Welcome everyone uh to our last uh common council meeting for October. I hope everyone's having a great fall and um and are looking forward uh to we got election in a couple of weeks, so getting all geared up for that. Uh at
this time, uh Madame Clerk, will you please read the adequate notice of compliance statement? >> Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the city clerk's office in preparation of the council annual meeting notice stated December 16, 2024, which was properly distributed and
posted per statutory requirements. Please be advised that fire exits are to my right, your left, and at the back of the room. The city has a listening system to assist the hearing impaired. If anyone needs hearing assistance, please obtain the system at the deis and return it thereafter.
>> Very good. Thank you so much. Um, roll call, please. >> Mr. Ber, >> present. >> Miss Hamlet >> here. >> Miss Calmanson >> here. >> Mr. Powski >> here. >> Mr. Smallwood. >> Miss Toth >> here. >> President McTurn, >> present. All right. I'm going to lead us in the pledge of allegiance because I
love doing this in my school room. >> All right. 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. >> More people chimed in here than they do
in my classroom. Um, all right. Uh, madam clerk, will you please read the explanatory note regarding closed session 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 that council meetings are broadcast live on Comcast channels 34 and 36 and Verizon channel 30 and rebroadcast on Thursdays and Saturdays on HTTV on Comcast 36 and
Verizon 33. When invited to speak, please come to the lectern 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 at citycler cityofsummit.org. To help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard, speakers shall limit their comments to three 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 so much. Um, do I have a motion now to approve the uh regular and close session minutes uh for our meetings of October 7th, 2025? >> So moved.
>> Second. >> All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Were they distributed? >> They were. >> I believe so. >> Okay. I don't recall seeing them. I'm sorry. >> Yeah, I sent I can resend them if you want to hold off on the vote.
>> No, if Anyone else see them? >> Do you remember? >> Yeah. I'm >> It's okay. >> May simply have forgotten >> punish. She hasn't looked at it, right? Next meeting. >> We can if you wish. It's your >> time. It's fine. >> All right. >> So, see anonymous vote.
>> Yep. Okay. Um All right. Uh at this time, we're at our report section of our meeting. U Madame Mayor, do you have a report today? >> Of course I do. Good evening, everyone. Um, I want to start with a few community updates and a little Halloween spirit. Get your costumes ready for our
Halloween parade coming up on October 25th from 3 to 5:00. The parade will begin at 25 to Forest Avenue in the parking lot behind the building and proceed to the Village Green where we'll have music, entertainment, snacks, and of course, the costume contest.
Participants should line up at 25 to Forest at 2:45 p.m. and we will step off promptly at 3. It's always a great community tradition, so I hope to see you there. Also, make sure you head downtown and enjoy some sweet treats from our local businesses on Halloween
Day from 2:30 to 4:00. The Summit Free Market will be open on Friday, October 24th from noon to 2 at the transfer station. Drop off items that are in good condition but no longer needed, and maybe pick up a new treasure while you're there. Remember, you'll need a transfer transfer station permit to
access both the free market and the transfer station. All Summit residents can obtain one for n for $10 by showing proof of car registration on our website or in person at our parking services office. The permit is valid from November 1st to October 31st. So, it's
time to renew if you have not done so. Um, if you didn't get to watch our live Q&A with city administrator Tammy Baldwin, I highly recommend checking it out on our YouTube channel. She gave a great explanation about our budget process, which has already started, and it answers a lot of questions that we often get from our residents. So, please
take an hour and check it out. And last, um, please note that our next council meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 5th, instead of Tuesday because of the general election on November 4th. And for those planning to vote, the Memorial Fieldhouse polling location has been temporarily moved to Brighton
Elementary School due to ongoing renovations. You can find all polling locations at cityofsummit.org/elections. And that is all. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. All right. Um, our city administrator is on a welldeserved
uh little family break, so we don't have a city administrator report. Um, my council president report will be quick as well, just to update people on our round four obligations as I have over the last several meetings. Um, really not a lot of new information uh from our
last meeting. Uh we had a discussion with one of the developers um and it was very cordial. Uh there was some back and forths but um no resolution. We remain somewhat far apart uh on what their
proposal is and what you know where our zoning and density uh current ordinances that sit on our books are. So we're going to continue our discussion. Uh just as an update, um we have two challenges to our plans from developers.
One is for a 250 unit development at the end of River Road where the current Wells Fargo site sits across from the Mun Golf Course. And our second challenge is from a developer who would like to put 300 units uh on the Kaneko
station over the Kaneko station which is across from the village green on Summit and uh Broad Street. That would be an eightstory building is the proposal. So we are in some serious discussions on uh hopefully getting that to change. Um and
then thirdly we are being challenged by fair share and we are negotiating with them as well. So, uh, as I've mentioned on several occasions, uh, this is a brand new process. Uh, we thought there'd be one mediation
session. We believe now there'll be a second one. We don't know when that is. Um, we don't have further dates after that. Um, but as we do hear information, we will make sure to inform the public. So, and that is my report. Okay. All
right. Uh, now we're on to our historical minute. Uh, Councilman Palowski, do you have one this this meeting? >> Can I say one thing, Council President? Um, I I did double check, Rosie. You sent those minutes on October 17th. Thank you. >> Both of them. >> I found them.
>> Yeah. >> Historical minute. >> Thank you. When thinking of Summit movie theaters, many hill toppers lament the fact that we actually have no movie theater today. The Clear View Beacon Hill 5 may come to
mind for some. Located at the site of the old Crest Five and Dime store on Springfield Avenue, the Beacon Hill 5 operated from 1997 until 2013. And with an ownership change in 2013, it became
Bow Tai Cinemas until 2016. Now you know it as West Elm. Old-timers will surely mention The Strand, also on Springfield Avenue. The Strand opened in 1925 and operated
until 1986. I can recall a tedious three hours viewing out of Africa in 1985 with my parents as plaster fell from the ceiling. When I finished my Twizzlers, I wanted out of that theater.
Here's that site today. But there was another. The Lyric Theater opened on April 10th, 1914 on the corner of Beachwood Road and Bank Street. I believe it was Summit's first moving picture theater.
Here it is again with a view facing north on Beachwood. In the circle, you can see Council President McTurnan's first car as he made the drive from Basking Ridge to catch a matinea. >> Touche.
>> In the middle of May 1951, the lyric was running Walt Disney's Cinderella and Cecile B. Deill's masterpiece Samson and Delilah. Prices were a dollar or less to take in a movie back then. from the same issue of the Herald. It
looks like The Lyric had a better lineup than The Strand that week. I don't think I ever heard of any of those movies. Later that month, The Lyric had a fire on May the 26th, 1951, and closed permanently thereafter.
This photo is taken uh from a top the Basset building. Then the Summit Herald published this picture according to my 20th century summit, a 100red-year history of the city written by >> Something's happening here. >> Do you click something?
>> No. >> I think you you might have clicked the off button. There's a there's a a blank screen thing. >> I did. No, >> no, no. Probably on the >> Bob. Did you turn something off, sir? >> This was going so well, too.
>> I know. I got to find it. >> Pictures are so good. I think we lost connectivity. >> Okay. I think there was only one more picture. Anyway, um so that last picture that you saw was taken from the top of the Basset
building. Uh, the Summit Herald published that picture according to 20th Century Summit, a 100red-year history of the city, written by former council president Edward S. Alcott in 1998. I can only speculate that the fire occurred during renovations that the
Herald reported were to come earlier that month because the May 24th, May 31st, June 7th, and June 14th, 1951 issues of the Herald are missing from the pre free public libraries archives. Perhaps Mr. Alcott borrowed them but
never returned these primary sources when he wrote his book. Currently, okay, perfect. Currently, the sidewalk that stood under the old Lyric Marquee is known as Lyric Park. And the Bank
Street parking lot stands where perhaps a 2-year-old Harold Baldwin, city administrator Baldwin's dad, andor some of his cousins ate popcorn and watched Cinderella in Technicolor. >> So, in case you're ever wondering how Lyric Park got its name, it is not for
the troubadors who entertain us every summer. It is a nod to Summit's rich history. That's great. That was awesome. Thank you very, very much. I did not know that was how Lyric Park got its name. So, thank you. >> Um,
all right. Uh, moving right along. We have a couple of presentations uh this evening. I don't see anyone from the Elks Club uh to talk about their project donation. that will be on our agenda later on accepting uh their generous uh
gift for uh Tatlock Playground. Um so we'll talk about that then. Uh we do have two other uh presentations though. The first one I want to welcome Lisa Hibbs from Conquered Energy Services is going to give us an update on government
aggregation or government energy aggregation update that uh Councilman Smallwood spoke about at our last meeting. So, Miss Hibs, thank you. >> Thank you very much. Um, I know it's been a long time coming. Um, for the record, my name is Lisa Hibbs. I am
director of sales and project management, government sector at Concord Energy Services, a division of Concord Engineering. Um we have been working with um the Garden State uh Garden State
Community Energy Cooperative of which city of Summit is a participating member. Um the burrow of Lincoln Park is the lead agency. Um we had gone out to auction um a couple of times and um unsuccessfully.
Um most recent was um October 3rd. So, we took you out on August 12th. Um, and we got close to the price to compare, but um not close enough. Um, so I know that um it deflates um you know the the
sales a little bit, but uh we did hold the auction open. We did not dismiss everybody. We just said no award today. The bid documents did allow us to advertise um another refresh auction um
which we took pricing on October 3rd and we were successful. Um in waiting those six weeks um you actually are the um lowest price um across all of our co-ops um by fractions of a penny, but you
still hold the title. Um, so it resulted in a 7% savings on average for residents. Unfortunately, the program will not start until March 2026, but fortunately, the program will start. Um, so right now um our price uh with JCPNL
is 15.8. That includes a two cent um a two penny reconciliation rate or a 2 mil reconciliation rate. Um the day that we took the auction pricing, we did not include that reconciliation rate because it does fluctuate. Um it was in it was
an artificial inflation of the actual BGS price. So we used 15.603 as our strike price and direct energy came in at 14.46. So, the average resident in the co-op
across all four towns. So, it's um the burrow of Lincoln Park, it's the city of Summit, Jefferson Township, and uh Mount Olive Township are the participating members. Um the average usage comes in at 747
kilowatt hours per month. Um so, the average savings is around um $8 per resident. We did get good pricing also on the green price. Um we have an option for residents to opt into a 100% green product. It is optional. They'd have to
take action um in order to opt into that. Um that price was 14.61 cents or a 6% savings on average. So um for those that want to take advantage of that, it's there. Um, if residents do nothing, if they don't opt out, if they don't opt
up, they'll be enrolled in that standard rate of 14.46. There's nothing that anyone needs to do right now. We're a little early in the process um just because we have um that delayed start with with March. Um so, we
will get the account um detail from JCPNL um December 1st. We will then mail out uh information packets to all the eligible residents. Eligible residents being anyone not in an individual contract with a third party supplier,
anyone that does not have net meters for solar and anyone that did not permanently opt out in a previous round. Uh Lincoln Park and Jefferson both had the program before. So we will honor those uh permanent optouts from eons ago. And also if anyone has a time of
day meter uh on peak off peak different rates um we'll also sweep them out. They can always join if they want to but if they're using their meters um as they're set up and designed we would actually cost the money by sweeping them in. So I'd like to quickly
share a web page. Um so Garden State uh community energy co-op has a web page. It's not a lot of things are turned off right now because your residents can't do too much, but there is a write up um
here about um the award. There's also um just a little graphic with the pricing and as we scroll down um if you take no action, you'll be enrolled in the standard program rate. If you want to opt into the green,
you'll have to take action. These buttons right here, these opt in, change program rate, opt out, they are deactivated right now because we don't even have the account list from JCPNL. Once we have that list, once we get ready to do the mailing, those buttons
will be turned on and activated. So, people can use that. Um, they can go directly to the website to opt out if they want to. They want to opt into the green, they would just click the change uh rate change program rate button. And if they don't get a packet, if they have um if they're on supply with their own
individual supply uh uh supplier, they can opt in. Um we would just encourage them to do a little due diligence, make sure that they're not going to get hit with any early termination penalties or things like that before they make the switch. Um and then toward the bottom,
um we have key dates. Right now, I'm working with all four towns um to identify outreach dates um to do some town hall style outreach presentations. We show a video um we will show that also in Spanish. We will also provide the information packets in English and
in Spanish and we will post all of that the bottom under communications. Right now, there is about a six-page frequently asked question sheet for residents to take a look at um answers questions about, you know, certain things that happen, budget billing, um
what happens at the end of the contract term, those kinds of things. So, all of that's posted and I do want to show you what a populated website looks like. This is for the Sussex War and Area Energy Cooperative. They went under contract on August 20th. Um their program starts in December. Here's the
button. Here's what the buttons look like when they're when they're active. If I click on opt out and then it just takes you from there. It's pretty self pretty self-explanatory. Um, but also
here's the program video. And if you hit play, you'll hear my voice for 16 minutes. So, um, so this will be on your program web page um, with your program detail in that video. And then here's a sort of just a quick list of everything
um all the documents that we provide. So residents don't have to do anything. Um we will send that information packet out. Direct energy will mail that on behalf of um the cooperative. So at no cost to any of us. Um that will go out.
Residents should have that in mailboxes by January 2nd. The 30-day opt out period runs January 2nd through January 31st. During that opt out period, nothing is happening with their account. It's still with JCPNL. So, they're making that they're taking that time
coming to outreach presentations, watching the video, doing all their due diligence to make that decision. anyone that did not opt out at the end of that 30-day opt out period. That's the list that we provide to JCPNL and say these are the folks that we would like to have
switched into that 14.46 cents um through the Garden State co-op and then uh it won't be until March meter reads which by the way start in February. Um they start February 26th and run through
March 26th. Um, so that's when um accounts will actually be switched over to the program rates with direct energy. So residents won't see us on their bills until April. And it's a 19-month contract. And there
is um if rates if if we find I would hope um if we find that um the base generation service price does dip below our program rate if we get so lucky um we will go back to the supplier and
suggest that they also reduce their rate. They can tell us no we can't do that in which case we can we can end the program early. We've done it um once before in our 10-year history, but it has been done. Um so, your contract does allow for that negotiation.
