##VIDEO ID:SViC84WDNNQ## all right good evening everyone Welcome to our meeting of January 13 2025 this is a meeting of the mayor and Council of Princeton New Jersey could we please have our meeting statement read adequate notice of this meeting was provided in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings act including the time date and location of the meeting in addition the agenda and all related materials were posted electronically and made available to the public on Princeton's meeting portal in advance of the meeting thank you very much and our newest council member is going to read the land acknowledgement this evening we gathered today on the land of the Len lenapi as members of the Princeton Community we aspire to show appreciation respect and concern for All Peoples and our environment we honor the lape and their indigenous caretakers of these lands and Waters the elders who lived here before the indigenous today and the generations to come thank you we have roll call please Mr McDonald here miss PR lambrose here Mr Cohen here miss Sachs here miss Fraga here Mr nulan here mayor Freda here you have Quorum thank you very much much if you're able and you would like to stand and join us in the pledge of allegiance that would be very nice remove the flag sorry confused me I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay uh next up we have a proclamation that our uh police commissioner will read thank you and this is my honor to read this Proclamation honoring Sergeant James Martinez on the occasion of his retirement whereas the municipality of Princeton is proud to recognize Sergeant James Martinez for his dedication to public service on the occasion of his retirement and whereas James began his career with the Princeton burough Police Department in January of 19 94 in the role of a patrol officer and whereas James worked for the Princeton Police Department for 30 years and held the titles patrol officer Corporal and Patrol sergeant and whereas as a patrol Sergeant James left with the integrity and confidence inspiring his squads to prioritize Community safety and collaboration and whereas James also honorably served served his country as a lands Corporal in the United States Marine corpse reserve and whereas James will be enjoying his retirement spending time enjoying ruers University football games and whereas James retirement from the municipality of Princeton will be effect was effective December 1st 2024 and whereas Sergeant James Martinez has served the community of Princeton with Pride for 30 years and upon the occasion of his retirement is deserving of recognition and the highest Commendation now therefore be it resolved that I letia Fraga on behalf of Mark Frida mayor of Princeton and the Council of Princeton County of Mercer state of New Jersey extend the municipality's humble expression of appreciation and sincerest congratulations to James Martinez we offer our best wishes for a long happy and healthy retirement here we go thank you oh yeah [Applause] you don't have to but if you want to no I had nothing prepared but um you know I've been here for 30 years and um I'm not originally from Princeton but I think Princeton will always be a part of me and I do to PL Camp come back with my family and enjoy princing as a civilian now and like I said I always feel that be a part of Princeton and it'll be a part of me thank you thank [Applause] you okay next up our uh announcements do we have any Council Michelle thank you um so I have a kind of a joint report along with Jim um a few months back we hired Nelson niggard to uh do the um uh the study and work on on our transit system so we'll be um they're going into their second phase now they've done some data Gathering but now they're ready to do uh the second phase you know we've got the new EV buses coming in at some point this year uh so we need to be prepared and we really want to expand our services to our community um so Jim do you want to fill in a little bit about um how they're going to do the community outreach portion thank you sure thank you Michelle um the the next phase of the project after having done a needs and uh demands study uh based on demographics and uh the location of the destinations and and the origins of people uh is to meet with focused groups of uh different types of stakeholders so we are setting up focus groups with the business Community with the Health Community uh with uh residential developments uh particularly multi family devel velopments and uh with other community stakeholders such as Princeton Housing Authority Princeton uh um Community Village um and the public schools um a as a group um they will be holding these focus groups virtually uh starting next week and hopefully complete them by the end of the month um following that uh we will be having popup events at the the dinky station um Palmer Square the uh public library and oh wow no the public library covers the farmers market and oh the Princeton shopping center oh my goodness um so that will be uh uh for the purpose of that is to meet with people uh provide them with information on the transit study and the transit services that currently exist in in municipality and and do a survey of finding out uh how they use the services if they even use the services um and gather all of that data uh all of that will be compiled the focus group information the public uh Outreach information and we plan to be back here on February 24th at the council meeting for a presentation on their findings thank you any questions thanks Jim thanks Jim thanks Michelle other Council announcements or reports for this evening okay great I don't want to wait too long in case somebody else raises their hand um next up is the uh police chief's report and uh Lieutenant I hear you're our guest uh a guest announcer tonight and you're going to give us the report May Council uh just want to take a moment to discuss uh portion of the November Chief's monthly report and highlight our annual winter coat drive uh this year we collected over 300 coats and garments from the public uh our department then donated all the cold weather gear to Princeton Cornerstone Kitchen so it could be redistributed to the community uh I want to thank the members