Mr. Tur uh Mr. Town attorney, can you read the open Well, I can just read the open spoken exact statement. >> Thank you, Mayor. Got it up, mayor, if you'd like.
>> I got it. I'll just I'll just do it. The notice requirements of a public meetings act have been satisfied with respect to this meeting of the town of council. Meeting time and date were included in the public meeting notice along with the public internet link and telephone call information including the meeting agenda was posted to the municipal building and
sent to the official newspapers of the township times and the star ledger at least 48 hours preceding the start time of this meeting. Real comment period will be held in the order that's listed on the meeting agenda and instructions on how to comment will be provided at the appropriate time. Mr. Aloy, I will
ask you to call the role. >> Sure. >> I'm going to go the order of my screen. So, Councilwoman McGrath >> here. >> Uh, Councilman Roman >> here. >> Deputy Mayor Makavoy >> here. >> Mayor Tambbor >> here.
>> And Councilwoman Holland >> here. Mayor, everybody's in attendance as well as myself. And as you know, the clerk will be joining us shortly. And I see both our manager, just our managers here, right? I don't see the deputy >> as well as various members of the police
department and the fire department. >> That's correct. >> This time, I'll ask everybody to rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic it stands nationisible and justice for all. Okay. All right. Um at this time we're going to move right into unfinished business. This is a special meeting for the council to uh deliberate regarding the
um the public safety complex. Um the chair will recognize Councilman Roman. >> Uh yes, Mayor. I just wanted to inform you that um I intend to recuse myself from this discussion as I own property that is immediately adjacent to this parcel. Um so I would like to ask be
demoted back down to a public member for this meeting if I could. >> Thank you, Council Roman. Um, Mr. Manager, could you You already did. I think we've disappeared. Councilman Roman. Okay. Um,
in order for the point of this meeting is for the township council to be able to have a conversation with our township manager, our architect and representatives from our police and fire services in order to better understand
the building, discuss uh the needs, different points of different rooms, costs and all of those things that will affect decisions made related to this public safety complex. effects. In order to do that, I am asking the
council to engage in a parliamentary practice called meeting as the committee of the whole, which simply allows us to have a more conversational meeting. We do not take any official action as the committee of the whole, but it really just allows that back and forth to exist so we can all communicate with one
another more like any normal meeting that we would that we would have. I'll still facilitate the meeting um and uh and call on people as much as I can. There will be some times where council members won't need to be called on and that has been stipulated in an email, but uh would somebody make the motion to
meet as the committee of the whole? Well, I I guess I'll make the motion. Would somebody second that that motion to meet as the committee of the whole? The deputy mayor second. >> Second. >> All right. Uh just for the four council members, just all those in favor just raise your hand if you are in favor.
Okay. And they're none opposed because we don't have any hands left. All right. At this point, just for the the public edification, um our agenda is as follows this evening. We will hear from Mr. Msino, from solutions
architecture, who's the uh the township um architect for this project um and from our township manager. that point, the council will have the opportunity to ask some questions. Um, I will be calling on council members. We're going to rotate um who gets called on first
and so on just to make sure it's fair. If a council member asks a question to one of our experts that is joining us tonight um and they have a follow-up question, that council member can just ask a follow-up question to that response. Um, and you can really
continue asking questions of the uh Mr. Vidio or the manager or whatever uh or whomever um as long as you need to just to have that conversation. Uh if another council member wants to address a point related to a point that you've brought
up, just ask that council member to raise a uh a hand to be recognized. A virtual hand would be helpful if you're in the middle of conversation just because people are moving on Hollywood Squares here. Um so uh just let me you know just let me know if you have
something in there and we'll we'll recognize you on that. Um at that point once those comments are done members of Rona Police Department will present on specific items in the plans that relate to the police department. Um and after
we'll do blocks of rooms by blocks of rooms. So, we'll talk about everything in the in the um the processing area at once and then we'll move on to the patrol area, the dispatch area, etc. Um just so we're not going one room by the next. Um and once again, we'll go
through with questions and answers and have that discussion. Members of the the fire department will then present their portion of the facility followed by questions and then there'll be some discussion. any council member can bring up any items. If a member of the um of
the emergency services has a point that they have written down that wasn't necessarily a question that comes to their mind, they should feel free to also raise a virtual hand to be recognized. So, uh you can point out as well. We don't want this to be a one-way conversation. If something comes into
your mind, um feel free to bring it up later or at the end of when your group is is able to present. Um and we'll have a discussion at that point. It is unlikely that we'll take any official action this evening. Um but because we
want the building what it turns out to be, whether it's whatever the concept ends up by being um that's really we're discussing at this point is is the is the concept and um and that and the costs associated with it. But if anybody wanted to potentially remove something
from the project or make a change as a council, I'm going to ask for a a motion uh which wouldn't really be official action because this is deliberative, right? Um so I'll ask for a motion to do that just so we can make sure that we're have a consensus of the council to do that.
Otherwise, if one or two council members say something and it ends up by changing the plans, it may not fully be representative of what the entire council wants. And those will just be um you know, we can do those by hand motion or by voice depending on on what the
person making a motion wants to do. Um and then once all that is concluded, we will have an opportunity for public comment on anything anybody wants to discuss. Obviously, we'll ask the public to try to focus your comments on the the facility. After the public comment, um,
we'll have the opportunity for the experts in those areas. All the public comment will happen at once. Um, I've asked the fire and police and management and architectural representatives as well as the council members to record questions and items as they happen. Um,
suppose we want to have a cross dialogue and then we'll respond to all of those things again um and uh and answer those comments. Um, there may be a need for public, I'm sorry, for executive session at the conclusion. That'll be up to the township manager or any council member
who wishes to go into executive discuss an item that is not public that is related to legal items or or anything like that to bring up and we can have an executive session. That is the procedure for this evening's meeting. I appreciate everybody going along with it. This is
one of the first times that we've had a larger meeting like this um in order to have one of these conversations. So, we certainly ask the public to bear with us as we do this. And really, we are working in the interest of the public here to try and make sure that everybody is fully understanding all of the
requests so that the council can continue um discussing this process in the future. Does anybody among the panel of 16 have any questions about the procedure of the meeting prior to us going? Councilwoman McGrath. >> Um, thank you. Um, the only thing that
gives me pause is the concept that we tonight would be talking about removing any aspects of the building. I do think tonight is a evening of learning. I love this panel and I want to thank everyone
for taking time out of what is typically a tip a very slow month um for um and a busy month with vacations and spending time with family um to be at this meeting tonight. Um but I do have a little pause in your process in terms of
um taking any hand votes because again I I did not think we were taking any official action this evening. Um, and also I would really like to hear from the public and really marinate on everything that we discussed tonight before we go in a direction of making
decisions on the building. So, that's where I have some pause um with the process that you've outlined. I'm really excited to get into it, but um I don't think I'm ready tonight um and nor do I think it's a little premature. There's a lot of new information that we haven't
seen. So, I would I would love for us to keep it discussion only and then maybe save decisions for a future official meeting. Thank you. >> Thank you. And as I said, that would only come up if a council member wanted to bring something up. Um, and as I I think I pointed out in my email prior
that um this was not the only time to do that. So, if no council member brings anything up, then there's no vote to be had, right? uh and I tend to agree that having some time to discuss, but if there for some reason we had a conversation and a consensus appeared on doing something that everybody agreed on
the meeting, there's no reason not to take action if everybody's in agreement. We just need to record that everybody's in agreement. So, I I do appreciate your comment then. Um and um we'll just uh move on with that. >> And mayor, if I may. Yes, M.
