Thank you everybody and welcome to the regular monthly meeting of the mayor and council. Monday, September 22nd, 2025 being held at 6:30 p.m. Missy, could you please call the role? >> Mayor Niato, >> I am here. >> Council President McGawan >> present.
>> Counciloman Deler Con >> here. >> Counciloman Cotron. Councilman Kley >> here. >> Councilman Erico. Councilman Guzman >> here. >> Thank you. Could you please stand for the salute to the flag if you're willing and able?
Missing provisions >> in compliance with the open public meetings law chapter 231 public laws of 1975. Notice of this meeting was transmitted to the record in Herald News and filed with the burough clerk on December 23rd, 2024 and is posted on the bulletin board outside of Burough Hall.
>> Thank you, Missy. We have nothing to uh no presentations or proclamations. Any changes, Miss? >> Yes. Under ordinances, Councilman Ero, item B, amending the dumpster permit fees will be removed. That's the only change I have.
>> Thank you. Anybody else have anything? >> Seeing none, take a roll call, please. >> A motion, please. >> Motion. >> Motion by council president. May I have a second? >> Second. >> Second by Councilman Guzmani. Any
questions or comments? Seeing none. Roll call, please. >> Council President McGowan, >> yes. >> Council Del Cohen, >> yes. >> Councilman Kley, >> yes. >> Councilman Guzman, >> yes. >> Council President, would you like to move this for Councilman Eric? >> Certainly. Thank you, Mayor. Um, this
evening we are amending the zoning ordinance regarding event space. Missy, can you please read the ordinance uh by title only? and orders to amend chapter 131 of the burough code entitled zoning and in particular chapter 131 article 2 entitled definitions and word usage and
chapter 131 article 4 entitled general regulations to include event space. >> Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to move that the ordinance be passed on first reading and advertised according to law. >> Have a motion by the council president. May I have a second? >> Second. >> Second. >> Second by councilwoman dely con. Any
questions or comments? >> Seeing none roll call. Council President McGawan. >> Yes. >> Counciloman Del Cohen. >> Yes. >> Councilman Kley. >> Yes. >> Councilman Guzman. >> Yes. >> Thank you. We have nothing on second read. We'll move the hearing of citizens. Anyone from the public wishing to speak, please step forward to the
microphone. State your name and address and keep the Please keep your comments five minutes or less. Anyone? >> Hi. >> Hi. >> Yeah, you could just tilt that. I can bring it closer to you next. Sorry. That's okay. So, we can hear you. >> Um, hi. Uh, my name is Vanessa Gasella.
I live at 55 Washington A. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I would like to make a few general comments in support of housing, specifically creating more of it from the perspective of someone who just went through the first time home buying process in the last year. My husband and
I feel so fortunate to be here, but the process was difficult and crystallized for me the state's current housing crisis. to start. I know development has been a hot topic in the state this year. I know it's been talked about in Rutherford as well. I live around the corner from 5 51 Union Avenue. I don't
know all the ins and outs of policies and I completely respect there are many people here in the town who know much more than me and who have been here much longer than me, but I did want to share my experience. In the winter of 2024, my husband and I decided it was time to purchase our first home as our landlord
had raised our rent. We're living in Brooklyn at the time and debated the merits of staying in New York or crossing to the Jersey side. My husband and I are native New Jerseyians. We're both from Burlington County. Most of our family is still in South Jersey. After weighing our options, we decided to focus on New Jersey to be closer to
family. We narrowed down Essex and Bergen counties due to walkable towns, good schools, strong community ties, proximity to New York, similar parameters to everyone else. I remember the first time we came to Rutherford. It was March. It was terrible weather. We were starving and we ended up at Song.