of the public for the gracious donations and thank the Cornerstone Kitchen for their continued partnership uh lastly I wanted to mention that the six probationary officers have successfully met the requirements of their conditional offers of employment uh we are very excited to have this talented group join our department and contribute to making uh princeon such a great place to work live and visit and that's all I have if you have any questions more than happy to answer them yes thank you very much any questions from Council L not questions but comment because I was asked already about it earlier today just to clarify that the one candidate a last name fra is no relation to the mayor absolutely not related thank you I forgot to mention that anything else on the police report uh those are the only two things I had mayor thank you for having me appreciate yep thanks for being here okay uh public comments for items not on theend excuse me Mr Mayor I'm sorry we'd like to give a quick report from engineering I am very sorry do you have a new report please yeah another report um I'd like to announce that we're going to have preconstruction meetings for the Cherry Hill Road shared use path and for the ter hun Road improvements on the 28th of uh January uh in the community room at starting at 10: then following one will be at 10 one will be at 11: um also that New Jersey American Water will be doing some water main work starting very soon I believe they wanted to start this week on Duran Avenue Long View Drive and house Circle and that we've also um communicated with them about our trun Road improvements project so they are going to replace the water main and tiun road between North Harrison Street and Grover uh starting next month before we get out there with our construction project and lastly uh the 2025 waste mailer is ready to be mailed it has been posted to our website already um the only huge change in this is that Mercer County Improvement Authority who collects all the recycling now accepts number five plastic and that's our report thank you thanks Jim and Dean's back if you didn't notice there we go okay have a question yes Jim how long is this the water main that broke um in on between uh Harrison and Grover on trune recently or this is yes it is it's been in need of replacement for several years and they find they they uh did not have funding for it but we convinced them to replace it before we paved the road Bravo how long how long do we anticipate that will take I didn't hear a time frame they expect to start um it shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks it is mostly a main um very few Services is the services that take a long time when they do a water main project so um they really expect to be done by the end of February okay and the traffic will be direct there will be traffic uh guidance enforcement yes Direction but uh traffic will be able to get through don't have those details at the moment we haven't sat with them we they they will be at our pre-con meeting on the 28th and we anticipate having well we we've talked to them about meeting specifically about getting this water main done and how it's going to get done right after that pre-con meeting great well thank you for getting the funding and um that's right I remember uh an invitation to that meeting so um look forward to hearing more details okay any other comments questions great public comments for items not on the agenda anybody in the audience here NOP no hands up anybody online anybody on Zoom want to talk about anything okay seeing none I'll close that part of the meeting and we have an ordinance introduction ordinance 2025 -01 an ordinance of the municipality of Princeton authorizing the acquisition of a public access access construction and maintenance easement for the Mountain Lakes Red Trail Footbridge the public hearing will be January 27th 20125 would someone move that lighton thank you very much Michelle's got the second we have a roll call vote Please Mr McDonald hi Miss Pon lambrose yes I Mr Cohen yes Miss Sachs yes Miss praga yes Mr nulan yes carried thank you very much we have a number of resolutions first one is 25-32 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton for the appointment of probationary officers this is the six police officers uh thank you latisia has got the motion Michelle's got the second questions or comments Michelle just really um excellent uh class uh coming in of probationary officers I had the U honor to um sit on the interview and uh uh panel and um just really glad to see it's not easy to recruit these days into the police department uh and our Police Department is doing a great job so just wanted to say thank you and can I add to that you know just very happy to see a very diverse group of candidates uh including uh one uh female someone who spoke Spanish and the other I believe there was another candidate that also uh uh spoke uh I just can't recall the language that this spoke but it's a very very diverse group of candidates which we're happy to see yeah we have a good group okay uh any other questions or comments seeing none all in favor please say I I I okay 2533 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the award of a Professional Services agreement to Bowman Consulting Group limited for Design Services for the Reconstruction of Community Park South for 79,2 $150 Michelle has the motion is there t has got the second questions and comments Michelle um so I just um want to point out that this uh large contract will be for the entirety of taking from what we've done with suburban and the concept plan in the Outreach and then building in a three-phase program um and I'll I'll leave uh question to the end but I think that the um the three-phase program will include you know doing all of the um planning Contracting and and really looking at this um over a longer period of time we're not going to be able to afford to do it all at once uh but we can certainly look at how to phase it uh in the in the um in The Proposal they talked about doing like courts first um and then fields and and they'll help us in terms of of what needs to be done in terms of infrastructure uh and then rebuilding and I'm just going to say that we once we