Hold to order the meeting of the mayor and council for River Edge. Um July 24, 2025 regular meeting Riveridge Library uh 685 Elm Avenue and remotely on Zoom. Uh in a moment we'll stand for a silent
reflection. Um uh let us consider our country and the world as a whole and uh its government's leaders. And then if we could have uh Councilman Benson lead us in the flag. Salute. Councilman Benson.
Salute. 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. Okay. A statement of compliance with the open public media act. This meeting
complies with the open public meeting act by notification on June 4th, 2025 this location date and time to the town news and the record and by posting of the same on the municipal bulletin boards and the burough website and following notice of the same with the municipal clerk. Madame clerk, roll call, please.
Council President Monttoano Cohen here. Councilwoman Canella is currently absent. Councilwoman Mala Larry, she's not here. Okay. Currently absent. Currently absent. Okay. Council walking in right now. Counciloman Mar
talk about time. Councilman Benson here. Councilman Glass here. Councilwoman Dario here. Mayor Papleo here. Okay. Okay. Uh, could I have a motion second to approve the minutes of the mayor and council regular meeting in
close session June 12th, 2025 and mayor and council regular meeting of June 26, 2025? Move. Second. All in favor please say I. I. I need to abstain mayor from uh 5th uh June 12th meeting.
All right. Anyone else? All right. And we'll see that as approved with one abstension. Okay. We have a discussion determination and award certificate. U Miss Appetella is Mr. Bagelli Bagelli
going to um introduce that or you going to introduce it? No, this is all Chris. All right, Chris, you are up. Thanks, Mayor. Um I mean this this is pretty straightforward. Last year was the first year that we uh sold notes in a very
long time. So, it was uh very new for everybody. Um those notes last year were for $9 million. They matured, came due on June 18th. So, we were required to have another sale to be able to pay back the $9 million that we borrowed and then
borrow a new amount. The amount that we borrowed this time was $1,789,000. Uh the good news is last year's interest rate was 4 and a.5%. This year's interest rate is 3.75%. So, the interest year-over-year is not going to be too much higher despite uh
borrowing an additional two and three4 million. Uh last year, so for the amount in this budget for 2025, it was $42,000 in interest. Next year will be $442,000. So, it's $40,000 additional interest next year, but it's on almost $2.8
million of additional money. Um this represents a little over half of our total debt authorizations. I know we go through this during budget time, but I do try to borrow the the the fewest dollars possible. Um, I utilize any reserves that we have before I start
going out to market and incurring interest. And um, you know, those that that amount has been increasing a little bit year-over-year and it will continue to do so until we get to the point where we're ready to sell bonds and permanently finance the projects. Um, just for reference, um, the outstanding
authorizations that we have right now amount to just about $23 million total in debt authorizations. And we're borrowing just under 12 million. So, uh, we're just over h we're borrowing about half of what our total debt
authorizations are. And those are debt authorizations from 2020 uh to today. Okay. Uh, just and 2020 was the last time we sold serial bonds. So that's why they're they're acrewing since then. Okay. So just for the public's
understanding, uh would you just for the public benefit explain the difference between a note and a bond, an anticipary note and a bond? And would you also explain um clarify for the public's understanding that it's not 9 million and another 11 million? It's a 9 million
and uh then in the 11 million in incorporates that 9 million. That's correct. So uh and and the the definition of the note and the and the bond will will certainly help explain that the note is is temporary financing. It's for one up to a maximum of one year
at a time. So every year the note matures, we have to pay it down in full along with any interest that occurs and then you start the cycle on the new note. So then the 11 million789,000 that we borrowed this year, 9 million of that paid off last year's note. So, it's
not in addition to the 9 million, it's uh in in uh instead of the 9 million. And then we borrowed an additional $2,789,000 of new money um in addition to the 9 million uh at at uh at the point where our
amortization schedules start to drop. I'm looking at them now. They start to drop in 2030, which is about four budget years from now. will be looking to um sell serial bonds again. So, we will likely be in short-term notes for the next four years unless something crazy
happens with the market where it's more advantageous to sell early. Um but at that point, we'll see a about a $500,000 drop in the debt that we have payable and that would be the time to sell bonds on all of the debt acured since the last
serial bond sale, which was in 2020. And when we go to sell those bonds, the the life of those bonds will be based on an average useful life all the projects that are accompanied uh within that bond ordinance. Hold on a second. Let the record show
that Councilwoman Canella is here. Do you see the blue zoom button? Got it. Okay. All right. Uh Chris, uh very good. Uh I cut you off maybe. No, that was that was it. I was just um going through the what what our
amortization schedule will look like over the next uh probably 20 years. U we won't be selling we won't be selling bonds until probably 2029 to for our first payment in 2030. And at that time uh that the life of those will be based on the average life of all the projects
usually around 10 to 12 years. Um and that's why you know if you look at the last sales in 2020 we'll have another one in 2030. We'll probably have another one in 2040. Again, barring any major changes in the market that would make it more advantageous for get for us to get in and out of permanent financing.
Okay. Um Chris, how much uh debt service do we have, not counting this 11 million? Well, the the debt service is made up of a couple of components. Um one is the total debt authorizations.
um not including the $11 million, we have authorizations for approximately another um 12 11.5 million that are that are current authorizations. Uh but we also
have outstanding bonds that uh are in the amount of approximately $6 million remaining at this point. So those are the three components. We have our our notes that are open. We have the debt that we have not borrowed. And we have the serial bonds that are
permanently financed. Okay. All right. Uh any member of council wish to ask uh our CFO uh any question or um make any comment? I I just have a question. Sure. In general terms, Chris, what what does
that mean uh for the budget season as that is fast approaching? Uh well, for next year, there's really not going to be very much of a difference. Uh like I said, the difference between the interest is about $40,000. So that that's the only change
you'll see in the uh in the budget for 2026. Um, but the way that notes work, and this is something that we'll be talking about a lot more during the the budget season, which you know, I guess I would argue is year round, but uh is more prominent in the in the early
months of the year. Um, we'll we will start to have to make small payowns on those notes in the third year. Um, and and that will be added to the budget, but we do already somewhat aggressively um budget for uh principal payments. So,
we'll likely be able to fit them into our existing budget without too much tax impact. The idea is to try to increase the amount that we put in the budget little by little year-over-year to the time where we sell serial bonds in 2030 so that there's not a major spike in any
individual year. And it's something that I have mapped out on about a thousand columns in a spreadsheet, but um I will I will happily try to summarize it, you know, year over year. it'll it'll change based on the projects that we approve, based on the interest rates in the
market, um you know, and and really the the what our budget looks like, you know, the room that we have in our budget to be able to support some of the payments. So, this is going to be an ongoing conversation. Every time we look to improve a capital improvement, every every budget cycle, um but for 2026, uh
it's relatively unchanged. Okay. Um any other member from council? Okay, Chris, do we need to take any action? No, this is just an inform informative uh message where, you know, we need to keep the council uh informed of any
investments or not sales that we make or have. Um, in this case, this just serves as that notification and and keeps us compliant with local bond law. Okay. All right. Thank you very very much. Um, my pleasure. Gemma here.
Gemma here. No. Okay. Good. All right, then. I'm not going to um we're gonna proceed. Okay. Thanks, Chris. Um we appreciate it. Have a good one. Pleasure. Have a good night. Good night. Thank you, Chris. Okay. Uh next is a presentation. The
chief of police uh made a request to come and speak again about the police department table of organization. Chief, uh please come forward and you just need to identify yourself by name. And that's all for the record.