>> Great. >> Thank you. Um any questions from anyone council for Miss Hibbs? >> I just want to uh Lisa, can you talk about the engagement with the community in person? >> Absolutely. Um because this is your
first time through, we highly recommend at least one, possibly two um outreach um presentations. You can have one at noon, you can do one the same day at 4. Um perhaps at a senior community center or at the community center in town, you
can do it in advance of um a council meeting. Um what, however you want to do that. But we do suggest doing at least one town hall style face face-to-face kind of a meeting. Um just so that um
folks understand that it really is um something that the city of Summit got behind, does not profit from in any way, does not um pull away any resources from the city either. Um we will also do a couple of Zoom presentations. Um but
sometimes when you're logging into Zoom, you're not sure exactly who's running the Zoom meeting. So having those um in-person meetings mean a lot. Um especially your first time through. >> Yeah. And in addition, we can link all this information to our city website as well.
>> Absolutely. >> Um so we can do that. Um so I I just had a couple of questions um before I talk more in more general. So um given that we don't start to March, when do you anticipate these uh mailers might go out? Would that be in January or
>> January 2nd is our target date for in mailboxes. It might be a few days before. Um our target with the printer with the with the mailhouse is December 22nd. It will take them a minute to print them and then it will take our US
postal service I don't know how long to deliver them. So we give them a lot of time to get those delivered. >> Right. And just to be clear, when when you say they'll see your name on the bill, they're still getting a bill from JCPNL. Nothing's going to change from
that perspective. They get it in the mail. If they want to pay it, the way they pay it, all that remains completely constant. It's just the the um provider of the energy uh through the JCPNL pipeline changes. >> Perfectly put. Yes. And if anyone is on
um an assistance program for their utility bill, that stays the same as well. So, yeah, we don't um when we get the information from JCPNL, I just want everyone to to be aware the only information that JCPNL shares is a 20digit customer number, the account
holder name, the mailing address, and the service address for that account. We don't have phone numbers, we don't have financial information, we don't have um emails. So um just wanted to make residents aware that the information is very limited and it's also protected um
from discovery under Oprah requests. So that is insulated from that as well. >> Right. Thank you. >> Other questions or comments from council? >> Councilman Palowski. >> Thank you. Um thank you Miss Hibbs. And I also just want to take an opportunity
to thank Councilman Smallwood for his persistence in uh bringing this energy aggregation program to Summit and the 7% savings that our residents will begin to realize in March. He also asked me to encourage residents to consider opting
into the green um program which will lower your savings but only slightly and will pay dividends in preserving the environment. >> Thanks. >> Good point. Other comments? >> Yeah, I just would wrap up two things.
Um, one, um, when Councilman Smallwood approached me about this last year, I was a big proponent of this when I was on council a long time ago. Um, you know, this is, look, we it's no
surprise to anyone that our energy bills have gone up a lot uh over the course of the last year or so. And you know, can argue whose fault it is, but a lot of this, you know, it's it's government policies create problems and we've we're
paying for it. However, government can sometimes fix things and this is an aggregation program that the government put together about 15 20 years ago u to allow municipalities to aggregate their um to to to bid for for energy rather
than the poor little m you know individual fighting the big utility companies. Now it's thousands and thousands of people who can aggregate their bid to get get lower prices. So it was a great idea. Sometimes the markets work, sometimes they don't. And back in
the teens when we looked at this before, uh, it kind of the arbitrage went away. Um, but now it's back. And I think this is a fantastic thing. You know, look, on an average utility bill of, you know, maybe this is going to save you 90 bucks
a year. I'm happy with 90 bucks. It's better than not having 90 bucks. And and again, this is something that residents really don't need to do anything on. It's their life will not change. And as I mentioned or as Councilman Palowski mentioned, for those who want to uh make a green option, your savings will be a
little bit less, but you get a 100% uh you know, green energy production, too, and save money off your energy bill, your current energy bill. So, that is a winwin. And I I want to thank Councilman Smallwood for really driving this. This
has been what almost a year. The co-op was formed in 2023 and shortly thereafter I believe we came uh to summit. Yeah. >> Yeah. So >> it's been it's been a little slow going. >> Yeah. And and so this is you know this takes persistence and patience and such
and we're not through with the process yet. As Miss Hib says there's there'll be uh outreach to the community. We'll have several of these uh open houses or community outreach things so people can be very very comfortable that nothing
will really change for them. Uh if if if they so choose to do nothing, they'll be opted in and they always have the option. If they don't want to save the 90 bucks on average, they don't need to. It's a free country, so you can you can opt out if you want. >> You can give it back to the basic generation service. >> Exactly. Right. Um I did want to read
something. Councilman Smallwood is away for a u he's got a family medical issue. Um so we're praying for that. Uh but I did want to uh say he he he did give me a statement to say he said I just want to take a moment to thank Miss Hibbs for
all of her hard work on this project. We've been working on energy aggregation for over a year and I'm thrilled to see it moving forward. In today's highcost energy environment, saving residents about 7% on their bills really makes a difference. I agree every bit of relief
helps. Um and when you combine this with the solar presentation, stay tuned, um we're about to have it's clear we're just not lowering costs, we're also reducing our carbon footprint and moving Summit towards a more sustainable future. Thank you again to everyone involved for helping make this possible
for our residents and I echo those sentiments. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um we've got a sec uh on our on our uh agenda. This is our third presentation. Um this is entitled
Exploring the Viability of Solar Projects on City Property. Uh we've got Bill Klene from Bespoke Energy uh who's going to Bespoke Energy Solutions, I'm sorry, is going to speak and Scott Clark Scho from Sodell Partners.
>> I have a a clicker here for you so you can advance the slides when you need to. >> There you go. >> Yeah. Just make sure you don't turn it off. Uh, just look on the side. Make sure the lights are on. Okay. So, I think right, left advances. Yeah.
>> All right. So, good evening everyone. Um, my name is Bill K. Actually, there's no L. Um, >> did I miss that? You did. >> And I'm with Bespoke Energy Solutions. We are a solar development and EPC
company. Uh, I personally am a longtime resident of Summit. We've been in our home on Locust Drive for 26 years. My wife and I were both born at Overlook. My kids are successful products of the Summit High School or the Summit school system. Bob, I think I saw that movie
with you at the Strand. Um, so we're joined also tonight by Dr. Scott Clark Shabe of Sundell Partners, also a longtime resident of Summit. We've had conversations over the years with various members of council and the
communities independently. Scott and I don't know each other. >> We met tonight. >> We did. >> Um spoken. >> Yes. But we've had independent conversations with various members of council and the community about bringing solar to summit for years. And so when
we were asked by Councilman Smallwood and Councilman Powski to come in tonight and make a presentation, we both jumped at the idea. Um, we are staying very high level. We're not getting into the nuts and bolts of, you know, the ins and
outs of finance. I also have my business partner Ryan Ryan Malgrave with us. He is a licensed electrical engineer. So if you have any technical questions that are above my pay grade and out of Scots league as well, Ryan can jump in. So
with that said, we have a quick brief presentation to bring on. Um it was shared with me that you recently had a study done by a third party
consulting firm on an overall roadmap for solar and energy which included battery sto battery storage systems. It's a long range play. So the concept that had been kicked around was where can we start? What's a what's a
reasonable starting point? And after, you know, ad hoc conversations, we we realized that the rec center is a good place to look at just to consider the viability of the project. So, we did uh
a layout and this is just a conceptual design. This can change. We haven't done any engineering. We're not we're here as residents who are trying to help and advise the city. So, um Oh, I'm responsible for this, right?
play or something. >> Is it? >> Yeah, you advance. >> Okay, there we go. All right. So, what is the opportunity of solar? There are numerous incentives, but basically it allows the city to leverage
municipal assets to put in solar arrays, whether that's on top of municipal buildings, parking lots, open space, wherever you can possibly find it. Um this particular project would be roughly
169 kilowatts um which would fully offset the power usage the energy usage of that building. So all the energy that is create that is required for that building over the course of a year could be offset with a
system of this size. Um, it's a strategic investment that you're able to take advantage of state incentives, federal incentives to offset the cost of this and minimize taxpayer
impact. Additionally, there is I didn't have PPA on here. Sorry. you you can you have bud budgetary control. You'll fix you'll have fixed
costs locked in for a long period of time. So as a previous speaker mentioned the cost of energy is going through the roof and you can protect against that and you can protect the budget against that. Um
sorry. So how do we get there? What? How does solar work is ultimately what we wanted to get across tonight. There are numerous incentives available which make solar viable. It's why every major
logistics company is putting it on their warehouse. It's why you park under them when you go to various municipal buildings. It's the economics work. And the reason the economics work is because the federal government believes in this despite what we may or may not hear or
believe. But there is a 30% tax credit which is a direct credit of 30% of the cost of a project that a solar that you can realize in the first year that that solar project is producing. For a municipality like Summit or any other
nonprofit who doesn't have tax appetite, there are alternative ways that you can realize that gain. The federal government provides for a direct pay option where you can directly get a 30% check from the government. Oh, sorry. In addition to that, on the
federal end of things, there is accelerated depreciation on the system. So again, we didn't model out and you know, we don't share the the cash flows and the ROIs on this, but you know, if you get to that and that's the next step, if there's interest, it becomes
very apparent that these things pay for themselves in some cases in less than four years and they pay for 15, 20 years and beyond. Um, on the state side of things, in New
Jersey specifically, every state has different incentives. In New Jersey specifically, there's it's they call it the SRE or the solar renewable energy certificate. It's now the SO the SUSI program, which is we're in the second
program. It's the successor program. And what that does is it's a fixed incentive that pays directly to the owner of the solar system a certificate that's worth $110
um for per thousand kilowatt hour of energy that's generated. So depending on what you're generating and producing the state is going to pay you $110 per thousand kilowatt hours. That's substantial and that's fixed over a
15-year period. In addition to that, on the state side, you get accelerated depreciation as well. So, those benefits alone make solar attractive. In addition to that, and this is I think
what the city would be most interested in in speaking, you know, with Bob and with Kevin, uh, Councilman Palowski and Councilman Smallwood is there's something called a PPA. It's a power purchase agreement. It's a
mechanism that allows a third party to purchase and own the asset, the solar system. There's a nominal lease agreement that is put together for the roof space, you know, a dollar a year, whatever it may be. And, you know, Scott can speak to
this better than I can. Scott's on the PPA side of things. So, I'll run through this and then I'll let you, >> but basically, the PPA would buy, own, maintain, and operate the system.
They would then take all of those benefits. So the tax credit they'd take it they'd collect the SREx for 15 years. They'd take the depreciation on the system and then in addition to that they would then sell
the power the energy that's generated by the solar system to the city at a discounted rate versus what you would pay to the utility. Now, over the course of the next 15 years,
who knows what the rates are going to be. With a PPA agreement, you have a fairly fixed >> Yeah. fixed >> fixed rate of what your utility is going
to cost. There may be a nominal a nominal escalator that's built into the PPA agreement that every year a certain you know small percentage is increase in the PPA rate but it's known it's fixed and it's how for the period of time of
that contract. So again, the PPA would take over all the planning, buy the system, contract with the developer, do all that work. They would finance the installation, pay for
it, however they're going to do that. But then going forward, the city has no responsibility to maintain that system. If a solar panel goes down, an inverter stops working, it's not reporting properly, the operation and maintenance
of that system, the city doesn't have to worry about it. That's on the PPA. They own the system. They maintain it. Um, additionally, you know, we talked about the savings. The PPA can monetize the system, but
then at the end of the term, that's frequently asked question. When you reach the end of the PPA period, what happens? I've got this old solar system, we're at the end of the PPA period, and there's a number of ways that it's handled. You can extend the PPA if you
know both parties want to keep it going. You can renegotiate and extend it. In a lot of cases, depending on the contract, in in this case, the city could potentially purchase the system at current market rates
15, 20 years from now. Now, Scott, I don't know, 15, 20 years from now, I don't know what a 15 or 20 year system is going to be worth in the open market. Probably nothing. So, that's one thing. And then you know lastly you could require the PPA to remove the system
from from the asset of the town. So at a high level the benefits of a PPA for someone is you've got no upfront capital cost. You've got budgetary certainty for whatever the period of the term is. You're reducing your energy
bill, you know, on a percentage basis ballpark in it. >> 30 to 50 >> 30 to 50% and you have no risk. And one of the important things to mention, but when
you start talking solar, the economics always start to get in the way of the fact that it supports the sustainability goals that the city might have. and you know the environment and and all of the environmental benefits that come along
with that which would include you know obviously a reduced carbon footprint, cleaner air, you're not burning fossil fuels so you're not putting the same pollutants into the air. It supports your clean energy goals and also it it
it's visible. you know, especially if you have a carport or even if you don't have a carport and it's on a roof, there's indicators that Summit is green. We have solar. We're we, you know, it's it's a visible signal to the community
and to our visitors that we're participating in this and we are in sort of a a world right now where from my perspective, if you're not participating in it, you should be. So Scott, do you want to chime in at all?