>> I know you you you said it very clearly earlier. Um, but the counciloman, you both kind of indicated that maybe action would be taken today. Just to be clear, it's not action. Even if the council does vote, it's more direction to the administration that, hey, we'd like to see our plans tweaked in this manner for
further consideration, but this meeting is not a meeting which any actual official action will be taken. the only the only official action the the council can take on this building is approving it or not approving it and dealing with the financing of that. So that's why
we're meeting as the committee of the whole which prevents us from taking any official action. Um so everything that we're doing here is deliberative for that reason. So >> great. I just wanted to make sure was clear. Thank you. >> Um so we will we'll get right into it.
At this point, we will turn the meeting over to Mr. O'Sullivan and Mr. Msino. >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I I'll be brief. I know Frank's prepared some materials to
present this evening. Um, I think his materials will provide some additional context on the overall project. It will help uh provide some benchmarking and comparisons and we'll provide some additional explanation on the breakdown
of costs and next steps that need to be taken after he presents on those items as he suggested. Uh we will pause and and be able to answer any questions on that and then we can get into the building and and uh the next parts of the discussion. But having said that, I'll turn the meeting over to Frank. Uh
Frank, you should have the ability to share your screen at this point. >> Okay. Uh good evening everyone. Mr. Mayor, council, uh first responders. I am going to share my screen.
I don't have permission. I need to get permission to share the screen. Kev, it's saying only the host can share. >> You're muted, Kev. Try try it again now. >> I got it. Okay, perfect.
Can all of you see the screen that says council project review? >> We can I can. >> Okay. So, let's continue. I want to just kind of go through some things briefly. I want I want you guys to have an understanding of you know that
everything that was designed here wasn't something that we thought of it. You know it's anything that is designed for modern police facility in 2025 is expected to have functional spaces that meet operational needs and a lot of the guidelines come from the international
association and the chiefs of police as well as state regulations. Same thing with modern fire station facilities. They have their own required spaces. they're they they follow NFPA standards and best practices from other other volunteer departments. So, you know,
these these designs have come from a lot of the data and a lot of the information that comes from from those those sources, including for the as far as the police department, you know, NJAC 10A34, which is the guidelines for detention,
proper cell construction, sally ports, and aligning with those guidelines. So the that's how we got to this point. When we start to add modern features like shared uh emergency operations centers or fitness gym and well and resiliency rooms, those are what's
considered best practices in design for public safety buildings. So that's kind of where a lot of this stuff came from. I'm not going to go over all this stuff, but we know the need. We know the need exists with the deficiencies and the fact that the police building lacks
almost, you know, many of the most basic of recommended needs. Same thing with the fire department. It's in disrepair and it lacks adequate space. So, from a priority standpoint, you've seen this before, adequate program square footage was our number one
priority. Increased efficiency and performance was also a priority as well as shared program spaces and operational cost savings. When we start to look at the expectations, one of the things I want to make clear to you all is what you're looking at is not a final design by any
stretch of the imagination. It's conceptual only. We are providing an idea of what these spaces can look at. And our key focus is and has been to understand those program spaces that are needed as they fit into a general footprint of the building on the site
we've designated and to ultimately prepare a budget and the building for cost approval. However, once approval is received, we'll be conducting meetings with the design team, architects, engineers, the departments, police and fire, the administration to design each
individual spaces, looking at needs, finishes, furniture, equipment, and the feel of the room. So, things are going to change from what you're looking at. Room sizes may shift, things may change. That's what happens during the design process. The same part is that there's
going to continue to be increases in cost. So the sooner we get this out, the better we are. Based on our original schedule when Joe Dearco was here, we wanted to be out to bid by now. So the longer we wait, these numbers have to be
adjusted from where they are now. And we want to try to continue while we're while we're in the in the forefront. As far as next steps are concerned, an RFP is being prepared for construction management firms which is which are required due to the size of this project. That firm is going to look at
these plans, look at the budget. They're going to make uh you know uh informed uh recommendations in order to seek and gain greater efficiencies and possibly save money. Site engineering and site design must also advance because there's additional wetlands permits that need to
be done as well as construction plans. The goal moving forward would be to schedule those meetings with the design teams, get a site work package out first so that the site work can start and then finalized with an architectural design package.
So let's talk about some of the benchmarks that we followed when we were looking at the building and building design. So for a police building in New Jersey, uh based on the number of officers and employees, the typical
range per staff is 400 to 600 square ft. Our facility with 21,790 ft and 47 staff is about 464 square foot per staff, which is at the low end of that range. For for the firehouse, this
and this is firefighters and staff. It's 300 to 500 square feet. Ours is 209 square feet um for the 34 staff per capita. The range for a a facility like this is 2 to 3 and a half square foot
per capita. And right now our buildings coming in at 2.69 foot per capita. So again, right in the middle of the range. While they fall within those benchmarks, the total building size is appropriate. It may be slightly above average, but it's a combined facility in a town of
this population. And we're also looking for amenities and long-term capacity so that you're not looking at this a few months down the road. I've included just by comparison as far as that square foot per staff, uh the new Providence Police
headquarters because that was brought up to us and that's about 783 square feet per uh per per person. Um, so it it's a much larger number than where we are in terms of the building they constructed.
These are some comparative facility benchmarks and there's interestingly enough there aren't a significant number in our area of combined facilities. So on the left you're looking at fire departments who were benchmarked. Um, you know, these are you know uh
Fairfield was uh the police uh building only. Uh it's West Caldwell was a separate firehouse. Cedar Grove, you know, they just built a new firehouse. It's 3500 square feet. The combined for the for the per capita is, you know,
0.56. So these are numbers that don't quite jive with what we're looking at. And you know, Summit 32,000 square ft. When you start to look at the individual fire and police, you're looking at 1.17, 1.68, 1.45.