Chief Michael Don Walker, River Road Police Department. All right, Chief. Bo is yours. Great. Um, I just wanted to check with Lzette first if she do you want me to talk about the plate reader or go into this? Um, the plleate reader is quicker than
the PO. So, right. So, this is just a quick different topic, but we ran into a situation. Hopefully, you guys can remember from the uh budget meeting when I asked for all those cameras around town, right? Um part of that was plate readers for the cars. So, I'm running
into a situation where they if you remember correctly, their their life is coming to an end. As they break, they're done now, right? Um and that's what I'm running into. So, couple things with it. And it what why it comes to mind specifically is because I I asked for an
update on him uh yesterday, but we had an incident yesterday where I don't know if you guys are aware there was a car that did a telephone pole on Adams Adam and Adams and FIP and it fled the scene and it was you know quite a bit of debris. Obviously we were considered it was
morning time interesting enough. So we didn't know if somebody was DWI from the night before. Um we lost the car though so we we didn't see it. residents saw it. They gave a description. Sure enough, one of our patrol officers that had been driving around, the plate reader picked up on a plate that fit
that description. The officers did an investigation. They found it in Hallwood. All right. The car the car had to be towed. It was so uh beat up. But in when I come in and see that, obviously, they did great police work, but I look at that and I go, you know, where are we with those plate readers?
And we're we're not doing well. The point is two things. One, I'm requesting that we can use the traffic trust fund to make this purchase just for these four for the cars. And at this time, interestingly enough,
it's buy one, get one free. So, we need four. So, we're going to buy two. And that comes to just under 64,000. Um, and it would come from the trust fund. And as we I think we all know the trust fun one that we talked about before that's the money that's made from
the traffic um you know the traffic details and there's quite a bit of money in there uh continues to grow. Um I think it's it's a you know is a very valuable tool to investigations to patrol for a lot of reasons. I can go into it if you want but I think most of you
remember and I think that um you know getting one they're they're almost $30,000 each guys. These things are no joke, but we can get buy one get one free and it indicates that on the paperwork that I would submit to the VA. Okay, chief.
So, I'm putting that out there to you because I got you. Thank you. All right. All right. So, you'll digest that, right? So, I'm here and I need to check is um there he is. Lieutenant Zedes.
Yeah. Which slide uh do you want up first, Chief? the table or the uh job descriptions? Nothing just yet. It'll be the table of organization first, though. Okay. Thanks. You got it. I'll give you a heads up. All right. So, I'm here. I'm here. Um I'm going to
clarify why I'm here, actually, just so we're on the same page because I think there's just some misinformation about what I'm looking what we're looking for and um what what some of you guys have have heard or know. I don't know. But to be clear, I'm going to be as clear as I
can. All right. So uh last year so there's there was last year around this time a little before this time myself and the the command staff command staff is myself the captain and two lieutenants as we will do sit down from time to time and we look at the operations of the police department and
what we were realizing is that uh there's there's a section of work that we have that is very extensive that is is changed over the last two years. Every police department is dealing with it. um and basically has to do with these body wararm cameras. It has to do
with redaction. It has to do with a quite a few um quite a few very important things. And we said, you know, the proper way to staff this would be with a sergeant, right? Um we look at other departments, they're least using a sergeant using a lieutenant. And we we
put together a job description for that officer and we were going to present it. All right. Um I had asked for a meeting with the personnel subcommittee. Um it was just a scheduling thing. The mayor and I had discussed it and it was tough to make that happen. Um and then and
then came and then we realized actually then came budget time and started to hear like you know mayor it's going to be tight year you know does that also they said we got to take that off. I said, "I'd still like to present it at a um personnel subcommittee meeting just
so the foundation is there so you can understand the importance of this need, but nonetheless said we we we're not going to be able to get that. You know, we just have to work with what we have and continue forward." Um the mayor touched on it at the uh budget hearing. Um and the only thing about that is
because I think we didn't have the opportunity to speak. Um it wasn't it wasn't defined as as clearly as I think it needed to be. Um, and that being said, um, just understand that that, um, hopefully there'll be an opportunity for me to meet with this personal subcommittee meeting and really define
what that need is that we're going to that we feel is definitely there, but respectfully understanding the budget is is obviously um, paramount to what we can do with certain things, right? So, understanding that because again sometimes I think,
wait, are they still they still think I'm looking for that sergeant? I'm not. we table that right this is about the replacement of the captain as we know the captain retired the end of June and um he's a important part of our table
organization all right um let me get to where I'm at there's no so LT if you would put up the the t of the four previous chiefs Lieutenant Zendes is currently on vacation with his family and children, but um you know obviously doing a stand
up job for me. And while he's doing that, I I think I definitely should point out that sitting behind me is is basically the entire police department. All right, there's 23 of us. Um I don't see anybody who's not here. All right. um that support I like to say it's
totally for me but it is for me but it's also they have a very very big concern in this because it's their future I can't become the captain because I'm the chief which is a good thing to me right these guys aspire to move up the chain
of command and become instrumental in the way this department operates all right so um I thank them for being here okay when we look at this table of organization Um, is it okay if I stand? Sure. All right. This is I put this together. These are
the the last four chiefs. Chiefs. One second. Joe, can you hit the the plus on the on the Zoom one more time there? Thanks, Joe. All right. And we're about heroes. Okay. Chief Quinn, and I work for these three
chiefs. Um, been around a long time. Chief Quinn taught it in 1984. All right. And when Chief Quinn started um shortly after he became chief, he recognized, you know, we we need to do
some work on this police department. We need to we need to figure out how to make it better. We're kind of a um just put together. So at the time it was Mayor Rafo was the mayor. Chief spoke with the mayor and council and they
agreed we need somebody to look at the police department. So they had an outside company come in and uh after some period of time and a very very extensive and exhaustive um you know um look into the police
department and review it's over 250 page report about the police department. All right. And there's a ton of information in there. All right. I'm going to talk about what's tonight. Otherwise, it's like reading piece of it. Right. So,
this table of organization is basically what came out of that. It's called the polarity report. All right. They didn't have somebody in charge of the detective bureau. They had somebody in charge of patrol. That's kind of just in charge of
everybody. They didn't have a juvenile officer had somewhat a detective. They had a captain, right? He had a captain at the time. They went through the report and the the council was very supportive and
the individual writing the report was very kind of big. I I kind of find it kind of blunt like bliss. You got to do this guys. You need to get this done. All right. So, what they did is they they put three divisions. They made three divisions at the recommendation of the report.
um uniform division which we call patrol, criminal investigations division which we call detective bureau and administrative services which is the capital. All right, that was their uh strong recommendation and and this era
1986 it took place. They plugged that into place, right? It also included a juvenile officer at the time and it said watch the juvenile officer and you may basically you may need to promote them and They had a juvenile officer for a short period of time and they made him a
sergeant. The reason being is that your sergeant of juvenile who's actually second in command of the DB, right? Follow the structure. The sergeant has a lot of involvement with with parents and children. And that needs to be somebody that has authority to make decisions and it needs to be
somebody that's well trained and be very consistent and uniform with with juvenile justice. Juvenile justice is is quite different than adult justice. All right. So when we get involved with juveniles, we're actually detaining them, right? We're not locking them up. We're not arresting them. There's a whole So that it was seen like, hey, you
guys, you got to get this right for your juveniles. And at the time, the report reflects they had a juvenile problem, right? It wasn't me. I was I was just coming out of that age. So that wasn't me. Um that's that's the structure they had. All right. Now,
Chief Strace takes over in 96. All right. And they say to him, "Hey," and the captain eventually retires in in his time. They said, "Chief, we're not we're not giving you a cap." Right? She tried his best.
