope, like you said, a little bit. you know, maybe
they're going five, now they're going 10 and before you know it, they're making a turn without stopping at the turn and you know, all that whole thing. So, I'm sure the chief will address that. He'll do a study on that and let's get some more information. But now that he's aware of it, maybe some more attention will be brought to that. Uh Trevor, let's start with uh Thank you for the
I'm glad we have the comments put back on. The questions you asked, I do not really have an answer for. So, I'm going to start with Michael. Do we have any? What is vulgar? What does that mean? I would say that we'll have our attorney review the commenting policy and uh we'll report back. Okay. Yeah. I think that's the
is that the best way to do that? Okay. So, the three questions you asked, we'll we'll wherever you went. I don't know where you went. Um there you are back there. Uh we'll we'll address that. We'll talk with the attorneys and we'll get back to you on how we're going to handle those those situations. I I think in the atmosphere that we're in right now, um everybody has the right to say
what they're going to say. I I I'm not against that. The problem becomes when attacks go to an individual and it could just be a resident, you know, who's just speaking his mind. I don't need and that's that's the reason why we don't have the back and forth here in this same meeting because we don't want that confrontation with anybody, especially
on social media because it can get out of hand very quickly. So, I I'm glad we're going to take a look at it, but I also agree on the fact that we have to have some parameters on how we how we do that. Okay. [Applause] Motion to approve the following minutes. Regular meeting minutes September 10th.
Special close session meeting September 10th. Close session meeting September 10th. Can I have a motion? Motion. Second. Councilman Bennon. Councilman Cruz. All in favor? I. I had a question. Sure. I saw on my phone for the computer it said
September 10th, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. for that special type. Yep. It's good. Good catch. It's 25. Is that just a mistake or Yeah, it's just No. No. We're We're going to We're not going back. I hope not. Yes. I didn't want to vote on it. I wasn't here then. You'll have to have a stand.
Yes. Liz, you'll fix that, right? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Um uh bills and uh claims as listed below. Can I have a motion? Motion. Councilman Bennett. Second. Councilman Cruz. All in favor? I resolutions. Anybody need anything removed?
Um, I just had a question on 25 321 and uh 25 324. Okay, Liz. Whereas the mayor Bur Council of the Burmates have the consent agenda
proposed resolution. Whereas the mayor bur council of council does desire to remove resolution for individual action from that agenda. Now leaders are that the following resolutions on the consent agenda are here prior to approved 25 316
through 25 327. We're going to close 321 and 324. Okay. Can I have a motion? Motion. Councilman Hinton. Motion. Councilman Quinn. Uh roll call, please. Do I need a roll call? Uh yeah.
All in favor? Yeah. All in favor? I against roll call, I guess. No, we don't need a roll call. Yeah, we don't need a roll. That's what I'm saying. Okay, you had a question about that.
Uh 321. Yes. Um I had brought up since the paving of Doors Highway, I had brought up about uh jobs for blue and uh inhouse or in town. um if the police department could set up that overtime
with their officers as opposed to paying the extra to Jobs for Blues for setting that up. And I want to thank Michael Carelli and I want to thank the chief in charge um AJ Rodriguez. Um that was straightened out and from now on in town
in house um will be done by the police officers. it will not go through that extra cost which I determined to be about $30 an hour for every hour every officer's working. Um but then I also called and talked to u our administrator
and I said will that also work for the MUA because the MUA the taxpayers pay our water bill they pay our sewer bill. Yeah it does. And uh and he said that yes it would also work for the MUA. Well they would have to set that up though Michael. I mean we don't the NUA has such a little public work
that they do uh you know that that I could see you know we could let the officer in charge talk about that but uh you know as opposed to JCPNL or PSCJ it's very burdensome to do scheduling for them you know we thought it fair to accommodate the MUA right but I don't want to speak for the
MUA if they don't want yeah we're going to talk to them okay yeah we'll report back on that I at my last meeting with the MUA just this past Monday brought it up to them and they were very appre appreciate it. I can save a dollar here in there. That's good. So, um Okay. So, I just wanted to know, is that
effective immediately or is that going to be the first of the year? For the burrow, it's immediately for the MUA. We'll report back just to be sure. Okay. Uh we'll let you know. Thank you. All right, let's jump to 25324 and then we'll do both together. Um just curious the uh Well, she got to read it first. Go
ahead. Authorized pay for bench donation program policy. Okay. What's your question? Um, was that all been set up? All the paperwork for uh bench donation and uh through Liz in the office. Yes. Anybody that wants to do it now, today
or tomorrow, it's the paperwork is all set up for that. I would say early next week. Okay. Yeah. Okay. There's 321 and 324. Can I have a motion? Motion. Motion. Councilman Betting.
Second. Councilman Hinton. All in favor? I. against. Okay. Uh final adoptions, ordinances. Ordinance 25- 27. 2527, right? Y. Yep.
Ordinance amending chapter 28 television and movie filming of municipal code of the burrow. Motion to open the meeting for public comments on ordinance 25-27. Just about this motion. Anybody? So move. Oh, I'm sorry. Councilman Cruz. Second.
Second. Second. Councilman Bennett. All in favor? I guess. Anyone want to address just this resolution or ordinance? Seeing no one. Motion to close the meeting for public comments on ordinance 25-27. Motion. Councilman Bennett. Councilman Quinn. All in favor?
Against. Motion to approve ordinance 25-27 for final adoption. Motion. Second. Councilman Bennett. Councilman Cruz. Roll call, please. Councilman. Hi, Council. Yes. Council.
Yes. Yes. Counciloman. Yes. Okay. [Music] I have an appointment. I'd like to appoint Amanda Kovac to trustee of the library board to fill an unexpired term.
There is no vote on that. That's just an appointment by myself. Um, and I'm guessing I'm next in I think you skipped over. Oh, there it is. I see it. Okay, there you go. Okay. Under my report. Um, I attended
the bid meeting. Uh, you know, they have a lot of good ideas involving coming from the bid. If you noticed, the bid decided to paint the caboose. Um, and and it looks great. And that came out of their budget. Did not come out of taxpayer dollars. Uh, so that's something that I'm sure Councilwoman Kent will talk about in a little while.