So when we look at our numbers and we start to look at the the population of Arona being 15,000 and our allocated square footage of the facility to police being 30,875, our square foot per capita is 2.06.
Um, and that includes, you know, the shared facilities, the resiliency room, the virtual uh virtual training room, the dispatch, as well as the fire. Looking at the fire at 10,000 square ft allocated, um, it's only 67 per capita.
So, when you start to look at these numbers, it slightly exceeds the the peers, but due to those specialized spaces and the fact that it's a dual facility, we don't have a lot of dual facilities to compare against. As far as square foot benchmarks, when
we start to look at police function, you're looking at about 23,150 ft, which is 57% of the building. When you're looking at fire, it's 8410, which is about 21% of the building. Shared spaces are about 5,800 square ft, uh,
which are about 15%. And then common area is about 7%. So you're looking at shared and common areas of about 22%. So we looked at that to evaluate whether we had excess there. In a facility like this combined circulation lobby, meeting
rooms, storage rooms, and mechanical rooms, uh shared spaces typically make up 20 to 25% of gross floor area for a building. This figure includes common and shared zones. At 22%, the allocation is slightly right in the middle um of
the normal range. It suggests elements like the courtyard and shared spaces may be tilting that number up. Uh during the design and meetings with the construction manager, obviously we can tighten these things up and address them in more detail.
So let's talk a little bit about the program spaces and which are required and which are optional based upon the regulations that we looked at in terms of the chiefs of the planning guidelines or the chiefs of police, the department of corrections. So the top half of this
document, all the spaces that you see listed, public lobby, records, interview rooms, dispatch, uh briefing, roll call, report writing, all of those spaces at the top half of the sheet are required. And if you look at what's included in the design, the majority of them, with
one exception, the report writing area is included in the design. And the reason that's a no is because that's included in the patrol reporting room. So, we're trying to, you know, gain efficiency through one area or another. It may not be a specific call out. Where
we do have the the continued number of of yeses is in the fitness, wellness, training, resiliency and quiet room, emergency operations center, and the training room uh the virtual uh situation training room. So, there's a
number of spaces that are optional, but they do lend value to the design. When we look at the fire department and the program spaces versus design, you're going to see that there's a significant number of spaces that are required um
for a firehouse, but in some cases they may be career firehouses and we we are not that. So for example, the watch office, which is the first no, it would be for a career department. Um the administrative offices, chief officers, um they're using the officer's
administrative room. The the dayroom lounge, that's our ready room. The kitchen and dining, that's our ready room. So, we're using similar spaces. Locker rooms, we've adjusted them for the male female ratio. Uh laundry,
workshop, medical um medical supply storage is currently not needed. So these are things that you know are not you know are not being provided if if there we went through the programming process. As far as optional the training room is supports drills and it's shared
with the PD bunk rooms and quiet rooms um we are using that uh uh you know officer's room administrative officer room if the need arises for overnight standby or office space. The hose tower and drying rack we have a hose room in
the in the bay in the bay area. So we have partial for that. And then the fitness wellness room is also a shared space with PD and and that the intent there is just to maintain health and reduce injury. So that that's how we got to all of the
the the program elements that are in this building. In terms of size and quantity, there are also criteria for that. you know, janitor's closets, they typically want to see 100 to 125 square feet per floor of janitor's closets
spread out throughout a floor. Our model is slightly higher than that because of the various secure locations we have on this plan. So, other things like toilet rooms, there are toilet plumbing fixture counts that need to be h need to be uh need to occur. But with a combined
combined facility, plumbing fixture counts are actually they receive an increase ratio because fire's going to use theirs, police is going to use theirs. There's going to be separate rooms, individual rooms, so they receive a higher amount. So I know there were
questions on the number of toilet facilities throughout the facility, but a lot of that is mandated and we don't have a lot of control over it. So that goes into the building and the programming. I mean, we could stop there if you want and and see if there's any questions based on what I just covered
and then we can roll into costs. Does that make sense, Mr. Mayor? >> Yep. That's that's fine. Mr. Vino, if you could just stop sharing for a minute, though, so I can see the >> Let me do that. Okay,
stop sharing. Bear with me. There we go. Okay, stop share. >> All right. Any questions, Missino, on any of those items before we continue on the cost piece.
Okay. All right, Frank, you can share again. >> All righty. Okay. So, as we get into the the cost projections, one of the things that we've done is we've kind of created this pie chart that shows the the cost of these the the building. So, our building
in essence, building construction alone is $25.2 million. It's not a 39 or $40 million building. The building itself, the construction of the components of the building is $25.2 million.
When you look at um the other costs, you'll see that there's $4.1 million, $4.2 million in site and preparation costs. Now, we have a lot of walls. You've heard us talk about retaining walls and drainage and things like that.
We have a slope site, so that number may be above average for site work for a flat anise flat site, but it is a $4.2 million number. When you get into soft costs, soft costs include the architectural, the engineering, the
legal fees, the uh construction manager which is required by uh by the uh statute because of the size of this building and the cost of the building. You are required to procure a construction management firm. So we we included a budget for that construction
manager. soft costs, direct expenses on the project, as well as testing, soils testing, borings. All of those costs are included in that $5.2 million soft cost number. There's also required a contingency. Our contingency varies. It
in in this in this particular case, you'll see that it's um you know, it could be up to 10% in certain areas on the cost of the building uh as well as the cost of other equipment. So, we're looking at a $3 million in in
contingency. That's your money. That only gets spent if there's a need arises during the cost the the course of construction, but that money needs to be budgeted for as well. And then finally, we have specialized furniture and equipment. We're dealing with a police
and fire facility. We're not just putting furniture, desks, and chairs in. We have gear. We have specialized communications equipment. All of that for a new facility has been calculated into the costs and we're looking at about 1.5 million for that specialized
furniture and equipment. That's TVs, that's uh you know radios, that's an antenna on the roof if we need it. Those are things that are all part of this part of this construction budget. So when you look at 39,251,000, that is soup to nuts. That is everything
included in this project. you walking away or occupying this building without having to go out and buy TVs to put on the wall, without having you to, you know, get a phone vendor in to set up your phones. Um, so that's where we are
in terms of projected cost from that perspective. As you look at the breakdown of where those other costs came from or where those numbers that you just looked at came from, you're looking at that budgeted construction cost of 30,916,000. So your site is 4.2, your building is
21.2, the specialized furnishings and equipment are 1.5, soft costs, you know, for each of those phases, for each of those areas is 5.2 million. The contingency is that 3 million and the total cost is 39,251.