We're not giving you a captain. So, what we'll do is we'll give you a civilian administrator. All right? The civilian administrator was a a very smart guy. He was a dispatcher for us. He was a podiatrist, right? Um great guy. basically got tired
of looking at feet, wanted a career change and he became a dispatcher for us. Did a great job and the chief tapped him today. Can you help me out upstairs and be an administrator if you said sure I'll help you out with that? what the chief realized and and I just you know
you know I don't know if you know Chief Dice he walks every morning it's 7 o'clock does his track you know I talk to him every now and then and I I knew this but I confirmed with him he goes he goes Mike you know cuz I started in ' 88 you know he goes you know it helped but
he didn't have he didn't have the powers of a police officer you know he couldn't go down and ask all these guys hey I need this from you why is this why is that when He ordered stuff. He didn't know what police equipment is. He could do his homework on it, but it became it
became an issue. It wasn't didn't work smoothly. Brilliant guy. He's a doctor. But he he didn't know what training was for law enforcement. He would just he would just see courses here and courses there. And he basically had to be directed by the chief in in many of the things that he
did. and and we lost the ability for him to to come down and be a part of of this, you know, to to certainly can't take command of anybody, right? He can't help out in a situation. The chief isn't there. It's going to be one of these
guys that has to take over, right? And that's what would happen, right? And the and the concern with that and what happened is so now I'm a sergeant here. I'm a sergeant up there eventually, right? And these these two guys are great friends for a long
period of time. The job will do. Sometimes, you know, things don't always work out. They didn't end as the best friends. I love them both dearly, but um what happens with that is now the chief is gone. So, one of these guys has to take over. Well, when you run a patrol
division, in my career, I've been in every position. I understand. I ran the patrol division. I ran protective bureau. I ran both at the same time. Um, when you run a division, it's your focus and you need to know, you need to know
what to do with that. You need to know your responsibilities and you need to know as the detective lieutenant, uh, you know, it's a crime scene. I'm in charge of the crime scene. You got to take care of all those things that come with the crime scene. I'm jumping. So, I
just want to get my spot. All right. So, it wasn't it's not a smooth the point is it's not a smooth transition when the chief isn't there. One of these lieutenants would would have to take over. But sometimes the patrol the the the bureau lieutenant would come down and say, "Hey, you know, you got to do
this and you know the lieutenant would go, what are you talking about? It's my division. You don't you don't you're not haven't worked this in years." And can see a little bit of conflict that can happen there. But nonetheless, the senior lieutenants in charge of the police department and he has to call the shots. So it just wasn't smooth and
chief certainly knew that. He lived it. Um and life went on nonetheless. Chief Kitty becomes chief. He has his table organization which basically remains the same. He adds two traffic officers all right in there. All
right. Um and put a focus on traffic. All right. And then he says, 'Hey, you know guys, the mayor council, sorry, apologize. He says, I need I need somebody I need a police officer. I need somebody with some authority to be in
this position. They eventually agreed to it and they put a sergeant there. All right, it worked better, but it didn't work. It still had the issues because these two guys, one of them is still in charge. So, you still
have the same issue. And what this sergeant tried to do to the best of his ability was he needed to get information sometimes from these people. But again, we're paramilitary, right? Everybody understands police form is paramilitary. That's the way we run. And in the worst
case scenario, that's when it's most important, right? Because we take orders and we follow orders and we do what we need to do. Okay? But the sergeant has to, you know, often he would sometimes he would need information from these people, but now he's skirting another sergeant or he's skirting a lieutenant
and it just didn't it just didn't flow as well as it should. And we live with that for a long time. And you know, the the guy that was there is a good guy. I think that, you know, it probably wasn't fair to him because he would find himself buttthead sometimes. And um and
then and then we move on, right? two traffic officers. They're there. All right. They're out on the road. They're covering patrol. They're doing things. Um, and he's got them, right? Which is a nice addition. Okay. Then comes me in 2021.
And most of you were here. All right. You guys were I was lucky enough to make chief at the time. And I said, "My five-year plan, if you remember, you know, I put together my little book,
everyone got it, right?" people. And in there, I laid out a five-year plan, a strategic plan, how we're going to turn this place around because we were, it was a tough place kind of, you know, we're going through manpower,
morale is low, and and I said, you know, please, I need this cap, I need this captain to make all this work. You guys gave me the captain. All right. At the same time, I said, hey, I don't need these these two traffic officers. All right. I'm going to make I'm going to
make patrol division take care of traffic. I'm going to find the right person to oversee traffic and traffic is going to work fine without these guys. That's $400,000 right there, right? That's gone. They're gone. That's
$400,000. That's So I asked for the captain back. So we went from a sergeant to a captain, which was a bump, but it wasn't $400,000. All right. So that's my table organization. Now that being said, you'll see this guy right here. That was when if you remember when we did our
last hire, not not me, but before him, and it was at the recommendation of council. Um, it might have been G. Kovi. You said, you know, three, you're right there. We might as well take three of these guys because we lo every now and then we lose guy. Even
though um my retention under department has been exceptional. over here. We lost seven guys in six years. I've lost one guy to Paramis. We took Pamis back. We made him much better and they
took him back. That's the truth. Right. And this guy remains though. Okay. Now, we've used this person, this officer, because I've had uh people out on um fraternity. All right. People out on
different things. So jump in and help out patrol, right? But eventually we're going to get back to where we're in a good place, okay? To where these squads are full. This is basically a sergeant, right? There's four squads of four. Sergeant, four, three patrolman, right?
We're not going to need this patrol, right? And these are on here just to be just to be straight up. Everyone knows that that's your school officers by the board of ed. That's our newest guy, our 2. That's the PDM guy gets paid hourly. He's going to
he's going to be uh a productive individual and help us in a lot of ways. Um to save money is is the truth about that. Right. So, let me just see where I'm at. So, the captain spot itself, right?
What's the importance of the captain spot? People say, "Well, you know, we don't even see the guy that much. You know, he's where is he? What does he do? Since Chief Quinn, right, let's look at since Chief Quinn, the town population growth for up to 12,000, right? Not not
a big deal, but certainly the town has grown. The calls for service have absolutely gone up tremendously. All right, the training requirements through the roof compared to then back then. They suggested in the polarity report, you know, you need you need to consider
start making some type of internal affairs division. All right? And council knows internal affairs today is intense. The amount of paperwork, the investigations, the things like that that that has to be correct when you have a case. All right? You have to get
that right. Um the directives from the attorney general and and um the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office have increased tremendously since the 80s. All right. We we have now we have the body warn
cameras and you know we know how enormous the work is with the body warn cameras and that's straight from the attorney general. the reviews that we have to do, the redactions that we have to do, and the redactions aren't it's not like regular like a regular report
oper request. You know, we you've heard me say before, we can't be luckier to have our records clerk, Carol Burn. um probably one of the lowest paid employees in the burrow and she does we're because she's so exceptional.