Um, I attended the redevelopment meeting. Uh, we had a redevelopment meeting. It was really just to pay bills. I I want the, as I explained to the redevelopment agency and also want the public to understand, the redevelopment agency is one of those boards that we don't really meet unless we have something going on. You know,
the planning board will always meet just to do business or the zoning board will always meet to do business. Redevelopment doesn't really have to meet if there's no projects going on. Now, occasionally we do have to pay some bills, so they will meet every couple months, but you know, we could go six months without a redevelopment meeting, and that and that's just because we have no projects going on. So, I want the
public to understand that because that seems to be a a little bit of an issue sometimes. I attended a zoning board meeting. It was an interesting thing. I'm sure Councilman Cruz will speak about that. I attended the planning board meeting, which was a very long meeting, and uh I'm sure Councilman Quinn will give us an update. Uh I
thought there was good conversation from both sides and at the end of the day uh a decision was made about a project in town uh that will be moving forward um what we call the uh King and Sons Plaza there will be refaced and redone and
changed a little bit and they'll be adding two stories of of apartments on top. I attended the recck meeting. Uh we had some good numbers from our Pompton day which uh the administrator sent over that showed that you know we we we forget that we do Pompton day for a
reason and that's to raise funds for our recreation department. At the end of the day the money we raise goes to help support the other programs that we do and try to keep the cost or free of all those programs and that's why we do that. And all the people that put the time and energy to make Pompton day do
what it does and work like it does are all mostly volunteers. So, all my hat still goes out to everybody that does that. I know there was a couple people that had gone to some other towns locally to their um uh events and they said, you know, Pompton Day was a much nicer I won't say much nicer, I'll say
much bigger event uh than the other towns. And it just shows the dedication to the public who comes out and supports it. Um, and and the thing I took away from Pompton Day, by the way, when when News12 was here and they were interviewing people on the street because they were in here all day, they could only find one person from Pompton
Lakes. A lot of the interviewing people came from Wayne or West Milford or Kennelon, which tells you we're dragging in people from other communities to come to our town. And once we do that, they get a flavor for our town, they shop in our town, they eat in our town. So, it's another side benefit to why that event
is so important. Um, and that is my report. Councilman Cruz. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, everyone. I have a brief report from the board of adjustments meeting last night. So, professional services, I'm just going to go over the bills. Uh, professional services for Collier's
Engineering and Design. Total for that was $30.82. Legal services came out to $1,924. There was only one application last night, which was application 25-09, and that was approved. I'll do it for my report.
Okay. Thank you. Uh, Councilman Hinton, you you want to do the motion first or you want to do your report? Um, yes. I can see that I'm still doing motions. Um motion to approve the following requests made by the Chamber of Commerce to hold the 26th annual
classic car show and close Wanuku a from 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Street closure between Pumpton and Lakeside Avenues on October 12th, 2025 with a rain date of October 19th, 2025.
police, fire, first aid to be notified on the following requests. Chamber of Commerce to contact the police department in St. Mary's Church to coordinate traffic control. Certificate of insurance to be provided
to the burrow for permission to use the pawn hole parking lot during the 26th annual classic car show. Can I have a second? Second, Councilwoman Kent. All in favor? I against.
Another motion. Motion to approve a request from the Pumpton Lakes Riverdale First Aid Squad to hold a tagged style fundraiser on October 12th, 2025 between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
Rain Day October 19th, 2025 at the intersection of Hamburg Turnpike and Ramapo. Police have approved a traffic control plan ANSI certified traffic vests to be worn.
Positioned in yellow. No travel portion roadway behind traffic barrels. Pake County Board of Pay County Board of County Commissioners have been notified. Can I have a second? Second.
Councilman Cruz. All in favor? I against. Okay, thank you. Your report. In my report, um, since the last council meeting, I attended the 9/11 ceremon and, uh, it was an excellent ceremony.
Um, police dressed to the tea. It was uh, a very nice ceremony. Fire department there. Um, quite a few people. And, uh, mayor spoke well. Yes, you did. And um then I
had an open space meeting afterwards and um nothing really. We're just progressing. Uh Councilwoman Kent, I'll have a better report. Um there was just it was brought up there was no pressure in the water fountains at Hersfield and
Lakeside Park. So hopefully that's been rectified. um had a senior meeting on the 18th, Thursday, and um brought it up with them about
the MUA is going to have hydrant flushing on October 20th. It's going to start from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. Um you might have low pressure. You might have brown water. If you do experience
brown water, run your cold water until the brown water until it your water turns clear. Do not run your hot water because it could pull any kind of sediment into your hot water heater or your boiler. We don't want that to happen. Um so you might experience low
pressure also. Um that's going to run, it starts October 20th. It can run 8 to 12 days. So, um, residents, uh, be ready for that. Um, let me see. Uh,
and at the MUA meeting, we did talk about that. I had an MUA meeting on Monday the 22nd, and, uh, we brought that up again. Um, and, um, let's see what else we have here. I just wanted to, uh,
I'm not the type of guy to blow smoke. But sometimes even for myself, um I want to thank um our administrator and um Mickey Gavin for the new guard rails that are out in the front of the
building here. Um good job. Uh I pushed along for that. I talked with Liz quite a few times, our clerk, and she had mentioned that quite a few people have fallen through the years. So I asked our administrator and he said to work on it and uh the job is complete
and it looks good. So we're looking for a safety issue there and uh that was completed. Um the jobs for blue I want to thank the chief chief in charge and uh our administrators also for saving uh
the taxpayers some money on costs of traffic control for the officers and hopefully for the MUA also. We all pay our water and sewer bills. So, if they can save a few dollars, that would be uh work well. Um, I had a question. Is
there any chance that we could televise the open space meeting? People are always asking questions about it. Is that a possibility? We'd have to pay someone to come in and and do the uh filming. Like the secretary for that group would be able to do it. It would have to be one of our
clerks or or people like that. Just a question. I think it has to be a board, but we're not a board. Oh, that's right. It has to It does have to be a board. It has to be has to be Yeah, we can't we can't do just every group. So, if you're a um a a board that
spends uh No, wait. No, there you're not a board. We're We're not a board. No, you are a board. We're committ Oh, no. You're a committee. Yes. So, no committees facing any boards. Okay. No committees. No committ televised. Yes.