Now, the the construction cost per square foot equates to about $765 a square foot for a job this size. Um, and again, there's complexities to this job. G, the site and and the the the slope site as well as the drainage issues and
the retaining that increases our costs per square foot for a building like this. These the numbers that you're going to see for taxes are all all the cost projections are based on a four and 3/4% interest rate uh over a 30-year term
through the ECIA funding. And obviously we know that rates may vary by the time the project is actually financed, but recent sales have been under four. So let's talk about that tax impact. One of the things I did want to make sure
that everyone was aware is that at the 39,251,000 number, we were looking at a total cost per year of $349 for the the the average assessed home uh in Verona. That equates to $29 a month. For every million dollar
of cost in this project, either added or subtracted, you're looking at $8 uh or.70 a month. For every $3 million of cost, either added or subtracted, it equates to $26 or $2 a month. And um uh
for every $5 million, it's $48. Uh so this is what the the the tax impact per dollars of cost is when you look at those numbers for to include this 40,410T facility, police and fire, site work,
retaining walls, parking, entry drive, all the necessary upgrades. Um you're looking at that $39 million project and $3.49 or $29 a month. And and again the reason for looking at those other numbers as well as they come
into play with these is in order to significantly reduce the tax impact or the cost per the building. We would need to significantly remove program elements from this building. It's not about changing a room by 400 square ft. It's
about wholesale changes in order to make significant changes in the dollar amounts we're talking about. And so we're done. That's cost. You know, you want to stop and see if there's any questions on that.
>> Um why don't we see if we get any >> Okay. >> virtual hand so you don't have to do the share not share thing again. >> No problem. >> I don't see any. But I >> I do have a question. Mr.
if we we can just on some of these some of these items the um >> I just want to clarify that with that number the $761 I think per square foot that that doesn't mean that if we eliminate one square foot from the
building we're saving $762 right it's very dependent on where that square footage is and what the impact of it is >> and I think that's something important so we can't take the square footage of a room and divide it by you know multiply by that amount and say, "Okay, this is the savings on a room." That is one
important just clarification I want to make sure everybody everybody has. Do you have something to add to that? Cuz I have a followup, right? >> Yeah. No, that's that isn't a very accurate point because that is only the construction uh number one. $765 is only the construction number. So if we change
a room and the and the equipment gets changed and the you know building components that doesn't include soft cost contingency and the other numbers associated with that that dollar value. So you know those are it's not as simple as that and removing a first floor wall
that's foundationbased and removing a second floor wall that's not is a different cost altogether. The >> the second question I I had related to that I you know you had brought up the site work obviously it's a
you know that there is a slope associated with the property um and site work on the building itself is certainly more the bigger the building is. Right? So if we were to move let's say movable items
obviously we can't put the fire apparatus bays on the second floor because of physics and things like that. Right. But if we were to say move some of the items on the first floor to the second floor to reduce the footprint of the building, would that have a proportionate decrease in site costs and
things like that? Or is there really not that much of a of a change? >> So let's say we put a couple rooms upstairs. Would that have a much higher savings than than not? >> It's a two-prong answer. The first part
of it is I don't think that you have the the number of rooms that you would need to stack especially because the first floor is predominantly bays bays for fire bays for the the the vehicle um evidence vehicle uh garage and the
Sallyport garage. So, a good portion of the first floor is bays and obviously as you as you said before, we can't p bring those upstairs. But some of the other rooms that we've already shrunk the second floor to get more rooms off the first floor. We've pulled rooms from the
second floor and we haven't been able to shrink the first floor because of the the elements that are on the first floor. So, it would be very difficult to reduce the first floor footprint. I mean, I'm not saying it can't be done, but I don't know that the impact would
be as great as you would hope. >> Um, just one other one followup on that. A lot of how much do you think of the site work is related to the the parking and the parking needed to be graded versus the building itself? So, the
building is going is a little less slope where the parking is going is a lot more slope. Is that part of the problem, the parking lots there? >> Well, we we actually did expand the parking in the back area and we've managed to because of the expansion managed to not create a two-level
parking lot anymore. We used to have a two-level with kind of a second tiered slope. Now, the parking in the back other than that extended section is all on one level. But yes, the parking does have a big impact because we are putting a large retaining wall towards the back
of the site. As we as we cut down to keep things at a at a valid level. Um then you know obviously the retaining wall gets higher that means the construction of that wall is a little bit more uh comprehensive than it would be if it was only a three-foot wall.
>> All right. Thank you. Uh Deputy Mayor Makavoy. >> Yes. Frank, I just want to go back. You mentioned something earlier about uh site work and you mentioned wetlands. >> Yeah, >> I know we we did Can you just elaborate
on that or I thought we were past that and we had approval. >> Yeah. Well, we we did we Yes. To your point, we did go through a preliminary um analysis of the wetlands and we were told that, you know, it's not going to impact the site, but we still have to
get the permits in order to build the project. So wetlands permits are still needed. Um we got an approval to say yes, go ahead, but you still need to submit for the permitting. Um that permitting goes when the site plan is completed and submitted and you're
basically on construction, you know, working on construction documents, but that's the next step. >> Okay. And to follow up on what you ended on before about moving rooms. >> Yeah. Uh I noticed you know is there a
way we can to reduce footprint move some of the rooms to the second floor because we have a lot a large part of the building that has roof just the first floor roof. uh such as in front of
the I believe it was the meeting room going uh south. So basically the parking lot side of that like what are there any of the rooms from the first floor we can move to second floor? >> So if I'm looking at you guys can see
the first floor right? >> Yes. >> Okay. So on the first floor, the >> above the bay >> above the above the bay, this line that you're looking at right here, that's right now the second floor line. We've already cut this back.
>> So the second floor line exists here and here, >> but it doesn't come all the way out over the bay. >> No, it doesn't. In fact, we've reduced the second floor to to not come over the bay. So, in order to shrink in or even if we moved some of the some of these
floors upstairs, we still have the width of this bay and the width of this bay. So, we're not going to be able to shrink the building in this direction because the bays are the biggest component. We might be able to lop off a corner in the
back and move those two rooms upstairs, but you know, these happen to be, you know, functions for, you know, patrol storage and, you know, the fire. But, um, you know, their their equipment, but uh, yeah, I mean, again, Mr. Makavoy,
anything can be looked at. It's just when you start to look at some of the larger spaces, we've already cut the second floor back. Originally, this building was a square. Now this building is here and the second floor cuts all the way back to the stair.
I so >> kind of thought forward on this and thought like do we need a big uh atrium in the center like if things shrunk going that way to shift over and my point of asking if something can be
moved to the second floor I'm thinking uh like fire department quiet room uh how common is it to have a ready room on the second floor like those if they went over can the building shift.