>> I'll piggy back on that. Yes, I'm Scott Clark shave uh summit resident for >> Scott, just speak into the microphone. Yeah, >> for 16 years now and came into this um this is not my primary job. Came into this uh looking to put solar on my own
house and realized the economics of it just did not make sense. So got together with a couple of buddies who were like-minded who had already started doing it and you know pulling funds to finance solar arrays and the more um
commercial level as opposed to residential. Um, Bill has stolen a lot of my thunder, but it's rare that you have situations that are such, at least in my opinion, win wins in terms of no
upfront costs for the community. I mean, fundamentally, and he got to this a little bit, the best deal financially is for Summit to do it themselves. Um, but for a project like this, that's a $300 or $400,000 outlay probably,
depending on how you define it. Car ports are more expensive. Um, uh, you know, that's a lot of money to go into an already tight budget. Our goal is to finance those projects to get
them going to, you know, number one, uh, participate in the green initiative in this town. Um, it's really important. I love the, uh, the, uh, community aggregator. That's a great start. Um,
and piggybacking on your last point of showing that summit is green. Actually got into it online about I don't know five or seven years ago being like, "We need to advertise our our home values are maintained by younger people from
the city coming in here and buying houses." And those people are going to be more involved and interested in solar. And sending that message of having solar on our municipal buildings, having solar ideally on our schools, having carports sends that message to
the greater area of this is a community that welcomes you, recognizes our place in society and is doing something about our environment. Um, yes, there is benefit for my partners and me, but I can tell you if this was a coal fired plant, I would not be standing in front
of you advocating for a cold fired plant to save money for Summit New Jersey. Um, I believe in solar. I believe we have, you know, real problems we need to address. This does not solve all of them, but certainly every little bit helps. Um, so I'm here to answer
questions. Obviously, there are, you know, concerns. I mean, I have uh participated in the summit in the environmental commission meetings precoid and there everybody was like, "What's the catch?" I'm like, "There really isn't one. How much does it
cost?" Doesn't cost the summit council anything. Um it just costs access to your roofs, which can be a very valuable uh asset. You know, it just the electricity spends about $30,000 a year.
you know, if you can cut that 30 to 50%, you know, that's real money. Um, you know, it's not going to build the next school, but every little bit counts. Um, what was my other issue? Uh, I don't
know. I'm here to entertain questions. Anything you like to hear more about? Again, >> I want to chime in real quick. This last slide, I didn't get I choked a little bit there. This is >> Bill, just speak into the microphone. This this tells you what the economic
benefits according to the EPA's uh greenhouse gas equivalency calculator. Putting this solar system in would be the equivalent of removing 3,400 tons of CO2 from the environment
over the course of the systems lifetime. removing 7.7 million miles on the road or talk about a big impact and I'll steal some of your thunder here now. You know,
planting 51,000 trees. >> We we we love the little forest project. We love our green spaces. >> 51,000 equivalent of 51,000 trees. It's it's impressive. So,
>> and this is a tiny project. You do something at the school, it's probably 10 times the size of that. That's obviously down the way, but this is a relatively small project that can have real impact. Um, following up on one issue, uh, what do you do with the
system at the end? Generally, the PPA's run 15 years. That's when the tax credit expires. And, you know, we as investors have gotten the most value out of it. But the systems last 25 years, sometimes 30. Uh at 15 years, it's usually it is
gifted and then the town maintains it and you're saving that $27,000 a year and 25 2025 in electrical costs for another 10 years. Yes, it costs maybe 15 to $20,000
to remove the system, but at that point you need a new roof anyway. Um, and it's, you know, part of the budget and hopefully we have something better, more efficient that will continue the the green initiative and summit. >> Great. Thank you. Um, I just had a
couple of questions before I open it up. You you mentioned this um just at the end. What if there is an issue like with the roof? Like say we're at the rec center and the roof starts leaking. Is do you guys own the roof or do we who who fixes it there? No. for a roof like
this. Uh on the flat roofs, there are no penetrations. Um that's all negotiations. I mean, we have some contracts with places where we're on the hook for the roof if there's a penetration. If there's no penetrations and they had existing an issue that wasn't related, um you know, we have
those details in the contract of who pays the cost of pulling it off, who pays the cost of putting the panels back on. Um you know, if the roof is an existing roof issue, then that's sort of on the town. So, we're not buying the whole roof. >> During the installation process,
depending, you know, the flat roof here looks like it's probably a TPL rubberized roof. >> And the installation process, whoever the installer is, is going to go to the roofing manufacturer, Carlilele, GAF,
do a roofing certification, make sure that the warranty is not voided. the contractor who does the work is going to certify the workmanship and then the roofing warranty is going to be in place for whatever that there's nothing that's voiding any warranty work. So then
beyond any warranty, that would be contractual between the PPA company and the city as to how those types of issues are handled because it's one of those things where the PPA doesn't want to be responsible for something that's not a solar issue, but at the same point in
time, the city needs to be protected in case there is something that is a solar issue. But you'd be surprised for as many millions and millions of solar panels as there are on the roof, it's really not a big problem. it it's it's been dealt with. So,
>> but I also think our our interests are aligned um in our relationships in terms of we want the solar power working so that we can maximize our revenue. You want the solar working because you want
to maximize your savings and you want the roof to be clean so you you know not have any issues. So most of the time we're able to, you know, the all ships rising mentality and have our interests align such that you know you can maximize the benefit of the solar array.
All right. And then so and this is just I guess I'm just curious how this would work. We're talking this is just the array on the roof, but this isn't like a storage system or what have you. So, we would contract out for, you know, x, you
know, pennies per kilowatt um with you guys. And then we get that price when, you know, it's, you know, when we got wreck basketball in there at 7:30 at night and there is no sun up. >> Um, the the lights are on. So, so that's
so we would have the energy no matter 247, cloudy days, winter days, sunny days. um you would provide the energy at that contracted price for the next whatever 15 years in your example. I mean your energy provider provides the
energy, >> you know, so that doesn't change. We're just adding it. Some of it's going into the system when the sun is out and then you're drawing more from the the you're when the sun is out the system you're using the energy there. When the sun is
down, you're pulling from the grid and it you get a one for one. >> So we We can and we can pull Ryan up here if if we there's a concept of net metering. And what I tell people is think of the grid as your battery. When you're producing energy during the day
and the kids are all in school and there's nobody in that gym and the lights are off and it's producing and it's pumping out power, it's putting it onto the grid and you're being netmetered. You're accumulating credits with the utility. >> Okay, that's how it works. All right. Once it night rolls around and you're
buying the power off the grid, those credits are being applied to offset the cost of the power that you're or the energy that you're pulling off the grid. So, it's again it's an oversimplification and Ryan correct me if that's a bad one, but I I said think
of think of the utility and the grid as your backup. you're charging it when you're not using the power and then you're pulling it from the grid when you're not creating power. So, and it it aggregates over the course of a year, >> right? >> So, and then one the last question I
have is you mentioned this a couple of times, solar arrays over parking decks and things like that. Um, we have a few of those in town. Um, but this is something that you've seen municipalities do on the top floor of decks and things like that also. Yeah. I
mean, we've seen municipalities do it. I mean, private entities do it. I mean, if you've ever gone to the top deck of the Short Hills Mall, you've parked under them. I mean, this is this is this is pretty wellbaked and and
developed technology and it's we can do we can do that on these parking decks. Definitely. >> Great. Thank you. I mean, it all I will follow that up with the canopies are probably at least twice as expensive to put it on your roof. Um, so it doesn't
cost the municipality anything upfront, but it's reflected in the rate that you pay in your power purchase agreement. So, if it's all canopy, the savings would probably be minimal. I mean, there's benefit and you get a canopy out
of it. You get your garage covered and you have some chargers with it, but the reality is, you know, it might be a 10% savings on your electric bill, which isn't nothing. And we're still doing good for the environment, but those sorts of the canopies are expensive as
opposed to just putting it on your roof, your flat roof. >> Got it. >> Okay. Any other questions or comments from council? Councilman Palowski? >> Yeah, just one quick uh question. you guys could include in a deal like this charging stations, right? >> Correct.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> That's becoming standard protocol especially for municipalities. So, you know, with with the rise of electric cars and that percentage is just going to keep growing. I think it's an important benefit to our infrastructure
as a city to have places where people can charge their electric vehicles. >> Yeah. And we've I've I've worked on projects in the past with other municipalities, specifically down in shore towns in South Jersey, where they're using them as revenue streams. You know, you're putting in level one
chargers. You're not going to do level two if you where they're going to charge quickly and they put their credit card in and they pay. So, you know, there's there's lots of options you can do with it. But again, just like a carport, the cost of
those is going to get built into the PPA and it will be built into that rate that you're going to pay for the power from the PPA. >> All right. I would say one quick follow, but those they can be a real revenue generator. Anybody has an electric car
and charges it, you can they charge it 35 to 50 cents per kilowatt hour to charge. So that's a good, you know, you can make four times your money. You're paying 9 or 10 cents per kilowatt hour with your solar or 15 from from the grid
and you're able to charge 35 or 40. >> Okay. >> Any other questions or comments? Councilman Boyer. >> Uh thank you for your presentation. Uh, Councilman Smallwood has been talking about this for the last three years since I met him. And I never actually gave it a second thought uh until I was
driving up to Vernon to go to Mountain Creek. And Sparta High School has solar panels where I think they're canopies actually because they have the room for it. Um, and so they have a 15-year plan to save $8 million.
And I've always imagined like how are they paying for all of those panels? I mean they have like a hundred. It's crazy. Um so thank you for your presentation and now I kind of understand uh what the give and take is not getting
into the granular details of it. Uh you know I'd like to see the numbers but I think it's a I think it's a great idea especially for the high schools and the schools in general. So >> yeah, New Providence High School has it. They've had it for like 10 years on their roof. >> We're sort of behind the times. >> Chadam has it too. I mean,
>> this is not a new idea. >> No, not at all. Not at all. >> Okay. All right. Any other questions? >> All right. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for your, uh, presentation. Appreciate it. >> Exciting stuff. Um, all right. Uh, we're
now on to our business part of our meeting. Um, and we've got an ordinance for introduction. Um, we have one for safety and health. Madam clerk, will you please read safety and health ordinance for introduction 12214?
>> An ordinance amending the code chapter 7 traffic section 7-8 parking subsection 7-8.7 parking prohibited at all times on certain streets. >> Thank you so much. Um, Councilman Boyer. >> Thank you, Council President. Again,
this is ordinance number 12214. Uh the purpose of this ordinance is to enhance traffic safety, improve accessibility, and to address concerns related to congestion and uh pedestrian safety. Uh if you look in your packets,
uh we have one street that is Weaver Street and this is uh when you're when you're coming out of the high school and you want to make that left or that right, there's cars parked there and you can't see it. I mean it this was on
Weaver Street. This was a no-brainer. We used to have some signs up and we decided to make it permanent. And also there are there are kids crossing uh that culde-sac there. Really hard to see. So this is good to prevent that. Uh
the next one is Bedford to Mars. Uh this is the oratory side. We used to have stakes up for no parking. Uh again, it was no-brainer to make this one uh no parking from Bedford to Morris Avenue.
Uh the next one is uh New England Avenue. So this is by Christ Church. So if you ever tried to come out of the parking lot at Christ Church, you can't see. So once again, we are improving pedestrian safety by um having no
parking there. Also, there are town homes there as well. And again, it's hard making the left or the right. Uh, and to prevent no parking there is uh pedestrian and motor vehicle safety
issue. The last one that we have is Ashlin or Ashwood uh and Park A and Broad Street. So, this is by Azukar. Want to plug Azukar. They have great food there. Um once again, parking on
that side of the street uh will improve uh pedestrian safety and congestion. It gets really congested over there. So to make that a permanent no parking once again is a uh is a great move and council president, I move this ordinance
for a hearing that will be on November 5th. >> Second. >> All right. Uh roll call, please. >> Mr. Ber >> I >> Miss Hamlet >> I >> Miss Camson >> I >> Mr. Palowski >> I >> Miss Toth I >> President McTurn
>> I motion carries. Okay, that's it for ordinances. We're on to resolution portion of our meeting. Uh we have a few from finance. Uh Councilwoman to finance number one. >> Okay. Thank you, Council President. Um, the New Jersey Best Practices Inventory
is a program created by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to encourage good management, transparency, and fiscal responsibility within municipalities. The inventory program uses a scoring system to measure how
well a municipality follows the recommended management and fiscal practices. And the total score determines whether the municipality receives full or partial state aid in the form of the consolidated municipality tax relief and the emerging
tax relief. And for 2025, Summit has attained the required inventory score to receive full funding. um to complete the process. Administrator Baldwin or for for for having done this, Administrator Baldwin and the entire city hall team deserve
recognition. They've done a great job. And to finish the process of receiving the state aid, the completed inventory form must be a discussion item at a council meeting and the city clerk must certify that the inventory was publicly discussed. So, resolution 12178 fulfills
that requirement. With that, I move to adopt this resolution. >> Second. All right. Uh, does any member of the public wish to comment on this resolution? >> Okay. Anyone member of council? >> All right. All in favor? >> I >> I opposed.
>> Motion carries. Uh, finance number two, Councilwoman Toth. >> Thank you, Council President. Um, resolutions 12230 and 12229 will have separate hearings and votes, but they make the most sense to explain together. Um, two meetings
ago, I previewed the large jump in 2026 health insurance premium premiums for the state health benefits program. That program is in deep financial trouble and municipalities that can afford to leave it to join other health insurance
programs are doing so. Leaving the SHPB requires 60 days written notice, so by the end of this month. Um, and unfortunately, Summit's recent insurance usage doesn't make us attractive to many alternatives. Um, Megan Champy
Queezelite, our human resources manager, has worked on this for months. She recommends, and the finance committee agrees, that our best option is to join the New Jersey Solutions Joint Health Insurance Fund. the immediate cost savings won't be great. Instead of 2026
premiums rising 35.61% under the state plan, they're only going to rise 33.1%. Under the joint insurance fund, however, belonging to the fund will give us more control over spending, more data transparency, and more education and
resources for city employees. The expectation is that over time this will temper the rise in health insurance costs. And so with all that said, resolution 12230 will terminate our participation in the state health benefits program. I move to
adopt this resolution. >> Second. All right. Um would any member of the public like to comment on this resolution? Okay. Members council. >> Council President. >> Yes. Council member. >> Uh now I no longer work there. I can
talk about it. Um I I used to work for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield in New Jersey and uh we would fight for the state health benefit contract all the time with other insurers. Um it is not a profitable thing. It's just the number
of members. Uh state health benefits is in uh dire trouble. Um I I don't know what the future looks like for state health benefits. Uh and we don't even know and they can't tell us. Uh, from what I gather, it looks like a 30%
increase, which is it's just un it's unaffordable. Uh, so, um, when councilwoman Toth called me and said, "Hey, we have a we have a new plan." Um, I said, "Absolutely. Anything is better than state health benefits." Right? So,
um, I I uh I am full on board with this plan. And the the one thing I did ask was, would there be any issues with prescriptions, right? We don't want employees coming back saying, you know what, I couldn't get my uh diabetes
medicine, right? Um and that was not going to be an issue. Uh so they still have the same type of prescriptions, same type of health plan that they had. Uh it's just that we now have a discount and more visibility into what type of
prescriptions and and health plans that they're getting. Uh so I totally agree with this. Thank you, Council President. >> Thank you. Other comments, Councilwoman Hamlet. >> Yeah, I would just like to say I I absolutely agree. I had a ton of questions that I've asked in the last couple of days, so thank uh Council Member Toth for uh doing that and and
Megan for all her hard work on that. Um, we do have the luxury of having our former city administrator at the division of local government services sitting on the state health benefits committee now, which I think is helpful uh in our discussions with him to formulate this decision. And I would say that one thing that um Mr. Jacobe
mentioned tonight is that it will allow him once we join the GIF to um really negotiate better terms on our behalf. So, I just want to say thank you to everybody for all your hard work on this. >> Thank you. Other comments? Yeah, I just wrap it up saying like I think
Councilwoman Toth mentioned um where the real benefits from this are going to acrue will be forward. You know, it's not a big headline number. Um but it's not just for the city to be able to to craft uh plans to have a lot more
flexibility on what they're going to offer employees. It also has more services for employees here. um you know the state plan has a website uh now employees will be able to go talk to uh provide the providers get counseling on
the best options and things like that. So uh you get a lot more for it as well when you you uh you know join this private company. So I'm I'm all for it too. something we had to give like I I think as Councilwoman Boyer uh and
Councilwoman Toth put out the state health plan may not be here in a year or two and if you're if you're literally that person on the sinking ship then it's really hard to get off um so I think this is a pretty prudent move um as well. So, I support this also.