Okay. Um, I ran across a woman in the shop right the other day. She was born and raised in Pompton Lakes and she asked me a question. A lot of people don't realize they um, Mr. Hinton, Mr. Cruz. A lot of times people don't realize our first names and uh, she
asked me, "Is Bill Beg running for office again?" And I said, "No, God rest soul. He passed. He did a lot for our town. He was retired as a captain of the police department. Um, no, it's not Bill
Ba. I said it's his son, Steven B. So, just uh clarify that. Um, a lot of people don't realize first names, you know, so it's on all the signs that are put out. It's on the signs, but you know, people a lot of times the big name is big and
Steven is small. Um, and uh, let's see what the bench we talked about and uh, whenever we can work on the fence ordinance, I'd appreciate it. And that's my report. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for reminding me about 911. First of all, it was a
great ceremony, everybody who took part in it. But really, the thank you goes to Liz and her office staff because they're the ones that put that together. They get the everything together. We just show up and and do what we have to do. I thought a nice touch though was having the choir this year. That was very nice. Um, so I think that's something maybe we
continue moving forward with that. And you know, the reason we do that 911 ceremony, I mean, you know, when you look around the crowd, it's the same group of people that show up, but it's just showing that this town is not going to forget what happened on 9/11. And every town has to really just put that out there that at the end of the day,
we're we're just reminding people, you know, like I said in the speech I gave that that day, I usually talk to the children, but you know, that day I was talking to the adults because everybody remembers where they were on 911 when it happened. and we can't forget that. That that's the important part of that whole ceremony.
Uh Councilwoman Kent. Uh thank you, Mayor. I also want to thank uh Liz and the uh staff on the beautiful 911 ceremony. I did think was one of the best ones we've ever had and I think the most attended and I do thank all the police and the fire and the um boy scouts and scout other scout troops
that come and the uh color guard first aid. First aid is always there as well. Um, but I thank all of the the different groups that we we have. Um, and they ring that bell. I tell you, I just tear up. So,
and we can't forget. I agree, Mor. And you did do a very good job. Very good job. I attended the bid meeting via teleconference. I was on vacation this past Thursday. I first want to wish Subone. She's a long she's a long time uh resident of Pmpton Lakes. She broke
both her legs falling down the steps. So, she does a lot with the uh bid and with the chamber of commerce. So, I just want to wish her a speedy recovery, get going. The bid is very active right now. We have a new director and uh he is looking at a monthly newsletter. They're
looking to rebranding on social media and rebranding the the the entire um logo. So there's and they were they did uh take an active uh act they took action and they did uh pay for the painting of the caboose which was an
absolute dire need for years. So I do thank them for that. It looks beautiful and the caboose is just a big part of our town even though we don't own it per se but it's a big part of our town. Everybody knows when they come into town they look for the train. So I want to thank them very much for that. The
classic car show is October 12th and the rain is the 19th of October. There are many uh categories for trophies. If you wish to sponsor a trophy, you could either call Sue, she is taking calls and email or um Art Caft who is the
president of the Chamber of Commerce and I do have an uh email there. There is a flyer online if you wish to do that and and please come out and attend. It's a wonderful event and there are you know hundreds of cars and you know you know quite a few people that come hundreds of
people that come out as well. I also attended the open space committee meeting. We have we did lose uh Dawn Zenetti. Uh she stepped down from the committee for uh for family reasons. She was a a a very uh committed committee person. Uh but we do have an opening
there in the fifth district. So, we need somebody to replace her because that is a voting district. What district? Good. District five, which is Do we know those streets? Anybody know those streets? They're ex south end of town. The south end of town is someone who's interested
in being on open space. Oh, yes. Tree streets. Cedar Cedar. All the streets. All the trees. You would help put a voice on how to spend money that we get from open space. So, it's an important board. It's a yeah, it's a very important board and and it's something we really have to to
fill soon. Um we're we do spend we are spending a lot of money right now. A lot of our projects have come to fruition. Um the um so I'm very proud of that. Willowfield is going to start in another couple weeks which was a almost eight-year project. It and it really
took time because of the permitting process because remember we're we're a town of three rivers. That means we have three uh uh river areas where all three are different. So whenever you do something and you do something with open
space, you got to be dealing with permits from the state of New Jersey. So it's a it's it's just the way we are. But we got through it and I'm real happy to start that. Um we were also at the uh
open space meeting. We also were looking to get a grant application to build a new pickle ball field. So, I'm going to ask uh Michael Carelli, our administrator, to we're going to send you a little note via resolution, and
that will just say that we support putting in a new uh pickle ball court. We we uh and that would be right across street from where the ambulance squad is, right across that building there. We feel there's enough room uh to actually
put this field this this court in and it should not be in the flood way. It's probably in the flood plane but not the flood way. So it may not need as many permits. Are you talking about on the grass? Yeah. On the other side next to the tennis court. Yeah. There's there's enough room evidently that um
there's enough room there. the one of our one of our committee people from the EPC, Mike Shakatano, and uh Councilman Hinton, went out and measured it and and they feel that it was sufficient enough to put at least two two courts in next to that. So, if
we can do that, I think the residents uh would be thrilled because we we have a big call for pickle ball uh through the recreation program. So, if we can do that and we can get the county to pay for some of that, by all means, let's do it. Uh that will come at the next meeting.
Our sha tree. Oh, the water the water pressure at Hersfield Park that was going to be um we were going to take a look to see if that's an issue or not. Uh so I don't know if the MUA did their they were going to go out there and just do a pressure test to see if they did. I don't know if they did it yet, but but
I'll I'll follow up on that. Well, they'll be turning the water off very shortly. Well, that's true. That's true, too. We're not really getting that. So, may not happen this year, but it was working. It was I don't know. We We They were not sure if it was the the water fountain itself or if it was actually pressure in the line. Okay. I have a
feeling it's a wood fountain. We don't usually use lose pressure like that. Um I'm sorry. Uh oh, just to uh mention to to the Kelly's uh concerns with Summit and I want to just mention this to the
um lieutenant in uh we have a traffic study for summit was which was done about 6 months ago. Study that I was mentioning was on KFax app. I do believe they did one for Summit. So you might want to just take a look at that again.
Yeah, I believe I I believe uh Derek did did a traffic study out there. That's why they put the blinking lights. Yeah, they always So, when they did So, when they did the stop when they did the stop sign, uh,
Chief Clark had um, a number of officers monitor the area, right? I'm not too sure if they actually did a full-blown traffic study like they do on the roadways to mark how many cars. I would assume they did. Um, I think he did, but you know, double just I could check if you give me like five
minutes. I should have it in my emails. Um, so we I still wanted him to have you do the same thing twice. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Two minutes. Yeah. No, fine. Thank you. I appreciate that. And we're going to be Oh, and as far as the open space, uh, we're going to be
getting a date from the schools for naming uh, for that ribbon cutting for the turtle, for naming the turtle. And that's a chief project. And I'll be getting back to you on that as soon as I hear back from the schools. And that is my report. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Uh before I get to the next one, I just noticed I don't want to before I forget.