Rutherford immediately shot to top of our wish list. Though I convinced myself there was no way we would make it here considering how dismal the buying process had been. It was really demoralizing even with the help of our amazing realtor. We had what we thought was a solid middle- of the road budget, but we very quickly learned that we were
already behind. Some of the houses we put offers on went for $100,000 over asking. We simply couldn't un uh couldn't afford that, especially with interest rates over 6%. The prospect of ever owning a home began to feel impossible. Flash forward and I can't
express to you how fortunate we feel to have found our beautiful house in Rutherford last year, aided by a slightly slower August market and the brief small dip in interest rates. It's a perfect size for us and we love our neighbors. I can't believe I found a ballet studio that I can walk to and
continue my weekly classes. My very Italian American husband swears that song has the best pizza he's ever had. Now that we're settling in, we're looking forward to contributing more to the back community this for the long haul. I present this anid anecdote to
you as an example of how hard it can be firsttime buyers in this area due to a shortage of housing. According to Vox, from 2010 to 2019, there were fewer homes built in the US than in any other time since the 60s. Starter homes make up 7% of all homes built compared to 40%
in the 80s. We weren't looking for a mansion. We would have been very happy with a townhouse, but they were often always often also out of reach. I would be remissed to acknowledge our privilege here in being in our income back bracket. I also want to acknowledge that the shortage of homes affects both
buyers and renters. According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, New Jersey has a shortage of 205,000 rental homes that are affordable and available for extremely low-income renters. We are owners now, but we were renters for a long time, and renters make a community great, too. I'm
speaking today not to criticize a town or any specific proposal. I'm so happy to see Rutherford greenlighting projects. I know that Rutherford is already dense and that one town can't solve a complex nationwide housing shortage, but having been through the journey, I feel compelled to speak and offer this perspective. And I would also
like to encourage um thinking of some of the outside the box solutions to help ease the impact of more development. For example, I know that concerns about parking are often mentioned when it comes to building denser housing. Wonder if there are other ways to alleviate the need for driving and parking so people don't need to rely on cars so much like
more shuttle service in our town, more bike lanes or more from New Jersey Transit. Also, zoning is complex and I won't pretend to understand the nuances. I do just wonder if it's possible to zone more of the town for multif family housing or rethink minimum lot sizes.
Um, in my case, current regulations state that my lot is too small for our house. We would need a waiver if we were ever needed to rebuild. Um, anyway, thank you for the opportunity to speak in sort of housing. As I said, I know this is complex and nationwide and one town can't solve it, but I'm just really
excited to see how Rutherford continues to develop and I look forward to welcoming in any new residents just as warmly as we've been welcomed. >> Thank you, Jessica. Just so you know the process. >> No, you're good. You didn't do anything
wrong. No, no. I'm just explaining. So, we have we have to listen to everybody and then everybody we'll answer you. >> All right. Welcome to Rutherford. Sorry, Vanessa. >> Hi, back again about the planes. My name is Lois Damaso. I live at 180 Mountain
Wayford. I was unable to come to the last meeting because I was out of town, but I heard from someone who was here that there was some sort of a plan that uh Councilman Delray Con had come up with that she was
going to discuss with the green team, but I don't know what it was. I don't know where we stand. And the planes have been relentless, as I'm sure you know, for the last month. They just stopped the other day. Um, and now they're just taking off rather than landing. But
they'll be back and the next meeting of Tanak is the end of October. I plan to be there. But I I really think that the council needs to get involved in making the feelings known for this burough that
they need to open that runway one and they cannot keep delaying it. The last, as I said last time I was here, they plan to now delay it till February, which is I think the fifth delay so far. There's no reason for that. Their excuse
was trees. There was no explanation. Don't know whether Councilman Delo was able to get an explanation for that, but I would really like to know if anything has happened in the last month or so um to help. Okay, so that's it and thank
you. >> Thank you, Masa. Anybody else? Okay. Uh, we're going to close it now to the public and no for any council comment. Council President, >> thank you, Mayor. Um, Mistaso, I will
defer to the council colleague to um address your concerns, but always nice to see you. And Vanessa, welcome to Rutherford. Um, I just I just really appreciate the fact that you came here with a prepared statement
and were willing to share your personal story. That story is incredibly common for folks coming in. Um, and we try really hard to find balance between development but but good development and projects that we think add something and
beautify the community. Um, and so it's a delicate balance. we don't actually make everybody happy, but I know that everybody up here works really hard to do the right thing. Um, but I really just wanted to compliment the fact that you brought that story here, and I know