We're we're able to have her work on the redactions, but they can never go out without the lieutenant looking looking reviewing them. When it comes to these body warn cameras, we need to know if there's an issue. We need to know if it's going to go out for discovery. We need to know if
it's going to go on YouTube. It can't have the wrong things on it. And there's reviews mandated by the attorney general. You have to review somebody patrol. You have to the lieutenant, the sergeants do, the lieutenant has to review them and so on up the line to where I have to even review these. And
these things could take hours if you do it properly. And then you're turning them into training videos and things like that. It's an enormous amount of work at the that falls under the cap, right? You know, we did we've we're accredited now, right? We became
accredited. It's a we absolutely needed it. Um you guys know when I asked for it, I explained the reasons why these three chiefs all had their own written directives and policies and procedures. I came in and I come into an era where
it's like, hey, best police practice is where where you should be going. All right. I didn't start my fourth group because we never got rid of all the other three. So, we went to accreditation. You guys agreed. Mayor and council agreed, gave me the money, we went forward. It
was a long hard job. Took a lot of officers involved, accreditation officer to get that done. All right. And now we're here. It's a great thing. Here we are. We're accredited. It never stops. Accreditation never stops. The
accreditation officer is reporting stuff on a weekly certainly on a weekly on certainly on a monthly basis. he has to stay involved and and get this done, right? Purchasing issues are are always are always ongoing in a police department. You know, whether you're
trying to get cars, equipment, um you know, nothing's easy when government tries to purchase anything, but you have to stay on top of it. We just we just had a car dealership try to shake us down for three extra thousand and we realized we already gave you the purchase order. You know, you didn't give us purchase order. Yes, we did. We
had to go back and find that. We found it. We said, "Get out of here." you know, and but if you don't if you don't pay attention to that stuff, you're going to get there. Somebody's going to take advantage of you. All right. The hiring practice is a change. We we we added the SLE2s, the CLEO uh threes, and
we haven't even started on the CLEO ones. The CLEO ones will be the ones that replace the reserves. And you guys know we have like two three reserves left. Once they're gone, guys, there's the importance of this. Once they're gone, if I don't have SEO ones who basically work for nothing. All right,
there's, you know, as you implement them, we could talk about a a small fee, but basically they're volunteers. Without them, the officers are working. And if the officers are working, more often than not, it's going to be overtime. So, those guys are very valuable. I can't get there. I haven't
been able to get there yet. All right. To to put them in place, you got to hire them. You got to put it out there. You got to do interviews. You got to do background checks. It's lengthy. and we're looking, you know, we'd love to have like at least six of them, right? So, that's that's an area where on my five-year plan, I'm four years in, that
hasn't taken place yet, right? Um, electronic scheduling is something that we've gotten to, all police departments have. Scheduling is a beast, you know, and what I what I mean by that is if you don't know how to do it and you don't
know how to make it work, you will cause overtime like that. that quickly you can cause overtime by making a mistake or by not realizing I could have taken a guy over here and put him over there. I could have brought this guy in early. I didn't need a guy
then, but I brought him in by mistake. That's any either one of the lieutenants and you know I'll give him an opportunity to speak at the end. Um they they're the ones who have uh been involved with it. The captain was running it. All right. And that's a very serious
very expensive area of supervision. All right, we have an electronic system, but it's a beast you got to stay on top of. And then we have things like with community policing, the website, and uh th those are all things. Everything I just talked about though has been added since Quinn.
But keep in mind, I'm not asking for two more patrolman. I'm not asking to keep that patrolman in blue. I'm saying just give me the same table organization that the chief had 40 years ago, guys. It's four years ago that he had it. All
right. LT, if you could bring up the job descriptions, please. Now, I think I handed this out to you, and you're going to see the job descriptions. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on it. I just want to point out um and if you have any questions, probably that would be that would be
great. All right. Um I'll ask you to move down when when I'm ready, I'll think. So, so that's me, right? We're going to move down to where we're going. Let's go to the captain, please. All right. There there, that's our captain, right? Now, these things shift a little bit depending on the officer.
For example, the officer that does accreditation, most likely if he becomes captain, that'll move with right. You're not going to retrain somebody. Um, but there's certain things that this captain does that will go down to the lieutenant. All right? But the captain is involved in very serious things. Second command you're going to hear me
talk about that bureau of professional standards is IIA and it's also key in ethics and and that is intense in New Jersey right it's intense comes the AG IT able training all this stuff we have to go through licensing was just mandated these are this is something
that since since I've been chief we had the license now you say what's the big deal you got to fill out some paperwork each year you got to stay on top of license because you got to know you got to do the background checks on your guys each year we do a third of the department every year they're doing background checks including use their own social media. All right? And I can
tell you this, I'm not worried about my guys. They're great. All right? Could one of them make a mistake here or there? I really don't think so. There's some nightmares around the state. You got to stay on top of that. If you don't stay on top of that, it goes right to the top. It's me. I take the hit for
licensing, right? Um right away they're like, "You missed that. That you better really explain how you missed it." So licensing is is it's a new New Jersey thing. It's typical New Jersey. You know, we have internal affairs that is probably the best in the country that
really takes care of stuff. They add licensing to it, which is like a second another. It's almost repetitive. Once the AG puts it out, it's ours, right? All the department schedule. I said, the hiring process, he sets it all up, takes
care of it, puts it in order, then gets us ready to do the interviews and everything like that. He takes them and suits them up, gives them equipment, and takes care of the academy. Everything to do with those officers is is put through the the captain. Officer drug testing we do twice a year. It's it seems like not
a big deal. It's twice a year, you know, we got to pull out of a computer system, but it can get screwed up if you don't do it right. Bring it down there. The lab is very meticulous and you got to get that right. Um because if you come up, somebody comes up dirty, they're going to tap the eye, and cross the tea. If you got it wrong, we're gonna be in
bad place, right? Stay on top of the overtime and sick time. We're dealing with that now to a certain extent. I'm concerned about sick time. I'm looking at the sick time, but I need somebody to to go into that uh software system and generate reports to look at where the officers where the concerns are, right?
Not a big concern, but there's always there's always with all Google ads, there's always somebody that's like on the radar of like where we at with this, right? major purchasing, like I said, all all that stuff falls into the captain. Uh venture and processing, payments,
keeping stuff in order, all this stuff. Fleet management, oversight of new officers. Um this is all all the stuff that the captain does, right? LT, you can go down through uh each lieutenant one at a time. Lieutenants, they each have their section, guys. They
each have the patrol lieutenant oversees all this stuff. All right? And the patrol lieutenant is the accreditation officer. So this is all the stuff that he has to say and this is I don't want to go. You can read it. Just trust me when I tell you it's tremendous. They're here tonight. So if you doubt that
they're they're not overwhelmed at times you can ask them. That's the patrol lieutenant. LT if you move up to the detective lieutenant. That's the detective lieutenant. All right. And I I don't sugarcoat this, you know. I don't put in any any fluff. This
is really what they do. All right. And some of it, like I said, this this is here, but it hasn't got to where to where I need it to be. I need to be So, we're doing quarterly meetings and we're looking at where where's the ethics and where are we with these things? How's IIIA doing? You know, um and we're
getting there, right? So, so then you say, all right, well, where are we? What makes the difference between the captain and lieutenants? The captain is has second command. That's where I want
to get to. You guys have the mayor's not here. Who's in charge? Right. The council president. It's second in command. If he went on just went on a great vacation, I think we were all there. Wish we were there instead of here, but he did while he was
gone. Right. We get the emails. We get the text. Somebody's in charge, right? may not seem like a big deal. I think it's a big deal for you guys. I think the mayor knows it's a big deal to be mayor. You know, when things go south and there's a storm or what's things are, you know, whatever it may be, and
I'm sure you could go on and on about major things that you've been involved in, you got to know what you're doing and you got to be in that role and you got to be ready for it. You know, you just can't you can't crapshoot who's in that role, right? Or police department. I'm just going to do four towns around this real quick.