Saturday, October 4th is our townwide garage sale. What that means is you don't need to have a permit to do a have a garage sale at your house. You can just set up and do that just on that day. Any other normal day you would need that. And leaf season begins once a week garbage pickup in effect starting October 10th. So for new residents,
you'll go to one garbage pickup a week and then the other garbage pickup day will be picking up leaves uh through October through November and then we'll go back in December back to two garbage pickups a week. Um Councilman Quinn, thank you. Uh I attended the 911
ceremony. Thank you for uh police department and fire department, high school band, the choir. Uh it was a very nice ceremony. Uh I also attended the planning board
which was the second of two marathon meetings for a single project. The other being in June. Uh the project on Hamburg Turnpike Kings and Sun Plaza was approved uh in June. They had originally
planned on parking in the front uh and 12 uh units to be built on top of uh the existing building. Uh at the planning board's suggestion, they went to the county uh because uh we
knew that they would not be able to do the parking situation the way they had planned. the county does not want uh the parking immediately near the street the way it is currently. Uh they came back in good faith with a project that had
four less units, more clear parking, and also in uh in in uh line with county wants and needs. Uh I believe it's going to be a great project to clean up that
corridor there. Uh there may be a little bit of an issue to take some time with one of the neighbors and some encroachment which was brought up at the very end of the meeting but eventually it should be done. Uh correct me if I'm wrong. Uh the master plan is every 15
years that uh up to 15 years. Yeah. Are we able to revisit that previous to that date? Well, we have to put money aside to redo it and depends what we're how we're going to do that. You can do amendments to the re to the plan or you can do a
hopeful plan. You haven't really come up with a reason yet which way we're going, Mike. Is that correct? Uh seeking guidance from the planning board on that. Okay. Okay. Uh yeah, I'll maybe I'll get in contact with you, Michael. Uh just
the last one was done prior to CO 19 and people work from home a lot more. uh people do business a little differently and it's it may be needed to uh it may need to be revisited prior to uh the
15-year limit. Uh in addition to that, I attended the wreck meeting. I will highlight a few dates at the request of the wreck program. Uh this Saturday, Pton Lakes Field Hockey has a car wash
at Pmpton Lakes High School parking lot. Sunday at the Elks first annual Robert Keller car show. Uh Monday the 6th, Monday the 13th, Monday the 20th, Monday the 27th. Uh there will
be flu vaccination clinics at the Pmpton Lakes Health Department at 25 Lennox Avenue. Cost $15 cash or check. Free with Medicare Part B. Let's see. Uh, Halloween hunt 7 PM
Hersshfield on the 26th of October. Uh, holiday stroll will be December 6th, time to be determined. And Breakfast with Santa the 13th of December, 8:30 a.m. and another at 10:30 a.m. That's my
report for this week. Thank you. Uh, just to clarify with the planning board, uh, I I I forgot to mention, and maybe Pat did, too. Uh, they're redoing that whole mall. So, the whole front of the mall will be redone. It's not going to stay the way it is. They're going to have a new face to the whole mall, new
entrances, uh, new new landscaping in the front. So, it'll all be it'll all new. Of course, apartments up top will be new, but it'll look much nicer from the street because everything will be behind the building instead of in front of the building. Uh, Councilman Bennett. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I want to thank uh Mr. Kelly and Mr. Torisil for bringing
up the um the speeding in town. Speeding is an issue in many towns. Um, I know I make a point of driving 25 miles an hour, plus or minus a couple miles, and I used to get tailgated a lot. Um, I've noticed since I've started doing that a
couple years ago, many years ago, that the tailgating has has decreased, but there's still folks tailgating. Um, I ask that the public just glance at your speedometer. You might be going a little faster than you think you are. Um, 25 mph is is slow, but it's a safe speed.
kid jumps out in front of you, ball rolls out in front of you, you'll be able to uh to stop a little bit easier. I want to congratulate our new firefighter. Um volunteers are the backbone of this community. As Mayor Mike alluded to previously and um I've stayed in previous uh council meetings,
uh back to school night, Pmpton Lakes High School and my last one at Lakeside Middle School. Um lots of great information. I'm excited for for all the um programs that the uh board of ed is putting forth, specifically the um robotics team that is being started um
at the high school, but also the middle school as well as introduction to um coding at at the um elementary schools as well. Redevelopment I was unable to attend because I was at the Lakeside uh middle school back to school night. Thank you, Mayor Mike, for always
attending and being there in my absence. uh historic commission met last evening. Uh we were actually the historic commission was mentioned in in a will. Um unfortunately there is no money to be had. It's just the the previous I'm going to do that. I know right. Um the previous owner of
1238 Lincoln Avenue uh the iron workers cottage which is a historic site um mentioned it in his will. He was a pre uh like I said previous owner. Um details can be found on our burl web page if you search the Iron Workers Cottage. very interesting history. Um, I
just sent an email to uh have our burrow consider becoming a revolution New Jersey community. I mentioned a couple council meetings ago that the by quincentennial, the 250th anniversary or birthday of the United States is next year and to uh have the bur recognize uh
the significance. And lastly, it was mentioned previously the 911 ceremony. very ve I'm very proud that uh Pompton Lake still holds one and that a lot of the community still shows up. In addition, I am also a participant in what's called the 911 promise
organization. Typically, we um teams of runners start at the Pentagon Memorial on September 9th um and run a total of 240 miles um up to ground zero over 3 days. We spend two nights at firehouses. It's
it's quite the um experience. The last couple years I've participated virtually running 9.11 or biking or walking 9.11 miles over uh three days. Um next year will be the big uh 25th anniversary of that uh horrific day. And they are
looking to uh reinstate the in-person promised run. So um stay tuned for that. I'll probably be posting plenty next year. And that is my report. Thank you. Uh B attorney. Uh thank you mayor. Just briefly, um the
the issue an issue was brought up to me earlier regarding the placement of political signs on on public property and specifically the question was whether those signs can be removed. The
answer is yes. in the absence of uh this body providing permission or there being some other permission from the burrow to place those signs on on public property, those signs can and should be removed. Um and um and that's an all or nothing
rule. Um meaning you can't you can't allow the placement of some political signs and prohibit the placement of others. It's all or nothing. My understanding is there has always been a a practice and a policy in the burrow to not have political signs placed on
public property and so I don't know whether those signs were removed but um um my uh my answer to the question was yes they can be removed and um I didn't ask whose they were so I sincerely hope they weren't one of yours and I
I think the what what the concern was and you brought it up is the uh you're talking about for the town only we don't speak for the county the county has it own rules Correct. Correct. So, this is just for the ten. Yes. Yeah. I I should have I should have been more clear on that for burrow property. Okay. May May I ask David a question? So, if
if we do find them uh on our burough property because I'm the DPW leazison uh in the past, it was my understanding the DPW picked them up and took them and Yeah, that's probably a good policy to have the DPW. It's the DPW. Yeah. Yeah. The DPW usually is the are
the the caretakers of the federal property and so it's you know that they do that. Okay. Then then that's okay for them to do that. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. But but but go ahead. Just a point on that. Whereas
the property between the sidewalk and the curb is burrow right of way propert. Yes. And this does not apply to right of way property. Thank you. There's a there's a whole body of law of this is specifically burrow burrow owned property. A right ofway is an overlay.