there's people listening on YouTube and at home who are going to identify with it, and uh, and we look forward to you getting more involved, too. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, I don't know if it was Miss Castella or Gastilla with a G, but Vanessa, I'll use your first name
for now. Um, thank you. Uh, like the council president said, that was very, it's very important that folks come here and share their thoughts. And, um, you said, you know, you haven't lived here that long, which I think was sort of implying that you don't necessarily have
a valuable point of view, and I would dissuade you from thinking that. um especially because you know length of time in any one place doesn't necessarily reflect someone's investment in that place and I think what's really special about your statement is that you are showing an investment for the future
of Rutherford which I think is really something that often gets forgotten because folks just are um very very intentionally and understandably looking to the past. So I think that it's very important that you're looking towards the future. Um, and I do think that we
are all committed to creative solutions. Um, unfortunately they're hard to come by. I know there was a lot of discussion about the 51 union project and a lot of the themes that you mentioned in your statement um, words were discussed here on the deis about the importance of expanding opportunity especially because
we are such a commutable town. We are a central hub of transportation and we need to create opportunities for folks to live here. So I appreciate that. My my request, if I can dare make one, is that you actually email me your statement. I would love to have it. Um I tried to catch much of it, but you can
find my email address on um the website. Misty Tomaso, I did miss you at the last meeting. I did say there was a plan. I did talk to Rachel. I think it was after the meeting because I think she was in communication with you. So, um the plan that uh Mr. Linselada, who is now our
TANAC representative, and I discussed is the possibility of having a really ground swell of people ask for those temporary readers in Rutherford. So, what he and I discussed is um to get the permanent reader, as you know, is a herculean task, but if we get enough
folks asking for temporary ones, it becomes harder for us to ignore to be ignored. The reason I wanted to talk to the green team is to possibly make use of their list of uh recipients that get their emails and all their updates so that we can um put that together and ask
residents to respond. Um I was hope also hoping to hear from residents. Interestingly, because I mentioned this at the last meeting, our burough attorney sent me a text of like four or five people that live on Orient Way who he already said would be willing to put something on their property. So, um, you
and I should talk about it, but that's the plan. With regards to runway one, that is a definitely a harder ask. And Mr. Linselada and I talked a lot about the trees having grown. That is the issue. Um, we are dealing with setting
even the port authority aside. I know you know this. The Federal uh Aviation Administration is a federal agency with um well all federal agencies right now I think are uh going through some sort of something and the FAA is no different. So things that are going to take long
are going to take longer. That's not an excuse. It's just a fact. So we need to find more creative ways to your point to draw attention to ourselves rather than just imploring them to use runway one. Um, I too noticed the planes were
absolutely terrible over the past, uh, three weeks. You know, I live on Mountain Way like you do. So, um, we can have a conversation after the meeting, but the next step was for me to draft something for the green team, which I actually did today, asking them to send it out, although I haven't sent it to them. I have have drafted it. So, I'm
going to ask them to send it out to their list. And then in my newsletter submission this week, I'm hoping to include in that for the residents who may not be on the green team list to ask them who would be willing to put one of those uh readers on their property because we would have to ask folks to
get involved and do that. So that's the current plan. I don't know that it's a perfect plan. I don't know that it'll definitely work, but uh Mr. Linselada and I have spent a lot of time talking and thinking of creative options and that was one that he thought would at least draw attention to Rutherford which
I is our only which is all we really can do right now. And if you have questions I know that we can't go back and forth but if you have questions after we could certainly talk after the meeting. >> Okay. Anyone else? >> Okay. Um
the Vanessa, welcome to Rutherford. Um I did grow up here. My son is now of age. He can't even He's trying to find a place in town. I understand that. Uh he's planning on getting married and I I totally feel your pain, especially since
I'll probably be co-signing his loan. But I I I appreciate you're here and your voice counts and I would love to see you get more involved in making this town a better place to live. Um Mr. Tomaso, the council, the council
woman has been working on this with Mr. Lindelada. Um the FAA is a mess as you know and we're going to keep trying to fight with them as best we can but they can't even keep an airport open. So trying to get them to take us as a
priority is becoming more difficult, but we are fighting. Um, you know, I I've known Mr. Lindelato a very long time and I know the council is working very hard with him. So we are trying the best we can to try to get them to at least listen to us.
So um, we're going to move on. President. >> Thank you, mayor. Consent agenda. All items authorized to be consent by the council will be enacted by one motion. These items are routine in nature. Motion. >> I have a motion by the council president. May I have a second? >> Second.
