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welcome everyone to our first council meeting of uh February hope everyone
was fished and warm getting here um but thank you all uh for coming it's nice to see everybody in the community come out um before uh oh I'll do this in a little bit yeah um I got to read that at some stage um so we're going to get going uh Madame clerk uh would you care to read the adequate notice of compliance statement please okay uh adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the city clerk's office in preparation of the Council annual meeting notice dated December 16th
2024 which was properly distributed and posted per statutory requirements please be advised that the fire exits are to my right your left and at the back of the room the city has a listing system to assist the hearing impaired if anyone needs hearing assistance please obtain the system at the deis and return it thereafter thank you so much uh roll call please Mr Boer present Miss Hamlet here miss cinon here Mr palowski here Mr Smallwood here miss toad here president mcon presid all right um at this time
I looking out into our a audience Mr David Guido would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please you know it 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 all right at this time Madam
clerk would you please read the explanatory regarding closed session in hearings and comments a closed session meeting as authorized by state statute was announced and held prior to the start of this meeting and the known items for discussion were listed on the published close session agenda please be advised the council meetings are broadcast live on Comcast channels 36 and 34 and Verizon channels 30 and 33 and rebroadcast on Thursdays and Saturdays on httv on Comcast 36 and Verizon
33 when invited to speak please please come to the lect turn clearly state your name and address spell your last name and speak into the podium microphone so that your comments can be understood by all and properly recorded whenever an audience or council member reads from a prepared statement please give or email a copy to the city clerk's office at city clerk cityofsummit.org to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to 3 minutes unless you are using an electronic device to follow the meeting agenda or need
it for professional emergency contact purposes please turn it off thank you thank you very much um at this time uh can I get a motion to approve the minutes for regular enclos session of January 21st 2025 so move second all in favor I opposed motion carries all right we're on to our report section of our meeting Madame mayor thank you council president good evening everyone um I wanted to begin tonight by recognizing Black History Month uh it's a time
for to honor the incredible achievements and contributions of the black community both locally and Across the Nation in Summit we remain committed to celebrating diversity in all that we do our Department of Community Services is organizing an event so keep an eye out for the day and time so you can participate likely February 18th but not set in stone just yet um we're always focusing on the well-being of our community in the last few weeks we've put the spotlight on safety of our children in the digital world council member Jamal Boer worked with
Homeland Security to organize an excellent presentation at the middle school on how parents can protect their children from online Predators following that our local pto's came together to host a screening of screenagers for parents um where I had the honor of speaking about my experience managing screen time uh at early ages both as a physician and as a mom of four um this aligns with the wait until 8th movement um which encourages parents to hold off on giving their children's smartphones until the end of 8th grade our DCP is also partnering
in that um exciting Endeavor by having phonefree uh EV events for kids at our rec center um it's been heartening to see so many of our families taking part in these conversations and the more parents work together on this the better chance we have at reducing social pressure pressure to be immersed in the online world at an early age in the spirit of supporting our students I'm excited to announce the opening of the New Jersey League of municipalities essay contest which is available to
all Juniors and seniors residing in Summit even those who attend uh private school and Summit um the essay prompt is really simple it's an opportunity for you to brag about your hometown it's basically what what do you love about your hometown um given the pride that we all feel about Summit I'm sure that our students will come up with some terrific inspiration and I think this is an easy prompt um the deadline is um to submit is March 7th comes to my office there will be three winners across the state of New Jersey each will receive a
$1,000 scholarship um so there's some incentive um I will only select one winner which goes to the state and then the state uh or the New Jersey League uh determines to the top three but you can't you can't win it if you're not in it Mike got be win it and before I wrap up I'd like to mention a special event that took place this past weekend um which I attended which was the sparkling evening of song at Twin Maples our community came together to showcase the incredible Talent across the district um of our
students in Performing Arts so that was a really great evening and I want to thank um spark for sponsoring that event it's a great fundraiser for them and a really great opportunity to see our Kids In Action so thank you everyone for your continued commitment to making Summit a wonderful place to live and I look forward to the exciting opportunities and the work ahead thanks great great report thank you Madame mayor all right um now we're on to our city administrator report uh Miss Baldwin thank you council president um exciting
stuff the February dates for the summit free market are this Saturday February 8th from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and then on Fe Friday February 28th from 12:00 to 2: p.m. um you are required to have a summit resident parking and Disposal permit to access the transfer station to attend the events and more information on the program and how to obtain a permit is available on the city website at cityofsummit.org backf free market also enrollment is now open for
this year's home Hometown Heroes program this is the eth year of the program which displays the banners that you see around town with the names images and dates of service of active military members and Veterans um they're on the city streets from miday through mid August and information on application requirements and how to apply is available at cityofsummit.org Hometown Heroes and that concludes my report great thank you very much all right so for my council president report um
I've been told I need to read this notice again so I'm going to do that um I would like to announce a correction to the notice in the papers and mailings that the city of summit's affordable housing committee will hold a zoom meeting on Tuesday February 18th 20125 at 6: pm to provide its annual status update of the city pursuant to the requirements of its settlement agreement agreement with fair share housing center and Judgment of
compliance and repose granted on January 22nd 2019 by The Honorable Camille M Kenny JSC this final annual status update will address all affordable housing activities that have occurred within the city in the past year the zoom meeting information is located on the notice for the meeting posted on the city's website the notice mistakenly said Monday instead of Tuesday so the meeting will be will be taking place on Tuesday
February 18th 2025 and and all are welcome to zoom in okay and please do if you're interested in the topic thank you um one other uh note for my Council president's report I'm really psyched I'm going to be attending others should show this Saturday February 8th at 10:00 a.m. at the library um we're going to have a Lunar New Year children's art show wrap up so pretty exciting the
uh we think there'll be roughly 70 just incredible amazing uh pieces of art that Summit uh children have um presented and there's going to be a little speech some awards group photos loads and loads of fun so if you are around uh come down to the library 10:00 a.m. on Saturday I will see you there uh and that is it for my Council president's report
all right let's move on uh one of my favorite parts of the meeting every uh every time is our historical minute councilman palowski thank you um on a side note uh if anybody would like to see last year's art show winner uh it is hanging on the wall outside of the council room uh right to the left when you leave Chambers um as for the historic minute uh we have Bonnie Morrison tonight who I guess I don't want to say what the
topic is because it might the surprise of her uh presentation but uh thank you Bonnie thank you Bonnie is on the historic preservation committee so it might be a little bit of a h okay the subject is Summit and the Community Food Bank of New Jersey a few Brown ShopRite paper bags were at the side door of 45 Prospect Hill Avenue most days when Aaron and Anthony got home from school in 1975 the bags disappeared into the
garage by dinner from the garage they found their way into the back of the family truckster a wood panel Ford Country Squire station wagon sometimes that 70s classic made a pit stop at St Teresa's Church on the way home from school the kids in the back seat relished the opportunity to shop for candy at the Speedy Gonzalez mini market while Mrs deara ran into church and returned with even more
brown bags full of canned vegetables kidney beans Campbell Soup rice and pasta Aaron and Anthony's mom was always doting on her family generous generously giving her kids and their friends attention and Care the brown bags outside the door seemed an insignificant detail in a busy family's household indeed the neighborhood kids never knew what happened to all those
bags after after they helped load them into the station wagon as it happens when the wagon could hold no more bags Mrs deara backed out of her garage at 45 Prospect Hill Avenue turned left out the driveway passed former Energy Secretary this was during the oil rationing and also the former Secretary of the treasurer William Simon's house demolished in 2024 took another left turn under
the train rain tracks on Springfield Avenue and continued East to downtown Newark where she pulled over by the sidewalk and handed out food to Grateful folks her kindness squeezed in between cooking dinner teaching CCD driving her children to and from school and helping with homework launched the largest anti-hunger organization in New Jersey and became the source of 90 million meals every year to today the Community
Food Bank of New Jersey's permanent home is the former craft building with 285,000 square feet or 5,000 station wagons worth of warehouse space Mrs D's Legacy of course is the Community Food Bank of New Jersey which isn't going anywhere thank goodness Summit has a long history of volunteerism and service to others and we follow her example to this day
but it is lamentable that the original location of this crucial group a 1925 tutor Revival style house that is a contributing structure within the Norths side historic district will soon be no more another casualty of an out with the old and in with the new mentality the historic preservation commission hopes to slow with the loss of that house goes another physical piece of of summit
history but we always will remember Mrs diara her selflessness and the great institution she founded thank you so much thank you Bonnie thank you Bonnie okay uh we're going to move to our presentation uh portion of our uh meeting and we do have one uh uh today um for people who've been paying
attention there's been talk of a uh needing work done on our tier garage that's been in our capital budget uh presentations um so we that will be looked on and eventually our capital budget will be approved March April somewhere in there um and so we thought it was uh important that we have o and S Associates come in and really tell us what is going on with our tiar garage so please thank
you um thank you very much um city of summit wanted o Associates to look at the parking structure the tier garage um put that microphone so I just want to introduce our company excuse me um just so people can hear you at home yeah that's perfect y okay um so on Associates uh was founded in 1996 began as Structural Engineers uh and expanded into other fields
uh our offic is is located in uh at 145 Main Street hackensac that is the main office and we have branches all over the country eight branches uh we have about 100 Architects engineers and uh designers uh MB certified um my name is sui jaena I'm a professional engineer also qpsi uh that is qualified parking structure uh inspector I'm one of the principles at on Associates and uh I'm also the
chief structural engineer I have a a master's degree in engineering uh licens in 17 States uh 27 years of experience um and I'm with o since uh 2004 um and I managed the parking garage division um so this is some couple of things that we do parking building envelope MVP architectural Civ I'm not going to go into too much details
I just put it to include everything um and again the we have about 18 Engineers Architects um uh we work for a lot of authorities um uh cities like Summit uh hospitals and other a lot of organizations parking garage uh managers uh we do local law 126 for uh New York City where they inspect and
uh provide reports on the conditions of the garages um and we do design new garages Municipal Healthcare uh repairing them so um so the tier garage uh what we did is condition assessment what we did is uh visual uh observation of the parking garage in addition we did something called a chain drag where you drag a
chain and uh we get a hollow sound in areas that are that has bad concrete so it's a uh asdm certified method to uh identify we also took U uh photographic documentation and we report uh provided a report to the city with the cost estimate which is I'm summarizing um so the tier garage is a uh F level uh four supported levels and one grade
parking structure it's about 45 years old it's a uh cast in place concrete post tension garage uh that is uh you place the con uh it's it has mild reinforcing and it has cables that are pulled through and then you pull the concrete and then you pull the con uh cables to strengthen the structure so that kind of carries all the live load of the uh
parking garage it's one of the uh best systems in the in the industry because the concrete is in tension on the top which doesn't let any water go through easily so um so you have a 7in thick slab about 110,000 Square ft of it uh beams are placed about 18 ft on Center and some are few of them are 27 ft at the edges and uh they are also post
tension and it has a cast in place parapet all around it um the traffic Works in a single Helix so you go up Up and Up um and it also has two stairs and one elevator uh the lower level is Asal Asal covered is about 24,000 square ft um so we observed
overall fair to poor condition um the most of the poor condition is on the roof level of the garage when you go down it's in very good condition but the uh roof level is in deterior condition uh what we uh we looked at the flow slabs beams columns waterproofing drainage system parapod uh uh stairs and onr asphalt
um so I'm going by each section like I said uh uh oops so sorry about that uh the post tension slab so what you do is when you build it you uh have mild reinforcing you put the formam workor in you play the cable and you once then you pull
the concrete and you pull the pull the cables to tension it uh like I said Lo lower levels are in fair condition roof level has is in poor condition uh we observed um spalls and cracks um so the uh on the roof level we notice that there are strips along the beam that is spalled this is because there is the mild reinforcing that is
on top water has gotten there corroded when the when the steel corrodes it increases in volume and puts pressure on the concrete that is around it and that after a while it pushes the concrete to a Breaking Point and it has broken so those BS are normally strips along the beam um and we on the roof level that's the strips along the beam isolat damage on lower level so isol lower levels are in very good condition if you go down
from the roof level it's in very good condition um and we observed a couple of damage tendons so these tendons carry a lot of uh tension and also it carries a lot of the load that is so if you break one or two you can live with it but if it breaks many of them then you got to go and repair them so um and so what our recommendations are partial depth flab repairs
on those strips of uh along the beams um if you find any tendons uh we'll repair them uh full depth sa reps in certain areas um and we are I'll talk about this a little later slope the ends of roof level um it's holding water so uh I'll talk about it in the next next section um so beams and columns overall in good condition um we saw isolated
spalls um and uh SP tendon pocket so when you pull these cables one uh end is um it's it's called a uh the the hard end which is uh it's fixed in there and then you pull on the other end so that end is buried inside the concrete and the other end because you uh tension it after it's kind of open
and then you cover it with some with a little bit of epoxy uh so we found that lot of these uh Pockets uh are open um and our recommendations are um patch repair the beams and the columns and tendon Pockets we you apply a code because it's very thin even if you patch again with concrete it just Falls in another couple of years so there is no
reason we can put some epoxy pain that covers it and protect it um uh the traffic bearing waterproofing system so your garage is has a full traffic bearing waterproofing system so what it does um is protects the concrete from water going in uh if you look at to the side um the the system consist of four layers one is the primer it's a very thin layer uh and then you have a base code which is the real
waterproofing system it it's 30 MS thick uh 30 MS is uh3 of an inch um and then you have the intermediate course which is which we put with sand and then you have a top quart which is 12 M thick um so on your garage the roof level is deteriorated uh there's lot of damage um and it's in