Oriel just made a new chief two weeks ago. Made a captain with us. All right. The Milford has two captains. Ramis has a deputy chief and four captains. Four times the size of us, but a deputy chief of four captains. Hackinack has four captains. A deputy chief is has yet to
build. All right. I went into the lieutenants how how it's concerning. I apologize. That's I went to the lieutenants how it's concerning if it's just them. You know, if you have a lieutenant, if I'm not here and a lieutenant is running a
crime scene, all right, what you're basically asking him is to say, while you're looking taking care of that crime scene and making sure everything's done, you got to take a step back and look at yourself as the chief. All right, it's it's not practical. It's not good. It's not a way to run to run a police department. The patrol lieutenant has to
do the same thing. Often they're involved at the same time. All right? If it's a major crime, one's doing patrol issues, one's doing detective bureau. It's not like one's it's like, hey, it's your day or it's you're insane. I got nothing to do with it. They they overlap with different responsibilities for the
same thing, right? Outside agencies, they're involved in perimeter safety, evidence, suspects, interviews, warrants, directive, uh directing detectives, arrest search and seizure, signing complaints, prosecutors, getting in touch with prosecutors, judges, transports, prisoners, these things.
Just yesterday, we had a major domestic violence incident in town and Tuesday, Lieutenant McGinty was in my office doing captain stuff. So, you got to you got to do you got to look at some of his purchasing. We have some deadlines for um some grants that that he has to be
aware of and jump on. He focused on that most of the afternoon. Wednesday morning, I come in, I'm in at seven, he was in already. I look at the CAD, you know, the dispatch system, and I see there was a a serious call. And the fact that the report wasn't in yet,
I knew was it's got to still be serious. There's still two shifts worked on it one after the other. I went in his office. He's not. There's no way he's going to be talking to me about captain stuff. He's he's engrossed in this case. It was serious. It involved juvenile, involved assault, involved another
jurisdiction. You know, we got on it. We took care of it. But, you know, there he is. and he's like going to try to go back to being the captain after that. All right, that happens, guys. That happens more than we realize. It's a great little town. Bad things can happen
every now and then. with with a police department. From a chief's perspective, really from a town's perspective, certainly from council's perspective, there's, you know, what what are what are real concerns about the way we operate when things go to a lawsuit, the top three things they they look at, they look at
your training, they look at your policies and procedures, and they look at your supervision. That's what they look at. And they want to see they want to make sure you're up to snuff. When I became chief, those three things were my biggest focus. Morale was right there because I needed the guys to come on
board and and want to work. But I knew I had to get those three things in order because I don't want to be the chief in a lawsuit. I certainly don't want the town to be in a lawsuit, right? We focused on that. We did the accreditation, right? We did the training through the accreditation and we made training what it should be,
which is more uniform, more consistent. It wasn't halfhazard. It's kind of halfhazardly being plugged in. Send them to that academy. Send them over there. Send them. No, we we made it so that we're going to the right class to the right people. That's all the captain. That's all the captain taking care of that training, documenting it, making
sure it's there. Officer goes to court. We give him all those training documents that he needs. All right. And supervision. The officers, you know, our sergeants were they're getting trained here, they're getting trained there. I said, "No, when you become a sergeant, you're going to go to this training. This FBI leader training here, you're
taking this course. You're all taking the same course. It's that's the way it needs to be. Somebody takes care of that. That's the captain that takes care of that. Right? If the captain's not replaced, all right, operations of the police department, you hear me describe it.
They're going to be affected. All right. All this work that I've done for four years, I'm going to go backwards. I can't There's no way that I can I can continue to to finish it. Not that there's no way, but it's it's I'm going to go backwards for the most
part. I'm telling you. All right. It'll be tough to keep up the accreditation because that lieutenant, he's got to take over some of those responsibilities of the captain. He's got to the the other lieutenant can't take over everything. So if he takes over that, you know, getting that stuff that to the accreditation
back to the the company that takes care of it, making sure it's documented, making sure we're doing all the stuff based, communicating with training, it's going to, you know, I have to look at what am I going to let what am I going to let up on a little bit. All right. Well, I got policies and procedures up to snuff. They send us the updated ones
when we do. I need to keep on the accreditation to keep it. If we let it lapse in three years, if you want to do it, we're paying it all over again. We're starting from scratch. They don't mess around. They don't go, "We'll give you another year to get back up." You start all over
again. All right. The lieutenants already started working overtime. Uh, you know, my bureau lieutenants started working overtime. And it's like, okay, well, hey, you had no overtime. That that grows old fast, guys. You know, you have a family, you
have kids, you put in you put in too many days of too many hours and it affects you. I'm big on staying on top of that. I'm big at trying to keep a track of their home life to the best I can. All right? I want to know, you know, are they okay? And they're great. They talk to each other and they talk up
the chain and we'll know when somebody is like, "Hey, you need a break, man. You need a break." All right. They're dedicated though and they'll keep doing it. All right? you you're not going to get the lieutenants. You're going to get them to do the right thing because you know what? They want to be one of them wants
to be captain, right? And they both want to do a good job. These these two lieutenants, I'm going to tell you, they're probably the best lieutenants um that the police department has seen in a long, long time. They're exceptionally knowledgeable in their divisions and
they're very dedicated and they, you know, when I ask for something or I need something or I question something, they got the answer. That's huge for a police department our size. One one you get one lieutenant that's off a little bit and it you could you could be a lot of headaches for me and a lot of things
going in the wrong direction. All right, keeping all that in mind. So then I I I got to tell you, I asked myself like I I haven't been able to meet with you, but I hear things, you know? I'm like, why why can't they I don't understand what they don't get about this. Always always
finances. I'll get to that in a minute, right? That's always obviously we got to be concerned about the cost of things. But then I hear, you know, people talk to me, you know, people talk to me in town and they're like, I, you know, chief, what we understand is like they're talking to somebody and I said, 'Well,
this is a rumor, right? And what I'm going to, what I'm going to tell you now is is basically rumor. Why am I going to bring it up? Because if it's not a rumor, Chief, I want to stop you. Yes. If you're going to speak about a specific officer, whether they're No. Okay. No. No officers. Why? You give me a tip.
No, I'm just reminding you that people have to be um I'm kidding. People have three rights. No, absolutely. No, this isn't an officer. Okay. All right. It's not It's It's I didn't know where you're going with that. No, I know that, though. I know. I know. We got to do the right thing with that, you know, and I'm joking about him.
This is This is somebody This is an individual, you know. This is what I'm told there. They said, "Hey, you know, I don't know. I heard, you know, it's this business guy from town. I heard it's this retired fireman's been living here a long time." Listen, no disrespect to anybody you guys might be talking to. All right?
I'm the police chief, guys. I'm responsible for the police department. I'll take the hits either way. If the police department doesn't go in the right direction, it's my problem. Right? If you got questions, I should be answering them for you. If I don't answer them correctly and I don't do a good job, you should be removing me from
office. All right? That's how that's how things work. All right? If you're listening to somebody on the outside, I don't think council's going to call them to the stand when when things go bad about those areas such as training,
supervision, policy, right? I you know, I lived in town for a long time. I gave him some good advice. You know what is that? I don't know if it's true, but I'm saying if it is, it's just not a good direction to go in. Beat me up. Ask me the questions that
you need. ask me how to make things work. If you think can't do this, then say chief, before we do this, you got any other options? Is there a way you can make it work? Right? Um, and again, I put it out there because it I can't imagine that's the case, but if it is, I
think you really need to consider, you know, who who is the person that is that is responsible to give you the answers that you need, and that's me. All right. Um, looking at let's talk let's talk about cross. I don't know if Chris is still here, but Chris gave me these
numbers. Um, and Chris is the number guy, simply put, right? So, LT, if you can go back to the table of organization, please. So, right now, this guy's gone, right? Not there.
This guy's here. All right. What would happen, right, is we bump up. Lieutenant becomes a captain. Uh, a sergeant becomes lieutenant. And then a patrolman becomes a sergeant. And this patrol bumps up to one of those 4xes. Right.