>> And council president, just one other thing. >> When when you're in the state health benefits plan, >> the unions and management can't negotiate over the terms. And that makes really no sense because your employees are contributing towards their health benefits. Some of them up to a third of
the cost of the benefits. So, if you have a plan that is costing now $60,000 and employees paying $20,000, that's something that employees in the bargaining units want to negotiate over. When you're outside of the state health benefits, you can with unions negotiate changes. When you're in it, you cannot.
So, it gives your employees more flexibility, too, to be part of the solution as opposed to just getting these 20% increase last year, 35% this year. >> That's crazy. Um, okay. Uh, no other comments. Uh, just call for a vote. All in favor? I
>> I opposed. >> Motion carries. All right. Councilwoman Toth, I know you talked about finance number three. Okay. Thank you, Council President. Um, res resolution 12229 is the second of the resolutions needed to
leave the state health insurance program and join the New Jersey Solutions Joint Health Insurance Fund and it authorizes us to join the fund. So, I move to adopt this resolution. >> Second. Uh, comments from the public, comments from council.
All right. All in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. All right. Finance number four, Councilwoman Toe. >> Okay. Thank you, Council President. Resolution 12179 authorizes us to retain our bond council for 2026 at a cost not to exceed
$60,000. We have worked with the same firm since 2016. They know us. They have kept our costs steady and they've done a great job for us over the years. Um, we've been able to issue our debt at very low interest rates with their help. So I
move to adopt this resolution. >> Second comments from the public. Comments from council. All right. All in favor? I >> I opposed. >> Motion carries. All right. Last finance resolution number five. Councilwoman
Toe. >> Thank you, Council President. Resolution 12068 grants tenure to our tax collector, Patric Patricia Doerty. Tax collector is one of the positions state law mandates every municipality to have making it
eligible for tenure. Miss Doerty has done a terrific job for summit. Witness our 99% collection rate. She more than deserves to be tenured. I move to adopt this resolution. >> Second comments from the public.
Comments from council. >> Councilwoman Hamlet. >> I would just like to say welld deserved. Um and congratulations. I think that's uh really excited uh for her and couldn't be couldn't be more excited to pass this tonight. >> Thank you. Other comments?
>> I would just echo that. Patty does a great job. I mean, that that that number of 99% uh paid in taxes. A lot of municipalities don't get that. >> A lot of them are in the 80s and 90s where and it really crimps your ability
to plan and budget. We're extremely fortunate to have someone when Patty calls, she works with people. Um, I think she's very pleasant. You know, you get a call, pay your taxes. You know, people are very actually happy to hear from her because she works with them. Um, so we're we are very very lucky to
have her and and I'm happy that she's uh going to be up for tenure. >> All right. All in favor? >> I I opposed. >> Motion carries. All right. We have uh one safety resolution uh this evening. Uh safety number one, Councilman Ber.
>> Thank you, Council President. This is ID number 12215. And I am happy uh to introduce the three newest members of our police department. Uh Nathan Bueno, who comes to us from Bergen County Sheriff's Office. uh Brian
Kavanaaugh who's currently in the academy and Elio Sarrauso. Um you may know his uncle Tony Sarrauso uh who used to play football, right? Um rest in peace Tony.
Uh these young men uh I'm happy to say were um extraordinary in their interviews. Uh I do not know how the Summit Police Department finds the best of the best in the state. Uh it may be because we have the best police
department in the state and people want to work here because our residents like our police officers. They actually wave to them. They've actually said that in interviews like you know um the residents like us here. We want to come and work here in Summit. Uh I think also
we may have the youngest police department in the state of New Jersey. I will definitely research that. Uh I move this resolution for adoption. Second. >> All right. Uh, comments from the public. >> Hi, good evening. Tom Zeber, 768
Springfield Avenue. Um, I just like to express my gratitude to this council uh, as I anticipate you're going to pass this resolution allowing for the appointments of three new officers to the Summit Police Department this evening. I know there are some residents in town who believe the direction of the department should be tech forward, but I
believe there's no substitute for top-notch officers. And don't get me wrong, technology is wonderful. I favor the implementation of tools like the license plate readers our council implemented in recent years. Uh but technology can't develop relationships with residents. The Summit PD is a
respected and valued part of this community. uh our police force's combination of sound judgment, empathy, and discretion can't be replaced by technology. Uh and their presence in our community is itself a crime deterrent. So, I congratulate these officers on their appointments, thank them for their
commitment to keeping Summit safe, and look forward to seeing them around town. Thank you. >> Thank you. Other comments from the public? All right. Comments from council. All right. No, I uh I would agree with
that, resident. You know, the um it's one one piece of the puzzle to to keep people safe and it's important obviously very very important one. I'm happy with these three appointments. We will have our org chart filled out. Is that correct, Councilman Boyer? Yep. >> Which is which is great. um they're
young and you know again I think um I want to thank the safety committee and our police department um you know through this multi-pronged approach including with law and labor where we've uh added police officers we've invested
in technology and we've passed ordinances to make our community safer and as we've heard from the couple of presentations that the uh the chief has given the numbers speak for themselves mselves. Crime is has gone down and we should be uh proud of the police um and
happy that they're doing such a wonderful job. So, I applaud this resolution. >> Council President, I just want to note one thing. Uh and the public may not know this, but the police department has not had a uh a full staff in almost a decade there. We may have it in this
January. Fingers crossed. You know, I pray that none of our officers go out or get hurt. Um but that's that's an interesting stat, right? um in a in an entire decade, we haven't had all of our sworn officers on the job.
>> So when we when we talk about adding police officers, um you have to think about the two or three that are not on the job in one year, right? It it's it's it adds stress. So adding four new
officers really takes the stress um off of our police officers and I am just so happy that we were able to get this done. Thank you, Council President. >> Thank you. All right. Uh all in favor? >> I opposed. >> Motion carries. Okay. Uh we're on to uh
community programs and parking services. Uh Councilman Palowski. >> Thank you. Uh this is resolution ID 12227 to authorize the submission and acceptance of grant applications for the
community building uh sorry for the community development block grant uh year. Uh the two resolutions are for the senior connection bus and for the share the
fund club both for the uh department of community programs. I move to pass this resolution. >> Second. >> All right. Comments from the public. >> Comments from council.
>> Councilwoman Hamlet. >> Um no. I just like to say we get this uh typically every year or so and it is important. Uh this bus is great for not only the seniors at the housing authority but uh also seniors within the community can uh request this bus. I was
speaking with David today. Sorry. Um, but seniors from throughout the community can also request the use for this bus if they call the Department of Community um, Department of Community Programs before 8 a.m. So, I just think it's a nice service for our seniors and
uh, just nice job. I think there'll be a public hearing about that as well or meeting. >> I think this is public hearing. >> Is it? >> Okay, maybe this is it. >> Thank you. Other comments? Yeah, these are the the um the monies
that help provide services. I mean, the the senior bus, I think that used to be funded by the Junior League way back when and over the years that got harder and harder to do and the Junior League started doing other things and they they're a great organization and the
city kind of took the senior bus on um itself and you've got to pay for it and these are different ways to uh to fund those vital services uh for seniors as well as sharing the fund. Everyone likes to share the fund so um that's a good thing too. So, and and I think uh
Councilman Possi, I think this is for a total of $20,000. Is that right? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. All right. Um any other comments? All right. All in favor? >> I opposed. >> All right. Motion carries. >> Okay. Um we're on to capital projects
and community services. We have a few. Uh Councilwoman Hamlet, you want to do number one? >> Uh yes. And if it's okay, I think I can probably bundle 12207 and 12206 >> and just provide it. >> So that's two and three. >> Yeah. >> Right. So correct.
>> Okay. So okay. >> Yep. >> Get trying to get director Shreger. He's got an early he's got an early meeting tomorrow far away. So trying to get him uh get him moving. Uh so this is 12194. Whereas on May 7th, 2024, Common Council adopted resolution 41147 extending a
two-year contract with the consideration of two additional one-year contracts. uh of each successive year to grant sanitation services for curbside collection uh and recycling with a two-year cost of $1,790,000. On September 4th, City of Summit was
formally advised that Grand Sanitation is being acquired by Interstate Waste Services of New Jersey and they have provided all of the necessary documents to affect the contract's transfer of assignment without any changes to either parties rights, remedies, duties, and or insurance. Uh so I would like to move
this resolution which will um which will be uh making this contract official with Interstate Waste Services taking over Grand Sanitation and providing the services. I'd like to move this resolution. Do >> I have a second? >> Second.
>> All right. Um comments from the public, >> comments from council. Councilman Ber. So, uh, in regard to recycling, uh, like state health benefits, recycling is is it's getting,
uh, unmanageable. I mean, um, I would really like for somebody to tell me if they're actually separating the recycling or just dumping it in the same thing, right? 1.7 million dollars. Um, and don't laugh, in
Alabama, they don't recycle. My mom lives in Alabama. They just but they don't have $1.7 million worth of recycling. The I mean the question that we have to ask ourselves is uh is this still is the juice still worth the squeeze right with recycling? I mean we
used to get paid for it. Now uh we're paying for it. So, and this is a two-year contract, which uh really makes me nervous because um I'd rather see a one-year contract, but I know if the
administrator was here, she'd probably tell me that um there this probably the best deal that we could and >> could get and there'll be recycling all over the street. So, um I will begrudgingly, uh approve this.
Other comments? >> Yeah, I would just say, you know, we have we're under contract, but I think, you know, this is something I think going forward the city should take a hard long look at. I mean, our residents expect that when we recycle, it gets recycled. There's been loads of studies
and programs. 60 Minutes had something on this last year. Most of the a lot of this stuff just goes into the into the landfill anyways. So, we're literally paying $1.7 million to put it in a landfill. no one's getting what they think they're getting except, you know,
there's this perception that we're doing good and if we're going to do good, let's do good. Um, instead of wasting money on this and and I think this is something that I'd love the environmental commission to really wrap their hands around if we're paying $1.7 million. Think about what we could do
around our transfer station to really think about recycling in a way that we act it actually works. Um, you know, all this stuff gets co-mingled. Gosh knows where it goes. I I think this is a big opportunity. Um, you know, Summit has always kind of led the way in being
green. We've been a silver star community for decades now. Um, this is not new and I think this is something that, as Councilman Ber says, this is kind of broke and I think this deserves something that we should relook at this. So, but we're in we're under contract.
So, uh, Councilwoman Camelson. Uh, thank you, Council President. Um, the recycling advisory committee did go to Beayshore over the summer. Um, I can assure you things are being separated. They took the initiative to speak to
Maplewood about how they've been able to save money and, um, um, Mimi Zukoff and I met with Aaron and Jen and Mike Caputo and we just talked about potentially different options and the feasibility of them. So that is something that's being looked into, but of course there are
lots of challenges around it, but it's the the discussion is is ongoing. So just wanted that. >> Other comments. >> All right. Uh all in favor? >> Opposed? >> Motion carries. All right. Uh
Councilwoman Hamlet, you're bundling uh number two and three. >> Yes. Thank you. Uh so this is resolutions 12207 and 12206. I'll just give a brief description of what both of these are. Uh for 06, the city received a bikeways grant from NJ DOT in the
amount of $500,000 to fund phase uh two of the park line project. DOT NJ DOT required the project to be awarded by December 11th, 2025. Uh the project was bid unsuccessfully twice and as a result NJ DOT has recommended that the city seek an extension due to the challenges
with this bidding and uh the park line design team I know director Shreger is working with them and and I think the extra time will be good on that one. on 12207. Uh the city received a safe streets to transit grant from NJ DOT in the amount of $545,000
to fund the Broad Street sidewalk project uh for uh the city of Summit Broad Street sidewalk project. This project will construct a sidewalk along the south side of Broad Street from Walnut Street to Denman Place and also construct construct a stairway up to the park line. Uh NJOT required this project
to be awarded by November 28th. Uh however, due to the complexity of the project, the plans are not finalized yet. And so I think that um the basically the the couple challenges I think director Shreger you've had is coordinating with the county and establishing the rights away. So it's
been taking a little longer. Correct. >> Yes. Through you, Council President. Unfortunately, with the old railroad right away, uh it's taking a lot of work to clearly define where it is. So where the stair is going up, we obviously through DOT funding can't put it on private property or we need an easement for it. So, we still have some survey
work to to get done, but preliminary plans have been submit to the county and we're pretty close. >> That's good news. >> So, I'd like to uh bundle and move resolutions 12206 and 12207 and thank Director Shreger for all his work on those. >> Thank you. Uh comments from the public,
>> comments from council, >> council president. >> Yes, Councilman Boyer. >> Yeah, just uh really quick. Uh at the beginning of the year, we had established a park line committee which um councilwoman Toth is on and we we meet uh and there are a lot of challenges with the park line. Um some
that really uh makes me nervous that it would will get done. Um it's it's gotten extremely expensive and um director Shriger actually can you provide um a little more detail in terms of uh the
update about the challenges that we are having with the park line financing and different things and sort of the different options that we are looking into. >> Certainly through you council president. Now, this phase of the parkland continues where the bridge at Morris Avenue um continues and would terminate
at Russell Place where there would be a stairwell constructed. Uh preliminary estimates had it closer in the$1 to2 million range, which is close to the funding that's available. First bid, uh no biders at all. We reached out to a lot of biders, too busy, didn't have time, too complex, but we'll definitely
get it the next time. Go out to bid and we had one bid for $4 million, which is ludicrous pricing. Um so we've kind of have to go back to the drawing board. You know the one thing that really comes of it is that we learn it is complex. Well one contractors are not are not
hungry right now. So they have the ability to pick and choose. It's kind of stuck between a small project where we get our usual um contractors and a large project where they're their contractors for those are just too busy doing major construction. So, uh, what you have is a small contractor would love to do the
path, but the bridge part just makes the price go up or vice versa. So, currently the park line is looking to almost just do the bridges separately, take them out of the picture, the demolition of them, and then put out a project to put the bridges back just like we did on Morris
and then a separate project just to do the path itself. So, then we're just catering to specific contractors so we can hopefully get better and more pricing uh to proceed. It's a little complex because part of it's funded by DOT, so we want to get the maximum amount of our grant, but um it's going
to get tricky and we're going to have to get, you know, creative with how we bid it and do it. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> It's just absolutely hilarious that um we we had push back from the residents and all the plans are ready and they
want it now. They're like, "Wow, this is cool. We can't wait to get it and now we can't fund it to make it happen." It's uh what a world I tell you. Thank you, council president. >> Well, one thing I will say um the park line committee board, this is for those
who are not aware, this is the first green space uh edition uh in Summit uh in decades. So, it's a it's an important project and it's pretty cool. Um, a lot of communities are doing these railto trail projects and ultimately this could
connect uh all the way to the the greenway which is a a green trail that runs all the way up and down the the eastern seabboard. So the there's a lot that could happen with this but um a lot of these railto uh programs take place in the
countryside. There's no houses and there's no bridges and they don't go through neighborhoods. uh summit as we've always mentioned is a builtout community. So the challenges are a little different but I am very confident the the the park line board they're they're passionate about this they're
very creative and I know working with director Shrager I think we'll I know I spoke with Dr. Rabbino this week. Um there are some ideas about doing this a little differently. Um I hope that meeting you guys have at the end of the week is fruitful and we can kind of move
forward with this. So good. All right. Any other comments? All right. Uh all in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. All right. We're on the consent agenda portion of our meeting. Um do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented?