very poor condition uh and also on the on the lower levels we see lot of around the Turning areas there is wearing off um so our recommendations is to uh replace the roof membrane completely uh take it down grind it down to the uh concrete and put the full system and um in areas that we are repairing also on the lower levels we'll have
to put the full system and on the other areas all the areas we can put the if the waste coat the waterproofing layer is in good condition we can put the two top layers and make it get the same warranty that we can uh that you normally get so that is our recommendation on the waterproofing um stair Towers uh you have two
stair Towers um there one is enclosed other one is open even though there's a roof on the top um the stairs we found to be in poor condition they have lot of uh issues with it's improperly slop so the water is holding we have we found cracks and um SPS on uh the stairs um so we need to do extensive repairs on The Landings and um we Al there is also one expansion join right
next to the um where the stair connects to the garage and we need to replace that so our recommendation is to repair the concrete rebuild The Landings uh install membrane clean and paint the railings and um uh replace the expansion joint um the facade uh it's a casting place concrete it's about 42 in high 6 and 1/2 in thick uh
ribbed exterior uh generally in fair condition isolated damage um uh then land uh uh recommended repairs include repairing the concrete isolated re U this is little bit U and patching the cracks
uh so we go to the drainage so drainage is very important in a parking garage because if you hold water it goes down and damages the concrete um uh the drainage system was generally in fair condition uh we found standing water on the roof level on the two ends it's not slop properly and it the water doesn't get out and we found that that entire area has falled so because this is
a post tension garage uh we don't really want to do too much digging and uh because if you crack damage one of these cables it's going to be in really bad condition we don't uh whenever you are doing repairs we have to scan and locate these uh tendons before you go and do any repair so our recommendation is to slope those areas to a point where we can get it to a draw uh to a
drain so we found uh so that's one of the recommendations and uh we found some damage uh drains and piping so very isolated uh we recommend replacing them and any areas when you if you're doing a full depth repair in any area you have a drain we recommend replacing those drains um so our recommendations are slope concrete on the roof uh ends to get the proper slope replace damage
repair area drains and replace any pipe um so in um just want to touch base on repairs um we do need to uh the challenges is again those cables that are there we need to make sure that they don't get damaged if they get damaged we have to find the two ends pull it and reattach it and uh tension it so it's a big process uh normally we
know that parking is a big problem everywhere and we do repairs in sections at a time and so maintaining that occupation is a big issue uh also maintaining access vehicles coming up and down if you take one area you have to somehow let these um the vehicles go up to the upper levels if you're doing work on the lower levels um and
um so adjacent rail line is also issue if you want to do some work on the railway side it's a it's going to be a big problem to access it so we'll have to access from the inside of the garage so we'll have to put some rigged system to access the parapod then um uh I know you can cannot see this very much the cost estimate uh it's in the reports that we provided um
we um I have summarized the summary sections uh so um going here the cost estimate we provided is uh $291 million to do the repairs uh this is a Engineers cost estimate that we generally provide um it's on the current market conditions so um we are we don't end uh prices fluctuate as you
know this is according to the current market condition um this is also based on open shop label so if you go uh prevailing wage or Union wage it becomes almost uh 1.5 to 2 times what you have what we have uh quoted uh actual prices will be provided once you do the drawings and we we put a set of drawings together we it out to
uh contractors um we also uh includeed 10% of contingency funds for anything that we posable we don't see right now and we might have as you know these things happen um engineering course is not included in there um uh these are few I put a couple of pictures together uh on the conditions as you can see that is
one of the underside um damage spalls um other one is a wall that is spoed um there's you cannot see it very well but there are SPS on those columns and also there's that's a cable that is hanging out uh to the left is one of the t uh tension cables that is partially damaged so that has only half the
capacity and to the right that you see is where one of those cables uh tendons that are tightened is um it has po the cover out so on these kind of conditions what we will do is we'll just put some Epoxy paint and cover it up uh this is the water ponding on the um on the left you have SE water ponding on the edge of the roof level uh to the right you see that
the membrane is worn out at the entrance so in these areas we'll pretty much if it is that bad we'll take the whole system out and put a new system on there uh stairs you can see it's all cracked up uh on that left side and also damage on the right side uh on the top you have this um the enclosure for the stairs you need to clean it and paint is pretty
much uh maybe even put a new new enclosure um the last picture you can see that the rail R is right there so accessing it with especially with electric uh cables it's very dangerous for people to go there so we had to rig the system from inside and do any repairs that we are going to do um again uh worn out membrane you can see to the left it's completely gone in the
there uh to the right is a old patch that is already cracked um thank you um any questions I'll take if you have any yeah I um take questions from Council uh first anyone from Council some questions yeah Jamal you want to start first uh thank you for your assessment thank you council president um I have like a 100 questions but for the sake of time and for the sake
of our residents listening to this I'll just get to the most uh important I believe uh does the garage POS an immediate danger to the public and should any areas be closed off for safety reasons we didn't see any areas that require closing it's it's safe are the deteriorating roof and uh stairways at risk of collapse or falling debris we didn't see any that could fall
uh but there are some areas maybe we should knock it off if there is uh couple of SPS spores as in mold SPS spores spores SPS okay cracks okay um any any weight restrictions we should be concerned about right now no we didn't see any structural damage uh cables are still in good condition so you should be okay so the garage right now is safe safe
uh for continued use while repairs are pending yes and last question um what is the most most urgent repairs needed and How soon must they be completed by so the roof level is the critical area that's where the uh this budget uh half of that is going to the roof level really so I would say that's where you need to start okay I had
yes uh Council woman to thank you council president um just a couple when when a garage begins to fail how does it do it is it just sort of it keeps going along in a straight line or does it limp limp limp and then crash well you your garage is not in uh the most important thing uh when it comes to such a thing is the beams and the columns okay and in your garage it's in very good condition okay um it's
the floow uh floor slab that is really bad on the roof level so your garage is not in any okay any D no pancaking in the near future thank you okay that's good to know yes any other questions uh councilwoman Hamlet um uh thank you for coming it's very helpful I think it's important for the community to understand sometimes we go through a capital budget process and we we say a garage needs to be fixed but to actually see um the actual problems of the garage is helpful so um one of the things
I noticed was in your report you mentioned that you had looked at the 2008 report by Boswell but you weren't able to identify what uh repairs have been made from 2008 until 2024 have you since then been able to look at what repairs um that we have made in that garage uh we saw some patch repairs uh like I think I showed one of them uh see the picture picture to the right that's there that patch that that's one of the batches that they have
been done um most probably they did some waterproofing work waterproofing is good for about uh 5 to 10 12 years depending on the conditions normally uh on the roof level it deteriorates a little bit faster because it exposed to the Sun the lower levels on the parking aisles they tend to stay a lot stay longer and on the drive wies because of the so many vehicles going on it tends to wear off and so you got to like like every 5 years at least you
got to look at it and uh replace that waterproof in so how do how do most municipalities handle this maintenance is it you know a yearly maintenance is it every two years or is it when something's broke like what did we ever do any repairs it just sounds like it was just patch repairs yeah generally it's patch repairs uh luckily your garage is a very good system I mean the foundation is there for you to keep this garage it's a post tension garage if you try to build it uh right now it
would cost double the regular garages Double T garages that you put up okay because it it's a very good system so I highly recommend maintaining it you put the waterproofing membrane on there it doesn't let the water go down that that's what you need to do you got to maintain the sealance and everything and uh it will last for a long long time okay just like three or four more questions then will we have to paint over that waterproof material I was reading an older report that we'd have to repaint almost everything due to that membrane or no so the me membrane is not
a paint it's a it's a uh the actual spaces like the parking spaces oh sparking strifing yes you have to do that okay and then um I guess the other question was are are the are the stairs uh poured in place or are they metal a poured in place okay so that so that's in your cost estimate is poured in place yeah okay and then engineering costs are not included not included what do you anticipate those to be so generally it's about to for the design uh it's about 5
% of the cost yeah and then we we manage it if you want us to manage it during the construction we manage manage that as well okay and then my last question I guess is um are there electrical conduits in the slabs or no no the conduits are outside they're outside okay also I wanted to add if you want to we we haven't included anything like painting the garage only the front of your garage is painted I believe um and
also if you want to paint the uh the parapets we can do that but I haven't put any money for that um the other thing is the lighting lighting you have right now floresent lighting uh if you want to put um um new Lighting systems with the uh what you call it uh LED LED lighting Thank you Led Led it will be very
cost effective because it pays for itself in a few years okay so if you want to change that also we can incorporate that I haven't put any money towards that okay great um well I know you're known as one of the the better parking garage Consultants that's why we put you on the the list last year so I guess you'll work with director shreer and um figure out you know what things were missing or what things were added so thank you okay other questions councilman palowski so the estimate that you have up there is 2.9 million correct
you said that's not based on the prevailing wage correct so we have to pay the prevailing W if if you do have I would say you had to multiply that by 1.5 so really the number for this is like six to 7.5 million no no 1.5 so four four four and a half four and good thing good thing you became the council meeting okay right thank you have a uh yes madame mayor um I think I heard you mentioned something about a warranty yeah
and what does that in so generally generally we uh the contractors give uh once work is complete we ask for a 5year warranty and the membrane manufacturer will also give you a 5year warranty if you want you can extend it to a 10year warranty they they put a uh another layer of for a 10-year warranty but what we recommend is get the 5year warranty and go after 5 years and put put the other layer that's a better choice than putting getting the 10year warranty
right at the beginning thank you uh councilman Smallwood thank you council president uh thank you very much for your presentation uh you know sometimes a a picture says a thousand words right so I I've I frequent the garage often and uh you it's in my mind you I'm I'm I'm kind of walking around thinking like is this going to fall down anytime soon so thank you for assuring me that it's not
going to fall down anytime soon um however I'm going to ask you for your engineering perspective and not your your sales salesperson inside of you how long do you think this could continue without doing these improvements the lower levels are okay but I wouldn't recommend upper level upper level has some issues so you if you start let that go then what
happens is the problem spread downstairs the water will start coming down ruin the next level and Next Level and Next Level so I would highly recommend doing the at least the roof level right away okay and if we did I I mean my opinion if if we're doing I wouldn't want to peac mail it I would want to do it all together uh that would be my my opinion because I think once you start Pac mailing things together
and just it just I mean to your question like I said more than half the money is going to the roof level so if if you want to do it in Phase One and phase two maybe you want to do the roof level touch that that will stop the water coming down that will stop the waterproofing and the det forther deterioration so you can go ahead and um wait a few years if you want for the lower level okay and with this type of project if we if we did
a phase one and phase two what's the typical time frame in terms of completion if let's say if if we did just the roof what you're what you're recommending is the most important part versus doing it all together what what what was what is the time frame for doing just the roof what's most important now and also what's the time frame for doing the entire project so the roof level I would say you can do
it four to six months depending on the um contractor you hire they have capabilities you know some people have less some people have more capacity do so I would say four to six uh months you can finish the uh roof level okay and then you can then next would be the stairs I would say go repair the stairs stairs is a very small amount compared to the roof so even if you want to do the stairs also with that that might be a good idea yeah okay and um
while you're I'm assuming you'd start from the top uh while you're working in the the top tier level of the garage would we be able to use the parking spaces in the lower levels at the lower not the level immediately below it because debris will be falling down and we we would normally close it but the levels below you can okay also we can use like you know there is no point closing the enti level we can close half at a time gotcha
okay you know okay thank you very much other comments question yes madame mayor I'm sorry um the elevator did I miss you mention anything about that or is that not your that's not mine yes thank you um I had uh two questions one was kind of a followup to uh councilman smallwoods if per chance we did decide you know4 and a half million
dollars is a big number um our cost if we decided to split it I would assume doing it in halves the total project would cost more because you'd have to come back to start again what would your estimate be if we did decide to do like a phase one as you suggested the roof and then do the other half later would it be an extra 10% 15% 20% what just and I know I'm just I'm putting on your spot just an estimate I
would say it it is less than 10% okay because it's mostly the uh mobilization demobilization kind of fees that you need to pay of course you got to keep in mind that prices might go up with the materials and label that's not included there but otherwise yeah okay um and then secondly you mentioned uh on the roof um that there was these sloping issues is that just a wear and tear
issue or was that something that the our contractors who did this originally didn't do properly I mean my my question uh goes to do we have any um ability to go talk to these people about how they might have installed Our Deck improperly that we have water pooling and things like that the garage is about 45 years old so I don't think he we wouldn't find him is that what you're saying okay just thought just thought I checked but it does seem like
original design issue actually because normally flows don't go down like that so it is or so there was a sloping issue to begin with okay um and then uh I did have one more thought um when you showed particularly that first picture the aial um to me that top roof cries out for solar panels um and and I know councilman Smallwood you've been on about this and such
like that um if we're doing work on this type of thing is there I'm sure you're engineering companies thought about this is is does it make sense to maybe add something like that on at least for wiring and and things like that you you can put solar panels we just got to the unfortunate thing is we didn't get too many original drawings I believe uh so we don't know we got to do a little bit of research on the foundations and all that systems to uh figure
out but one good thing is uh when your garage design was designed at least the live load capacity was 50 lb a square foot or it may be even a little bit higher depending on the time but right now it's 40 lb square foot so you have a little bit of capacity in there so we probably can make it work we just got to do some research dig up couple of Foundations and see what the the sizes and maybe do some soil testing to see