And we remain 23. We're 23 now, but we're 23 with this guy. All right. Patrolman. I asked Chris, I said, Chris, if you please give me some numbers. And I look at top numbers um because that's that's where they end that's where we end up, right? A patrolman top salary is
163450. Okay. 163,450. A captain is 192799. That difference is 29,350. All right. So
bumping this guy up and giving me the captain is $29,000. All right. Something else that's important to know because we we all right health insurance. Everybody key is not health insurance. All right. He left
with health insurance, not paid health insurance, but he's gone. He doesn't have health insurance. We just bumped up now and we're eight officers without health insurance. That's pretty impressive. That's a third of the department. We're not paying for health insurance. You say, "Well, Chief, you
know, they're going to turn 26. They're going to do this. They're going to do that." And I look at that and I and I look back and on the we average around six to eight. For example, I have one officer, it's going to age out. I have another officer who's getting married in a week. He's jumping over to his wife.
That kind of stuff happens. All right. But why? Yes. Insurance insurance is around 33,000, right? But we're saving that right now because the captain's gone. We're not replacing his insurance, right? For the
time being. another week. I got an officer that is getting married. He told me, he goes, "Chief, I'm going on my wife's insurance. I'm going to save his insurance." Now, I'm sure one of my younger guys are going to age out at some point, but again, it's there's a consistent norm. One of the things that River Edge does that a lot of police
departments don't, we hire young guys. All right? And and we we keep our our applications open down to the age of 18. We never hired anybody that young, but we've hired a 19-year-old before a couple times, right? And I don't do it for insurance because I only pick the
best. We only pick the best. All right. But other departments, they start higher in age. They start with, you know, at least 40 degrees or higher. All right. Um we've shown we've shown and some of them are sitting behind me that um if
they're mature their age being at 19 20 is is you know in my career I've seen some 20 year olds that are a hell of a lot more mature than some 30 year olds. Let's put it that way. All right. And that's that's just real. All right. So
that's a concern. The insurance is a concern. But I'm telling you we're not paying for the captain left. His insurance is gone. We're not going to have to worry about that right now. Right. Could we worry about it? Yeah. But could somebody else come off or on? Yes. All right. Those are the numbers we're talking about though to make that
difference. Okay. That patrolman's gone and the captain's back. All right. Back to what? What is that? 40 years ago, guys. 40 years ago. That's a table organization. You know, I I mentioned to the mayor the other day, I'm not I don't
I don't not a chief that needs to walk around and, you know, have have 50 guys on an apartment. I'm I'm quite the opposite. I I like make it sharp. I joked with him one time and I said, "If you give me 12 horses and I get to pick 12 guys, we'll just be like the old
West." And I think he said, "Mike, you're kind of crazy, but picking the right people is the point and doing the right thing, right? That's a bulk of what I have to say. All right. Where what I like to do is, you
know, just since I've been chief, no retention issues. I lost the one kid back to Paramis, right? Um I almost lost another another young officer and the chief and I were right there. He's ready to go. And then he came and then he came
back. All right. He said, "Chief, I want to stay here." He some of the guys talked to him. They did a great job. Let me tell you something. years ago, the guys talked the opposite. Get the hell out of here, kid. Go to another town. And we lost seven guys in six years. When I heard this, said, "You guys did
what?" We talked to him, Chief. He's He's making a mistake and he's here. That's That's awesome. That's awesome. That's a tribute to these guys back here, right? No lawsuits. Sounds simple, but we still have a lawsuit.
It's like seven years old at least. It's still lingering, right? It wasn't under my um leadership, but uh and it wasn't necessarily Chief Gert's fault at all. I'm not saying that either. I'm just saying we have a little lawsuit. We haven't had any no grievances under my
leadership, you know, in excess of 17 under the last uh under last command. All right. Um teamwork and morale I'm huge on. And I think you can see that. I think you can see that from looking behind me. That's a team behind me. you
know, they're not getting paid to be here. That's a team that's behind me. You know, I I steer the ship. I couldn't do I couldn't do it without them. And they come together. They want to be together. They do good work. They're here because they want to be come up.
One of them wants to be me one day, right? One of them wants to be the chief. One of them wants to be the captain. And they work hard at it. All right. Um we have the support of the residents when we drive around town. We know that. We see it. They like us. We do a good job of community pleasing. All
right. You guys yourselves at times certainly have said, you know, thank you to us. Um, we're in a good place with that. All right. I cut the two officers off as soon as I became chief. Right. I created this 2 program. That's going to save us money
um with uh the new officer. He'll be done in a couple of months. All right. permitted the overtime to be extended for traffic to the fourth day with stipulations on the sick time, right? Um
if I see sick time, I'll reel it back. Okay, that boost morale because the officers make more money. It also puts us over a million dollars, well over a million dollars. You can ask Chris in that traffic trust fund. All right,
that's all money that wasn't there. I also let them go out of town. Many towns are doing that. Why aren't we letting them go out of town? Tens of thousands of dollars in the last couple years brought in because they're allowed to go out of town. You see other guys coming into our town, we share. We don't have
them. They come here, we go there. Every time we go out, you guys know the hourly rate. River Edge is making money whenever one of those cars is somewhere. All right. um did all that's all under my leadership but again with the teamwork with the management with somebody keeping track of it the command
staff very important that that I have it I can't do it without a command staff all right as you know just as I I asked about the uh ALPRs were able to purchase things with that that are not part of a cap that are not part of a grant that are not part of a regular budget we use that
traffic money that we normally wouldn't be able to do we bought traffic cards with it been a great thing. All right. Um, that takes work to stay on top of that. That can get out of order real quick. All right. They can they can start calling out sick if they work too many traffic details. They can start uh, you know, their work productivity can
fall behind if they're working too many traffic details. Somebody's got to stay on top of that. That's what that command staff is for. That's what that captain is for with scheduling, seeing, taking it, looking at the reports. I got that's on the radar, chief. We got to take a look at him. He's he's been out a few
too many times, right? As for as for myself, you know, I'm a I'm a guy that, you know, I got to the spot I I like to think because I worked hard and I'm knowledgeable. River Edge has never been a political town, which is which is awesome. And you don't know how many chiefs I deal with. It's
so respectful of you guys not to enter that realm. There's towns around, I'm sure council knows, where things can get pretty political when people are moving around and it's like it's I don't get it. It's just not fun. I'm so glad I made a career going through things and just studying hard and passing things
and doing well in interviews to get where I am, right? Um, with that being said, you know, I look for you guys to count on me to give you information. I thank you guys because you're all
volunteers whether I agree with you or not, you know, and I I don't think people respect that enough that the the mayor and councils of any town, you guys volunteer time and it looks like, oh, they do meeting a month. We all know just like this position, you're pulled everywhere, right?