So move. >> Second. Okay. Um, would anyone from the public uh like to comment on any item or multiple items on the consent agenda? No. Any comments from council?
All right. Do I have a uh um all in favor of the passing the consent agenda as presented? >> I opposed. >> Motion carries. Okay, that's it for uh the business portion of our meeting. We're now on to our public comment
section of our meeting. I would just remind residents if you'd like to make a public comment, please approach the the deis. Um, give your name, your address, and please limit your comments to three minutes as it looks like we'll have quite a few people who would wish to speak. And I want to thank city staff um
for staying. And have a good evening. >> Hi, good evening uh council. My name is Brad Olsen and I live at uh 64 Blackburn. Um, first of all, I'd like to commend Patty and and tax um collector. Anytime we have to deal with the tax
department, um, which we've had to with some construction recently, she's, uh, just a pleasure to deal with. Um, so, um, that's great news. Also, I'd like to thank the council for continuing to fund the police department. Um, you know, I've been a Summit residence uh, since
fifth grade. I don't want to tell you how many years, but um uh I've never felt safer. Um things have really improved quite a bit in the last several years um as we've supported our police department, added new police officers, and taken a number of the actions. But
tonight, I want to speak a little bit about um something that's near and dear to my family's uh uh my family uh which is um the homeless issue in Summit. And I want to take a few minutes tonight to commend the truly meaningful work that's
been done over the past year to address homelessness in our community. As I understand that this effort really began when Councilwoman uh Hamlet took the time to meet personally with several of the individuals who were living in our
streets, in our bus stops, at the train station, and even sleeping in the post office doorway overnight. Uh she didn't just talk about the problem, she rolled up her sleeves and got to know the people behind it. Through her outreach, she identified a veteran in
need and helped him secure housing. That single act of compassion set in motion a larger communitywide effort to find dignified, sustainable housing for Summit's semi-permanent homeless residents.
Mayor Fagan then built on that momentum by establishing the mayor's task force on homelessness, bringing together a remarkable group of people from all parts of the community, council members, public safety officials, nonprofit leaders, clergy, business owners, and
residents, including my mother, Karen Olsen, who founded Family Promise. The results speak for themselves. To date, the task force has helped find, I believe, housing solutions for 19 of the 24 individuals have been living on our
streets. That's extraordinary progress in a very short time. This includes one individual my family has known for years, someone who spent countless nights walking the streets of Summit, who is now living proudly and
safely in his own apartment right here in town. These are life-changing outcomes, not only for the people who've been housed, but for everyone in the community. It's a winwin for residents, for those who work and commute through Summit, for our
children who walk downtown or use the train park, and most importantly for the individuals who now have a home and a sense of dignity. >> So, I want to extend heartfelt thanks. >> Mr. Olson, just wrap it up, please. Yeah. and recognition to Councilwoman
Hamlet, Mayor Fagan, and every member of the task force, including Kevin Smallwood, my mother Karen Olsen. This is summit at its best. Thank you all. >> Thank you. Thank you for your comments. [Applause]
>> Hi, Irwin Miller, 5 bill drive. Um, for those of you who may be on the fence, there's not many, but there are a few and you're going to be important. I hope you will consider supporting the Together for Summit team shortly. Few reasons. One, financial responsibility. Incredible public private partnership to
raise $500,000 for a public good. It's a huge win. And the fact that anyone would be opposed to that is ridiculous. Uh two, the SCF grant review process. The fact that anyone's opposing that, you don't know what you're talking about. They have been accepting grants without
considering the financial liabilities that that might impose on our town. So finally together for summit is saying or excuse me appointed people from the together for summit team are saying we actually would like to understand what you're giving us so we ensure that you're not sticking us with a bill down
the road. So for people who are saying that that's a problem you know you don't know what you're talking about. All right let's keep on going. transparency. Uh for those of you who've seen what's going on at the school of education, uh used to be a couple years ago when the uh Democrat appointed uh group there uh
had public comment, they wouldn't say a word. They wouldn't answer your questions. It was going talking into a black hole. Now they have a process. They answer questions. They're frankly even answering questions like we do here at the council meeting. So that is a great move on transparency from the
board of ed because finally we're having together for seven appointed board members who are now taking charge of our school school or board of ed next compassion and responsible this was just talked about I'm not going to go into it there's a lot of bloiating on the Summit Democrats about how like morally
superior they are but they don't have results and so it's enough it's the Gavin Newsome the great parks quality and life and safety again we just talked about that um you know if you're 21-year-old y old daughter comes home from the city at 10 p.m. Our our
train station is now safer. There's not uh an issue there with potentially mentally ill aggressive men. Um so that is another win for together team pushing back on over development. Uh they're doing their best considering the situation they've been placed in by
state level Democrat policy makers. Uh it is not anyone here's fault. Not the summit Democrats, not the together 17. It is the state. Um, and uh, you know, if you want to vote up and down column A, I encourage you to do that. Child-friendly policies. Tatlock field is a child-friendly policy. This is
about children summit embracing the wait for eight movement that see that is a child-friendly policy that we're seeing. Um, so you know, another reason another chalk went up for the separate team reasonable rhetoric. They focus on the results and their policy. All we hear
from the other attackers are whining and complaining about nothing. They're bringing making up fake arguments. Um, not to mention, you're out there marching with TDS. Like, what? Relax everybody. You're you're you're making everyone crazy. You're the one who creating insane rhetoric in this town and you're blaming it on together for
summit team. It's ridiculous. We all see through it and uh you should know that. So, together for some teams clearly doing a great job in all these areas. Of course, I cannot convince you if you just care about party politics and want to >> Mr. Miller, can you wrap it up, please? >> Yeah. Uh, and um
I think we'll wrap it up. More to say and uh I think we need more micas in this town. Um and uh >> I still I still won't give you more time, but thank you. >> Rachel Kramer, um 88 Elm Street, Summit, New Jersey. I'm here tonight to talk
about honesty and accountability and to ground my statement in facts hopefully for the last time. On September 2nd, candidate Dan Christophouli filed a police report naming me and Mr. Anonymous. In that report, he alleged
that after a council meeting, we threatened him and yelled at him and followed to him to his car. Three days later on September 5th, he repeated those claims in a record a recorded video posted on Facebook stating, "Two of Councilman Smallwood's supporters
heckled and threatened me as I left council chambers, and one followed me to my car." On September 7th, the Summit Democratic Committee amplified this narrative by sharing a link to an article publicly thanking the police for investigating the matter.
A couple of months ago, Bob made an honest mistake. He apologized privately for that mistake. It wasn't enough. Um, candidate Jaclyn Laroscina came to the
council meeting talking about what that mistake did to her and what that mistake did to her reputation and her family. She demanded public accountability from Bob, asked me to delete my Facebook
post, which I did. And she talked about the weight of those statements because when a a public person or political person says something, there's a weight to it. And I I started thinking about that when I was, you know, thinking
about Dan's police report. When a political candidate lies to the police calmly, deliberately, and on camera, it doesn't just hurt the target of the lie. It begins to undermine the trust in our institutions, in our democracy, and
finally in our justice system. So, I knew that these claims weren't true. But I felt fear. I thought about my family, my job, and my safety. Because even a lie, when told loudly and repeatedly, can take on a life of its own. People did ask me about what happened. They
wondered if it might be true. And that's the harm. That seed of doubt is exactly what was intended when Dan said he was threatened and followed to his car. So to protect myself and my family, I had to obtain the police report and the video footage. And the evidence could
not be clearer. No one yelled at Dan. No one threatened Dan and no one followed him to his car. So, no resident should ever have to worry that asking a political candidate a question could result in a false police report being filed against them or that asking
candidates to adhere to memorandums of understanding might result in low-level harassment claims. That's the real threat to public safety. Not residents calling the police when they need help, but political candidates abusing law enforcement to intimidate or silence
people who disagree with them. The chilling effect is real. And when when residents see this happen, they think twice about speaking up out of fear for their reputations, their careers, or their family. That's not accountability. That's not leadership, and it's not the
type of behavior we should reward with public office. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Fagan, President McTurnon, members of council and staff. I'm Jim Bennett, bennet,
38 Fair View Avenue. I want to bring up a topic that has bothered me for several years, the budget cycle. And I'm not picking on Summit because from my continuing legal education courses, I don't want to say how many years ago, um
I know that probably all the municipalities in Summit operate the same way. A former council member explained to me that the city's fiscal year is the calendar year. Yet, the budget is not set until the fiscal year
is nearly halfway over. For the first half of the year, the city operates on what amounts to continuing resolutions. For sure, the data responsiveness for this method is excellent. Uh but uh once the budget is finally set, but the city
operates for half the year based on its projected budget. Rick Hanley, uh, the board of education member overseeing operations, advised me that the school fiscal year runs from July 1st to June 30th. Since then, since
he has taken charge, the school district will call for input in December, work on the budget in January, and finalize its budget in February. The February budget will include variations to account for contingencies related to state aid and
insurance. Mr. Hanley plans to sit in on the city's capital budget workshop in December to see what the workshop is all about. Since the city must underwrite uh the bonding for the school district, would
it not make sense to include the school capital budget in the December workshop? After all, the school budget is half the property tax bill. Another idea for which I'm sure there's an answer, which
uh I don't know what it is, is uh uh is to change the city's fiscal budget year from calendar year to July 1st to June 30th. That way, the city would operate on a fixed budget for the entire fiscal year. Now, if I should be
having this conversation with Assemblywoman Munoz and Maticus, uh, please let me know. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Bennett. >> Anonymous. Um, I have a lot to say and I'm not going to be able to get to all of it or even enough of it,
unfortunately. So, I'm not going to attempt to try to stumble and ramble over my own words. Um, but there's a lot of things I want to talk about. And, um, I'll start with um, I guess party party politics in general and what I've
experienced from, um, the political parties and, um, from coming into summit and everything like that. Um, I'm somebody who, yes, goes to municipalities. Some of you are probably wondering, you know, why is he still here? When you start to
get to know the personalities a little bit, you start to get a lot of feedback, starts becoming very intriguing. And uh to see the video where um showed my interaction with Mr. Christophelli was just me asking questions, member of
the free press who identifies himself as the free press with his identifi identifiable badge on, you know, uh just simply asking questions and stuff like that. And then the scene, that same video was was used to make the Republican party like shame them for
allowing free speech, for allowing somebody to come to meetings and speak. The same response of watching Mr. Chriselli berate the chief for allowing him to speak. In the United States of America, they're allowing him. They're
allowing him. The most interesting thing about that video I thought was the conversation happening after it. Not even the interaction that showed that Chriselli lied, but you hear me talk to Mr. McTurnon and he's kind after I belittled him and bered him and he took
it like a champ and was kind and they think, "Oh, this is a scandal. Something's going on here." They're being nice to him. He's a political agitator. A political agitator. You know what? You know what's good for elected officials? Agitation. It makes good elected officials, public
nuisances. Yeah, we'll get to figure out real quick who everybody is and what they stand for. You know, how dare them allow be nice to him. It must be something else going on. They surely can't be treating him like a
human being. You know, the same people who were happy that I was here giving you guys hell, the same people who loved it and was like, "Oh, this is the greatest thing you do. I love your videos. They're so awesome." and they're entertaining and you keep keep at it. The second I started asking questions
about restriction this the the the the restriction of speech of residents from the SMDC page, the second I started asking those questions, I started getting ridiculed. I started getting shamed publicly, privately, I was the one who was being harassed over and
over. I mean, party politics has damaged the the people have the inability to see what's happening around them. Surely something's constructed here. This can't be a guy who goes to towns and gives speeches and encourages others on his channel to do this do the same to have a
voice for themselves to empower others to take part in the political process. I don't lean one side or the other. Someone asked me the other day, did you go to the no kings rally? No. I go to meetings. I take part in actual change. I don't participate in the fluff. I don't try to emotionally uh take
something and get you where I'm at emotionally so you can understand. >> Mr. Anonymous, can you explain their emotions so they can articulated otherwise they're brainwashed and you need to speak about these things and thank you for all speaking to speaking today. >> Thank you for your comments.