what is the capacity to figure that out but we have installed uh solar panels in other garages um one thing we recommend is um there's a couple of like uh Bergen County uh Justice Center has a garage with solar panels in there they had issues with they have sections of solar panels and when it snows and snows get stuck there they have to close
the roof level because ice keeps falling so you got to think about all these things and figure out make sure if you're closing it maybe close it completely to make sure that that doesn't happen or find a drainage system or something like that uh and put it in along with the design so that you don't have that problem well maybe can kick this to a committee to think about um working if we want to expand this
project a little bit to Encompass that so it sounds like we have some work to do um but it's probably worth doing yes Council just one more question so you were talking about the lights at some point we like to uh put in cameras right at at our parking garages yeah um and have that fiber connect to the police departments and you know possibly throughout town or something like that but would it be uh would it be a good plan to to do the wiring and the lights along with the camera while while you're doing that or is
that something separate or should we be concerned about the lighting it's kind of separate with the lighting you can do but camera systems and Lighting systems are completely different they they'll run sep individual U you know they don't interfere with each other really just for the power which is very little power for the cameras you will take pull it out of there but um you can do it separately great um at this time if you don't mind I'm going to ask the
public if they have any uh questions at all yeah please Mr h two simple questions um one of them is we talked about solar panels I had thought about that thank you how about electrical vehicles I mean a 45y old G garage it's was designed for the vehicles then 5 years ago it looked like our entire vehicle Fleet in the US was going to be changing to electricals in 10 years now it looks like it's going to take for forever who knows what's going
to happen but what adaptations would we have to do to be ready um that would not be particularly honorous but uh that would be allow us to be ready for the future it's one of them um there is the issue of Wi-Fi connectivity through concrete is very very hard so how would one do something like that because perhaps with that kind of connectivity you can get to your cameras councilman Boer and finally a question for our finance committee is this a project
that we would um give these Consultants directly or would would we beid it out to numerous contractors um given the scope and size of it so the first question was the electric vehicles um 50 PB of square foot is the live load capacity so generally a parking garage stall is 9 by8 so it gives you a capacity of 8,100 pounds so unless you are parking
all Hummers hum or whatever generally you are okay so because right now they have reduced the capacity like I said to 40 pounds of square foot now the C require only 40 which comes up to a little bit less than that but uh really if you look at all the electric vehicles they are around 5,000 lb or so so you are really okay wir I'm not electrical engineer so I'm a
structural engineer but I think uh we haven't found that to be a bigger issue we have seen it done in lot of other garages but we I haven't heard anybody saying anything that is connectivity is the issue or anything like that thank you and then I I think you know we'll rely on our engineers and our parking professionals to figure out what the best way to bid the project out so
um and and on our advice so thank you uh other questions good evening Don Nelson 20 plan Street when you mentioned during the construction that you were going to do the top level and you said you didn't want anybody parking below because debris might fall will that work make the SE second floor the top the next floor down ceiling uh more of a problem that then has to be fixed right
away will it exacerbate any any other issues okay generally that's how we do it and we if we want we can put some protection but generally it's not a issue concrete is generally pretty strong that day other questions from the public okay all right um Mr Jana thank you so much for the presentation super informative um thank you
for coming thank you thank you all right uh we have this evening a couple of ordinances for hearings uh that we have first one's a finance ordinance um Madame clerk will you please read the uh the finance ordinance for hearing please ordinance number 25- 3328 an ordinance to amend an ordinance entitled an ordinance to to establish the 2024 salaries wages or compensations of
and for the officers and employees of the city of Summit County of Union New Jersey thank you very much uh councilwoman to thank thank you council president um so this isn't what this ordinance does is create a a new position called within the Department of Community Services called the director of engineering and and public um engineering and public I think we may
need to add a word to that ordinance engineering and Public Works public works okay uh yes but when you get into the first whereas okay um we're missing the word words typo there yes scrier error um th what what this does I'm I don't want to give away what what what the C what the next ordinance for introduction is doing but it gives us more flexibility in right sizing the Department of Community Services it does
not increase headcount um but it just gives us options for how we're going to arrange the department so um with that I moov to um sorry I move to open the hearing on this ordinance second all right with that I'm going to declare the hearing open uh do I have any uh comments from the public on this ordinance okay uh comments from Council yes please councilwoman
ham thank you council president I think it might be helpful for our city administrator just to talk about um the potential on on how we're sort of restructuring that department and and why um if that would be okay because I think I think it's important we're we are changing the structure and I think it's important for the public to understand um director sher's been doing a lot of jobs and uh we're trying to give you know give him as much help as possible so you know we're trying something new and I think it's important for the public to to further understand that through you
council president um so what what this is doing is it is leaving the ordinance leaves a DCS director in the ordinance if we care to go back to that Arrangement currently um as councilwoman Hamlet said um our engineer director of everything DCS is a bit overloaded um so we're trying to streamline um the areas in which he can oversee um so the there is currently a
construction official who oversees uccc he does that anyway that's his job it's under state code there is a land use manager um that has been acting in that capacity who has gotten that title um quite recently since our last land use manager um resigned and moved on to another opportunity he oversees uh code enforcement zoning planning um and then this position allow for director shreer to oversee
engineering and public works and to streamline that um the only thing that it does currently is it adds um not only will director shreer report to me but also the land use manager and the construction official will report to me um I've had as much as 18 directors and other municipalities report to me two more added to seven is really not a big deal and they do have to come to me quite often anyway so it's just changing
the structure a little bit of How It's operating but it keeps everybody in DCS and it provides the same benefits and services to all of the residents and I think it enables um our professionals on staff to better serve the public by limiting the bandwidth that they have to oversee great great explanation um other comments from Council all right hearing none I'm going to declare the hearing closed um
we're going to move on to a second ordinance uh for hearing uh Madame clerk could you please read the community programs and Parking Services ordinance please first one yes ordinance number 25- 3329 an ordinance amending the code chapter 7 traffic section 7-25 regulations for the movement and the parking of traffic on Municipal property and Board of Education property subsection 7- 25.2 Municipal parking lot areas thank you so much uh councilman
Smallwood thank you council president uh I do want to mention real quick that on page on packet page number 11 there was a scribers error and it should begin with for non-residents reservations and payment of 14.95 per day is required um so the top section of that under fees page packet page 11 uh this ordinance is to amend the Broad Street garage designating the open
section of the top level as non-resident parking currently only a portion of the parking spots are available for non-resident commuters specifically 128 spaces with the recent opening of the ground level Broad Street parking lot opening up 32 additional spaces for Resident commuters and the high demand for nonresident commuters this ordinance opens up the entire top level to non-resident commuters for a total of 170 spaces at $14.95 per day
as you will see in the ordinance for introduction in a few minutes we will introduce more spaces for Resident commuta parking and with that I would like to move this uh ordinance for hearing second all right um our uh hearing is open um at this time would any members of the public like to comment on this ordinance when you come up please state your name and your address please sorry this is why we
do this again want to hear some comments Don Nelson 20 plane street so explain to me how this works if I'm a resident and Mondays are usually pretty quiet but then as you go during the week the parking garage fills up I have a couple of people my daughter works in the city the other day she could not find a parking spot into your garage so she she called The Parking Authority or sorry there was a woman somebody at the parking authority at the parking garage and said you can park at
the post office lot luckily she was able to work from home but how would this affect residents when there's more non-residents parking we're taking 170 spots and only giv us 32 more shouldn't there be like a and and then how do these people call in they call in at 5:00 in the morning or they call in the day before how do how does a resident know they can't park there so if I go to the tier parking I mean the broch strey parking garage and I can't find a spot and I drive all the way to the top
and there's one left am I going to get ticketed so those are some kind of questions that I that okay I I have okay thank you thank you other comments uh from the public all right uh comments from Council council president yes please Mr Smallwood I'd like to answer the question perfect please um So currently
the the top tier garage is the majority of it is for non-resident commuters there is a specific it's not even outlined right so it's you've got 42 spaces that are for Resident parking and 128 spaces for non-resident parking uh with the opening up of the 32 spaces on the ground level Grant we're losing we're giving up 42 spaces and only gaining 32 so there's
a 10 parking spot difference there and that's why I mentioned in a later introduction we're going to be opening up more resident commuter parking spots um going to the top level of the Broad Street Garage there will be signage that will clearly State non-resident commuter parking uh so hopefully um with the opening if we can get this p with the introduction of the next ordinance uh we'll be open be able
to open up an additional 50 spaces for Resident commuter parking okay and councilwoman to thank you council president um and also post covid the um parking lots behind the post office and the Chestnut Street Lot which had originally been for downtown employee parking only have been opened to Residents and to commuters um and I
have never had a problem finding a space in the post office parking lot that's always available and that's also a very close walk to the train station just from the other direction uh councilwoman Hamlet I I don't want to throw a a wrench into this but you know I've been looking at the the empty lot Counts from Nicole siwicki and I guess my question and maybe this would go to you Nicole is when you look at the empty and it's not really non or resident but when you look at the
amount of lots that have empty spaces for employees why would we put the employees in that garage when wouldn't it be better to save those for commuters whether it be residents or non-residents because they're the ones who you know if it range they got to go right to the train and when you look at the kot for example um the the percentage is like 63% for employees that's F so I'm just curious that have we looked at that option as well um as far as opening or whether or not we have all the employees in the right Lots because they sort
of seem staggered everywhere and then just a question I don't you know um oh no very good question but the tear garage is also in the heart of the downtown that I mean the 47 Maple Street Building is a major you know medical building that does you know a number of the downtown employees do Park in the tear garage because it backs up to that so I think that by taking that option away from downtown employees wouldn't be no sorry I mean for the um for
the for the Broad Street Garage to take the Broad Street Garage away from employees I'm just I was just asking whether or not it made sense to have employee parking in the Broad Street Garage well currently it does but not that many employees I don't think that that's their ideal location to park because that's not in the downtown so more employees park in the teer parking garage versus the M right other questions that are you
I think maybe you're I think I'm understanding your question differently okay and that is should we take eliminate employees spots right to uh don Nelson's point you know I get calls from residents a lot one just the other day was why are we even letting non-residents park in that garage why are we letting you know residents so my question is when I look at the employee counts why do employees even park there to be in with even if it's 20 cars it's taking away from residents and non-residence commuters when we have empty lots that were
I'm looking at the numbers that we could dedicate to employees so the numbers aren't based upon whether that's a resident or a downtown employee parking in that lot they just scan a valid permit and since it's a dual permitted lot we wouldn't know understand but like for example the K lot for 12 months is sitting at for the most part 70% capacity for employee only MH so that we know is designated employ who what the percentage of res employes
no I understand I've just been thinking about it because I'm I've been thinking about just the location of you know we've got we've got bagged meters up you know Springfield that some are a lot a lot are empty so and then it's like our our resident our employees parking in the garage because maybe you know they don't want their car in the sun all day I you know I'm not trying to say that they shouldn't park in the garage but when I have residents and non-residents saying they can't get to the train they can't the automatic goto is right there right that's the that's the quickest one
um if I may just having been a downtown employee for more than 20 years um there are the the bagged meters require pre prepaid parking and that only makes sense for somebody who works five days a week Monday to Friday folks who work say for the salons work Tuesday through Saturday so they're not going to prepay and there are number of businesses that are certainly much more
convenient to the Broad Street Garage from Sage to there are some Office Buildings near offices near there um those folks are not going to want to walk from the K Street lot or even from the post office lot so a few employees in the Broad Street Street Garage certainly make sense that that's just how it's going to fall out through you council president uh yes counc Boyer so at the end of
the day um we're going to have 82 uh resident spots being open correct is that what I'm hearing okay um we yeah we have 32 open now and and then in additional what we have on average in the tiar garage that are open typically on average 50 spaces 50 spaces okay on average so yeah so 82 like available um
the other question that I have at some point can we get a tracking system like an app or something so I can tell people when they're rushing for I when I worked in the city I was late for the train all the time um but you know it'd be great to know as you're making your cup of coffee kind of where where to park what you know what's available what's not you know that way you can adjust your timing I think I believe you just said that
uh we wouldn't know because of the permits kind of scan two places or which person yes is parking in the space whether they're a resident or a downtown employee because when the permit is scanned it just says that they have a valid permit got it so maybe possibly it would make sense to and I'm just throwing us out there um to have two different types of permits so we can distinguish between resident and non-resident parking so we do have two different different types currently but when it's in a dual purpose lot
like the Broad Street Garage that both permit types can park there that's why it's giving the the system the valid parking rates got it but it doesn't distinguish between the two it doesn't say they have a resident permit or they have a downtown employee per now you're right so you can't tell the number of available spots for you know resident or non-resident within that tier garage um yeah the Broad Street Garage so maybe it's just something that we look at in terms of Technology wise to see you know available spaces cuz maybe maybe we
do have available spaces uh but certain spaces are just not available to certain people when they when they roll up but it would be nice to know hey I have an app or you know or um or something where where they know they can immediately Park where there's availability and this is maybe for future down the road somewhere so thank you other comments councilwoman Hamlet I guess um maybe we can take this up another time I just when I look at the green and I know