Right. Parks or Right. Right. Parks. It's that sort of thing. Yep. This municipal building. Just want to point that out. Yep. No. No. Good distinction. Okay. Administrator's report. Thank you, mayor. Uh, as a reminder, the
burrow's annual road resurfacing uh for Spruce Street in Laurel A uh has started. Uh milling and paving is scheduled for Monday, September 29th and uh Tuesday, September 30th, respectively. Uh in addition, the Hersfield Park basketball court will be
milled and paved tomorrow, Thursday, September 25th. Uh the court will be closed through the weekend and reopened on Monday. Um we will have our contractor return during the week of October 6th to stripe to professionally stripe the court. Uh that'll cause a
closure of about a day and then it'll be reopened to the public in whole. Uh so we're looking forward to that. Uh the burrow accepted bids for Albany A and Waterlet A uh last week. Uh we awarded the bids at tonight's meeting and we're
working on a firm schedule uh for the fall soon. So I'll have that out to the public soon. Uh just a reminder again, the Willowfield Improvements Project begins on Monday, October 6th. Uh so the engineer and I will be working with our inspector to monitor the project and
I'll provide updates as we progress uh through the winter. Again it's a winter project and you know will be completed for opening day for little league uh in the spring. So, we are looking forward to that and we have communicated to Little
League and Soccer who use those fields that this is going on and they're aware of the scheduling and all of that and yes and they have sent out an email to their membership uh I think last week. So, they're on the same page as us. Uh I did receive a call from Meridia
Capadagi uh this week. They're going to be begin they're going to begin siding the civic center uh next week. So, we are looking forward to that. I know it's been a little little bit of a delay, but we're getting them back here and they're going to start siding it and finishing the inside. Uh, so it should be nice
when it's done and we'll provide an update on that. Uh, I did reach out to NJ Transit. We had talked about our new bus shelters uh in the late spring of this year. They did tell me that they just awarded a contract to a vendor. Uh, they don't have a time frame, but they
are hopeful for this year. So, I will update on that uh in the fall. Uh I just wanted to note that from the September 10th council meeting, I did meet with the police department and the burrow engineer on Lambert Street. We're still working that out. We'll have some
suggestions, I think, at the October 8th meeting for that. So, we didn't forget about that for the public. uh our our annual request for qualifications, our RFQS for all of our burough professionals uh are out, bless
you, are out to the public right now uh and are due on November 7th. So, we are sending that out to the public. Um municipal budget packets have been sent out to department heads. They're due back on November 7th. The CFO and I will be meeting with all of our department
heads to go through the budgets. Uh and then we'll have a meeting with the finance committee for preliminary budget and then discussion will ensue from there on out. Uh and then just from tonight's agenda, we did appoint the new tax assessor uh Sarah Holig uh who is a
certified tax assessor and actually a resident of Pompton Lakes. Uh so we are uh um happy to have her. Her office hours will be Monday from 5:30 to 7:30 here at the Burough Hall. and just wanted to again wish our tax assessor
Brian Townsen the best of luck in his retirement. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. So, just go over the, you know, when we interviewed for the tax assessor, you know, it's always nice when we get somebody from town to apply for the job who has the credentials to do what they have to do. That's always a nice uh thing. I think the only thing
we'll have to do some education on is the date is the day is changing of when we can you can see the tax assessor. So, we're going to move it. It's moving from Thursday to Monday. So, I guess we'll have to do some We'll do uh any questions to the administration? Nope. Okay. And mayor, I believe Captain has an
update. Yep. Go ahead. I'm going to We should probably put a new line in the agenda for that. Yeah. So, getting back to your question. So, the last time we addressed it was in response to concerns brought up to the council to the council uh on August of
uh 2024. So we did do we did uh traffic did do a traffic study and based on that traffic study um it didn't seem there was so we were there every day from August
26th to August 29th um between the hours of 1 and 6:30 1 and 7. Um, and throughout all that time, um, we only had, uh, 21 occurrences where
there was an issue with a whether a driver was going through a stop sign or failed to stop. And, uh, out of those 21 um, incidents, 14 of them lived up on Summit. Um,
when you do that, that's an unmarked car. Or is that, is there a police car sitting there? It's a police car. It's a marked. It could be unmarked or it could be ghosts. And I'm not sure uh which one was used at at this time. Um if it was uh Officer Eckers, it would have been that. It
would have been the the white ghost car. But I mean, I think if you know, especially in that area, you're not really going over there unless you're a resident. So our our our police cars are pretty pretty much identifiable if they're Well, the reason I bring that up is if we want to do a true speeding study on
the street, you know, obviously you see a police car or car you think is a police car, you're going to slow down. Absolutely. I think if when we do the when we do the traffic study, we set up a box. So the box gets set up, there's no car, but there is no there is no type of box that's going to do for this was for the to address the issue at the stop
sign. So, we really got to get a a body out there and uh and dedicate it. But based on the numbers here and the amount of cars that go in there at a given time, uh obviously you don't want anybody going through the stop signs. Um 21 I wouldn't say in my opinion is uh is
uh is an issue over all the over all those days. How how many cars went by? I percentage is 21 out of I do not have the percentage in this study. Again, it was over a year ago. Like I said, we can uh definitely get
out there and and and revisit it since it's been a year and it brought up some new new concerns. Was there a higher rate within that window of time? Meaning, were there more offenders later in the evening, usually coming out of work, or did you see it was earlier? So, based off of what I
have here, it looks like there was one incident almost per day when they were out there. So, one car per day exceeded. I'm sorry, I misspoke. Yeah, it has to be more. It was more than that. It was So, she
had four incidents on the 26th, six incidents on the 27th. Four on the 28th and on the 29th you had one two six. Hopefully I didn't miss one. The font is really small on the on the phone.