start this process we can really go out and um look for funding because we need State local Federal grant programs and also corporations or individuals that want to donate and help us uh this is really just a gem of a unique Park um and really the heart of our community so I just you know think that there's really a a real importance to investing in it and looking at this for the longterm um for health and fitness and Recreation for all ages so I'm really excited to bring it to this next level um and I just want to thank the rec commission the rec department uh the engineering department it's been a great collaboration so thank you thanks Michelle other questions or comments all in favor please say I I I Evan I know you're here Andrew I know you're here did you guys have anything brief that you wanted to comment on briefly not very long okay I just want to uh thank Council for taking this step uh this is a project that has been on the to-do list for a very long time um it predates my time on Princeton burough Council I believe has been on the to-do list uh predating mayor freda's time on Princeton bro Council it's been considered to be done since at least the mid 1980s so this is a significant step um and I'm looking forward to working with Bowman I think they uh they produced an outstanding proposal very thorough um and I I think uh working together we can continue to move this project forward and hopefully reach someday uh a conclusion to it have yeah I just want to Echo chairman coun and councilwoman Peron lambrose uh from the staff level we're extremely excited about this uh as a as both a resident and an employee I'm excited about it because I live right around the corner from the park and it's going to be a I think the finished product is going to be amazing for the community uh and so u in the executive director chair that I sit I can go back uh three generations of of my predecessors all who all of whom have said uh that this park CP South needs uh the attention that it is now getting and so thank you all for recognizing that um it's a great day um and very appreciative so on behalf of commission staff um thank you very much thank you bothy New Year folks happy New Year than you happy New Year uh okay next up 2534 resolution vote we did yes yeah we did who asked me that yeah we voted yeah yeah we voted resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the award of a Professional Services agreement to Catholic Charities Das of Trenton for Behavioral Health and community services for $3,494 36 Leticia has got the motion Michelle's got the second questions or comments all right oh Michelle um I just want to thank uh Jeff grer Bernie the staff um on making this change it's about a year ago now uh that we moved to Catholic Charities I think there's a not only a huge savings but I an increase in the services that we're a able to provide so just want to thank you and just remind everyone of of of the great service um and the vision uh to make this change for us I know if you have any further comments thank you Jeff took the words right out of my mouth okay any other questions or comments mayor I just want to you know thank Jeff and his team you know for the outstanding work they do in all the Human Services area uh you know we uh really distinguish oursel in that area and hopefully this year we'll we'll work on objectives between the car's committee and uh Leti and I working together uh through you know different adversities depending upon what happens when we turn the corner in the next 24 days or so but uh we have a good leadership in Jeff and his team and we um we we we know that we're going to get good things done in 2025 so it's all good y thank you any other questions comments I see none all in favor please say I I I next up 2535 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton approving transfers in accordance with njsa 44-59 thank you David is there a second thank you Brian uh this is a transfer for a whopping $4,200 uh questions or comments all right all in favor please say I I 2536 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the award of a Professional Services agreement to Clark Kon hints for planning services for affordable housing for an amount not to exceed $71,000 Leon's got the motion is there a second thank you Michelle questions or comments David I know there was some uncertainty at the agenda setting meeting in regarding whether this was for the fair share plan and new housing element and Mia you were G to look into that can you confirm that's what it's for I read the packet that was available to everyone and it made that clear excellent wait so what we just say the information is in the package but we didn't we didn't answer the question the answer is yes it's in the packet thank you I could uh say it in any other language that anyone would request we don't have our sign language person here here today but uh if anyone wants it in Russian German French let me know okay I'll think about that any other questions or comments all right all in favor please say I I I 2537 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the award of Professional Services agreement to ver Lo biano for supplemental nursing services for an amount not to exceed $45,000 is there a motion on that thank you Leticia is there a second thank you Michelle questions or comments I see none all in favor please say I I 2538 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing an award of a contract to Shi International for open goov workflow software platform utilizing the New Jersey Cooperative purchasing Alliance contract number ck4 24-38 for $665 44 thank you Leighton for the motion is there a second thank you Michelle questions or comments all right see none all in favor please say I I I I 2539 resolution of the mayor and Council of Princeton authorizing the renewal of an extraordinary unspecifiable service contract with the center for modern aging Princeton for an amount not to exceed $171,900 we could move those two together thank you Leticia is there a second thank you Michelle all in favor say I I I David you have a motion Mo to aurn thank you is there a second thank you Michelle all in favor say I I we are done thank you very much have a great evening