CLA you make a good point about whether if you're a full you know if you're working 5 days a week it's prepaid but there's a decent amount of availability when I look at the green bag meters if you look at um Springfield and Irving it's like 78% Beachwood and ID's a little higher um tier garage is 65% full with employees um I don't know I just wonder if we should just take another look at because I see a lot of bagged meters that are empty so
if residents are running around fighting for spots and we have no parking I think that we should maybe put that back in your committee Kevin um just to take a look at because I just see a lot of I see a lot of empty bag meters on the weekends um and it kind of drives me crazy so maybe I'm wrong but I think and I think CLA makes a good point with some of that um you know number of days in prepaid parking so maybe just take a look at it after this thank you comments councilman Smallwood just to address the the I I think that is an issue
because on the weekend the the green prepaid bag meters are for downtown employees and on the weekends most of the employees aren't working right right so we're taking up spaces that could be used but if someone's driving up and see that green sees the prepaid Green Bag they know that they can't park there so thank you um yeah um one comment
I would have is you we're have we have another ordinance for um that we're in going to have a hearing on around fees when was the last time we looked at the non-resident parking fee of 14.95 that it last year have we just raised it just a few years ago yes okay um it was $12 $12 and have we had any significant drop off in demand since we raised
it from $112 to $15 roughly no I mean obviously after Co um a lighter work week for some people so Mondays and Fridays tend to be a little light but Tuesdays Wednesdays and Thursdays we fill out right so I mean if if we're these are fees that from my perspective we should always look at to to see um what we can get out of these things because um it's a you know the real estate is valuable um it's
a great uh amenity that we have in the train line and I think there's a lot of people who would pay probably more for that I remember the uh an issue we had in the um the DeForest Lots where we were having commuters who were happy to just get ticketed in there where they were paying 50 bucks a day uh to hop on the train so there is a tier of uh non-resident commuters I think then this is something I think we should look
at relatively often around what the right price is for non-resident uh Parkers in our town um thank you um yeah uh that's my only comment okay all right any other comments all right I'm going to declare this hearing closed uh we're going to move on to our third ordinance uh for hearing uh this is another Community programs and Parking Services Madam clerk would you please read the ordinance ordinance number 25- 3330 an
ordinance to amend the code appendix a schedule of fees contained in the revised General ordinances of the city of summit thank you so much uh councilman Smallwood thank you council president this is ID number 25- 3330 an ordinance amending the membership fees to the Aquatic Center and golf course this decision made by a bipartisan Department of Community programs Advisory Board wasn't easy but it isn't necess Neary step to ensure we can continue to maintain and improve our
facili responsibilities the need for change first it's it's important to note that the fees at these facilities have remained the same price since 2016 in the past 9 years operational costs have increased significantly and we are at at a point where it's no longer sustainable to keep fees Frozen one of the biggest challenges we face is Staffing since 2016 the minimum wage has nearly doubled going
from $8.38 to $15.49 per hour in the summer we hire over 100 staff members to help with daily operations and has become a major factor in our budget inflation likewise has impacted the cost of goods and services necessary to operate the facility with regards to the revenues and surpluses revenue and surplus while the Aquatic Center generates Revenue that covers the basic operational cost any additional Revenue around $300,000 last
year goes into the city's general fund not a dedicated aquatic Setter fund the Surplus helps support both the pool's capital projects and other capitals and other city capital projects again all Capital Improvements at the pool are covered by the city I.E the taxpayers like most other City Capital Improvements the 2018 resurfacing project for $475,000 is a good example the amounts generated at
the pool be at the pool Beyond its operating expenses offsets potential tax increase for residents planning for the future we also have to look ahead to the long-term needs of our facilities our infrastructure our infrastructure is aging and we're planning for some important upgrades 2025 $75,000 for a new shade structure in 2026 we need a $25,000 for an ADA compliance study in 2027 $300,000 estimated
for Ada required upgrades and estimated $500,000 for repairs or replacement of our slides in addition unexpected maintenance issues can Arise at any time for example this past summer a critical pool pump failed forcing us to shut down the pool on one of the hottest days of the year thanks to a backup pump we were able to reopen the pool within 24 hours but replacing a pump
alone costs between $8 and $10,000 we also need to replace a water heater estimated at 122 to $15,000 along with a new water heater for the women's shower area now regarding the fee adjustments unfortunately there has been misleading political messaging that has misrepresented the changes being proposed while the percentages may look substantial 25 to 66% those only apply to guest fees as
to the general membership fees both the percentages and the actual dollar amounts are modest as an example $20 increase for a family membership resident family membership that's 5% $40 increase for non-resident family membership $10 increase for Resident individual membership $30 increase for non-resident individual membership $5 increase for senior memberships
$6 increase for adult guest passes subsidized family memberships remain unchanged at $320 and subsidized individual memberships remain unchanged at 130 the adult guest pass increase from $9 to $15 which is 66% is designed to encourage more memberships over daily guest visits which will streamline op which
will streamline operations and reduce congestion at the entrance additionally The Snack Shack will remain which is maintained by an outside vendor the prices will remain the same for the fourth consecutive year the fear-mongering and political theatrics surrounding this issue that was created and voted on by a bar bipartisan Advisory Board are completely disingenuous especially given the authors have experience on this deas and are
well aware of how the pool's finances interact with the cities we're taking a responsible approach it's critical to remember that while the pool generates Revenue those funds go into the city's General budget which is used to fund both ongoing operations and larger Capital Improvements the fee adjustments we are making now are proactive steps to ensure that our pool and recreational facil fa IL remain safe well-maintained and accessible
for years to come as it relates to the golf course fees which are currently extremely complicated and have made which we've made much simpler the seniors and youth membership Remains the Same at $40 adults are increasing by $5 and non-resident is increasing by $20 the fees per round during the week average currently average $6 75 we are proposing to increase
them to $7 and guest fees to $9 on the weekend the member fee per round will will be $10 and the guest fees $12 we understand that these changes changes are not always popular but they are essential for the long-term sustainability of our Ci's amenities thank you for your understanding and and support as we continue to invest in the future of our community with that council president I'd like to
move this ordinance for hearing second thank you all right um our hearing is open on this ordinance uh would any members of the public like to comment on it please Shantal Garcia landman L and D M I'm at 128 bman Road um first I have some questions about the basis for this increase the pool's operating at over $300,000 profit as you mentioned and the golf
course is breaking even so why do we need to increase fees what is the problem we are trying to solve if the increase is intended to cover Capital Improvements or other expenses what are they and why are we making them now wire poool and gol fee increases the best source of funding in 2024 Council committed to a budget with a stated goal to secure grants for some of the Department of Community programs Capital Improvements have you exhausted all of those grant opportunities more information and transparency would be appreciated by the
public help us understand why this makes sense or let's work on a better way to solve the problem second just because you can doesn't mean you should Summits pool fees are lower than some of the neighboring municipalities we should highlight this as a feature of our city use it to attract new residents it's something we should be proud of not an argument used to justify an unnecessary increase the proposed fee increases will have a disproportionate impact on fixed income
seniors and lower income families Sumit families and seniors are struggling to keep up with increases in expenses as it is as a weekly volunteer at Grace I see firsthand how residents of summit are struggling to buy food pay rent Access healthcare and more let's treat our residents with dignity and not force people to make yet another difficult choice in making ends meet finally I encourage you to reflect on how this ordinance aligns with your principles
councilwoman common councilwoman to you campaigned for more transparency community and fiscal responsibility voting against this ordinance is an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to those values councilman Boer you've described yourself as quote A reduced lunch kid in a low-income household in Summit who consistently prioritizes the interests of all residents including those in East Summit end quote you have an opportunity to reflect that prioritization by voting against this ordinance
councilman palowski when campaigning for Council you quote pledged to work tirelessly to find this hardworking Community a little bit of relief which should help out with affordability end quote your promise of a little bit of relief can be honored tonight if you vote against this ordinance council members you have an obligation to represent all of your constituents we are counting on you to honor the promises you made to the public and act with Integrity please vote against this ordinance thank you
thank you for your comments statement oh um if you have a if it's a okay fantastic thank you uh other comments from the public all right uh comments from Council councilman Boer oh or who wanted to go councilman or Council woman celson you want to speak please do I can go um I'm not in support of raising the fees of our public pool and Municipal Golf Course when I was canvasing last year
and speaking to voters a concern that came up over and over again was affordability our community poll is a Lifeline to some families it's their entertainment for the summer this is a time when our neighbors are feeling squeezed financially from forces beyond our control with all the talk of trade Wars Rising grocery prices and layoffs in the news I believe we should provide whatever relief we can the pool is operating on a $300,000 service plus and I will not support raising the membership prices just because we can um um
I I say this as a proud member of the Summit pool my family joins every year we love the pool it's beautiful um every year I just think wow I can't believe this is this is our city pool but um I I I don't see the need to to raise this there's there's not a good reason to do it and especially the membership I'm sorry not the membership the um guest fees I feel like that's a very steep increase and I feel like I was wondering is this designed
to discourage people from bringing guests because when we bring guests we bring in kids um my kids friends that live in Summit and for whatever reason their family did not invest in a membership last year I could bring three kids for $21 during the week this year it's two kids for $20 and it feels it feels like it's designed to discourage people from bringing guests thank you other comments
through you Council pres Boyer please uh so the family Aquatic Center slide and bath house improvements are projected to cost over $800,000 and combining 2026 and 2027 I've also seen what happens when Council delays necessary infrastructure repairs like what happened at the roof at tlock phille so ensuring timely maintenance is critical that said
I completely understand the concerns about affordability as a resident myself not rich not broke just getting by it's a line from the beat nuts I left a part out uh I do feel the sting of any fee increase cost for Phil hockey lacrosse band field trips and even school lunches all up and affordability in Summit remains
a major concern for me one key point to note yes I was a reduced lunch kid and my parents didn't have to pay for anything really uh and especially this increase will continue especially our residents at the Summit Housing Authority there's no increase for anyone that's a reduced lunch kit um so that's that's a good thing but secondly I'd like to kick this over to our
business administrator um sorry Tammy I but I think that the residents need a rundown of why uh this $300,000 is is needed I mentioned some things about Capital Improvements uh in the year 2026 and 2027 but I'd like to kick it over to you so that you can give a full breakdown of why this cash is needed please uh our business administrator through
you council president um I think a couple of the points have already been made but when you're when you're looking at our overall budget uh yes it appears that the operations of the pool I think they were about 370 or 360 um last year but you're only looking at the operating budget um and then the revenue was anticipated I believe at 640 I believe we collected 670 um that's what I see in my financials waiting for the Auditors to confirm that
my numbers are correct um so at a glance that looks like $300,000 so I think councilman Smallwood um talked about capital projects um we did have a Pool Resurfacing for $470,000 um I can't recall other ones prior to that um I know that there were some before my tenure here even even began um that Debt Service runs over
depending on the type of project it is and the useful life associated with it it can run 15 years 20 25 years even 30 depending on the structure um so I'd have to do some lengthy research to break down every Capital bond that we go out for notes for to tell you which part of it was a DCP I could do that but I'd have to look through ordinances um and during budget time it's a little a little bit difficult right now um to do that but rest assured there are Debt Service payments that
do include Capital Improvements to the Aquatic Center um there was also unaccounted for a lot of administrative time um I had the good fortune or Misfortune of having to handle payroll for three months last summer while we looked for a new payroll Clerk and I got a crash course lesson in what happens when we start hiring over a 100 seasonal employees and it takes a ton of hours for payroll human resources and and well I
was payroll so um to accomplish all of that onboarding getting everybody paid processing all that paperwork um so there's a lot of other costs that aren't in that particular operational budget that you look at in in the city's budget that are associated with the Aquatic Center so let's estimate that you know 100 or even 150,000 of that extra 300 is is associated with those costs and it's just an estimate um so you leave 100
or 150 150 to 200,000 that's left that money goes to the general budget um when you look at all of the revenues in the general budget the Aquatic Center revenues are in there that helped offset the taxes so it's coming right back to the residents of summit in that fashion if we don't have that Revenue then we either a have to cut a service to account for that you know1 to $200,000
or we have to figure out some other method of Revenue and I can tell you that um I know the economic advisory committee has worked on it um Revenue sources are shrinking they are not growing for municipalities we are limited um we we live in a town we're very fortunate where there is a lot of um donation opportunities and people are quite generous and so we're able to do a lot of improvement especially in DCP with those generous donations and that helps a
lot um but there is so much more than just that operational budget that you're looking at that goes into um what operates the Aquatic Center I hope that helps well very much so thank you uh Miss Baldwin do you have any other comments yeah three you council president just to just to finish up so uh at the end of the day if this $300,000 that you can kind of um use for uh something breaks down or something needs to be fixed you know if we
don't have that uh there's a possibility that we raise taxes right I mean you have to get the revenue from somewhere correct so um and with the increase of the minimum wage um I just I just want the residents to know what the impact will be if we don't do it it's easy to sit up here and say well let's not do this let's not increase anything right that's the easiest thing to do that's the easiest decision everybody's happy which just keep it
the way it is um however the hard decision and the tough decision is to say well let's look for um worst case scenario if a pump breaks the roof falls off you know if we need more employees to work that summer um well here it is we can use it uh but I I I think that we need to lay that out for the residents so that they can understand it um and I don't know if we're I don't know if
this needs to be done today maybe some other council members can opine on that um but I think laying it out for the residents so that they can see where the money is going would be beneficial thank you councilwoman to through you council president um I am a fan of user fees for City amenities that residents can choose to use and do not have to