All right. We get we get a feeling of what it is though. about half a resident. That's from about a 5 and a half hour from 5 and 1 half hour time frame. At least from my perspective is not necessarily the the the time necessarily is where the highest impact of offenders
occur. I can't imagine from 1 till 7 or 8, you know, starting at 1:00 all the way down. We're gradually, you know, the higher number in my opinion probably would occur later on in the afternoon. And that's what I would be interested. Is it occurring between the one and four? Is it to four and six? It could
also be school when school gets out. Yeah, the school gets out. So, I will say, you know, in just in general, because I live on Roma and the high school and the middle school, I'm right in the middle. So, I think, you know, the kids that are driving today and just cuz I'm on Roma
and they'll start from Lakeside, they will accelerate and I've seen the Audi's, the BMWs, every car within that short window of time, they'll floor it and I've seen them fly by. Obviously, it's summertime. The windows are open. They're not summertime, but it's warm
weather. So, um I think in general, as the town is concerned, um it's great to give out warnings, but I think we need to reach a point right now that tickets need to be issued. And I think and that we have to be there. We can't Well, no, for you know, for you know,
obviously for the motor vehicle laws that they're breaking um just because it's every day, every day. and I, you know, I'm home. So, I see them fly by every day. You know, kids are crossing on one end, but there's no um crossing guard on Lakeside. You got the high
school kids coming this way and then on the other side there's a crossing guard, you know, but I've seen them floor it and they probably hit about good 40 45 and then only to hit, you know, by the time they get to the crossing guard, the crossing guard on the other side.
Um I think an assessment just as a whole and I know from a police department having to cover the burrow in every single area is practically impossible. Yeah. And that's the thing too. I think um you know it's not you know obviously it's a it's an issue especially if you if you live there anybody that's not
part that's not stopping at a stop sign when you live right there. If you take all of Fountain Lakes as a whole, there's obviously there's there's uh other spots in town that would take a priority over some of that. Not saying that there's not an issue over there,
but the likelihood of of an accident occurring at these other locations or significant damage to property, a loss of life are a lot greater than at that one location on Summit. Now, I'm not saying that we we shouldn't look at it
and we shouldn't address it, but when you're taking when the the totality of everything, you got to put the resources where there's more where at least in my opinion, where there's a a more of a likelihood where these things where
these accidents can occur. Um, so that's why you always see our officers out by the bell by that intersection. Um we had a you know we've had a lot of uh accidents on Ramipo coming off of the side streets on Bartoff or on Pmpton a
where you know people sometimes are stopping and stopping uh or going right going right through the stop signs and and there's other locations as well. That's how we really try to look at it and attack and attack it. So let me just add to for the public's concern I know we all know this but the police department is independent really
of the mayor and council up here. We don't have a say on to to tell them write more tickets, write less tickets, write more tickets in this area or it's up to the chief and the department to run his department the way he does and that there's state uh law on that. You know, we can't speak to saying we demand you write more tickets. We can't do
that. Um, you know, that's what takes the comments that are being made the chief is taking in and he will do his best to to address those things, but at the end of the day, it's going to be done through the police department. Thanks for clarifying. Yeah. And just to just to step on that, the state of New Jersey came out with a bunch of laws that address that that
basically give uh officers that are on the road. Um complete discretion uh they've always had discretion, but they have complete discretion on whether or not they write uh motor vehicle summons or not. Um, and that being said is that
we if they decide that they're going to use their discretion and not write any tickets, I'm bound by law where I can't use that in a performance evaluation. I can't discipline them. I can't I can't I can't use that at any gauge as to say if they're a good officer or not a good
officer. So obviously we we we want our officers to enforce traffic want to go out there and I I our officers do a good job of doing that but they do have discretion and and and that fact kind of understand but I don't think we have an issue we do not have an issue with not
enforcing our our uh our traffic and making our streets safe. Thank you. And one of the other things that comes up while we have the chief here and I get a lot of calls and I know the chief and the administrator get this and and it might be because we're used to the old ways and but nobody owns the street. So anyone can park in the street
anywhere they want. Okay? So if you have a house and you have a sidewalk in front of your house and people are parking in front of your house, they are allowed to park there. I get many many calls. I don't want so and so parking in front of my house. Okay? It doesn't work that way. Okay? They streets are open to park
for anyone to park. More kids are driving, more cars, the houses are old. They're made to fit two or three cars in the in the driveway. So, obviously, they're parking on the streets now. You know, it can get it can and the chief can, you know, admit to this. That confrontation between the neighbors over
that be can grow very quickly and we're trying to stop that. So, everyone just has to calm down a little bit. Look out your window and say, "Somebody's car's there. Don't worry about it." Don't call the police department and say, "I demand that car gets moved because it's parked in front of my house." It doesn't work that way, unfortunately.
Mr. Mayor, can I uh try to make a uh blue collar common sense uh solution to the summit? Okay. I I have a blue collar. Um at the bottom of Summit Avenue, if you put a speed bump right at the stop sign, you're not going to have anybody
going through that stop sign. The problem with speed bumps is once you put one in, every street wants one. Well, well, this is a situation whereas it's very dangerous. People coming off the Summit Hill build up speed coming through and they blow through that
stuff. You put a speed bump there. This this council has been reluctant. I brought this up a few times. Kfax will say the same thing. I want speed bumps though. Excuse me. Kfax will say the same thing. Lincoln will say the same thing. Well, they're all going to say I want We all driven all over this nation and
there's speed bumps in a lot of various towns. Pump the Lakes has no speed bumps. In this instance, if a speed bump was at that stop sign at the bottom of Summit Avenue, nobody's going to be blowing through that stop sign, right? But you start then you don't need a traffic control.
You don't need officers sitting there. You don't need to stop. Once you set that pattern, then you can't say just there. It has to go everywhere. Well, I mean it would be on a basis whereas a need not just you just can't speak. He's show he's saying now there there's no evidence really of any
difference there at summit. The resident is here today saying people are blowing through that stop sign, but they did a study. Councilwoman Kent lives up there. She knows I mean I know that she stops and she drives only 25. Absolutely.
So there's the MUTCD. Uh and when our burrow engineer looks at something like that, they have to make sure it's compliant with the MUTCD. So I believe that we did look at that. I could go back and I'll have the engineer write a memo to to all of you, but if I
recall, it wasn't it didn't qualify for a a speed bump, but I could double. Okay, let's get that. You're correct. You're correct. And and and I know because I requested that I was one of the council people that requested that the police do that. So, as a leazison,
I'll have them take a second look at common sense. Okay. Uh thank you. Uh a motion to open the meeting for public comments. Motion, Councilman Bennett. Second, Councilman Hint, all in favor. Against. Anyone from the public like to address, please?