>> Hello, my name is Denise Pillo. I reside at 23 Middle Avenue. I'm here because I received a letter about 15 Middle Avenue and it said at this meeting tonight it
was going to be discussed. It's a it's a house that they rebuilt and I guess they're looking for an ordinance. They have a a stop work order has been placed on this like months ago and it's
sitting there and nothing is being done. >> I I Miss Berillo I perhaps that is this for the zoning board? >> No, this says public hearing for service on property owners. >> I think that was last night's uh >> it was probably at the zoning board
meeting uh yesterday >> meeting. >> Yeah. Sorry. >> Sorry. You know though, >> no, it says today's date. >> It says October. >> Can we write October 20th? >> That's yesterday. Monday. >> You know what though? Um, if you uh have
if you have written comments, be more than happy to forward them to the appropriate people. >> I wanted to know what's >> what's going on with it because it's been sitting with nothing. >> Yeah. Um, so my recommendation would be to uh contact Austo De Mateo at city
hall here. >> Okay. Um, and uh, if you wait a second, >> give me the main number 6400 273-6400 and I'll put you through. >> Okay. And who am I who am I speaking to? >> Uh, Rosemary. >> No, no, no. I know you. >> Austo Daso.
>> Yeah. And um, just call that number and we'll get you in touch with him and he can answer your questions. >> He's our land use manager. >> Well, I'm glad I came to the meeting anyway, but >> I'm glad you were here as well. It was the wrong day.
>> Okay. Well, thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Hello, Stacy Allen, uh, Plymouth Road. I have lived in Summit since 1999, and I always thought that council and the city, uh, government offices took very good care of our city, and I didn't
really worry about anything. I really wasn't very aware. I didn't pay close attention to anything going on in council. Maybe because I had young kids, I don't know, but I wasn't paying attention until the gigantic Broad Street West project. When that started to happen, I my ears perked up and I
started going to meetings, listening to meetings online because it was during COVID and I was shocked at what I learned. I was sad to see that our council at the time did not listen after we could have public meetings again and that we had everybody coming to meetings
into the wee hours of the night. um that council wasn't listening and they in fact did vote yes for that project and then rescended their vote. So that was a shock to me. So I got involved and that's a pain for everybody because I got involved because I could be a real
pain. Um once I was involved I just started noticing everything. So in 2023 I noticed a brand new issue in Summit that I had never seen before. We had homeless people living in our bus stops. For living in this town as long as I have, I have no idea why we never had
this before and now all of a sudden we had it. And I hear about all the New Jersey stuff. I'm not buying it. Something had changed. So, we had in addition to homeless people living in the bus stops, we also had train station people that were I don't know if they
were homeless or if they were just drunk or if they were high, but they were not well people. And I did not feel safe. I cut through the bus stop uh the train station very often. I see high school kids there. It was very upsetting to me to see that there was there were people
there that did not seem uh safe to be around kids or around anybody really. Um this is not just once in a while. This was all the time this was happening and not every single day but a lot. I wrote to our previous council president, Greg Vartan, and he and that council team did
try to do a few things to reduce um the homeless population living in the bus stops. They turned off the power source and didn't allow the furniture. People had actually had lawn chairs and cell phones and blankets and everything. They had moved into our bus stops and they
the previous council did try to do a few things, but unfortunately even by doing those things, it did not fix the problem and the problem persisted. Um I walk in the morning, I take pictures of this all the I have pictures if anybody needs to see them from all different times when there were people living in our bus stops.
Um the problem was so bad that one day I saw I was uh driving by and I saw that it was raining outside and all the people that were waiting for the bus had to sit outside and could not use the bus stop because the people would had been residing in there. So they were
literally getting wet. These are everyday people. They could be commuters to New York. They could be workers coming to Summit. All different people of all different levels of income were waiting outside the bus stop and they could not use the bus stop itself. >> Oh, I'm already done. Wow. >> You got to wrap it up. Yeah,
>> that was bad. Sorry. Anyway, I brought pictures because I'm very happy that the bus stop I like to take pictures of everything for everybody. The bus stop and the train station look immaculate today. Thank you to the team together for Summit. Thank you to the council for doing a lot of stuff and doing all the
things to help >> all of our problems in Summit. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Joseph Brown. I was out at 27 Glennside A. So back in 2023, like she just said when the bus stop the
train station is all homeless people. Well, there is a truth to this whole thing. I seen the whole thing. That's when that's the year I moved to Summit. I seen the whole thing. I seen the homeless people. I was working at the
hospital at Marstown Medical Center. I seen these homeless people. I seen everything. That's when I started talking to this community of summit. I got that's when I started to step in and get involved. I'm not on council. I'm
not one of you guys. I'm not the mayor of Summit. I'm just a normal community member just like everyone else here. We we're all family. We might not know each other. But we sleep, we eat, we breathe, we go
to work, we go to school. Miss nobody. I might not know you. I might not know you, but you might be friends. But
>> yes, brothers. You come to this concert, too. But we all have family here. But back in 2023, I seen this I seen all these homeless people and I sat down next to them. But Dilia, when I found out did was deal
with the homeless people. I didn't know what I didn't know Dia actually did that until the mayor told me about it. That's when I wanted to talk to Dia and no more. And then that's when I got involved more
and more and more. I stand next to each people day in day out. outside of work, outside of school, sitting next to these guys. I I found out what they need, what their needs were. I got them what they need.
Clothes. When the winter time comes, I talk to the younger generation. Show the gen younger generation this is what's going on in our community. Open their eyes up to the bigger picture.
So back so now as of now there are four homeless people now on our streets. It used to be one but there are four. The four individuals that I have on the street right now are all at the library.
They come and go as they please. The pictures that we get every day helps us out because it shows us what's going on. cuz we not there all the time. We all have our normal lives. We go to work. We
got families. Then I got to go to work. Like I don't have time in day out to see this stuff. But this community help it helps us out. But knowing this stuff you >> Yeah. M Mr. Brown, can you wrap it up
please? >> Okay. >> But there three minutes. >> Yeah. Mr. Nobody, I agree with you. Three minutes. >> Thank you, Mr. Brown, for your comments. >> Great.
>> Any other comments from the public? Okay. So, I'm Filamina and I've been a little bit involved in this community as well and I've seen a little bit of the homeless community and
I've seen Miss Hamlet's aid in this community. Thank you very much. you've you've done quite a handful. Um, still more to do. Don't give up, please.
And we're right there with you. Okay. Um, there's there's there's more problems behind the scene. There's not just there's not just drugs involved. There's
not just alcohol involved. there's there's mental illness that needs to be addressed. Um and God bless you. You're you're helping us along with that. Um so, um please keep helping with the
efforts. I've said this before. Um Miss Madame Mayor, we're we're at the 10 yard goal line. It's not time to punt. Let's let's keep going. Let's keep pushing. Um,
forgive me my analogies. And Mr. Boyer over there, I'm going to expect you to keep keep going here with us. Okay. Yes. Call backs, please,
Mr. Powski. And I just have to say I really appreciated that historical presentation. Thank you. >> We We need some help on the technical end to to help him out a little bit though. >> I must have turned it off. It was
definitely not Rosy's fault. >> Aside from that, I I enjoyed your presentation and and you know, give some good marks over there for that. Anyway, um thank you very much. this this council has done a very good job and
good marks on that. Thank you. [Applause] >> Thank you very much for your comments. >> Would anyone else from the public wish to speak at this time? >> And I made it under three minutes. >> You did. Thank you for that. It is doable.
Jacqueline Laserina. I'm a resident of Summit. Uh just to echo earlier comments in a slightly different flavor, uh we are two weeks away from election day. Early voting starts this Saturday. Um so regardless of which candidates people are voting for, I just encourage
everyone to get out and vote because every vote is really, really important. Uh today I'd like to talk about pedestrian safety. I'm really glad that there were some strides made this evening, but there is a lot more work to do. I asked council several months ago
to send around a communitywide survey so that we could identify pedestrian safety concern hotspots, combine that with information from our first responders um following on the success of the dog park survey that was sent around. Um, thus far it has not gone out, but pedestrian
and bike safety continues to be one of the top concerns that I hear from neighbors. Um, I wouldn't be able to cover all of them in 2 minutes time, but I would like to try to cover some of the most commonly raised issues that I've heard about. Uh, with respect to FA
Place, Woodland A, and Iris Road, cars go tearing down there to get onto River Road. There are a lot of families with small children. uh lots of pedestrian and bicyclists. Um so traffic calming measures are are certainly needed there.
So too with Caldwell A and Clark Street off of Springfield. Uh they're often used as a cutthrough to get to avoid the light on Broad Street. Um similarly lots of families with small children, lots of pedestrian and bicyclists. Uh several months ago there was
discussion about improving pedestrian access and safety to the shop right. Um to my knowledge there haven't been uh improvements made there. There are a lot of people a lot of Summit residents who walk to get to the shop right to do their grocery shopping. Um so that's another area of opportunity. Uh and then
the Lincoln Hubard pickup uh I think in part because the tiered parking garage was allowed to fall into disrepair. It's pushed parking to lots of different lots and streets around town where Lincoln Hubard parents used to park to pick up their kids. Uh now
there really is precious little almost none park almost no parking available. Um and it's mayhem. It's a really big safety issue for the children and for the people who are doing the pickups. Um so some some relief there would be greatly appreciated. Uh switching to to
road maintenance Tulip Street headed toward Brighton and Oaknull. Um it's like a test track for an ATV. It's it's really ridiculously bumpy. there are some neighbors there who are trying to sell their home and the road is just a mess. Um so if there's an opportunity to
do some some repaving, that would be greatly appreciated. Uh and then in general just um traffic calming measures, right? Things as easy as painting horizontal lines across the road. Uh very coste effective way. Research tells us it gets drivers to slow their speed. Um so would love to
see greater investments in pedestrian and bike safety. Thank you. >> Thank you very much for your comments. Other comments from the public. >> Mon'nique Taylor, 167 Payic Avenue. Since the Republicans seem to wallow in
revisionist history regarding BSW while whining about censorship from the SMDC, let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we? It's the summer of 2023. A pride familyfriendly event had been
scheduled with a black drag performer known as Queen Camila. A few of their homophobic constituents decide to complain about the performer's adult social media presence. Their
treasurer Tina O' Connor post in Neighborhood for Summit stating that Dileia Hamlet had the drag show cancelled and was quote grateful that a diligent council person got him fired
unquote while also referring to the performer as a pedophile and a pervert. After going to city hall and fighting to keep the drag show, which was cancelled by the former city administrator, Mike
Rogers, and raising awareness online with concerned citizens, I was served a cease and desist letter from Dileia, threatening me with a defamation lawsuit when it was her Republican treasurer
that told everyone that Dileia was responsible. A subsequent Oprah request revealed that both she and Lisa Allen were not only responsible for his firing, but that Dileia was hiring an attorney because,
in Lisa's words, quote, "They are walking the line of defamation," unquote. Not for the Republican treasurer, but for me. Now ours are complaining about censorship by the SMDC while issuing
threats of lawsuits to summit residents to silence the truth and disscent. Bullying Democratic candidates at council meetings because they don't agree with you is not leadership.
Serving a wealthy sliver of the summit population while paying lip service to the majority is not democracy. It's plutoaucracy. All these examples smack of cues taken
from this cruel MAGA administration. And it is why I know it's so funny. And it is why Summit needs a change in November for a return to sanity. Please vote Jackie, Shantel, and Dan for city
council. And I will submit this for >> Thank you for your comments. >> You're welcome. And if anyone else wants to see these >> notes, >> uh, anyone else like to speak from the public? >> Tracy Keegan. Um, I'm a resident of
Summit. I've lived here since 1994. One of the lessons we've learned about Republicans since 2016 is that every accusation is actually a confession. And we saw a real life local example of that last week when Together for Summit sent out a despicable postcard filled with
lies and slander that shocked and disgusted our community. On that mailer were the words, "Summit deserves leaders who respect the truth, not candidates who weaponize the police and press to silence critics." Well, for once, I agree with you. It's
true that your party has weaponized the police for the past two years. Oprahing 911 calls, including mine, and police reports filed by residents who believed public safety was being threatened. But that's not why I'm here tonight. I'm here because the other part of that
postcard, the part about using the press to silence critics, because that is exactly what happened to me earlier this year in February. The tap into summit editor blocked me from commenting on tap articles. He and I spoke by phone on February 27th for 2 hours and 14
minutes. What he shared during that call was deeply disturbing. Here are a few direct excerpts. Quote, "You're a problem for all these guys. All of them. They take screenshots. They take your screenshots. Patrick Nash, Nick Curial,
all of them have sent me stuff. The Republicans send me every freaking thing you say about me. all the time. They send me things you write. One of the Republicans sent me something you wrote. People have sent me things you said about me. A month or two months into it, you know, one of the
Republicans, hey, here's what Tracy said about you. I talked to Lisa Allen an hour ago because you called me Monday night. Apparently, you drove her over the grave and she quit. Yeah, she quit because of you. Dileia Hamlet texted me and said, "Every time I put a post out,
Tracy is disagreeing with me." Like, Dileia is all weirded out by you. Like, why are you doing that to her? I've talked to Dileia about this. She said, "You have I mean, to be quite honest with you and me personally, I'm ready to talk to my boss, Mike Shapiro, about
you. You're tagging Dillia's post saying that we have some unholy alliance where Dillia is telling me to block you into tap from tap into." Now, by the way, Kevin Smallwood after an hour and a half yesterday showed me and said, "Here's what's going on." I looked at it. It was
from you. He said, "This is from Tracy." It was a screenshot, apparently. This went on for more than two hours. We would be here all night if I shared everything he said to me. This illustrates a disturbing willingness by Republican- elected officials and leaders to target voices they disagree
with. This has no place in Summit and no place in a democracy. Summit, we can do better. And since I have a few seconds, I just want to point out filing a police report is a crime. So if that happened, there would be charges filed. Number two, there's no cameras in the parking lot. Number three, there were 60
homeless people. That was reduced to 21. Could you wrap it up? 18 were in active case management by the time the Democrats the Republicans were elected. >> Thank you. [Music] Okay, thank you for your comments. Okay, any other people from the public like to
speak? >> Good evening everyone. Uh my name is Sabrina Menni uh located in 417 Morris Avenue. Uh I'm here to thank you for to for for the the summit together for the for your uh housing for the homeless
individual who were living in our stop and train station for many years. And I know you worked very hard to get people into appropriate housing and addiction program and I'm a member of uh
of the association in in Livingston Hospital and one of the the member mentioned uh Delia's name. I was not sure he was talking about Delia and then I found out because you were collecting some clues some stuff for his for his
new apartment and then when I found about Delia was oh I know that you know I heard about that person and I saw in in the post in Facebook I have a guest uh from France and Montreal as you can tell I have accent I'm citizen but I'm not American
and they visited many many for many years And uh even my aunt she came she she came two two weeks ago and she just went back and she saw the difference in the train station and the buses. She said oh I remember last time there were
a lot of homeless here in the train station and and I said yes because thank you know to Dr. Elizabeth and her team. uh great great teamwork and u and we appreciate what you're doing and
as we as as I mentioned it uh we saw a lot of changes and summit has improved uh so so much recently and I'm very thankful and I'm so proud to be a summit resident and I feel comfortable now
letting my son walking from my house to summit and great job one team one media. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Hi, Dory Gagnon. Uh, 27 Bedford. I want to thank all of you for being
volunteers. I've been a volunteer my whole life, um, in healthcare. That's why I'm on the board of health. Um, and I love volunteering. I've helped with the homeless. I've worked in underserved communities for the last 15
years. So, to roll up your sleeves like Miss Hamlet has done, I've met many that are here. Um, you know, I uh I thank everybody on the homelessness task force and everyone in the city who's watching for helping because it's
not just you guys. So, thank you. But I want to address your comments that you've ignored two emails that I sent you. And uh look at me. I'm right here. Not to the attorney, to me. I'm a resident. >> Miss, you're supposed to address the
council president >> through you, council president. Um your comments last week. She defames everyone. She defamed many people. many people as you were referring to me, Miss
Klinson. If I even said that correctly, I apologize. Um, after I left the council meeting, you were referring to me. Now, I hold people accountable when I come up to the meetings,
and I think that's a great thing because if I didn't hold this council accountable, we'd have Broad Street West. And with Broad Street West, we'd have the pilot. We'd have we'd have a nightmare on our hands. And I made thousands and
thousands of residents aware of what was happening here. And accountability is not a bad thing. Disagreeing is not a bad thing. Asking you to recuse yourself is not a bad thing. It's not defamation.