um here however we're already running a $300 $300,000 Surplus which is more than sufficient to cover operating expenses and certainly overtime all of the capital projects that that um council member Smallwood suggested I don't think that we should be using user fees necessar we should not be increasing user fees with the goal of adding to
the general fund if we're looking for Revenue sources I I would suggest that we look elsewhere at City amenities um for which we don't charge user fees and perhaps start doing that rather than raising user fees on an amenity that already generates surpluses that pay for not
just the operating revenues but for the additional things that people have listed thank you thank you other comments Council councilwoman Hamlet um just a question I guess my question to you um councilwoman to have you looked at the uh the payroll costs and all the other costs associated you don't have to answer this question but you know can we identify where the $300,000 Surplus has gone Tammy because from what what I've looked at and I'll let you speak in a second I've looked at it's it's certainly not a $300 Surplus um and everybody knows that I look at the
bill list more than anybody every week I could tell you how many lifeguards how many t-shirts you know I'm looking here I've been looking at the 2017 2018 2019 2020 capital budget and the six-year forecast for that we've been kicking the can down the road on certain capital projects the slide the ADA requirements I'm looking at the 2021 capital budget I mean this is paper version of the um of the pool just give me one second and
2021 we had approved 250 and I believe the resurfacing may have been 250 we have to look look at some of those numbers but we anticipated in 2023 that we would do the slide in 2024 we would do the Ada equipment ADA requirements it's 2025 we're they're not going to even be in this year's budget so you know we have to make the hard decisions of whether or not these slides you know do we want the children to go down the slides because if we want the children to go down the slides then we need to fix the slides and we're going to make the unpopular decision of raising
fees but this is certainly not a partisan decision if you do your research and you see The Debt Service that we pay for Capital Improvements it's significant I talked about at the last capital budget meeting the tatlock Fieldhouse should have been repaired a long time ago and now it's costing us more I think 11 out of 12 members of the DCP advisory um board voted for this I will say I'm open to sending it back to finance if Claire has a strong opinion and she's looked at the fact that
we've certainly sent a $300,000 Surplus back to Tammy um but I don't think we have and I'd like to hear from David Guida as well if you don't mind David just about the capital projects and and you know there are a lot of of City costs we have a a gentleman who runs our pool that is not that that is in the DCP uh in the in the in Aaron trager's budget we have David Guido we have Mark there's a lot of City time that you don't see in in here um so David if you don't wouldn't mind and then Tammy if you wouldn't mind answering that Surplus question because I think it's something that we should
really clear up I think Tammy did speak to that already um but David you want to answer yeah absolutely so there's a lot of cost and to uh administrator Baldwin's Point there's cost at City Hall there's also cost within our department I would say on any given day there's at least two of us who spend majority of our day down at the Aquatic Center during the season and that's not even mentioning the hours that we spend doing registrations troubleshooting ID cards so there's a lot that happens
with our full-time staff with staff within the office that's also not um reflected within this um a comment that I heard about the affordability if we want to talk about affordability one of the largest things that our department handles over the summer outside of the pool is a summer camp the summer camp allows for affordable child care by keeping the rates at the by increasing the rates at the family Aquatic Center it
will in turn allow us to maintain the camp being so affordable because a lot of these Capital Improvements that we have coming down the pike like the basketball courts like the family um restroom that is part of the Ada upgrades all of that will go to enhancing the camp experience and ultimately that also enhances the experience of all the other members but keeps a price for that child care down um a note on the subsidy councilman Smallwood did mention that the subsidy
rates aren't changing at the same time we do have a departmental policy that even if you do not receive the free and reduced lunch but you can come to us fill out a form and express a hardship um as long as you can provide some sort of backup you that free and reduced lunch rate will be honored we work very closely with the representatives at Grace um and other organizations with in found that if there are families who are identified who can't even meet that 160
for or sorry 130 for an individual or 320 for a family what we will do is we'll take money from the trust fund 20% fees that we charge for other programs that happen at the Aquatic Center and attribute that and put that back in the budget so that they are paying the free and reduced lunch price so we as a staff and as a department make sure that nobody is denying access to the pool so just for the record should anybody have issues with these
increase and have hardships we're an open door and we we will make it work with the residents um does that the and the capital um projects we did look it up today it was 475 and all of this if you when we calculated it today it looks like there's going to be an expected $50,000 of additional revenue from the pool this $50,000 isn't even going to cover the capital project that we're looking at doing this year which is the basketball courts and the um shade
structure so while 300,000 is a large number there's Debt Service there's additional fees that are not reflected the soft costs and um even this increase is not going to necessarily cover all of the improvements we plan on doing over the next couple years thank you do you have Madame mayor um I think one of the questions that um the resident raised uh was about grants could you speak to that a little bit cuz I know you work hard on grants yes we um we look at every single
grant that we can I mean there was a grant that even came through today that had to do with supporting individuals with disabilities and I'm like oh maybe this can go towards our family bathroom and the Ada upgrades at the family Aquatic Center um we every grant that is made available especially the state and County grants we jump on them with the grant writers right away um there's not one of those grants that we miss when they're made available um so we've exhausted all those and even with
corporate sponsorships I know that that came up the well is dry we we tap on every single person that we can great thank you other uh comments uh councilwoman uh celson thank you council president um I just had a a few things that I heard and I wanted to clarify one was um talking about me raising the membership rates and that if you don't raise the membership rates people's taxes
might increase so are we saying we'll tax the pool members so we don't tax the entire city that that's what I heard if we if we we're raising that's not how it works no but but I think somebody made that point if we don't raise these we're going to have to raise people's taxes somebody said that no okay um another thing the slides this packet it just it doesn't say anything about slides it doesn't say anything about repair it basically just says that you know we want to raise the rates to be in line with the other towns I mean that
that's all that says um additionally I just think it's out of touch I think it's out of touch when we're raising we're raising the rates for The Aquatic Center we're fundraising for public playgrounds and we didn't fund raise anything for the paddle courts I'm just saying it just seems out of touch that's that's the last up i' say just a point of clarification on the paddle courts there were several I there was a Union County grant that we got for that there was a USA 10 uh paddle Court grant that we got for that so there was a and that dates back
I want to say to 2018 and it's funny I even remember in 2018 there was comments why are you applying for this grant for paddle courts when there's playgrounds so there's always needs um in town that there's only so much so many grants that we can apply for to uh make everything work and we try our hardest to leave every box unchecked and to the point of affordability like I mentioned mentioned before we're going to we will work with every single resident um with
filling out that form and working out with free and reduced lunch rates thank you David uh count councilman palaski you haven't had a chance to go yet yeah I um people keep saying $300,000 Surplus but it's really not a surplus at all right the way that the pools finances operate it's it's within the city it doesn't operate like a utility the pools the money that the pool
brings in isn't specifically earmarked for all pool expenses So when you say that we're going to take the revenue that the pool brings in and subtract just the operating expenses completely ignoring all the other expenses that go into this money that we bond for Capital Improvements etc etc you don't account for any of that you can't call it a surplus and to do so is very misleading to the
public and I fear it's for a purpose but I just don't think anybody should be using that because it's just not a surplus and everybody up here knows better through you council president yes Council M Boyer I know it just give me one second I know you want to move on um but I I want to speak to the residents that this actually really impacts because um I'm one of them we're not talking about subsidize uh housing sub people that live in subsidized or getting subsidized that's
not what we're talking about because there's no really impact on them what we're really talking about is the middle class residents who have children um who have to pay for all these different things that get no help right but you know the lacrosse the Phil hockey I mentioned it before yeah you know we're we're feeling it and I understand I get it and I wouldn't be up here in support of
this if it wasn't needed but I would ask that uh this Council actually lays it out for people and families like mine because you know I have the view I understand what we spend money on I understand why it's needed but maybe the residents out there who are sitting home saying oh there's another thing that I have to pay for here we go again right and it does matter for them right we don't have $2 million houses and you
know whatever right it's a real thing and I understand it I'm speaking to you I get it and we need to show you what this money is for that it's just not we're just not raising it for any reason because we just want to do it we feel like doing it there's a there's a need for this so I would ask this Council and our business administrator maybe we just need to be a little more transparent and lay it out better for them for
our residents I'll just say that thank you other comments councilman councilman Smallwood thank you um yes I just I wanted to touch on the the grants um in fact we had one of the pumps the heater or heating pumps for the pool broke and we were able working with our uh City administrator able to secure a $50,000 grant that uh we
hadn't even received yet and we repurpose I believe is it repurpose the the actual thank you uh we repurposed the grant so that we could use it at the pool um you know we're talking about nominal fees over a 9-year period that has not been increased at all you know the fees the majority of the fees increase are
for non-residents and guests as councilman uh president mentioned earlier regarding parking you know we think we should probably charge more for the premium parking for non-residents who don't pay taxes here um councilwoman to I'm I'm glad to hear that you are for user fee versus raising taxes [Music] um but as our city Minister did mentioned we're we're we're limited on
Revenue generating I mean I hope you're not suggesting that we start charging to enter enter our playgrounds and Parks um you know this is our Aquatic Center which I belong to as well is absolutely beautiful it's in fantastic shape I gave the example earlier that last summer we had on the one of the hottest days we had to close the pool because the pump broke we were fortunate
enough that we actually had the exact backup pump we had to bring in DPW and inst install that and they did it within 24 hours if we didn't have that backup pump to order it and receive it we would have literally had to have shut down the pool for weeks not days weeks I don't know about any other council members here but I'm not quite sure
I wanted to get the I want want want to get those emails from residents saying why is the pool closed um there are certain things that we just cannot keep kicking the can down the road on um you know the amount of money that we have to spend for uh paying our employees is doubled we've gone from $8.38 to $154
almost doubled $838 to $15.49 per hour even with these fee increases we are still one of the least expensive pools in the surrounding towns and we're not trying to compete with them and hey you know they're charging $600 a year maybe we should charge $600 a year that's not how we came to this conclusion we came to this conclusion because
it had been 9 years since the fees had been raised for a family it's $20 over a 9ye period there's a lot that has happened at that pool if this if the SL the slides start deteriorating any further or if they break we're going to shut them down we have to shut them down I don't want to disappoint those kids so you
know again having quote unquote surplus of $300,000 is just not simply the case we are not as the Department of Community Services Advisory Board we didn't sit down and say hey let's see how much more money we can make that's not the case at all um and I I I thought I gave a a it was probably the longest introduction to an ordinance or resolution it was very long and because I but
it was good I I wanted to cover everything I possibly could and answer as many questions as possible and I I hope that I did that and you know again um we're trying to maintain this facility so that it meets the standards of our residents thank you other other comments all right I'm I'm just going to close with a couple of things um when
I saw this originally on the um the agenda I'm like all right this is an ordinance I did I thought this we would talk about this for all of three minutes and I think I get it I think people have been jined up that this is some sort of big thing where we're trying to take more money out of the residents and we've got
this huge profit in place and I feel bad for people who have been LED down that road because some of the people who are promoting that narrative know better they do some of them have sat up on this dis they understand the operation how the Pool Works um when you sit here for enough years you will understand how the operation of the Pool Works we don't make 300,000 off the pool we don't as Miss
Baldwin eloquently put it there's all sorts of expenses we don't categorize as expenses against the pool as David mentioned he's there all the time in the summer his salary doesn't go against the pools um into the pool's operating budget Miss Baldwin when she spends her time there that doesn't go into the pool's operating budget none of that does we do not run the pool as you ility and the people who are putting out this narrative that we're making all this
money know that and it's not fair because I think there are a lot of residents who are now confused um because this is complicated and they're trusting that this narrative is true and it's just not we do not make $300,000 off the pool and that doesn't even include the fact that we do have capital projects Down The Works uh on the capital bud budget I you know quick math it looks like we have 900 odd, thousand in Capital Improvements that we would like
to do to the pool you have to pay interest on that you have to pay down principle over the time we don't put that against our our Revenue off the pool so this is a myth that we make $300,000 and and and again I get it this is complicated I don't you know people have a lot of questions there a lot of new people up on the council might not understand all these things and that's fine you can vote the way you'd like
to vote but if you're voting because you think we're making all this money that's just not true the fact of the matter is um there has been a ton of increase in cost since this has been done we've had a huge Spike of inflation Washington spent like drunken Sailors for four years and we have all this inflation um the pool fee hasn't gone up in 8 years
it's going up 5% in one year and I'm I'm not belittling that for some people that extra $20 doesn't matter but put it in context that's a half a percent per year okay that's not in real terms the cost of using our pool has dropped dramatically in8 years in real terms and if we want to be good Financial stewards we need to make as councilman
Smallwood say sometimes unpopular decisions of raising some fees this is a user fee and we have to put money into our facilities to keep them nice um someone mentioned you know tatlock field no one wanted to make the tough decision to do that that prior Council kicked it down the road and the reality is that is going to cost the city more money because they didn't have the guts to actually
go and fix it when it needed to be fixed we have Capital Improvements that need to be made in the pool if we don't and we don't raise fees and we're scraping for money we're going to the the the idea will be let's just kick that down the road and when we do have to finally fix it it will cost a lot more money that is not Financial stewardship that is not being prudent with our taxpayers money and so we
have to sometimes make decisions like this like I said I was I looked at this this is the most logical like thing and and again I get it for some people 20 bucks is a is a big deal but as councilman Boer P pointed out we have made a carve out for the people whose this would be most affected by we've already talked about that and I get it some people really care about that and they should and I'm psyched that we had someone