Well, you'll be next. I don't know if that's I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. That's a compliment. Jim Kelly to Summit Avenue. To the point of Maria bringing up the Councilman Kent bringing up the traffic study. Yes. One.
And I did speak to sorry I did speak to Sergeant about it. He did say we had a problem. He said these are residents that live in your neighborhood. And I go if they're breaking the law, why are they getting
warning tickets? I mean they should definitely get cuz if I ran the stop sign at Wik and KFax, I'm sure to get a a ticket. these same people, you know, the traffic study was done also for
speeding up the hill and you know, we have an issue with that as well that I didn't bring that up. Speeding up Summit Avenue down Summit Avenue. My concern is right now we have a track team, girls track team from 3:00 to 4:00 that run up
and down the hill and these psychopaths that have these cars that they take, they have to hit the gas to go up that hill. I'm afraid that one of these girls. Um, so I'd ask you, I know that we only have four patrol officers. I'd ask that
we find some way to fund the traffic detail once a week, once a month, just to watch the crosswalks, watch the stop signs, watch the speeding because I think Councilman Cruz brought up the fact that
uh Lincoln Avenue from Roma to Lincoln at 3:00 when school's out is a speedway for those kids and those Audi's and whatever cars they have are are flying down Lincoln Avenue right past. You live on Lincoln Avenue as well. Right past
those houses. This is uncalled for. And I don't care if they live in the neighborhood. If I did it, I would expect to receive a summon and so should they. Secondly, on the point about the deer control, they don't shoot the deer with guns. They
shoot them, you know, upper Saddle River and Saddle River uh kind of call the deer. Councilman Hindy who brought this up years ago. Mendum also has a co and you know they reduced the population by 25%. We need to do that because right now you
know not only are residents feeding them if you go to the corner of uh Pmpton and Bam Avenue there's about seven deer just waiting to be fed by one of our neighbors. And it's ridiculous because they carry all types of diseases,
parasites, the the you know the uh the poop that's all over the lawns. They're eating our facia bushes. They're destroying vegetation. It's time to reduce the amount of deer that we have in this town. The babies are coming and now right now it's deer run. So they're
going to be mating and we're going to have more next year in the spring. Something has to be done. Thank you. I agree. I saw another hack. T is that you? Oh, do you want to Well, I said him, so I'll let him go. That's fine. I
Steve Bake 60 Skyler A. Um I also chair the environmental protection committee in town. Um, after the last two meetings, we actually sent emails out to our council leaison and then the last one to the mayor and council. We just wanted to brought up about looking into possibly putting in certain sections of the town dog waste bags and receptacles
for those waste. Um, a lot of times we don't have those, especially at the high school. We've discussed that and we don't have as many green spaces with the new uh buildings. So, if we could put that out, it would reduce the waste that's actually on the ground and that could get in our waterways. So, we're just hoping you could bring that up.
Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Paula Kelly to Summit Avenue. Mike uh mayor, thank you so much for um being persistent with DuPont for as many years of you as you have and thank you for answering my questions. Um I'm a big
proponent for uh communities making the phone calls. I'm happy to call the county. You just direct me to who you want called. I'm all about calling, writing letters. Um, you know, these people work for us as a community. And,
um, so I'm happy to follow up on any of that if that's helpful. So, if you can direct me as to where those letters and phone calls need to go, very happy to do that. Um, additionally, I also I also wanted to ask again, I maybe I didn't
pose it as a question, but where are we if any if we're in conversation still with Wayne uh with regard to utilizing their community center? Y Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public address? Seeing no one, can have a motion to close the public session.
One more. One more. Oh, I'm sorry. [Music] [Music] Sorry, doesn't want to sit down. Okay, sorry Trevor. Um the
uh sorry, lost my train of thought here. Uh the Facebook commenting policy. Uh the couple things I mentioned the uh vulgar language and then the uh personal
attacks. Vulgar language flat out blatantly. We can't put that. It's blatantly unconstitutional. So it just it needs to go. Uh I'll save you the case law that supports that. It's fairly wellnown. So, uh,
as far as the personal attacks, again, it goes into it needs to be nar narrowly tailored. Uh, it's too vague. Uh, personal attack that could say that I think the mayor is a and that might feel personal and to the
moderator who's doing this, they might take that down because they would see that as a personal attack, but that opens our account up for litigation. Um, what is essentially um, yeah, we we definitely need to reook
at that, revise that. There's numerous things that are constitutionally questionable in there. I would suggest taking that down immediately until we can get something replaced up there because again it just it opens up our town for litigation. So all right thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public to address?
Seeing no one have a mo motion to close the public motion second. Councilman Cruz. All in favor? I against. Okay. So uh Mr. Kelly um unfortunately what you mentioned is what I was trying to say at the beginning. They have the the officers have the the right to write
a warning uh ticket. I can't make them write a warning ticket and neither can the chief, unfortunately. That's state law. Uh and that's unfortunate for both of us. Um but they have their own uh methods of how they're going to write the ticket or write a warning. So, if they decide to write a warning, there's
really not much we can do with that, unfortunately. you know, uh, talking about the speeding. Um, you know, I I I I'm sure the our acting chief has gotten the message and he's going to do some investigation on what's going on over there. Um, but I agree with you. I especially when school comes out. I see
it you by me also. The kids are just flying through. Um, and you know, no disrespect to anybody or care about anything and what speed they're going and then they slam on the brakes when they get to a stop sign, maybe roll through it, maybe not. Um, and that has to be addressed. So, I would hope I would hope that if any officer sees that
happening, he is going to pull them over. And, you know, if you're asking me, my personal opinion would be give them a ticket, but I can't tell them to give them a ticket. Um, but I would hope they would at least address that. Uh, with the deer, you know, the hunting is is, you know, you talked about how
they're on people's property. There'll be no hunting on personal property uh with a bow and arrow. This would be an open field to certain distances. you know, it it will not affect so much the housing issue. Yes, it'll reduce the number of deer, but there's just more deer going to come if the other towns
are not doing anything there. It's not like there's a borderline and they say, "I'm not going into Pmpton Lakes." They're going to just come from Wayne and from Bloomingdale and from wherever else they are. Um, you know, uh, the towns that you're talking about that you mentioned have bigger properties. They have large open space areas where they
can do these hunts. You know, we're 50 by 100 lots most of our places. We have a couple places in Joe Grillfield and that area that they could do it, but there's not many they could do that from. Uh uh Paula, I'm sorry I forgot to mention
the uh and first your first comment was uh yes, you should write from the county all the way up to the governor's office and say it's unfair, you know, and it it is and I don't care what party's in as the governor. It's not a slush fund for the governor to use as a you know, I'll
tell you the last time we got some penalty money, it went to build a burm in Wildwood. Well, that doesn't really help us here in Pompton Lakes where all the action took place. So, I would I agree with you. Let's write letters. You know, I I tell every cong every Congress, every person I run into politically above me, I tell them this
and they know that already. So, um you know, I I do happen to have a call, you know, I have the governors and I've called them on it and I said, I just want you to understand where we're coming from. We should get a piece of this. We could use the money. One, two, the pollution happened in our town and we should be we should be put on top of
the list, not in the same mix with everybody else. Um, I work very hard on the deal with Wayne uh working with the mayor there. Uh, we are to the finish line. I'm just waiting on Wayne to sign the agreement. Isn't that correct? Yes. Miss Miss Kelly had reached out to me last week and then that prompted me
to re follow up with Wayne and I haven't heard back. Okay. So, you know, I think it's a great, you know, I have a lot of people that are interested actually in doing it. Um, and I've toured the facility. If you haven't been to that facility, it's a beautiful facility. They offer a lot within that facility. So, I hope that happens very, very shortly.