That being said, we have a job to do. The job of working together is is just that. All right. I need your support from time to time. I never I I I'm telling you I don't ask for anything I don't need. I gave up officers. I'm telling you, we're going to move that
officer up. Those are paid from the board of ed. I did hard work talking to the board of ed and the principles and getting on board from parents and everybody supporting that program, right? We don't pay for that. The board of ed does. Taxpayers pay for everything, but you know, from the way we look at it, we don't. Not all towns do that. Some of it goes through the
mayor and council. Right. I need your support with this. You know, I'm basically pleading with you. I need that chief. I need that captain to continue to do the work that I'm doing to keep it in the right direction. I
don't want to go backwards. I don't want to go backwards. And I don't I don't think it's as costly as it it may appear to you. And and I know this this sounds, you know, like not a not a nice thing necessarily or I
don't know, for a lack of better way to put it, but you know, when we run into a hard time, if we run into a hard time, if the captain is there and you know that he's paid for for the rest of the year, right? Keep him paid for, he's gone, but the salary was accounted for for the rest of the year. We're actually saving money right now and we'll
continue to save because that officer goes up. If we get into a hard spot next year, call me in here. Chief, you wanted them. We're in a tough spot now. What can we do? All right. There's things that I know I can do. All right. It's
not a personnel meeting, so I'm not going to get into specifics, right? Um, but there's things I can do. I need to happen, though. I need this table of organization to do the right thing with the police department to make it go forward and and um do the right thing
for these guys really, you know, and and just so just as a matter of formality, it's my understanding. Okay, I'm going to say that because you know nothing's concrete until it's concrete that the lieutenants have spoken and one of them is yielding to the other one. That means
there's no test and the other one's yielding there. All right, the sergeants. I don't know. You know, I have the money to do the testing for the lieutenants. I'm sorry, for the lieutenants, right? One of the lieutenants becomes a captain. I need a lieutenant. I have the money in the
budget to take care of that test. Okay. The sergeant, as you know, we have one. Officer Blue is on deck. All right. Boom. He goes right in. That patrolman then takes officers blue place. We're back to 23 people on a table
organization and life goes on merrily ever after question. Would any member of council wish to ask a question? Thank you, Chief. All right. So, um the way
the only I want to do is because I've said this to the lieutenants, either of the LTS have anything to add. Sorry, Barry. Lieutenant Znes, I don't know if you're trying to talk, but we can't hear you. If you just let us know either way. No, I would just uh again echo your
point. I mean, I can I can, you know, impact statement, right, is that it it has been uh overwhelming since Captain Casey left. And there's the uh added work that me and Lieutenant McGinty um have done. uh or are doing uh our best
to do to keep up with. Um and I again I think it's very important to um echo what the chief said is that the money was budgeted for the entire year. The money is in the budget. It's no new expense than what the anticipated uh
than the way the anticipated budget was passed for. And I think that's just very important that that point is um stressed as you guys uh deliberate or make any decisions. Um
and uh again I would to clarify the chief's understanding I would say that uh it is his understanding and and it is that I would be yielding the seat to uh Lieutenant McGinty. So I'm putting that on the record at this point. So if that
helps in your del deliberation. Okay. Thank you, Chief. I'll tell you good. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Um since uh this issue came up in the budget committee, if the council wishes to reconsider, the
process would be at when we come to um old business. It would take a motion and second by the council to revisit a particular issue. Two issues have been raised here. One is the plate readers and one is the table of or not the table of organization. whether we're going to
um uh hire a new captain. Um that would take a motion and second. And since it is uh since it's a reconsideration of something that came from the budget, it would require six council votes regardless of how many emerged councils.
If that happens, then uh the council would reconsider it at the following meeting. And then any changes that the council may or may not consider doing would again require uh a six members of council to vote in the affirmative.
Okay. Having said that, we have um open through public comments on any item on the agenda. Could I have a motion and a second? Uh LT, can you please uh restore the screen? Okay. Could I have a motion second to um
uh open to any item on the agenda? So move. Second. All in favor, please say I. I. Okay. Is there any member of the public who would like to talk about anything on the agenda? Absolutely. Come forward.
And uh Councilwoman Canel, can you show me uh the participants so that we'll see if they um name and Police. No. No. Okay, that's right. Um, but you're been in front of them before, but not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Uh, Ken Schffenhower, 780 Milbrook Road, River Edge. Yeah. Uh, I'm looking over the agenda yet. I believe you're passing, voting on, or resolution 215, which is the rejecting of the bid for
the KBG project. Sure. And I believe it is we'll go out to bid again pretty quickly with a quick close date. I'm just trying to get a handle. I also am involved with the men's softball in town which operates under the recreation
uh department's umbrella. So, uh, and the fall softball, all the other league, all the leagues have been told as far as that, uh, they're making other plans as far as playing fall elsewhere. And I know when speaking to Joe Rick that it
was the timing was going to be good to hopefully get the project underway to not disrupt the spring seat when uh, activity really ramped up in the spring. So, I was just trying to get a sense as far as um when you go back out to bid,
is it something where you're just putting out the same proposal and you just pray for a different result or is there a modification to uh what the the the scope of the project is to uh narrow the gap as far as what was allotted
moneywise? Okay. Uh what we'll do is we'll answer your question as soon as we go through. everyone who wishes to ask a question uh because that's the way open public works. All right, great. Thanks. Uh is there any other member of the public would like to ask a question or
make a statement? You have two minutes. Okay. Seeing none, can I have a motion second to close to the public on any item on the agenda? So move. Okay. And all in favor, please say I. Lizac, if you could uh address uh what happened with the bidding, what we're
currently doing, why we're doing it, and the flexibility that it may or may not give us. Yes, we are rejecting the bids because it was over budget. Not substantially over budget, but it was over budget. So, we are um eligible to do so under local
public contracts law. It isn't something that required a substantial revision on the bid specifications. And um there was also some questions about the lowest bidder. So it would it's in the best interest of the bureau to reject and go out to bid. And as part
of the bid notice, it is emphasized that the work must be completed by March of 2026. So we are still on schedule. Okay. And with this second going out again allows us some some flexibility that's not normally permitted. Correctly.
Yes. In the event there's any reason to reject bids, then we can negotiate under the law with um those who submitted at the second round. We can't negotiate at this time. Okay, good. Uh okay, great. Uh the rest
No, we don't do that, but we will open again in hopefully just a few minutes. It's we don't have a lot on the agenda that will take time. Great. So, um, we have appointments and personnel change. Is Gemma, um, Stains present?
No. Okay. Uh, but we're still going to do this. Uh, could I have a motion in second to uh, it's a this is a direct appointment, but we're going to put it in the record anyway, right? Um, so does it require a motion in second? Just direct appointment, but mayor. No. Right. This is a direct appointment. Yes.
Under the law. Okay. So, uh, uh, the mayor I appoint Gemma Stains to the green team as a student representative for a term of, um, July 24th, 2025 to August 31st, 2026, effective July 24th, 2025.
Uh, at the request of the green team and the environmental um, environmental protection commission. Okay, we go to second reading and a hearing on ordinance. Following ordinance was published with a first reading by title
only on June 12th 2025 and oh there are monthly reports land use fire uh prevention and tax collector from June July and June respectively. Okay. The following ordinance was published here within was read by title only on June
12th 2025 and posted on the bulletin board outside the clerk's office. Ordinance 25-14, an ordinance by the Burough River Edge in the county of Bergen, uh, New Jersey, amending and supplementing the River Edge board, uh, burrow code chapter 350 site plan review
and chapter 416 zoning. Now, there was a slight uh clarification sentence added, but uh, Mr. up of um of your firm partner uh had determined by by email that it was not a substantive change. So
therefore we could move ahead with this. Correct. Clarification, not an alteration. Yeah. And it was basically had to do with definition and language. Correct. Very good. Okay. So uh could I have uh before we uh open to the public, can I have uh the business administrator
please to explain what we hope to achieve with this and why we're doing this? Ordinance 25-14 amends the zoning regulations regarding swimming pools and building coverage. And the purpose of this is to make the language consistent with the most recent master uh plan examination report.
Excellent. Uh could I have a motion and second to open the public on ordinance 25-14 only? So moved. Second. All in favor, please say I. Is there any member of public who would like to ask a question or make a statement about ordinance 25-14?