come up and speak passionately about those people in the community but I'm happy that Mr Guida and Mr rowski and our uh um Community Advisory Board have made car outs for that and this is a user fee so uh um that so I I support this thing I think it's The Prudent it's the fiscally responsible thing if we want to be good fiscal stewards and claim that we are this to me is
a no-brainer I'm closing the hearing okay all right I make comments nope we are done you got to be here on time count I ran over here I'm going to speak no no you cannot speak speak anyway sir excuse me sir public comments do we close public comments please sit down sir please sit down sir you can submit an email if you can submit an email if you'd like I ran through the door please respect I'd like to speak respectfully you need to be
here on time we close public comments respectfully I'd like to speak sir you may submit an email thank you you're messing with the wrong guy um I'm oh my gosh bye all right wow okay uh We've now got a few ordinances for final considerations uh Madam clerk will you please read uh Finance ordinance uh the first one please ordinance number 25-
3328 an ordinance to amend an ordinance entitled an ordinance to establish the 2024 salaries wages or compensations of and for the officers and employees of the city of Summit County of Union New Jersey thank you councilwoman to thank you council president having fairly recently closed this or the hearing on this ordinance I move this ordinance for final consideration for final adoption you're a second second all right um Madam clerk uh roll
call please Mr Boer I miss Hamlet i m Miss cinon I Mr palowski I Mr Smallwood I miss to yes president McAn I motion carries all right uh second ordinance for final consideration uh commun the First Community programs and Parking Services uh madam clerk will you please read the ordinance ordinance number 25- 3329 an ordinance amending the
code chapter 7 traffic section 7-25 regulations for the movement and the parking of traffic or on M Municipal property and Board of Education property subsection 7- 25.2 Municipal parking lot areas thank you councilman Smallwood thank you council president having just heard this uh hearing I moved to adopt the uh ordinance second thank you Madame clerk roll call Mr Boer hi Miss Hamlet
hi Miss cinon hi Mr palowski I Mr Smallwood I miss toad yes president McAn I motion carries all right uh second Community programs and Parking Services ordinance uh Madame clerk will you please read this one please ordinance number 25- 3330 an ordinance to amend the code appendix a schedule of fees contained in the revised General ordinances of the city city of summit thank you councilman Smallwood thank you council president having just heard this uh
hearing I move to uh adopt this ordinance second Madame clerk roll call please Mr Boyer hi Miss Hamlet hi Miss cinon nay Mr palowski I M Mr Smallwood I miss to no president McAn all right motion carries all right moving right along um may we have a 5 minute break uh it's been two hours sure uh let's
have a uh 5 minute recess thank you
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all right we're going to get going again everyone en enjoyed their Break um all right we're uh onto our resolutions portion of our meeting uh we're going to start off with some Finance resolutions
uh councilwoman to oh um to introduction wait oh I forgot wow I thought we got through all that I wouldn't have had the break if I knew we had those um all right let's get going so we have ordinances for introduction we have one our first one uh Madam clerk can you read please read our first one from safety and help yes ID number 1177 an ordinance amending the code chapter 7 traffic section 7-19
midblock crosswalks thank you so much uh councilman Boer thank you council president again as our city clerk said this is ID number 117 11707 uh this ordinance has been brought forward in response to a request from Kent play school to donate and install a rapid rectangular flashing Beacon formerly known as R RFB at the existing midblock cross wall connecting their facility at 42 Norwood Avenue to the
parking lot at 75 Norwood Avenue while the crosswalk is already in use the city must take formal legislative action to officially establish it within our traffic code before we can accept the donation and proceed with the installation this proposal has been reviewed and approved by both the Caps committee and the Safety Committee confirming that the crosswalk meets necessary safety and traffic management standards uh additionally as part of this ordinance we are recommending the removal of a previously approved
midblock crosswalk at one Springfield Avenue in 2016 the common Council approved this crosswalk to accommodate a donation from the adjacent property owner for an rrfb installation however the property owner ultimately decided not to proceed with the project leaving the approved but unconstructed crosswalk location obsolete given that the original basis for the approval no longer exists it is appropriate for the city to remove this designation from the code
uh I would like to move or council president I would like to move this to introduction second all right um need a roll call on this if you wish to open it to the council only you can otherwise we take a vote let's take a vote okay Mr I miss Hamlet I miss cinon I Mr palowski I Mr Smallwood I miss to I president
MC I motion carries the hearing will be the hearing uh date for this ordinance will be uh February 19th at our next Council that's Wednesday by the way ah good point that is Wednesday because of the uh President's Day holiday all right uh our second ordinance for introduction is from Community programs and Parking Services Madam clerk ID number 11734 an ordinance of amending the code chapter 7 traffic section 7-25 regulations for the movement and the parking of traffic on
Muse of property and Board of Education property subsection 7- 25.2 Municipal parking lot areas thank you so much uh councilman Smallwood thank you council president uh thank you uh this is ID number 11734 this is to amend the current ordinance to ordinance to allow for Resident commuters to be able to park in the tier garage this is in conjunction function with a previous hearing on the Broad Street Garage that is now allowing 42 additional spaces for non-resident commuter
parking on the top level the additional of 32 spaces on the ground floor of the Broad Street parking lot for Resident only this will also allow resident commuters to utilize the tier garage which they have not been able to use previously currently there are on average over 50 available spaces on the tier garage and would give us approximately a net increase in Resident resident commuter parking between the two garages I move to introduce this ordinance
for introduction second all right um roll call please president oh oh yes councilman councilwoman Hamlet I just want to a quick comment and I just want to say um to director SII I'm glad that this is in here and I think that this will help solve um some of my questions from earlier and I guess I would ask um councilman small if we can add some of the lot numbers for the next meeting in the minutes and also um Nicole was kind enough to email me the number of
employe permit holders from last year and this year as well and I think that information would be super helpful for the public to understand okay great good comment um all right uh roll call please Mr Boyer hi Miss Hamlet hi Miss cson hi Mr palowski I Mr Smallwood I miss to I president McAn I motion carries okay uh last ordinance for introduction is from capital projects and Community Services
uh Madam clerk ID number 11748 an ordinance amending the code chapter 2 Administration Article 4 departments created section 2-14 Department of Community Services thank you so much uh councilwoman Hamlet uh thank you council president uh as Rosie said uh this is ID 11748 this ordinance amends section 2 - 14 of the city code to memorialize changes in the organizational structure of the Department of Community Services specifically the ordinance provides that the department shall be divided
into three divisions the division of engineering and Public Works the Construction Division and the land use division this ordinance specifies the functions of each division and provides that in absence of a director of community services the head of division of engineering and Public Works shall be the director of engineering and Public Works the head of the land use division shall be the land use manager and the head of Construction Division shall be the construction official and this was discussed earlier in the meeting by our city administrator Baldwin I would like to move this resol this
uh ordinance for introduction second please second all right roll call Mr Boyer hi Miss Hamlet I miss cinon I Mr palowski I Mr Smallwood I miss miss toad I president McAn I motion carries this uh hearing will also be on uh Wednesday February 9th 19th 19th I'm sorry February 19th as will the uh Community programs and Parking Services uh ordinance all right now we're on to
our resolution section of our uh meeting uh we've got a few from Finance uh councilwoman to uh would you introd uh resolution number one okay thank you council president first resolution ID number 11740 is to authorize transfer Appropriations in the operating budget um this is standard operating practice the last two months of the calendar year and the first 3 months of the next
year we take money that we haven't spent from accounts with extra money and use it to fund expenses from accounts where we didn't quite allocate enough funds um so um I mean this case I I I I move this um sorry move this resolution for introduction second adoption for adoption for adoption thank you perfect all right uh do I have any uh comments from the public
comments from Council good example of that fund allocation yes exactly um councilwoman Hamlet I guess my question is um councilwoman to uh will this cover the crossing guards for the rest of the year and then were the other two items were we just were we just shorten those I'm going to defer to our business administrator on those through you
council president um we are moving funds to the crossing guards this is for other expenses not for salaries salaries were covered um but we needed $230 to cover costs in the operating budget for crossing guards and then um 8,000 each to the planner services in legal and mlu so it's a total of 16,2 $130 that we're moving from um extra funds in the police OE to crossing guards and extra funds in community services
um salaries over to the mlu and the planner okay so I'm assuming we needed those extra funds cover okay thank you any other comments from Council all right uh all in favor roll roll call okay yeah you're right um roll call pleas Mr Boer hi Miss ham I miss cson I Mr palowski I Mr
Smallwood I miss to I president MC I motion carries all right uh Finance number two councilwoman to okay thank you this is ID 11741 to authorize emergency temporary Appropriations for the municipal operating budget um state law requires us to call this an emergency it is not an emergency um until we adopt our bu budget a little later in the spring um we are operating on
a temporary budget which is very limited um and a lot of spending has to be in any spending above that limited amount um is called an emergency so in order to pay our bills we need to pass this resolution and I move it for adoption second all right uh do I have any comments from the public on this resolution comments from Council all right do we need a roll call on this as well yes Mr Boer I miss
Hamlet hi Miss cinon I Mr palowski hi Mr Smallwood I miss toad hi president McAn I motion carries uh Finance number three councilwoman to well thank you this is ID 11739 authorizing a Grant application submission by The Summit free public library um for a program next year um in connection with the Arts on Creative Aging in place um we are
not being asked to spend any money this is the library the the library is applying for a grant under normal circumstances it wouldn't come before us um the library does not have its own account yet on the Grant application portal and to set one up would take would take long enough that the time for applying for the grant would have expired so they are simply using our
grant portal to apply for this grant there's no additional cost to the city um it's a nice thing to do for the library and I move this resolution for adoption second comments from the public comments from Council councilwoman Hamlet U you might know the answer thank you council president but what's the difference we have Millennium they're on our Council agenda later we have them do some grants for public art um it seems like this
would be the same exact thing correct um I believe that Millennium may have assisted the library in putting this Grand application together but according to um Miss bear Shields the head librarian it's their application right I guess that's my question so when we do them for public art do we go through the same process yeah the the library is a separate
organization so we can apply for Grants okay for that entity but I guess my so here the reason why I'm really asking this question is um we've been talking a lot about have helping the Housing Authority uh obtain some grants and I've been really trying to um be actively involved in looking at playground grants so could we use Millennium in this capacity for the Summit Housing Authority have to answer it now but I think that it you know maybe we can just think about it or ask Millennium when we be helpful I don't
know the answer but I know it's a web may I yes you may through you council president um the reason that the library uh applies for many grants on their own um this particular Grant they needed to have a duns number and the library does not have their own duns number the city does it takes several weeks or months to acquire a duns number and they operate as kind of a branch even
though it's a separate entity but they're in our budget we budget for their fees right so we collect the library fees we pay them what the state determines that we pay so we're just kind of like the pass through so that they can get this grant when it comes to The Summit Housing Authority um I'd have to do a little more research because they are not they have a separate tax ID number they're a separate entity I don't know if we could apply on behalf of them it might be an option but I think I
would just need to do a little more research to make sure there's no you know through tricky about that uh we we did talk we did talk about this before and I actually asked our city solicitor uh Matt Jobe that question and I was told no because they're a separate entity we can't use them uh to write grants because that would be that would have been great right we you know somehow hey get after it right get all the grants that you can get but I was
told you you wna you want to comment on that or are we good you're good you got it right okay great the answer is no answer is no sadly um all right other comments all right all in favor I I opposed motion carries okay all right uh Finance number four councilwoman to I'm on a roll um this is ID 1175 to establish the opioid funding distribution task force um this is
something that we have discussed um or that Council has discussed um on and off for for the better part of a year that the city will be receiving considerable SS sums from the national opioid settlement um and solicitor G Jobe um urged us to set up an OP to set up this task force to determine the best use for it um and in fact it
may be required so um let's get the right people in the room to decide how we can spend this money and I you know um move move this resolution for adoption second comments from the public comments from Council through you council president Council Boer so this this opioid Grant is near and dear um I've been talking to numerous uh um you know
whether it's the some like Elks or Sage um you know trying to get some joint opportunities with the community in terms of uh uh this grant spending and you know those suggestions with certain uh groups I'll bring to the table with this task force I definitely think the task force is needed I know the mayor and I kind of have been doing our own thing and trying to F figure out the best way to allocate These funds and
I think this task force is going to be great especially if it operates as well as the homeless task force um then I think we'll do good things but uh We've we've done a lot of research throughout the year and I I think this is this is the best result thank you Madame mayor um I'd like to speak to this because this was something that um was recommended um and actually is really a requirement in in order to distribute those funds so this is sort of the first step and then
the next steps are obviously identifying um opportunities for use of the funds and appropriate opportunities um and as uh councilman Boyer said you know we we have some ideas already but obviously um our we have a decent amount of money and so this will just allow us to to follow the procedure um so we do this the distribution properly thank you other comments yeah I would just add um you know this is
It's So tragic where this money has come from um but I think we do have an opportunity to do some good with it and I think this is a great idea I know there's been some amazing ideas on how to help people in our community with these funds um getting more people in the room and combining those ideas will be even better um we do have people who are at risk uh there are ways that we can use this funds really appropriately and um I'm excited to see what uh this task force can do because it can really
really help our community so all right uh all in favor I opposed motion carries okay uh we're on to um resolutions from capital projects and Community Services we moved oh we did the administrative one up to finance or the grant writer oh you're right the grant writer okay oh um so uh we've got the this is ID number 11732 this is a uh Finance resolution uh
so councilwoman to I get to keep going you do okay this resolution is going to um approve a one-year contract extension with Millennium which is our grant writer um for $45,600 um last year they helped us um receive Grant get get award grants of more than $1.3 million so that's not a bad return on investment um and we've