Steve, thank you. Uh, yes. About the uh collection, is that something we can do uh with the DPW to put out more? We sent it to the DPW to look at. Just waiting on a response. Okay. Yeah. I I mean, I think that helps in general because there's a lot of people walking dogs. Some do the right
thing, some don't. Um, but at the end of the day, that would help maybe make people do the right thing. Trevor, I I agree with you in that um it has to be explained a little bit better because at the end of the day, you know, somebody could could consider uh a comment as
aggressive where other people can't. So, I think the attorney is aware of that and we will look at that. Um I don't think we're at the process of pulling it down unless you think that's something we should be doing now. Well, we'll take a look at it. We'll take a look at it. Okay. All right. Uh thank you.
Okay. [Music] Uh, approve of the floor. Any point of the floor? I just want to me Oh, I'm sorry. No, I don't. I was just do not have anything. Oh, okay. I I just have two things. One, uh, just want to mention since we mentioned it at our last meeting, Lidle
opened. Yes. Yes. And I was told that it is clean. I was told that it passed satisfactory and that we should really take advantage of using that facility because it's a very important store for our our our town. And and I'm glad you said that because,
you know, I fought very hard to get a grocery store to come into this town and it was a uphill fight. I don't want people to to you know, they had a bad thing that happened there and they fixed it, but we have to support it also. If we don't support it, it will go away. And I and it's a new owner of that mall
right now. Mhm. I I would think they would split it into much smaller units and rent them out one at a time and we're not never going to have a grocery store here in town again. So, I'm not saying you have to do all your shopping there, but I think we should try to support it. Thank you for bringing that up. Yeah. Thank you. And and the other thing
on the on Pontton Day when Pontton Day started, you know, one of the the draws was the Pmpton Lakes itself, which is why we had it at that time we had the riata races, which was the boat races that you had to build out of I don't know, wood, I think out of wood. uh duct
tape and people paid $75 and was given plywood, duct tape, and a box of screws. So So that that's how it started. And and uh I'd like to see that. I'm going to ask the pump today to put that put that back in that next year, aren't you? Yes. The problem, you know, God bless yourself. Yeah. I'll tell you what happened. Why
we got rid of that is we didn't get enough participants. Really? Right. So we were I remember years ago we were scing asking kids, people who build boats, asking kids, would you go in the boat? Yeah. So, but I loved it. It was fun. Yes. I'd like to bring that back is
my point, but thank you. Any other closure? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Um, is there a chance that we could pull the ordinance as far as deer feeding just to make sure that it it's not on it's private property or
not private property? Um because the the deer situation is on it. I I not just denying that. Yeah. And I don't agree, you know, we should not be feeding. I can't say them not to, but nobody should be feeding deer on their property. You know, the aspect of feeding them
through the winter takes away from what the good lord would thin the population out because people are carrying them through the winter. Um whereas we don't have a call to reduce the population, we have to stop people from thinking about the deal.
Um right now I'm trying to change the fence ordinance through Councilman Cruz as to raising the fence height in backyards to protect the taxpayers's backyard landscaping. Um, so many people
try to in their retirement or in their lives, they're growing things in their yard and want a nice yard and the deer are jumping the fence because the fences are too low and they're destroying people's yards for the taxes that we all pay as taxpayers. Something needs to be
done. So through Councilman Cruz and the ordinance committee, we're going to see if we can change the fence ordinance to allow for higher fencing in the backyard area. Front yard, we understand. backyard, you should at least be able to protect the things you love and want to
grow in your yard. So, if we could uh check that ordinance on the deer feeding, yep, Michael P. We'll work on the other one. I'm just going to ask the attorney, do you think we'd have jurisdiction on private property? You know, I I I am, as Councilman
Hittenwald knows, uh I am I am very adamantly opposed to destroying property. Um, I I think there may be a way to craft an ordinance where
you are creating a nuisance by feeding deer. So, um, it's not something I know. Um, but just shooting from the hip, I'd like to take a look at that. There's some way we can we can do something to control the deer to at
least control the feeding of deer um by citizens. All right. So, let's resource that, too. And Mr. Mayor, also, it would help for the chief in charge in his police force, if he knows exactly what the ordinance says, and if his officers see residents
feeding the dealer, they know what to do about it. It would be property and maintenance. They would come out and issue all those fines and sums. Property maintenance. Anything on the property likely. Anything on the property is property maintenance. Anything on the street. Yep.
Yeah. But if they're breaking the law, which is an ordinance is a law. An ordinance is a code. It's a code. It would be code of enforcement when it comes to that sort of thing. Let's get a little tougher. Okay. Thank you. Any other ver? Okay. Look at that motion to adjurnn. We
do not have close session. Yes, we do. We do. Oh, I thought we didn't. No, we did. So close. Go. We're going into close session. I'm sorry. I'm throwing you all out. Uh, all right. Can I have a second? Okay,
you ready? Let's do this. session we discussed uh litigation and uh I guess litigation for both of them, right? Yeah, litigation. Okay. Correct. Motion to adjurnn. Motion second. Councilman Bennett, Councilman Cruz. All in favor?
Okay. Thanks, guys. That's it. time.