I'm on boards. I had to take an ethics uh board to pass my license. So asking you to recuse your thing isn't you cruise yourself is not a bad thing. There's a lawsuit out. You know what you said to me just like what Rachel said
before. I have a name to uphold. Okay. my name. People come up to me and they they thank me for a lot of things that my family and I have done for them because I volunteer thousands and thousands of hours, give out hundreds of free healthc care throughout this entire
state. I roll up my sleeves just like Miss Hamlet does. Public service is a wonderful thing. So for you saying what you said does more damage than you can possibly know.
An apology goes a long way. I fought for oratory. I f I went to every board, planning board. I said I didn't want it, but I went to work with them. I gave you guys suggestions. I wasn't defaming you. I try to work with
you guys. You are an elected official. You hold yourself at a higher standard. >> Gagnon, can you wrap it up, please? >> Just like everybody else does. >> Thank you for your comments. Good evening. Uh Tom Zeber, 768 Springfield Avenue. Um I appreciate Ms.
Laroscina's segue earlier because I would love to identify a pedestrian safety hotspot. Um, I think it's a well-known fact that this mayor and council have earned an A+ grade on public safety in town, but I would like to share a story with everyone and offer a recommendation. Um, this afternoon
while I was walking on Edgar's Court, I spoke with a resident who was incredibly polite and cordial, but shared that he'd really like to see a three-way stop at Ashwood Avenue, excuse me, and Russell Place because cars are frequently speeding down Ashwood Avenue at that intersection. Uh when I was back in my
car just a few minutes later, I witnessed a resident innocently walking her dog at the intersection of Ashwood A, Michigan A, and Pearl Street and nearly get mowed down by a speeding vehicle. I made sure to ask if she was okay, and she was, but she was definitely startled. Now, it won't
surprise anyone in Summit to hear that cars are driving too fast on Ashwood Aav, but I still wanted to mention this tonight to encourage council to revisit the traffic in this area and consider new beacons or stop signs or speed humps or whatever it takes to ensure that cars
slow down and that we don't end up with a very unnecessary and avoidable tragedy in Summit. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Other comments from the public? All right, I'll try and keep it short. I
know we're getting late. Uh, Sue Roberts, 48 Oakland Place. I've been a Summit resident for 23 years and I swear Stacy read my mind with her opening comments because I al too I also was guilty of ebbing and flowing in my
involvement in issues within town up until the Broad Street West issue. That certainly opened my eyes and changed that and now I try really hard to research and ask the hard questions.
Recently, I've seen a lot of attacks on Miss Hamlet as she's running for counsel, um asking that she retract some statements she made that were clarifying facts. I've looked into a lot of information. I have a meeting
with Mrs. Ler, Ms. Lucerina tomorrow to try to understand everything that's swirling around in the police report issue and hopefully I'll get some clarification there. But from what I can tell based on the facts, there is nothing to retract. I've read
the Oprah statement. I've um read the emails. I've looked at the body cam footage. And so I'm I'm anxious to learn more about that tomorrow. What matters to me most as a voter and a
resident is action and proven results. It's a lot easier to spin stories than it is to acknowledge results. Dileia, this council, and the Together for Summit team have delivered and kept their promises.
They've done an enormous amount in the last two years. No one works harder than Dillia to fight over development, house the homeless, address flooding issues, and a slew of other accomplishments in
her short two-year on tenure. Dileia shows up. Even Miss Lucer Cena, her opponent, acknowledged in one of her original campaign posts, Dileia shows up.
While others talk, Dillia acts. While others dramatize, Dillia delivers. And while others focus on what's wrong, she focuses on getting it right. And you can see the results for Summit residents
every single day. If you owned a corporation and your employees or volunteers were knocking it out of the park, would you fire them or would you encourage them to continue? I'm guessing we would all do the latter.
Why would we fire the team that has kept their campaign promises and generated positive results for the residents of Summit? That team is together for Summit. I appreciate all the hard work and Dia, I really appreciate that suit
of armor that you wear when you're getting attacked online. Thank you. >> Thank you very much for your comments. Thank you, Council President. Um, tonight I just want to come and say thank you to this council.
>> Oh, sorry, Lisa Allen, 27 Plain Street. Um, I just want to say thank you to this council. First of all, it was an honor to through you, council president. It was an honor to work with Councilman Ber, Mayor Fagan, Councilwoman Hamlet, and Councilman Plowski. Um, you have
done an extraordinary job in safety in this town. One of our the biggest charges the night I remember the reorg meeting and being up here and the biggest concern people had was the safety in the town and you have worked to do that. There was a lot of criticism
on the RPO and you had the the brave the courageous brave stance to improve on the RPO that we passed that first year. I hesitated on the second RPO because I was concerned that it would disrupt our community even
further. There was so much push back. But you know what? You guys had the the I was almost saying something. You had the guts to do it. You had the guts to do it. And I want to thank you because not everybody has guts to do it. And you can listen, which is very important. That's where leadership
starts. But where leadership really hits the road is where it's in action. And you've taken some really big stances that have made actions in this town far beyond where you'll we'll have a better town than when you go. So I want
to say thank you for keeping us safe. Thank you for working on pedestrian safety. I want to thank you because I know I'm going to run out of time. I'm I want to thank you for Ashwood and Morris um making that development smaller. I know people aren't happy with it, but there is a 47 unit apartment building
going up on River Road in Morris Avenue that everyone has forgotten that was passed in 2023. You fought for more against Morris Avenue in Ashwood to make it smaller. Not because you're against affordable housing, because I know all of you are because you're sitting there fighting for the housing authority every minute of the day. And Dileia, you were
the first one that sat with the unhoused individuals and humanized them. You humanized them and you forced us all to understand how important their dignity was, too. So, thank you for making me a better council woman at the time. Thank you for helping this council be better
because you made us all better. And that's what leadership is. So, um, and I also just want to say really fast because I have 40 seconds. Dilly and I asked for a friend, a familyfriendly drag queen, the same one that was hired
year after year after year for four years. We just said, I won't even title give the title of the Instagram of the one drag queen that they were going to bring in. And we said, listen, it's not familyfriendly. Just bring someone in familyfriendly, the same guy. We didn't fire anyone. We just tried to continue to do the
right thing for our town. So, thank you. I thank you. There's thousands of our residents that thank you and I hope you win this fall because you deserve it and I know that you will continue to make this town better for the next 40 years. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your comments. >> Other public comments. >> Good evening, Diego Hick Argal Court. Um, I want to thank all of you for your service. Um, you all,
um, almost all of you got elected. Um, and you deserve to be appointed, Mike. Um, you all represent your constituencies. There's plenty of people here who feel much better represented by Dia than by
Michelle in W1. And there's a lot of people who feel the other way. That's the American way. Some of us are on one side, the others are on the other. So, I'm here to remind all of us
that in a in a city where about 7,000 voters are available in each ward approximately. Um, so Michelle Calmison got 3,000 votes in Ward One.
So 3,000 people cast a vote for you, Michelle. I feel represented by you. I voted for you. Um, I did I was not part one of the 3,300 people who voted for Clara because I'm in the wrong ward for that. Bob, obviously I did not vote for you.
Um, you got 2,000 votes. Jamal got 2,200. Kevin across all of Summit got 4,000 votes. Dia 2,200. Lisa, you got 2600 votes.
So, all of you and you know, Mayor Fig, I don't have the numbers, but you got a lot of you want to I I I'll get them. Um, but you were pretty close to Kevin. Um, my point here is that all of you represent different people and the
people who support one side may not agree with the other side, but all of you represent us and in my particular case, Michelle really does represent me and I really thank you for your service. Thank you. Thank you very much for your comments. Other public comments.
>> Kevin McGoi, Woodland Avenue. Uh hopefully this last time I have to speak here or wind up speaking here. Um, last week or last council meeting, I talked about how disturbed I was by Dan Chrysophily's uh, police statements,
statements to the police um, and the false statements to the police and that I didn't think the the city was taking it seriously enough and I don't um, at the time I had found out because Dan in his speech to the police said that another council member had also said
that somebody had threatened them. I asked um one of the other candidates if it was her. She didn't respond. So, I opened it. I got the body cam footage. I got uh the information she provided to the police that they had. Um I got the
police report and everything else. And I was shocked at what I saw. Not so much then, but after I got a series of emails of communication that she had um with respect to uh the the chair of the Republican party. Um, and it was very
clear that in that the chair of the Republican party explained to her, I don't know if you guys have all seen the video and you've seen all of Jacqueline's emails. It was very clear on July 1st when Jacqueline spoke with the police, she understood exactly why
Nick um, Curial took pictures of her front lawn with lawn signs because both parties in agreement that wouldn't happen till Labor Day and this was in June. She understood, she actually in her conversation brought up the fact that a former mayor actually had a brick thrown
through his window and asked Mr. Curiel if if he was aware of that. Mr. Curielle responded that he was aware of that and as a matter of fact after the last election, he had a rock thrown through his window. Um, and you know, Mr. Laroscina responded, "So sorry to hear
that. It's unacceptable. What happened to your family?" This and that. Um, and but that was from June 14th to June 17th. These emails were exchanged. On June on July 1st, she went to the police and said that she was very upset and
disturbed by what Mr. Curiel took these pictures of her lawn because he was unhappy with her signs or something. And then she went on to another thing that he said was that he had a brick or a rock thrown through his window. And she didn't understand how that was um relevant to the conversation or discussion they were having. And the
police officer, because it is strange we just said that out of nowhere, said was he trying to scare you? And she said, "I don't know. I don't know." She did know. She was trying to make it look like she was threatened and harassed. So now we have two candidates from one party that are literally going to the police and
giving them false information about people. Now, we need to get rid of party politics locally. If there's any way you can get rid of parties because Claire, you you're not even looking when people are talking. You're down on your thing the whole time. I think that we could all agree that that kind of behavior is
unacceptable and people shouldn't be doing this and but you can't say that because they're your party. You're not even looking. >> You need to get rid of party politics. >> Mr. McGoy, wrap it up, please. >> But anyway, all right. Thanks.
>> Thank you for your comments. >> I think she already spoke. >> Filamina, you you already >> had a comment. No, no, don't. You only get one. I'm sorry. I have to If I If I let you, I'd have to get We We'd be here till 2 in the morning. >> Sorry.
>> Apologies. You I'm happy to talk to you after the meeting. >> Hi, I know it's late. Amy Dibio, 106 Road. I I don't want to rehash everything that everyone else has said, but I I as well would like to thank the Together for Summit team. I think you guys have done a tremendous job.
Unfortunately, I've lived in this town for 25 years and I don't ever remember politics being like this ever. And I don't know if this is the leadership at the top um uh at the SMDC or what it is,
but there is something very toxic in the air. And um I I am grateful uh for you guys that you come week in and week out and day in and day out doing your job. and I apologize that our community doesn't always treat you so well. So,
thank you so much for everything you do and I hope you keep it up. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. Other comments from the public. >> Okay, if there's no further comments, I'm going to close public comment section. Um, and we're moving on to the
last part of our meeting, which is council member comments and new business. Council President, before sorry, I just want to uh there was comments directed to Councilwoman Camelson and I' I've advised her not to respond to those comments because of a threat of
litigation and our job my job is to protect the city from litigation since there's a threat. We've put the joint insurance fund on notice and I've asked Miss Coblson not to respond whatsoever. >> Thank you, >> Councilman Boyer.
>> Oh, thank you. I was like enamored. I was like, what? his kids. Um, uh, Joseph Brown, man, you you what some impeccable words. Like, we may not all know each other, but we're all
family. Wow, that's deep, man. You're You're absolutely right. That's how I feel. Like I I that's how I feel about people in general. Um, real quick about safety. Uh, Tulip got a lot of phone calls about
four-way stops on Tulip and and we're going to look to extend that to Lauren. Um, what needs to happen though is uh the engineer has to survey it and make sure that it's allowable to put a four-way stop there.