got they have submitted applications on our behalf um already that we're waiting on for this year of considerably more than that and are working on some others um so I move this resolution for adoption good source of outside funds I second it thank you uh comments from the public three Council president oh wait wait we got some public comments hold on hold on so um I'm glad
to hear that we have oh name Andress Diego Court I'm glad to hear we got about $1.3 million in Grants last year um it is indeed a good return investment um what I don't see in the contract that I think could be useful is some notion of what is what consider was is considered a success right like a tiered compensation for the grant Riders um the more money they bring in the more
money they make I think would be a good way to put it number one and number two if I remember correctly the 2024 budget has about $ 130ish th000 in Grants in grant money coming in and at the time that the budget was passed last year we were told we could not be sure of what kind of grant money we would be getting um and as a result of that we had to make up the shortfall in Revenue with a tax increase increase in the tax rate so if
we got 1.3 million and we increased the tax rate and we had record amounts of tax levy last year uh increases um I'm trying to understand why all of a sudden we're raising fees for everything thank you no comment it's it's not a Q&A Mr hul it's a comment section all right uh
any other comments from the public comments from Council through you council president ah yes go please Mr laer I was with I was with Mr Ho for like uh two minutes there and then made a left turn at the end um but so I I I understand that this this along with some other uh agencies that we do business with will now be going
through committee so that we could do RFP right I I think I think that is a a good move um I know that there are other grant writers out there and you know we should see what's out there in the universe and one thing that uh Mr Ho did say is that well what's the what's the lit litmus what's the scale of of what's good the number of 1.4 million may look good but compareed to what um I know that there's a limited number of grant writers out there through
my conversations with the city administrator and um and our engineer and also um I understand that depending on the grant writer they may take a uh a percentage of the money that you get so I know there are some concerns but we still should see there are other grant writers out there and we still should see what's out there in the universe thanks thank you other comments councilwoman Hamlet uh I would just say um
I guess to to Jamal's Point I've been working a lot with Millennium and U been very pleased with them I do think that we should uh really urge them to either present at Council um so that the public can understand what they're working on and I would urge my colleagues um to have Millennium come to speak with you and your director so that you can collaboratively work together right now and in fact it probably should have been done three months ago um because now we're in February and if you're in
your committees looking for Grants it might be too late so I would say whatever we do for next year um we should encourage Millennium to just work with uh not only the directors but potentially if the council members um you know the policy makers have ideas on grants and I think that would be helpful um I would say as far as their fees go um I think I was speaking with director shreer and jam the other day and it can be a slippery slope if we give them a percentage um if they get us $2 million in Grants we could be looking at the the wrong side
of that trade so um so I think that we've I would like them to potentially um you know come to council or something like that at some point um and oh I'm sorry yes counc simply going to say to respond to council member Boer um I too would have liked to be able to take a bigger view of this thing um but millenniums last contract expired at the end of December and they are currently working without a contract and we just needed to get this
sewed up thank you uh councilman oh go Miss Baldwin had her hand up know she wanted to speak sorry through you council president I don't want to Trump any Council people but I thought it was important to note that um one thing is Millennium hasn't raised their fees since 2016 there's that this is the second time uh sorry we went out in 2024 for our last RFP we did post an RFP they were the only one who was responsive to it
um and we are allowed by law for this Professional Service to extend that for one-year options for a total of 5 years so that's what we're doing is exercising that option to extend um we certainly um can be looking at going out for an RFP again um we just have to um consider it carefully and think about it because they already have rates established if we extend for each of the next three years if we go out for
a new RFP those rates could change we could get other competitive people um I recently just heard of another group and in all my years in municipal government Millennium was the only one that I knew of um so I think they are the most popular they also uh will come in um and speak with council members um they do come in and do a strategic plan but we have to award a contract to them in order for them to do that so all of that will start happening and they certainly um would be open to coming to a
council meeting um or maybe close session to talk about the initiatives um that Council people have great thank you councilman Smallwood thank you council president she uh Miss Balman actually answered one of my questions um my qu one of the the question was you know do we have to sign a contract you know because it says not to exceed $45,600 per year so I'm assuming that we're paying them on a
per Grant basis but it's not going to exceed $45,000 it's a it's a flat fee it's a flat fee yeah okay so my question is again it's when I first got on Council La Council last year and talking deal councilwoman himlet was talking about Millennium I was like why is she talking about a generation um I didn't realize what she was talking about till afterwards and you know $1.3 million is great but you know to councilman Boo's comment what
are we measuring that against I mean what did our surrounding towns what did they receive in Grants is there something that we can compare this to um to to find out if we we are really getting the best services for this money obviously getting $1.3 million is a huge win but are there are we stuck with one person at Millennium you
know are there different they're a large company right so they're are there better grant writers at Millennium I mean I I don't know so I'm just wondering like at every company there's better there's one employee that really outshines the other right so is that the case here do we get to choose can we look at the grant writers at Millennium and say we would like to work with this person because they got $2.4 million for this company or this municipality but ours only got us 1.3
million I don't know just thinking from a business perspective I mean uh councilwoman Hamlet I will say I mean I I agree with you I will say I found it helpful I've been working with them a lot and I was curious as well CU there's not that many grant writers it has been helpful I believe they're the same grant writer for Union County so some s when I see other municipalities we'll get a grant um from Union County I definitely ping Millennium and I'm kind of like hey why didn't we go for that or why did we forget about that um so I do find that
helpful um but you know I think once we have we've never most of you have probably having any conversations with Katherine um or the other person I think once we have those initial meetings it'll be really helpful okay other comments yeah I would just say um if you've been watching uh from your home we've talked about this uh over the last several months about creating a more systemic way we go and and send out rfps for all our professionals and I know the admin
committee with councilwoman uh Kelson is is working on that to put a schedule together these guys will be included I think um you know given that this one had just come up in 24 maybe they go to you know couple years from now before they RFP I'm not sure but that's what the admin committee will decide um but um I do know that when we did RFP just a year ago they were the only ones who showed up so um
we have we we have what we have um and we do get grants but but I do certainly think it's a great idea to think about um uh where we stand relative to um other municipalities and how they do Etc because grants are a great way to fund our budget um as we've talked about already this this evening so um all right uh all in favor opposed all right motion carries okay now we're going on to capital
projects and Community Services uh uh resolution number one councilwoman Hamlet thank you council president uh this is resolution ID 11710 uh authorizing 2025 City Forester services not to exceed $65,000 whereas the city of summit has a need to acquire licensed professional forestry services as a fair and open contract whereas the anticipated term of this contract is from January 1 through December 31st 2025 whereas the shade tree Department LLC has submitted a proposal in response to a public
request for qualifications with these costs uh not to exceed $65,000 dedicating 555,000 for general city services and 10,000 uh for planning and zoning boards which are from the escro accounts uh whereas the cost of these Services is not to exceed $65,000 the assistant DCS director advises that reducing the required $2 million uh professional liability insurance to 1 million professional liability insurance as has been done in Prior years I would
like to move this resolution second uh do I have any comments from the public comments from Council all right all in favor I opposed motion carries all right uh capital projects and Community Services number two councilwoman Hamlet yes uh this is thank you council president this is ID 11723 authorizing the 2025 submission of the 2024 Tree City USA
recertification App application and accomplishments report um all this information is in the packet but the 2024 application for recertification as a tree City USA is due for submittal to the New Jersey Forest Service since the city submits for recertification annually on the year Year's prior progress this is a 2024 re recertification submitted in 2025 in concert with the tree City USA designation uh Summit is also submitting the new New Jersey Urban and Community forestry program annual accomplish report uh
I would like to move this resolution second comments from the public comments from Council it's great that we are a tree City it's great um all right uh all in favor I I opposed motion carries all right uh we're on to uh capital projects and Community Services number three councilwoman Hamlet I'm going to pass this to councilman Boer if that's okay thank you me thank you councilwoman
Hamlet appreciate it uh this is ID resolution number 11727 the common Council uh wishes to amend the committee's membership structure to design uh to designate sorry the appointment of a council member representative uh to serve as the chair of the park line steering committee I would like to amend this amendment so that the council president will no
longer be a designated member of the committee instead the membership will include two council members one of whom will serve as chair I would like to move this amendment to the amendment for adoption and um Mr Jobe that's fine that we just changed that you're just going to be passing it as amended as councilman Boer articulated okay um do I hear a second second okay
uh all right do I have comments from the public comments from Council thank you council president Council Boyer all right keep going just so the residents know what this what this is uh a couple weeks ago uh we decided the park line um has been you know taking a decade to to get in place we really need to get that project going um no fault of any of our
city employees or any member of the park line steering committee uh we just found that you know this really streamlines it to put a council person on it so that the other council members council president business administrator holds that council member um accountable which is me of course uh so I'd like to thank uh uh engineer shreer the other uh committee members uh who were on the phone call last week I think we already have a we're already moving in the
right direction you know um we're looking forward to getting that dot approval for that Grant uh and looking at the next steps and getting this project moving forward so thank you council president thank you other comments all right all in favor I opposed motion carries all right uh capital projects number four woman Hamlet thank you council president this is ID 11746 authorizing the replacement of the lowf flow pumps at chadam Road Pump
Station the low flow pumps are critical pumps they are the primary pumps used in the time of low flow they operate against a high elevation head uh for a distance exceeding 1.5 miles they are very taxed uh and have required a lot of repairs uh over the last decade to the cost of nearly $330,000 uh these high costs are directly related to the style of these existing pumps and the sewer operator was able to obtain quotes from a very reputable vendor under the Bergen County Co-op from Rapid pump and meter Services uh
the cost for both the equipment and the installation is $199,000 $250 uh I would like to move this resolution do I hear a second J second uh do comments from the public comments from Council through you council president yes please Mr Boer I apologize councilwoman H this is this is this the one where the change order because I was no no okay all right
that's what I was looking for okay I'm good any other comments from Council right I just would say um you know these pumps are critical all right I mean I think uh director shreer would would say we have to pump stuff uphill before gravity starts to take it down to um uh Elizabeth where it EMP you know to our treatment plan so we got to get it up the hill first you don't want it not working so we've got to invest in pumps
and and this is part of our Sewer Authority which is an authority uh so different little structure um as part of our city government so um all right all in favor I I opposed motion carries all right uh last capital projects resolution number five councilwoman Hamlet thank you council president and councilman Bo that one's I think is for the next meeting the one you're thinking of so uh yes
this is resolution ID 11769 uh as discussed in Clos session this resolution would uh Place Irene lir as a member of the affordable housing committee uh Irene was on the rent committee and uh I think she'll be a great asset I'd like to move this resolution second comments from the public comments from Council all in favor I opposed motion carries all right
uh we're moving along to uh Community programs and Parking Services uh resolution uh number one councilman Smallwood thank you council president this is resolution ID number 11768 this resolution is to create a committee to address the concerns raised by the N the tatlock neighborhood based on the five tatlock Community meetings held last year along with professional studies on lighting traffic and environmental impact as well as the listening session led by the mayor and council president it has become clear
that several issues in the tlock neighborhood need to be addressed Beyond just field lights I want to thank council president McAn councilwoman Hamlet and Council councilman palowski for suggesting this task force to tackle these concerns including but not limited to traffic parking parking sidewalks and general lighting not to be confused with field lighting the task force will be composed of the following members three common Council representatives from Ward one the council president and up to
four residents of the tatlock neighborhood I would highly recommend to this task force to begin by reviewing all of the minutes questions and answers from the five Community meetings held at last held last year which highlight a lot of the main concerns from the neighbors I'd like to move this resolution for adoption second comments from the public chel in Modesto 61
Butler Parkway establishing a committee to examine the concerns raised by residents of the tatlock neighborhood is a great idea and can be beneficial for the neighborhood if implemented in good faith within certain parameters I believe the 500 yard radius around Investors Bank field is too broad and would Encompass residents not impacted by the items the committee is seeking to improve I think it is interesting to point out that in the initial proposed lighting plan for tatlock it originally called for three separate meetings about
the studies for those the DCP specified that the tatlock stakeholders to be notified were those within 200 ft of the field this 500 yard radius includes those located almost eight times that distance from the field which are not those residents with daily firsthand experience of the issues this committee is looking to address if you are honestly trying to solve the problems noted in the resolution then the input and solutions need to come from
those most impacted anything else feels disingenuous additionally I believe that for this group to be productive the four appointed residents must be people that the other neighborhood residents feel comfortable approaching and voicing concerns to these four residents will give input and make decisions about items that will have a large impact on the daily lives of those most affected by the field and its use they truly must be ambassadors of the tatlock neighborhood who have the best intentions for the residents living
around the field coming up with collaborative solutions that will not only preserve but enhance the neighborhood's quality of life thank you thank you very much other comments from the public all right comments from Council councilwoman celson thank you council president um I agree with Miss vesto that we should give preference to people who live near
the impacted areas um and have voiced concerns because those are the people that are most interested in solving the problem other comments uh councilman Boer through you council president I'm laughing because the mayor told me to raise my hand um yeah so here here's my limited experience with uh really difficult situations I mean the park line was a difficult situation we had you know we had Neighbors in the park line all come