>> Second by Councilman Guzman. Any questions or comments? >> Seeing none, may I have a roll call. >> Council President McGowan. >> Yes. >> Councilman Delh. >> Yes. >> Councilman Kley. >> Yes. Councilman Gman. >> Yes. >> Thank you. Um
committee reports. Council President. >> It just totally blanked. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Um uh I just want to thank the Access for All Committee for uh their participation in Rutherford Day. Of course, I'd like to thank all of our burough employees. Everybody worked very
hard on getting Rutherford Day up and running. It was it was amazing. There were thousands of residents here. It was really a spectacular day. Um and so that goes to all the vendors and um all the town organizations and um it was just it
was just great. So thank you everybody who works so hard on it. Um it was awesome to have access for all showing the plans for the park that'll be coming to Tamblin Field, the drawings, um and being able to speak with residents and share with them about the plans. And uh
also a shout out today to um the ribbon cutting of our new exercise equipment down at our fitness center down at Memorial Field. Uh, I I would just like to go on the record to say that I enjoy watching everybody use it. I'm I'm
acknowledging that I'm not quite there yet, but I hope one day to be an active participant. Um, and last but not least, I was ecstatic on Saturday during Ratherford Day to see our brand new fire
truck uh from Rescue 5. So, congratulations to fire chief um and to all of our officers, to everybody who works so very hard. I want to give a shout out to my council colleague at the other end, Matt Kley, who started this endeavor uh when he was um the
commissioner um representing uh the council. Um I was grateful to be included with the mayor um in in negotiating this with everybody. So, shout out to uh engine 5. Um congratulations. Please drive it safely and keep us safe. Thank you, Mayor.
>> Thank you, Councilwoman Tori Co. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, I too would just like to echo um my thanks to the burough employees that work so hard on Rutherford Day and also to the volunteers of all of our organizations. There were a lot of businesses there,
but I don't want to lose sight of the fact that um there were a lot of organizations that are run purely by volunteers that spent the entire day there educating our community on any number of things. Um so I'm very grateful for that and for their time. Um
I'm grateful that the weather was just about as perfect as it could have been. So it was truly a great day for Rutherford. Um also grateful to the chamber for again committing us to um na um dining out. It was a beautiful night to be out there. Um, Soma came out with
a robot on stilts which was very unexpected while I was eating there. So, um, it was just a thrill a minute and, um, it was a really great day for our town. Um, similarly, very grateful about the new fire truck, grateful to Councilman Kley. I'm trying not to be
too redundant. Um, and also just um with regards to my comments on things related to Teterboro Airport and the plane traffic, um, I will sound a bit of like a broken record that if you are interested in, uh, getting involved in the effort to manage that for our town
and surrounding towns, please do reach out to me. Um, I will either connect you with Mr. Linselada, who as the mayor said is just a wealth of knowledge and really invested in helping us in this regard. um or I will myself try to um think of creative ways that we could
work together. Other towns have entire committees um devoted to this. And given that we have the green team who is very invested, I I didn't think we needed another committee. Um I didn't want to ask more of more volunteers, but I am anxious to hear from all of you um who may be interested in trying to help
remedy what has been a problem for a very long time. Thank you. >> Thank you, Councilman. >> Uh thank you, sir. I'll just briefly echo my colleagues sentiments on the success of Rutherford Day, although I wasn't able to attend for very long because it's soccer season. Um, but again, thank you to all of our Burough
employees, Kim Begoian who coordinated. Um, it looked like an amazing an amazing day and congratulations to uh rescue 5 on their new truck. Um, and to that end with the fire department in lie of um, Councilwoman Quatron who is the current sitting fire commissioner. Uh in
tonight's consent agenda items, we are accepting the resignation of Nicholas Mazakaro. Um I was the commissioner for four years and Nick and I uh had gotten to be quite socially friendly. Um Nick was a really incredible member of the fire department, one of the first to volunteer to drive trucks in our parades
and such. Um really really great guy and um he's concluding 10 years of service. So that's a that's a solid solid uh time frame and he is now a Rutherford police officer. So Nick, we wish you the best of luck and thank you for continuing to serve on our behalf.
>> Thank you, Councilman Guzman. >> Thank you very much, Mayor. Um I'm I guess four times a charm here to be echoing comments, but I will. Um I I'd have to start off with uh thanking Mother Nature for allowing Rutherford
Day to have a beautiful day. Um and what an event it was. Uh it was a lot of great energy there. uh the public really came out and we're very happy to see what Rutherford was about. It's really nice to have a day all about Rutherford here. Um so once again, I'm going to
echo my my congratulations and thanks to um uh all of our our uh burough employees that have put this together, especially a shout out to Kim Begoian, uh Connor Fox, and I have to say this name, Janice Guzman. Um but it the event
was great. uh DPW, fire, police, EMS. Um, everyone showed everybody was there uh really putting uh showing how great this burrow is and and uh and also unveiling the beautiful new fire truck um which uh if anybody if you haven't
had the opportunity to see it, uh it's a beautiful piece of equipment um and uh was so very welld deserved for uh engine number five. Um, and there was another presentation. I don't know if anyone uh how many people got to see it again, but there are new beautiful welcome to
Rutherford signs that were displayed um in the park. Um I think uh you're going to love them very very much if you haven't seen them. They're very well done. Uh there was a lot of work that went on uh to get this done. Our barrel administrator was uh very instrumental
here. uh Kim Begoian in art design was very very uh instrumental in getting this done as well as our DPW. So um I'm really really was very very happy to see the results of those signs. They're beautiful and they do say 0707 >> say your name too.