>> Yeah. I mean, it's not typically common to have the ready room on the second floor. It's typically an area next to the bays. Quiet room possibly. Um that although that's functioning, it's no longer really the quiet room. It's functioning as office space. And you know, it's it's available for overnight,
but it is definitely office and administrative. >> Okay. All right. I'm going to hold off on questions till I hear from the other departments. >> Okay. >> Thank you, C. Councilwoman McGreth, >> thank you. I just I wanted to go back on
um doing the project kind of asynchronous asynchronously with doing the site work. So, if we can we do all of the site work if we don't know exactly the building's
footprint? I mean, how would that work? like how much site work can get done prior to us settling on a design? That's my question. >> So the the this this site work analysis is really uh and our our adaptation to
do site work first is really because we've and I don't want to we've lost time. So I we're trying to make up time and if we're waiting to design this entire building, our site engineer has a good idea what the building is. As long
as we know what the footprint is, a a good amount of site work, in fact, most of the site work can be done. And we're talking about detention basins, drainage systems, you know, the retaining walls, uh footings, as long as the foundation is done is is you know, the location of
the perimeter walls of the building are known. uh you know what happens inside the building doesn't matter from a site work perspective and typically you know getting the site ready can advance time significantly while the rest of the building's being designed and it's done
a lot on big facilities like this >> okay and I just want to make a comment um I know you're referencing that we lost time and I am also frustrated with the length of this project but I think we have to that wasn't that wasn't time lost because of the council I mean we
went months without So I just want to say it's just how the project was led that you know time has been lost because we've been waiting a long time to actually get to this conversation. So I understand the need though, especially
considering how costs are escalating. The proposal to do things asyncy may be smart. Excuse me, I'm tongue tied today. That that may be a smart and prudent way to go forward, but I just want to um say that you know like you
know um I understand that but we still don't have an agreement on the design. So thank you. >> Understood. And I I wasn't suggesting that it was the council. I I was just suggesting that you time is moving. >> Time is moving. Yes. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Councilwoman Holland. >> Thank you. I just want I mean I recognize that Mr. Msinio that you still have a few more pages left of your slide. Would it be helpful for you to complete your presentation and then take the remainder of the questions
afterwards? I do have a number of questions but they are related to the presentation overall and so I just wanted to understand how best to do that. >> Well, the next phase is really going through the concept and that would be walking through room by room as the
mayor suggested with the police and fire commentary on the spaces that we're walking through. So I I am not sure what your questions are about but if they're before you know from the stuff before if you want to we want to cover that that'd be great. Okay. So, first of all, thank
you for being here this evening. I I do appreciate it. Um I know it's an abnormal time. Um and it is the middle of the summer, so it's not particularly convenient for most parties. Um I also just want to acknowledge that I only
received your final presentation minutes before the start of this council meeting. So, some of my questions are based on some of the feedback that we got from residents um as well as um my review of your prior presentations. So,
I'm going to ask you to at times accord um your prior presentation with your presentation this evening um because I think that would be really helpful for me. Um, and I do have a number of questions. Um, and it's not to be argumentative, but it is to just get certain things into the discussion, into
the record, um, in the spirit of collaboration and transparency. Um, so one of the things that you know, I know that we've spoken to you in the past and that for the first time this evening, you're presenting some of the
benchmarking, but we did get specific resident feedback requesting that you speak about your personal experience with emergency services buildings um, and projects, you know, such as this. Um, so if you could speak to that a little bit, I think that would be really
helpful to to level set for the beginning of this discussion. >> So I I mean I've worked on a number of emergency services buildings. Uh we uh you know when when I was with another firm, we worked on I was the project manager for the Bridgewater uh township
municipal building and police complex. It was a multi- multi- uh disciplinary complex including courts, fire, police. Um, and you know, we worked on that. Um, we're architect of record for, uh, multiple municipalities in the area,
including North Codwell. Uh, we did a facilities analysis to do this very same kind of project, either renovate the existing or build new. Um, we've worked in Fairfield. We did a complete 6,000 square foot gut renovation uh for the
Fairfield Police Department in in their existing position. Ex. And that was after analyzing the um the ability or need to uh construct a new facility on an adjacent property. Um so um you know
we've done work there. We just completed work at the Essex Fellows Police Department. Uh so we've got we've got a a degree of experience with uh projects of this nature from small to large. Um and you know this is no different. you know, this is obviously a very big
undertaking uh that includes police fire or it originally included police fire and EMS. Um so, you know, we're using the the guidelines available to us uh and best practices that we're familiar with in order to come up with what we came up with here.
>> Thank you. And just to just one other uh point to note with regard to the building itself and the design criteria, we had a meeting with the Department of Corrections early on in this project. It's one of the things that we do when we're working on uh police and and you
know emergency services buildings is we try to bring in the authorities uh that you know have jurisdiction over these projects as early on in the design process as possible to get their feedback. and they were, you know, their reviews of our project were that it it
checked all the boxes. It met all the needs um you know, that a modern, you know, 20 police department and and uh fire department and at the time it was EMS uh would meet would need in uh 2024 2025.
>> Thank you. I think that's really helpful. Um this is I I think I had already mentioned but this is the first time I I believe we've seen some of the benchmarking materials that that you've produced in this slide deck. Um would you be able to provide some of those
underlying materials um in record documents for the council's review? I'd be really curious. Um you mentioned the Fairfield facility and I think that may have been on your list. Um, but I'd be really interested in seeing some of these other facilities and the analysis
behind what ultimately got into your slide. >> Um, yeah, I mean a lot of them were taken from local municipalities. So, not all of them were facilities that I've worked on personally. So, and there is a resource uh where we receive the
information on those facilities. At the end of the presentation, there is a a resource um guide. it tells you where these these sources came from. But whatever I'm whatever I am privy to and the documents that I do have, I will gladly provide to the council. >> Thank you.
>> You're welcome. Um so at um in the June 23rd presentation which ultimately led to this meeting today, there was discussion about you know the clear failure of the police facilities to meet basic requirements of the police
facilities planning guidelines. There was also further discussion about failing to meet the requirements of the department of corrections. Your slides also talked about failing to meet criterion uh based on adequate space was the quote used. Um, at the July 10th
meeting, I had requested a comprehensive document detailing all of the requirements referenced and I have not received that and your document also indicated um your prior slides uh from June 23rd had also indicated that you
had performed detailed written evaluations um regarding kind of these failures. Um I see that you've skipped back. I think it's actually your current slide 13 where there's an attempt at detailing some of the requirements. Um, and so on
your current slide 13, you you appear to be providing a portion of what I had asked for, which would have been nice. I did ask for it over a month ago, but I did receive it minutes before this meeting. But, um, >> I'm not sure what slide 13 you're talking to, Councilwoman.