Please raise your hand if you're electronic or if you're present in the library. Seeing none, could I have a motion and second to close to the public? So move. Second. All in favor, please say I. Could I have a motion and second to
adopt ordinance 25-14? So moved. Start. It has been moved and seconded. It is debatable. Is there debate? Inquiry or comment hearing? None. Roll call. Council President Montasano Cohen. Yes.
Councilwoman Canella. Yes. Councilwoman Malari. Yes. Councilman Benson. Yes. Councilman Glass. Yes. Councilwoman Darwal. Yes. It has been adopted. Okay. we go to
resolutions by consent. Now, uh as it's been our practice, we uh ask questions and comments before we move it so that we can uh productively move it. Uh there will be a renumbering uh ordinate uh resolution 25-216
uh is an increase public bidding threshold resolution that was missed when the document first went out. Uh so that will now become 25-216 and payment of the bills uh in dura uh as our our
finance chair and budget committee chair will be 25-27. Okay. Okay. Is there any member of council who wishes to make a ask a question or make a comment or ask for a separate vote for any of the resolutions?
Just a quick question on the threshold what can that be explained? Yes. Every uh five years the uh department of treasury makes a recommendation to the governor and then the governor concurs. The uh public
entities can um it increases a threshold in which you have to go out to bid. So the current threshold is 44,000 and it changes every 5 years. Before then it was 40,000. Before then was 36,000. This
new threshold is uh 53,000. So, anything below 53,000, we could solicit quotes. Um, as long as we obtain the paytoplay information, unless it's under state contract or co-op. Anything over 53,000 and it's not under a state contract or
cooperative, we have to go out to bid and that's only um for municipalities that have a qualified purchasing agent, which I am. So um and this provides flexibility for uh the departments to make their purchases as long as they
have all their paperwork in compliance and you know cheapkin and test I am on top of everybody to make sure they have their paperwork and so um this year every five years it it it increases and the next increase will be in 2030 but in
order to elect to do so governing bodies have to adopt a resolution and then all the department heads will be notified as well as the finance department. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, could I have a motion
second to move resolution 25-204 through 25-216 with 25216 reumbering to be the increased public bidding threshold resolution. Second. Uh it is open for debate. Is there debate?
Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. I. Could I ask all all oppose? Any of any abstensions? Yes, mayor. I need to recuse myself from 25204 and 25-215.
Very good. Okay. Could I have a Could I have the finance chair, Councilwoman Canella, please move 25-27 by reading it into the record and one member of the finance committee seconding it. Thank you, mayor. At a regular meeting of the mayor and council of the burrow
of river county of Bergen, state of New Jersey held on July 24th, 2025. Be it resolved that the mayor and council of borrow of river approve the following expenditures. Current fund 1 million2 $235,24953. General capital fund $579,951.
Grant fund $44389 89 sorry. Animal control 21 thou $2160 trust other $12,72261 payroll $23,241.32 developers escrow $315 recreation trust $32,680.95
so move second. All in favor please say I Is there any new business? Um, mayor, yes, I I approve the bill list but recuse myself from all bills and payments related to the creation department. Uh, my bad. So, uh, let me rephrase
that. Uh, all in favor of 25-27 just restate say I. I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? And now just say it again so that I'm not the list would recuse myself from bills and payments related to recreation department.
Thank you. Uh, councilwoman uh, Darwal. Okay. any new business, any old business, old business. Uh the 250 committee as you know which has been headed led by Eric Mod. Yeah.
Uh we've been uh you know we met again um and uh he has been following up with New Milford and their agenda and going over and wishes to collaborate with historic commission and a lot of other um committees like the communities in
town. So all he is um requesting is for citizens to be engaged and join the 250 team. Okay. Um any other old business? Okay. Could I have a motion second to open for public comment?
Second. All in favor, please say I. Any member of the public may have two minutes to make any comment or question. When all the comments and questions are complete, uh we will uh close and then we will um
address them. All right. Still Ken Schffenhower haven't moved 780 Milbrook Road. Um the only question I had was just as far as I saw in what was outlined in the bid. It was just a brief overview. Does the public or do we have access to
the what the scope of the project was uh to view and everything? Is that through the recck department? Is that through Euro Hall? Or is that something that is not made public unless you go on to the uh site and pay for the bike as you were
going to bid on the project? All right. Any other question? Nope. All right. any other member uh either remotely uh or uh in person. All right. Could I have a motion and second to close the public?
Second. All in favor, please say I. Okay. So, we have council comments. Um, Councilwoman Consella, as the finance chair, do you want to Okay. The perfect audit.
No, you can. You did the honors. We have uh we have gotten back um our audit which is required yearly, I believe. Yes. And our audit uh us audits in general for most towns usually have recommendations and comments. Yes. And how many recommendations
comments did we get? Zero. Zero. Because we had an astonishing thing for a burrow. We had a perfect audit. And I think this credit goes to uh first and foremost to our um all of
the all to our uh Lzette, to our BA, to our CFO, and to everyone in the business department, but as well the council and all the department chairs and the uh all those who uh work towards helping the
department chairs uh maintain um the records that are required by the state. Do you want to add anything to that? Um well it's the second perfect audit in a row. Yeah. Uh third one since I've been with the bureau. But it it is a team effort. It
is uh you know the departments getting the the information, the quotes, double checking if it's under state contract. Does it have to go to council? With a national co-op, there's so many extra layers. Finance catching it, me catching
it when when signing. And it's not just purchasing. It involves um payroll. It involves the general ledger. It involves um you know the bureau clerk getting all the pay-to-play information because that falls under election law. It is
mountains of paperwork and not every scenario is is the same. just say if you're making if you're purchasing um a police vehicle as opposed to a DPW vehicle as opposed to um equipment for recreation, there's so many different
parts and then having to go out to bid for construction contracts, projects. So, it's a multifaceted approach and it's not all due to one person. It is a team effort and I can't ask for a better team.
And I forgot to mention the clerk uh by name and uh clerk Todd. Thank you. Um and uh business administrator um Harper Appetella please. Thank you very much. And um Chris's last name which I
always mangled tagly thank him and all those who work including uh I think Gita does a lot in that disregard. And our our um deputy treasurer Gita is the deputy treasurer. Medina is a good deputy treasure. Okay. Um okay.
Uh we have now any council comments. Yeah. I just want something to make a mention to in on behalf of Chief Schwasburg. Uh a few things. Uh just this month alone there have had 35 calls uh with something really critical last
week that was handled professionally and no one got hurt. Uh he asked me to mention in reading to the records a commendation to the DPW mechanics, specifically Pete Stitz and our superintendent Jason Milo. They've done professionally and a wonderful job
maintaining the vehicles and new vehicles that are outfitted and need work saving the department just under $13,000. Um, I echo Chief Slushberg uh commendation and I I know how hard Pete and Jason work uh to save money to the
to the borrow when it comes to maintenance of vehicles and everything that they do. Okay. Any other member of council? I also want to add, if I may, uh a special thanks to uh our rec department.
Uh camp has gone off uh relatively uh incident free, done a great job. probably appreciate that. Um, and tomorrow is the last day for camp, correct? It's carnival day, right? I believe so. And today was water day. Could be. Yeah, you wanted water day. I think the
fire department was there. Yeah. Okay. So, we thank them, too. Anything else? Okay. I need a motion second to go into close session. Uh, and we will not be returning to open session for uh resolution 25-218. It's been renumbered.
Resolution to go into close session includes with public attorney client privilege NJSA 10 col4-12B7 in easement maintenance. Could I have a motion and second? Second. This is not debatable. All in favor please say I.
Could I have a motion and second to adjourn the public meeting? Uh and we will not be returning. So move. All in favor please say I. This meeting is a journ.