>> I'm a little humble but thank you very much. That's all I have. >> Thank you. Um, I'm just going to touch on on Rutherford Day and then I'm going to let the Bur administrator really break it down. So,
I'd like to thank everybody who came out to Rutherford Day on Saturday. Uh, we don't have the precise headcount, but in the estimates of the chief and Bob throughout the day, we we had about 10,000 people. Uh, it's important to note that this
event was fully run by the burrow employees who worked for months to make a special day for Rutherford and its residents. Um, just one real quick thing before I finish. Missy had to stand on a corner all by herself on Mortimer Avenue with a
landscaping truck blowing the lawn. >> It was okay. It was fine. >> Um, you know, we managed this with donations. um and at a at a minimal cost versus hiring hiring an outside vendor.
So, I want to thank all the businesses that sponsored this event. And we had over 75 Rutherford business and organizations to make this a truly town event. And I do want to give a special shout out to our bull our bulldog who
actually came home from college because he found out that Felician's Falcon was coming and nobody was going to be the bulldog. So he actually came home from college to be the bulldog. So a special shout out to Aiden Baron.
>> So I'm now going to turn it over because I know he loves to speak to our bur administrator. Can you break down a little bit of who of how much involvement our our burough um personnel did and and how much they were really
part of making this a great day. >> Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate that. Uh yes, this was a uh tremendous day. Um you know, a lot of work, you know, led to this this day. um you know starting
with you know the committee and and as was referenced already you know Kim Janice and Connor you know took the lead on this and and ran with it and did a phenomenal job getting us there um you know everyone sees what happens uh during you know the 5 hour period from
12:00 to 5:00 but there there's been work going on and conversations started back in you know March April and we've had meetings with uh the police department with the DPW uh you know, department heads, uh health department, fire safety. Uh there's a
lot of work that goes on putting something together like this to making sure you know, proper paperwork is in order, inspections are done on, you know, the fire equipment, you know, all the food trucks, uh coordinating the traffic, planning with the with police department, notifying the neighborhoods
of what's going on, street closures. Uh and then you get to the day itself and it starts you know at 8 o'clock in the morning and uh you know burough employees you know uh sacrificing their Saturday uh to help us out uh tremendous
you know DPW obviously you know you know is seen at most of these events uh and they did a phenomenal job and I I do want to give them a shout out. They had the park up and running clean uh managed it throughout the day. garbage cans were
clean regularly. Uh PD again, great job by them, you know, just managing, you know, the traffic, managing the pedestrian traffic as well, keeping us safe. Uh and then, you know, you know, this department, you know, department employees, you know, I had, you know,
employees, department heads, all giving up their Saturday to to help us out. Um and as the mayor referenced, we got a lot of sponsorships for the day. So the cost, you know, when we add them all up, you know, it might be a wash, you know, maybe a couple dollars, but I think it
was well worth it. If you were there, you could tell it was phenomenal day and uh, you know, the weather couldn't have been better. And then it culminated in Saturday night. If you hopefully you had the opportunity to dine out. We had a great night for dinner and we saw a great show from the East Street Shuffle.
Um, it it was great and and hopefully next year we get the same weather because I know we're going to put the same effort in and we're gonna have to, you know, build upon what we did this year. I thought it was this year was better than last and last was better than the year before and I expect next year to be better than this. So, uh, thank you, mayor.
>> Thank you, Bob, and thank you for everything you did for this. >> Thank you, mayor. Um, I have uh one appointment uh Sandra Genta as traffic guard effective September 23rd, 2025 in accordance with
the rules and regulations of the New Jersey Civil Service Commission. I'd ask for council consent. May I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Motion by Council Guzman. May I have a second? >> Second. >> Second by Council President. Any questions or comments? Seeing none, may I have a roll call? >> Council President McGowan.
>> Yes. >> Counciloman Del Cohen. Yes. >> Councilman Kley. >> Yes. >> Councilman Guzman. >> Yes. >> Thank you. And we'll now open it up again for hearings of citizens for agenda and agenda items only. Anybody wishing to speak?
Seeing none, I'm going to close it to the public and have for any council comment. Seeing none, I take a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion. >> I have a motion by the council president. All in favor? I >> have a great night everybody.