>> Slide 13 in the presentation. >> Yeah. So go >> this this square foot benchmarks. >> No, it shows up as slide 13 out of 26 when I'm viewing it as a PDF. There you go. >> N >> this one. >> Yep. >> So this isn't this is these are program
spaces based upon the international chiefs of police planning guidelines. That's those are those are the program spaces that those are those don't have anything to do with our you know um analysis of the facility. But why I switched back to the slide in the
beginning is because these are the deficiencies. There is no sallyport in the or secure detainee entrance in the police department. Currently there is definitely no separation of detainee staff or detainee public. Um they're
mixed. There's no confidential interview rooms. They're doing interviews for domestic violence in the lunchroom. Um there there's no secure >> I I would just like to just respectfully I I can read the slide. I would just like if I can just stop you for a moment because I I don't want to belabor this
point. >> Okay. >> Where this is confusing is that here you are saying that these are recommended program elements. You know this is recommended program elements. That's what's on your slide right now. On
another page they're called requirements. It is unclear whether the guidelines are in fact mandates or if they are just strong recommendations and they may be bestin-class and maybe that is the appropriate thing to do. But I really want clarification about what in
fact is a mandate and where there are compliance deficiencies elsewhere in your slides possibly on slide three or four you reference the regulation from the department of corrections. When I try to cross reference that, it's not actually a reference to an individual
regulation. It's the chapter. I would like to understand what the specific requirements are because if we are going to be talking about how we need to update this facility in order to meet these requirements, you had this meeting with the Department of Corrections. I
think it would be really helpful for this council as well as the public to understand specifically what those requirements are because right now a lot of the conversation she seems to shift between guidelines and recommendations and requirements and we're not getting
that clarity and I think that would be tremendously helpful when we're considering a $40 million building. >> This the slide that you're referring to that shows required versus optional is the one that you did point out. So these are the required spaces
>> and the optional spaces are listed below. >> So this is where I you still aren't meeting what I had requested on the Jul at during the July 10th meeting. Well, hold on. I just want to finish my statement just to say I'd like to get an understanding and you don't have to do
it this evening. You can follow up or the township administration can. But I would like to know where those requirements come from. Like are they specific provisions? Do they come from a specific regulation? I think that would be tremendously helpful. And I did ask for that back on July 10th.
>> And and I want to address that because you continue to say that you've asked for it. I have not been informed that you've asked for anything. Otherwise, you would have been provided with whatever information you're looking for. >> And I sincerely appreciate that. I recognize that the township administration and the township manager
sat next to me during the meeting when I requested it. So, and it was on the public record, but it may not have been communicated to you. So, this is not a personal attack on you in any way. This is merely just me wanting to make sure that we have the documents in the record when we're considering this $40 million
building. So, I really appreciate your patience and and the time that you took to put this together. Um, so I did have some additional questions as well and thank you in advance for providing those details to me.
Um there was some discussion also about I guess we'll stay on this slide. Um in the June 23rd presentation which again I'm cross- referencing that because that was the only document that I had when I
had time to prepare for this. Um you had discussed the shared services and the feedbased services. I suspect we'll talk about that further. But here you have them listed as all essentially those are all of the or primarily the optional
items here. Um so what benchmarking has been done regarding these types of services or is is it just that there's really not a lot of benchmarking available for these services? There aren't a lot of benchmarking, but um
you'll you've seen in the previous slides about the fire departments that um training and fitness and and uh training rooms are part of newer firehouses that are being constructed. So there are a few that do have many of these as far as best practices are
concerned. They are not considered requirements under the regulations under NFPA or under the international uh chiefs of police planning guidelines. And um so so again there there's not
necessarily going to be any kind of violation associated with a final building that wouldn't include these facilities. So that that's how I'm understanding that. Is that correct? >> That's correct. >> Okay. Um,
and I guess where well I'll I'll end my line of questioning there because I think the majority of my remaining questions are going to be about specific groups. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. as a uh before we proceed on to the the
police side, I think it's important, especially as we engage more deeply in the process, that if council members have any specific information requesting to make sure to submit written requests so that our experts can point by point uh respond to any items. Sometimes
during a council meeting, you know, making requests can be difficult to respond to. Um, generally I like to submit written requests and I usually get answers to those when I do that. So, it might be a good strategy for all council members to engage in um
really detailing what exactly you're looking for, especially if it's specific documents and things like that. And then I would request that the uh that be transmitted to the clerk and the manager who can forward it to all the council members so we know what's being requested and the responses can be forwarded to all the council members as
well. Um, and that way we could all track what's going on and get our answers to that. Um, that may be a much more efficient way of doing it. Um, and hopefully we can all stay informed. All right, at this point, we'll turn it over
to Chief Kieran um to go section by section and Chief Kieran's team to go section by section on the police side of the building. Chief Kieran, >> good evening everyone. I Good evening.
Frank, if you want to uh advance to the first floor so everyone could see that. Um, thank you everyone for this meeting and and thank you mayor and council. The committee is with me today. Uh, we first
started this committee three years ago. um believe it was April 26th, 2022 was the first official uh meeting with this committee that you see before you. Um since then, we have gone over
different plans. We have visited uh almost 10 different police departments that were built within the last five years. Uh we were looking for hits, misses, regrets, um and successes.
I've also put out numerous uh requests through the New Jersey State Chief's Association on shared buildings, public safety buildings. Uh based on the responses, there's under 10, there's
more likely six that got back to me that had shared space. uh and I traded information with them and uh tried to get a hit list of what worked, what didn't work. Um so we've had numerous communications with buildings that were
just recently built or if they were shared spaces when they were built and and what's needed. So the committee uh has expertise in in each room and researched uh each one
extensively. Um, and basically everything you see here is not only from International Association's Chiefs of Police for buildings, but it's also Verona on what we need, what we use regularly.
Um, as far as the first floor that is up on the screen, uh, I'll take questions if someone has them based on some of those rooms are are self-explanatory. I'll I'll start to go through them. uh processing again is
is uh DOC uh regulated. Uh so there's there's not too much to expand on there. Um that is a closed off processing area which we don't have now which is part of the guidelines. Uh we walk uh detainees
through an area where we also interview people currently. Um so this is set up as per the guidelines. Um, uh, I'm just scanning through it. Uh, dispatch, we have, uh, potential for
expanding, uh, taking over dispatch. Regional dispatch is something we're looking at towards the future. Uh, so we did factor that in and that could even become bigger as we get uh, closer to a plan if this were to be approved. When you see
things like a soft interview room, those are requirements for victims of crimes as well as domestic violence requirements. Uh that is a one area where below dispatch where the people uh you know public would actually be
brought into the secure police facility. Uh the report room is out in the lobby which would keep uh the public out from the inner workings of the police department. Sallyport is those six covered spots. Uh that's a requirement.