out some were you know some were yelling and you know I sat by and I'm like listen people are passionate about where they live at right like hey you know like say say say what you feel but at the end of the day um we got residents on there that you know really didn't want it there but they said you know what this is going to happen but I want it to be the best possible if it's going to butut my my house so I tell
the story to say that um when picking members for this uh this task force I mean even council members I think we people have to have an open mind right if if you go into it saying either way this is going to happen or this is not going to happen then you're not you're not you don't have an open mind right so I think if if you if you're closed-minded about this process um
you know you could really be doing a disservice to the task force to really try to find out what is needed right what is needed in this area how can we make this how can we make this happen or this is impossible not to happen whatever the findings are but I I would say you know what keep it keep open mind about it so thank you other uh comments go councilwoman H yeah I would just say I agree with Jamal you know when I
was initially mentioned this or Mike maybe you did I can't remember but you know a lot of times as a council member we're in certain committees so I'm in capital projects Jamal's in safety a lot of these issues are cross sort of contaminated with different committees um shouldn't say cross contaminate they're cross referenced in different committees um so sometimes as a council person it's difficult to say you know what we identified 14 problems or five problems we all can kind of agree we've come to a consensus but then Kevin you take it back to your committee and I'll take half of it back to safety me Rosie you see it all the time a Dar
starts in one committee and then it ends in another one and it gets so I think the goal of this is to truly try to help um residents and some of the residents and I think the reason why the 500 radius is is high or not 200 um this also talks about the um the River Road the cuts and right now we're doing we have a grant for a million dollars for can Parkway and those residents should also be probably if they're within 500 ft I think they should be included I don't know if they're even involved with in close with 500 feet um but I I think
I'm fine with the 500 ft radius um but I think you know if it doesn't work we can scrap it I think it's just an opportunity to sort of take all of the ideas that we had collected and sort of work through them I don't think it's going to create an extra burden for staff or or anything like that other comments councilwoman to thank you council president just a clarification it's not 5 00 ft councilwoman Hamlet it's 500 yards that's 1500 ft so that's the disparity that got pointed out
thank you that's what ior councilman uh Smallwood uh thank you council president you know I I don't know I I don't want this to be confused with this is about the tatlock lights right this committee was suggested based on feedback regarding tatlock lights that there are other issues that need to be dealt with whether lights are installed or not and it it it includes
more than just the people who live across the street you know it's uh it's that area itself because there is two Fields there there's a school there um and just some of the issues that came up during those meetings last year were tatlock lights happen or not these issues need to be dealt with and I believe that's the purpose of this task force is to improve those
conditions whether lights happen or not good comments uh other comments yeah I I would just uh close by saying you know I and um councilwoman Hamlet mentioned this uh last meeting or two meetings ago I can't remember um I was said wow great idea um because you know as councilman um Smallwood mentioned you it became abundantly clear as
we sat there and talked to Residents that there there were a lot of issues that were not changing regardless of whether lights go in there or not they had issues particularly around large events that would happen there on occasion that happen there now whether it's a Saturday football game uh or graduation or you know or the Friday night light game that happens uh in the fall um and you know what struck
me talking and listening to Residents uh what I felt was kind of not sad I guess I I not unexpected but there were some residents who said we're here and this entire thing is a sham this is performance theater we're having these meetings you guys have already made up your minds you know this is just a waste of everyone's time and that made me you know I I get it I mean their trust in government is is
low it is um and uh but I when councilwoman Hamlet suggested this you know the fact is we do listen we do and and it this is something you know like those people I get it you know people say oh they live next to a field that's great but that field is an asset to the entire
community and the city it's pretty clear to me and uh when thinking about this we could do a much much better job managing the events that take place there regardless of this has nothing to do with lights or not um whether lights get put in we have to manage the events any if lights don't get in we have to manage the events that are going on already and we do a horrible job at it and this task force I think is super important to address those issues because we do listen
and uh I get it you know other neighborhoods have some issues too um but these are very specific to a the town using this as a as an asset where we all enjoy it we love going to sporting events our kids um develop there they grow they learn team work etc it's a great asset but the the we have to um we have to manage these City and Board of Ed events not to the detriment
of the people who happen to live there they all bought in that they live next to a park they get it that events are happening but it doesn't mean that you know they should not be able to park in their driveway when these things happen or they're dangerous and we have to do a much much better job and I think this um this task force should is um should be be able to come up with some good solutions that we can make these events much more manageable um for those people cuz they deserve it they really do um
I don't have that strong of an opinion about the the distance things um all I can say is the people I talked to there were a lot of people who lived more than 200 feet from uh tatlock who were at these meetings and seem passionate about it um I I I'd hate to preclude good ideas maybe there's some way we can work that out um when we're vetting people to make sure we have definitely people who live close by but uh if we have a
few maybe we can make sure that if someone feels really strongly and seems to have good ideas we can include them because I I I'd hate to just have an arbitrary cut off and someone who really could bring something to the table is excluded um but that's but that can be worked on I guess um but yeah I so I applaud you for coming up with this um I think think it's a great idea um and I'm fully supportive so all right is can we vote on this councilman Jamal C council president I just want to say thank
you for explaining and thank you councilman Smallwood for explaining because I think there are some residents out there that you know um felt like me initially when reading this that this was really you know focused on the lights but it's focused on all the concerns that we we heard during the town hall so that thank you for explaining I think that was good um I appreciate it yep yes Council just to say you know director Sher we have how many how many people uh residents feedback from the can
Parkway stuff I don't again I don't know where the the boundaries lie but we have more data from other residents and I I think it'll be helpful to keep that area all right uh all in favor I opposed all right motion carries all right uh we're three hour in and we're at the consent agenda all right um do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented so moved have a
second second all right all in favor I I opposed motion carries uh City staff thank you for being here uh have a good night traveling home and stay safe okay all right at this time uh we're going to open up our uh meeting to public comments if anyone in the public would like to make a comment uh please come
up state your name and your address and please hold it to three minutes council president and members of council and mayor I'll be less than three minutes um good evening I'm Diego ho n Aral Court every manager knows the importance of of preserving liquidity in times of upheaval the actions taking place in Washington are significant and rapid and they will impact all of us for
example most economies expected that the Steep tariffs announced last Saturday on our three most important trading partners could tank our economy and with it Sumit tax base fortunately most of these tariffs were suspended for a month but their threatened implementation still looms also Mass deportation risks removing individuals whose construction jobs allow Summit residents to be able to improve the value of their homes in their absence the rate of growth of ratables will likely slow down
finally the president is about to unveil his vision for the Department of Education what has leaked so far presents many challenges for our excellent schools how will special needs students receive funding will we have to spend taxpayer of funds to grow the endowments of private schools if Federal programs like reduced and free lunch are eliminated will we allow kids in our community to go hungry there is no point in debating
the pros and cons of federal policy changes in this forum but we should fully understand their impact until such time as we have Clarity of the long-term changes the only fiscally responsible course of action is to delay spending as much as possible as an attachment I enter into the record an email I wrote to you council president last November suggesting Common Sense measures to avoid unnecessary spending unanswered some of them address
the capital budget for example this Council should agree to a desired level of spending with the advice of our well-respected city administrator and CFO projects should only be put on the budget after the spending level is set and they should be grouped into three budgets routine maintenance like repairing repaving Road necessary major upgrades like the 45-year-old tiered garage we just heard about today and nice to have projects that improve our community but can
wait until next year given the extreme uncertainty we're now operating under Prudence dictates that we skip nice to haves until we have Clarity in this uncertain year this Council should Target a constant tax rate we should also continue to pay down our debt to its levels at the time the firehouse was bonded adjust it for inflation thank you thank you you have a statement yes I do y awesome thank you very much thank you other comments from the
public I know it's late so I'll be quick Don Nelson 20 plan Street um City administrator Baldwin had a a opening statement about the um Hometown hero banners I know there was some discussion last year about extending that time to maybe uh Veterans Day right isn't Veterans Day later on I know Springfield Madison chadam does it I know there was some concern about the wear and tear on the banners but if you just keep that in the Forefront of your mind when we talk
about that moving forward uh I know I in my adventure last year knocking on doors uh I did get a bunch of veterans who expressed a concern about them coming down too early especially for veteran day so just wanted to put that out in the front right thank you thank you very much other comments from the public okay we're going to close public comments uh at this time uh we're
now on to council members comments and new business who would like to start I will just bore us all with one more thing about money um because at the last council meeting we authorize the issuance of non-emergency emergency bonds to pay back the last tranch of our covid um lost parking revenues in the amount of $170,000 and that has gone out and
been issued typically a bond issuance that small doesn't get much interest from the market and little interest means High rates um but we we we got a fair amount of Interest we ended up um we're going to be paying interest rates of just a shade over 4% without having to do a premium on top of that and I think that just speaks really well of how our business administrator CFO has managed our finances
that we got um a lot of interest in such a small Bond offering and so hopefully when we go out again later this year we'll do at least as well thank you other comments no I know you got yeah so councilman Boyer uh first um I
would like to talk about um the notor protect program uh it was it was a amazing program um the the parents there were really involved I mean there is the Predators have moved from the playground into our home that that that was the main point that really really hit home and they had these videos of I mean it it makes me sick
to my stomach but they had these they show these videos of these random guys in your house in your in your your daughter's closet there's like four guys in the room and you know she's sitting there she's typing on the computer because these are all of the different people that your kids could be interacting with online and you don't even know as you call her down for dinner we live in
a very uh this digital environment is a very scary environment and I'm looking forward for these special agents to come back and give a presentation to our students in the school uh because it was it's very eye openening and some of them may even be involved in and not even knowingly um maybe even involved in these um uh these entanglements where you know they're being threatened online because they
shared a picture or something like that you know um so you know I I really I I really would like to see more parent participation you know when it comes to these things um I think that this is this is very very eye openening um and you know parents go on to not notor protect um online Homeland Security uh check out
their uh their PDFs check out their presentations uh you can see the apps that you should be concerned about uh steps to talk to your children um what to look for it's very it's very eye openening so um thank you thank you other comments councilwoman Hamlet uh thank you council president I'll be brief um regarding the Hometown Heroes I just wanted to make one comment uh when we say applications are open that means they are going to close at
a certain point I forget what that date is but uh I served on the hometown hero committee last year and the amount of people who wanted to come in late um it's kind of a hard stop and there's a reason uh Michael Arlene works really hard and I don't want to have to turn anybody down so um we'll publish the deadline date again but it's really important you get those in Jamal I remember you were one of the ones last year that wanted to submit somebody and we missed the deadline so thank you for putting me on BL so just remember just get it in in the next couple weeks um I've been
thinking a lot about the Veterans Day keeping obviously there's nobody up here that's you know would be more excited to keep them up till Veterans Day um there is a lot of wear and tear on the uh the banners and um but what we can look into is maybe some grant funding to keep them through Veterans Day or um maybe a fundraiser U I've been speaking with Michael Arling a lot about it um the other thing I wanted to mention I think that was oh the other thing I want to mention which I should have started off with um I think it's important we take a moment uh if I if I may
maybe a moment of silence for um all the folks uh who died uh in the past week in the in the airline uh crashes my hearts go out to all of those um my uh sadly enough um in the one in DC uh it'ss very close to home for me my daughter's on a skating team at Cody Arena um so she's often at those skating competitions and one of the girls who skates there um not at Cody but one of the girls who was on the airplane had trained at Cody Arena this December
and her whole family was decimated so maybe take a moment of silence that's all I have thank you other comments from Council all right just I just quick wrap up and it um one things I just wanted to say uh as Mr Hoy mentioned there's a
lot of stuff in the news there there there is um and it seems to change like every half hour uh so it's it's very volatile and some things may happen some things may not um I would though I have seen emails fly around and people get all worried and um that we're going to have to raise taxes because city services are going to get cut because we're not going to have Federal money and this that and
the other thing um I would just ask people to think before they decide to send out things that are unsubstantiated or that they don't know or they're speculating because you know we have a mental health crisis in our country people are anxious they're nervous they uh you know we depression is through the roof you know to stoke fear
and to uh play with people's emotions to score a point here or there these are real people and when I would just say like just think about that if there's a real issue that something may be affected we'll have that conversation but throwing stuff out on social media and then we get all these emails that people are really scared these are people and we shouldn't be playing
with their emotions and scaring people to score a point here or there my side gets a point your side gets a point whatever it is that's ridiculous and um so I I would just ask people to care and think before they do these things um and we'd be in a better world because strap in there's going to be a lot of news and we'll have enough to worry about that's real that uh rather than stuff that's speculative so so but then they went away so
I get it I get it I get it but let's let's uh uh I'm not saying that you you were that was not true um but I'm just saying there are other things that I have seen that are pure speculation and that's that's my that's what my comment's about so um yes uh I'd like to make a motion to adjourn I love that motion um all in favor I opposed we are adjourned thank you everybody came to the
meeting for