You know, there's liability if we just throw up a four-way stop and um and and it's not uh and it's not approved really to go there. But I agree that those areas need a four-way stop. Um, let's
see. The shop, right? So, I was down on Milton Avenue months ago and uh yeah, I spoke to like 40 residents about the the crossover to Shopright and people walking back and forth. I get it. I I
talked to the engineer about that. um that that intersection is it's it's going to take a lot of engineering and we have been talking about it and the county is it's a county road. There's a lot going on with with that intersection. So it's not just as
simple as you know let's paint a crosswalk and so people can walk across it that there's a lot going on there. though. But yes, we we're we are talking about that. Uh this weekend on Saturday, we had a uh an
amazing event at the Summit Housing Authority. Uh they had a prom um and council president was there and uh councilwoman Hamlet um the mayor came
and and danced. Um the we we put a lot of effort into into that. Um we started talking about it in July and I know you've heard me speak about the Summit Housing
Authority. They're going through a lot being charged overcharged for rent and you know these folks don't I mean I mean every cent counts right. So this prom which they haven't had in several years
was amazing. We all got dressed up. We should have se all of us. We were to the tea. It was the first ever prom that I went with my wife. It was great. Um I'm still thinking about Luther Vandross in my head and it's crazy. Uh but the smiles
on everyone's face, the smiles of enjoyment, the different cultures that was there. Um we had a great time and I couldn't help but think that Summit needs an A plus A class Summit housing
authority and we're just not there. And I'm not going to give up on it. And I'm going to continue to talk about it every time I'm up here until people get tired of it, right? Um I will implore people to go to the Summit Housing Authority meetings if you want to know what's going on. Just
like you come up here, right, and you know, you you give us the business, I want you to go there and give them the business, right? You know, they taking money from people. Go there. You know, like So, um just an update on that. I did reach
out to Congressman Kaine's office. Uh he is definitely up for helping us out. Um still talking to residents, having them write their complaints. Uh as soon as the federal government opens, maybe we can, you know, get some movement there.
The federal government still closed. >> Still closed. >> Um let's see here. Uh Ashwood Avenue speeding. Yeah, that that's a problem. We continue to work with the police on that. Uh that's that cut through coming
off of 22. Um I got a bunch of notes here. Uh oh. Okay. So I I'll end with this one. Um good leaders change the culture. the the culture in
city hall and in Summit uh the the worker is fantastic, right? Like people the that hasn't changed, right? But what's changed is the leadership has changed. You know, we hold people accountable. We all have a certain bar
of what we want this city to be. And to just be blunt about it, we got busy. We got busy day I mean even before day one though we got busy like we came in guns blazing this is what we're going to do
and we did it right it's not mission done right it's still more but look around though right look around town I walked home the other day and there was a waitress at um at the office she came up to me she said oh thank you so much I
feel safe about getting on the the 70 bus to Irvington at night at like 2:00 in the morning. You know, I walk through the park, you can hear the grasshoppers. I mean, let's you you can't take that from
this team, though, right? Like, we got busy and, you know, working behind the scenes and everything. No, we were right in the face like, hey, this is what we're doing. Um, I also couldn't help I know it's
I know it's election time, but I also couldn't help thinking about um my grandmother and watching soap opers like was like wow, you know, it's like days of our lives. I got a flashback, you know, like rest in peace, grandma. Um,
we like the together for summit thing, right? Um, maroon and gold. The summit colors, by the way, are not maroon, gold, and white. I just want to let everybody know. It's maroon and gold. So, just to be clear on that. But the
the idea behind it, though, is that um it don't matter if you're Democrat or Republican. You know, I'm here I'm here for you. Like, I I enjoy this stuff. And you have to have some thick skin being up here.
You could go back and rewind the tape, right? We talking about the resident protection ordinance about 100 people here and um city solicitor Jacobe I wish you would have told the hundred people that directly spoke to me all these meetings that they could they had to speak to the council president that
would have been great. Um but yeah, the resident protection ordinance, right? 100 people coming in here. Boyer, you know, and the forget about the camping ordinance, right? Like, oh boy, you know, um you
listen, this is the job, right? Think about it hard before you want to get this job. Think about it, right? It ain't easy. It ain't easy sitting up here taking criticism,
but the criticism actually makes you better. It makes you better. Um, last but not least, I've said this before. I am a fan of this this YouTube thing called Audit the Auditor where they audit police officers because I hold
police officers to the highest esteem and I think they all should follow the Constitution. Um, so when Mr. anonymous came in. I was like completely used to all of that cuz I watch audit the auditor. People have a right to come into meetings and say what they have to
say. Just like you got a right certain rights when you get pulled over, right? You have certain rights and we expect that elected officials, our police officers and everyone are um
obeying your constitutional rights. It's important and if you can't deal with it, don't take the job. >> Thank you, Council President. Sorry, >> Council. I I I I I do recall actually directing them. I think I was told to
shut up if you recall. >> That happens a lot, though, so I'm used to hearing that quite often. >> You were. Yeah, I remember that. >> Thank you. Uh >> by a few people. >> Other uh comments from council. Councilwoman Hamlet. I I'll be brief because I have a a child home that I
have to so I apologize if I'm not on my way out of here as I'm running out, but I have one at home who uh is asking when I'm going to be home. So, I'll be brief. Um I would say that, you know, this election season has been has been a little tough. Um they all are. Um but I
think the most important thing is that all of us as leaders work to make it better for the next time. Um, we all have all of us up here, Michelle, Claire, we're not at the same party, but you know, Claire, I've known you for probably 15 years. Um, Claire and I used to play golf together, and you know,
we've known we've known each other for a long time. Um, so I think, as Jamal said, it's it's our responsibility, excuse me, to change that culture. And I hope that everybody can do that regardless of who's elected. Um, I think that um it's really important. It's it's bad. It's terrible for the municipal
employees um to watch what's going on. And it's absolutely it's sad. Rosie comes in every day at she's the first one here, last one out. Aaron Shreger has a meeting tomorrow at, you know, 6 a.m. far away. The municipal employees are really, really busy and we have a
lot of stuff to do and and a lot of this is just a huge distraction from delivering municipal services to our residents. Um, it's it's hard to to actually get people to want to work for a municipal government. Um, and when
they see the the infightings of Republican and Democrat parties, and you know, the reality is I I've got a lot of Republicans, like I said, who are mad at me for Cano Brook Parkway and and a lot of other things. Um, whether they still vote for me, that's up to them. I'm doing the best I can, and I'm I'm trying
to uh trying to do what's right for the majority of residents uh on every issue regardless of political party. That's what a good elected official does. Um, so I would say that, you know, I look at all of us, Claire, Michelle, Jamal, um, you know, to work together towards changing that culture. It's really,
really important. And at some point, somebody just has to take control and say, "We're going to stop. We're going to stop this nonsense. We're going to hold each other accountable. We're going to be neighbors." Um, that's what elected officials should be doing right now. Um, I have a laundry list of things
that we're we need to get back to residents on. Um, regarding the intersection at ShopRight, uh, I will give Nancy Munoz's office a lot of credit. Uh, they are working with DOT and they are holding DOT accountable uh, for helping us come up with a solution.
Um, I get updates from them frequently and it is a tough intersection, but the residents that I speak to down there, it is very, very important. And even more important than that is, uh, getting an accessible way to, I shouldn't say more important, equally as important uh, to Bryant Pond. um because now that uh the
pond is looks so great and we're going to get some new athletic facilities down there, hopefully even a playground, residents want to be able to walk there safely. So, um that's a huge priority. So, uh Jacqueline, thank you for mentioning that one. Uh the Saltbrook, uh I'm I'm seeing some some areas where
I think that I might be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. Um some of the municipalities are getting together to hopefully look into a resiliency grant. Uh Rosie, as a reminder, we're waiting for Director Shreger and Council President McTurnin to get access to that one house. It's really, really important that we can get
a hold of that owner um because we want to get our our portion uh of that Salt Brook stabilized. So, I'm hopeful. Um Jamal and Michelle, I'd like to get back to actually spoke to him today uh Mr. Dan Jaxel and looking at that whole area. as you know the people on Orchard
and um that area I think he's at uh 528 Morris and maybe it is or 28 28 Morris I think um we we have to look at those traffic patterns down there so I think we put that in as a D if we could just follow up and I I know it's going to take some time um regarding the homeless
you know we still have a long way to go but I am proud and so thank you for everybody who came for their comments tonight um very proud and honored to have housed as many people in fact we got one more housed I believe within the last 10 days. Is that right, Mayor Fagan? Um I talked with Leah Griffith today. We got one more house. So I think
that brings the number to 25. But even with those folks that we have housed, there's still challenges. Um we're still trying to make them a part of the community, find different resources for them. Um we still have a long way to go and making sure that that they're, you know, part of our community. It's it's
incredibly important to stay on top of them. um it's it's it's imperative that we just continue to find ways for them to to integrate into the community and and feel welcome and look out for their well-being. So, just want to say thank you for everybody. I think everybody
should should put their uh whatever they have out at this political season and just just try to enjoy summit, try to enjoy neighbors and try to bring some sense of civility back to the town and I hope we can do that. >> Thank you. Other comments from council?
Councilman Palowski >> like Sans through the hourglass, right? Uh, okay. I have a a statement that Councilman Smallwood asked me to read and then I just have a couple of really quick comments after that. So, this is
Smallwood. It was deeply inappropriate for council member Celmanson to use her position on the day to publicly attack a private resident by name and accuse them of defaming everyone. Council meetings are not personal forums. They are official public proceedings where elected
officials are expected to maintain professionalism and respect. Residents have the right to speak, question, and even criticize their representatives without fear of being singled out or disparaged during a council meeting. That kind of rhetoric erodess public
trust and discourages civic engagement. Disagreement is part of democracy. But elected officials have a higher duty to model restraint and integrity. Personal attacks from the day especially directed towards res residents have no place in
summit's public discourse. So hopefully that's the end of the soap opera tonight. Um, the Verve, the school paper for uh, Summit High School has the money that they needed. So, uh,
I'll thank anybody who, uh, who, uh, who contributed, and if you still want to, uh, subscribe, read what some of our students are writing. Uh, I'm sure they'd love it. The dog park has been taken down.
>> I know. Um, we had to do it uh at some point this fall in order to be able to properly clean up the leaves and and take care of our grounds. And it really did take a beating, but we are working towards figuring out if we could do some more pop-up dog parks or maybe get
something that's permanent. I've talked about it before at council meeting. So, um, I do apologize. Uh, we didn't get a well, I guess we got a message out a couple weeks before we took it down, but I was under the impression it was going to be up until November. So, I apologize to all those residents who I told could
enjoy it until November because I was wrong about that. Um, senior citizen prom was awesome. Um, I want to thank uh all everybody who put so much into it. Uh, Councilman Ber,
uh, Councilman Smallwood, I think, um, catered it. >> Um, and, uh, who else was it? Karen Karen Bigas. >> Karen Eastman and, uh, Brad Olsen. Thank you for reminding me. Um, and, um, Betty
and Desi and Cheryl Dagner and, you know, um, >> Wanda Fortune uh, commissioner and Geette Barnes, commissioner. Yeah, it it was a really heartwarming event. And if anyone has any interest in contributing,
participating to something like that in the future, I know uh Councilman Boyer would like to maybe get something going couple times a year, maybe quarterly. So, you can reach out to him. Um and he will will help you help us. That's all I have. Thanks.
>> Great. Thank you. Other comments from council. real quick. One one one gentleman came up to me that night and he said, "You know, I don't know if I'm going to make it into heaven, but tonight might be the closest I ever got." And he said, "I haven't been in a suit in 25 years >> and uh it was very uh very moving." So,
Jamal, nice work. And all the volunteers, I I can't take credit for that one at all. So, great job. >> Other comments? >> The picture, Mike, with you and your wife though was amazing. Like y'all dancing. And I was like, "Look at this
guy with a bow tie." >> Yeah. No, I appreciate the invite. It was amazing. I mean, I'll just echo it. That was, >> you know, you you do this job and um you know, you take a lot of incoming. It's part of the job. And and I think a few
people said it, it makes you better. It comes with the territory. Um, sometimes it's not so fun, but uh, but there are events every now and then like that event that I was so privileged to be invited to. It made you smile from,
you know, ear to ear. It was just so great. And uh thank you Councilman Ber for setting that up and Councilman Smallwood who's not here for um for uh doing the catering and such and and all the people at the uh who lived there who
just got involved and it was just spectacular. Red carpet, you know, they had lights and music and photographer >> bineers >> bineers. It was just really really special. the the attention to detail that those people put into making that
really amazing is great. But it does bring up like for the Summit Housing Authority that Councilman Ber talks about, you know, sadly with all the rent that those people pay, they don't even have a program director. You know, it's it's like, are you kidding me? Um, you know, these little
things that Councilman Boyer's really dug in that, you know, it's just it's it's not unfortunate. that's, you know, bordering on like ineptitude that they can't do this for these people. So, um I
appreciate you, Councilman Ber, um for um you know, bringing all this to light. It's important. They're important part of our community and they deserve better. They really do. Um >> uh just a couple other things. I want to thank um Miss Arcino and Mr. Zeber. It's
always great to hear of uh improvements that we can make to our our community from a safety perspective. So, thank you for your comments to the both of you. Um, one thing I will just say around representation, I think, uh, Diego, you
you talked about that a little bit. Um, I don't look at it the same way. People up here represent everyone. If you don't, maybe you should think about why you're here. You know, I know
everybody up here thinks that way. Um, everyone RD, it doesn't matter. That's why you're here. You know, I have meetings all the time with people I know didn't vote for me 10 years ago and probably wouldn't vote for
me now. That's okay. I represent them. They deserve to be listened to. Everyone in the community deserves to be listened to. And we represent the community. We don't represent a team. And I say that often like when we vote on things, the
majority is whoever votes for it. Doesn't matter, you know, when when when uh Rosemary writes down like who voted for what, there's no R or D next to their name.
They're council people, and that's the way it should be. Um, we represent everyone and I wish I've said this on numerous occasions that our local politics could calm down
to me. It's crazy. It's nuts. Um, no one should spend as much time on local politics and being frantic and crazed about it as as we do. It's not healthy. Hug your kid. Go to a soccer game. do
something instead of typing on Facebook the entire time. It's nuts. That being said, I get it. You know, people get passionate about things. We have a couple more weeks. Um, go out and vote. Everyone should vote. It's a, you know, um, a lot of places in the world, you
don't get that right. We do. Express your opinion peacefully through the ballot box. It is the best way to promote your views. Um, so, um, I'm going to end it there. Okay. So um do I have a motion to adjurnn?
>> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> I opposed. All right, we are adjourned. Thank you everyone for coming.