Uh something again we don't have now. Is there any questions on the floor uh plan um that's before you? >> Councilman McGrath. >> Yes. Thank you uh thank you chief uh so
much and thank you to the entire uh building committee for all of your hard work and research and for you know walking us through this. Um so I did have a question on the interview rooms. Um obviously there's I see three on the
first floor. Could you um kind of walk through why there are three specifically? They're in different locations and currently in your in your years of experience, you know, what would be a scenario where all three would be used,
you know? Uh, Yep. Um, this is cool feature, by the way. I like the neon um highlighting. Um, I didn't know we could do that on Zoom. Um, yeah. Yeah. So, can you just walk through for the average person, you know, what why three and
what what would be a scenario or how likely would three be used at the same time? >> Yes. So, the room that is uh that we are on right here, the the private report room, victim interview. So, that would be when someone comes in for a report. Um that
could be anything from uh a fraud report, it could be a dispute report. Um, I mean it covers pretty much everything having that room. Right now we walk people into uh our back area where
there's uh detainees and and uh everything else is all kind of merged together in our current facility. This would allow someone to come in uh we would give them resources um in that while we're taking that report. Um
and it would also be uh in the privacy. Some things are confidential, some things are uh you know uh sensitive in nature. So that would be the main room for someone coming in saying I'd like to do a police report and I'd like to speak
to an officer which is a regular occurrence. The soft interview room as it's labeled here is more about uh victims of crimes. So anything again that's sensitive from domestic violence all the way up to uh
you know a degree crime. Um what we need to do is um especially with domestic violence victims uh we need a interview room um and a requirement to call out uh what's called divert which is volunteers
who will speak and and explain options to victims. Um that room would be for that. That's also an area where the person would speak to the judge. Uh currently we have to have them uh speak
to a judge on a taped line. Um that would be done there. A lot of times unfortunately um during these calls the people come in with their children. So that guest waiting could either be uh for a child
or it could be for uh the victim's uh support person who would would come in with them. So that is why there's what's called a quote unquote soft interview room and then the normal report room. As far as in processing, uh that would be
for detainee interviews. Um there's a requirement for um video uh interviews when you interview a detainee uh who is under arrest. So, we
do have that currently. Uh, it's mixed together with the other report rooms. Um, but again, if the detectives were interviewing someone u or even a witness, uh, it has to be on video. Um, and again, all these rooms would would
meet that criteria where there would be video, but that is in the secure area, that other interview room that you see, uh, strictly for detainees or um, persons accused of crimes. Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you.
And then can you go to um like the space for the patrol captain? So I see there's there's a couple offices that also have, you know, like little conference tables. So can you talk about, you know, so so people can have a conversation. Can you
talk about when you've been visiting other facilities, um how you envision an office that's set up like this because this is there's others on the second floor as well. Yes, most rooms and and we currently have tried to adapt them just out of
necessity. Um do have a small table for interviews. Um you know, we have 36 officers uh coming in to see the patrol captain. Um that's one of the busiest doors in headquarters. um an area that the supervisor or an
officer could sit down and speak uh or go over plans um go over reports uh critique uh past incidents. That is just an area where it's a small table where we could sit. We've we've done that in several uh current offices that
we have and all the facilities we had most offices were set up this way. >> Okay, great. Um, I think those are my comments for now. I when we get through the second floor, I will have some questions about,
you know, um, our storage facilities in the on the police side, but I think I'll hold them to the second floor. Thank you. >> Okay. You do see a secure storage bay uh in blue. That is for uh police vehicles.
That's m multi-functioning room. Uh we impound uh on average 18 to 20 cars a year, vehicles a year for evidentiary value. That could be anything from a serious motor vehicle accident where the vehicle has to be inspected
uh all the way to crimes um whether it be a stolen car uh that was used in the commission of a crime uh whether it be a victim's car uh if if they were victimized in that vehicle. Uh currently we do not have a facility for that. Um
we secure the vehicle the best we can uh sharing space with public works. Um but it could be problematic for future court cases. Um so that's what that holding bay would be. Uh most of the facilities
that were built do have a secure storage area. This would also double um for the cars uh patrol cars to work on the cars. Currently, we work them on them on the ramp. So, that could be anything from a radar unit that needs to be replaced,
camera wire that goes down. Again, every patrol vehicle has uh close to $30,000 worth of equipment in it. Uh you're going to have things, you know, with numerous drivers and 247 you're going to have things that either shake loose or
break. Um, so rather than send it out at a pretty high hourly rate to some of our vendors who work on them, we try to do our best to work on vehicles. We probably do that maybe uh three to five times a week. Uh we're out there uh
turning wrenches on on different parts uh and different equipment on the vehicle to keep it functioning and not lose it from service. Um, so that's a multi-purpose uh bay area uh
>> based on our needs and based again on holding vehicles for evidentary value. >> Thank you. >> I just um a couple questions chief if possible. the um going back to the interview rooms, I understand the need
for certainly um the more secure room in the processing area and the uh the victim room. I'm just wondering if it would be possible to and of course you can't see what I'm pointing at, but the the hallway between the the police ready
room and dispatch, they put a door there or a door by the staircase or something that secures that area off and then people you know, who do reports could be brought into that conference room that um exists there just to, you know, lock
some of these things down a little bit um because everything's done by key fob anyway, right? And bring people in because you have your restroom facility already there um and stuff like that. But I guess that those restrooms are also shared probably with the uh patrol officers, right? >> Uh yeah, and dispatch
>> and dispatch. So that may not be the the right answer. I'm just looking at looking at first four spaces. I think it's important to look at all of them. Um, another question I got from the public that is important. Um, there was a question about the the Sallyport area,
uh, which is this joint area with the, um, with the police car parking. So, we have to have a secure area so we can drive a car in, gate closes, people can't, you absconded from custody. Um, a lot of police departments just have
one like garage bay for this. Um could you go into a little detail on why having more covered spots is beneficial? Um why this is the model that was uh that was recommended? >> Yeah, it's basically just maximizing the
sally port to make it multifunctioning. Um it's a would be an overhang where we could keep the vehicles out of the element. Um you know currently during shift change obviously um whatever the weather is the officers are going out to those cars. This would just be a a
overhang that's that's also secure obviously with possible, you know, right now we're talking about um mesh walls um just to keep the vehicles out of the element uh make it easier to uh load equipment in and out. There's a
tremendous amount of equipment that comes in and out including weapons uh from shift to shift and also a lot of first aid equipment. So, we're just trying to maximize that space. uh from a sallyport to double as a covered area for vehicles.
>> Do you anticipate that be able to park at least some of the patrol vehicles inside or on a rotating basis will increase the longevity of the the vehicles? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Right. Any other questions on the
the blue part of floor one? Okay. Why don't we move on to floor? Sorry. Uh, Deputy Mayor Mackoy. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Real quick, uh, Chief, looking at the bay, uh, the
police bay, is it possible that that could be incorporated into the Sally Port area? The problem when we use it as a secure holding area, it's not ideal for uh
evidentiary value if we were to put a car into the sallyport. Um it's also we intend this that the Sallyport to be used um you know vehicles to be in and out of there regularly
uh especially depending on the uh weather. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you Frank. Hey >> that's helpful. Moving up to the the second floor, chief.
>> So on the second floor, I'll start in the upper left. Uh this room would be the emergency operations centerconference room. So it' really be a multi-functioning room. Um used more most likely for conference room. Um, you
know, the scenario that I, uh, or the anecdote that I tell a lot is that, uh, we recently, um, the township, uh, allowed us to purchase a 5-year plan for body cams, dash cams, uh, and less lethal, as well as training programs
through Axon, a partnership with Axon. We were literally meeting with different vendors and salespeople in what we call our squad room, which doubles as a uh break room, uh interview room for victims, uh weapons storage room,
weapons cleaning room. It was just a a small anecdote that I said, look what what we're doing here. We had no other area to meet with these vendors and we're making a very important and costly uh decision uh for the township. So obviously everyone knows the need for a
conference room. The emergency operations center uh we do not have one. We currently do it on the hood of a car. Um just as background, anytime there's a planned uh incident with more than 250 people, uh we work on an emergency
operations plan for that incident. That's for uh any type of emergency that would occur there. um any kind of accident that would occur, uh god forbid, act of violence that would occur. Um the emergency operations
center would give us the opportunity to draw up these plans, brief each agency prior to and then also uh hotwash the incident afterwards. uh all the uh police departments that we
visited uh either have the emergency operations center or they lamented that it ended up going in the firehouse or uh rescue squad building. Um they felt it was uh better functioning right there in
uh the police headquarters and in our case it would be also a firehouse. So that is the conference room emergency operations center. Um, moving over to the locker rooms. Uh,
that is based on uh our numbers currently with room to uh expand uh with an eye towards the future. Um, I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Um, next down the hall is uh basically
the um that small room. Uh I'll going to turn it over to uh Lieutenant Chris Shepard who can explain more about the the scenario-based training room and uh equipment that we have and then equipment that we'd like to uh get for
this room. Lieutenant Shepard. >> Uh thanks Chief. Uh first and foremost, good evening everybody. Thank you, council, for allowing the police department's building committee to be here tonight to speak uh on behalf of the entire police department uh and
these rooms that uh we feel are a necessity for this building. Uh when looking at the rooms for this building, the entire committee really did try to maximize each room and its capabilities for the virtual scenario-based training
room. There are three main purposes that this room we will utilize it for. First and foremost, we'll utilize it as a virtual firing range and tactical training area. The room will function as a state-of-the-art training facility and enables officers to train in weapons
proficiency, weapon manipulation, shoot and don't shoot situations, active shooter incidents, room clearing, and other police tactics. This will allow us to train in a controlled environment with repeatable scenarios to build muscle memory and decision-m skills
necessary to respond effectively and appropriately in life-threatening situations. Secondly, we'll utilize this room as a taser training and re-qualification center. Uh this room will provide a safe and controlled space for annual taser
reququalifications, weapon retention drills, and both live and scenario-based exercises. The VPD is currently the only agency in West Essex to equip all of our officers with taser devices and we have seen a direct impact in their employment since
then. However, currently we are conducting taser re-qualifications in a basement hallway in our current headquarters. This is not a safe or effective method or training environment. And lastly, probably one of the most
important components of this room is our Axon virtual reality training which we currently uh own at this point. In 2023, the chief announced in our annual report that through our partnership with Axon, we are currently utilizing virtual reality based training for tasers and
critical decision-making scenarios. Currently, we do not have anywhere to store, set up, or conduct this training. We are limited to room availability throughout the township and have to pay costly overtime to run officers through scenarios. This room will allow us to use our Axon
virtual reality system and conduct constant scenario-based training. Some of that important training includes crisis intervention, conflict deescalation, hostage negotiations, and routine law enforcement calls from motor vehicle stops all the way to complex
missing persons investigations. We would also be able to train officers in encounters with individuals experiencing mental health crisises, individuals with cognitive disabilities or conditions such as autism spectrum disorder or dementia.
Ultimately, this room will not only give us the ability to train our officers more effectively and efficiently, but will improve officer safety, which ultimately leads to a safer interaction between law enforcement and our community. And those are basically the three main
areas of this room. If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. >> Council McGrath. >> Uh thank you. Um thank you so much for that overview. I do notice that from our previous uh discussions on this
building, including the presentation in June, this room and space has sort of been um expanded and um to think of multiple uses besides just how it was originally presented, the virtual uh
firing range. Um am I correct in the fact that this um room's um kind of conception has been broadened um in this scenario of the presentation? >> I I'd say yes. Uh and probably my fault for not saying all the other things that
we would do there. I think people were uh approaching me and asking about a virtual range and then when I'd explained how we already have this program, we have the Oculuses, we we have the the train the trainers. Um it it opened some eyes. So it's probably remiss on my part for not explaining it
better. Um so that's why I wanted Lieutenant Sheper who heads that program to speak about it so everyone has a better understanding. >> Wonderful. So, and I recognize that obviously our current facility is deficient in many many ways and thank you for articulating in this particular
area where our current facility is very deficient. What I would um love as you know kind of a follow-up piece to this meeting is kind of you know a um best case scenario
um as uh you are if this facility were built with this particular room in it. What would be an estimate of um hours spent in this room to fulfill um your kind of vision for training for the
department? And then uh chief, in the past you talked about um using this particular room um as a service that would be rented out to other police departments. Um just to confirm, is that
still your vision for this room? >> Yes, absolutely. It would be a lot of crossraining with our uh neighboring towns, which we do already, but we would uh intend on bringing them in. And when I've spoken to surrounding chiefs that we're looking at a building and we're
looking at potentially having this this virtual room, they're salvating at the chance to to jump in with us. Um, this also we did explain one time and I and I'll rehash. There are programs now uh
that would give you the uh virtual view of existing buildings uh within the township whether it be a school or a community center or what have you. uh where they they'll walk down hallways just like Google Street View where you would walk uh down uh certain area and
be able to look left or right in this virtual training room and you would actually be training in the school without costs of uh you know having a custodian there and clean up and and everything else. So, I think now is the time. I I think
in the past you may have put together kind of a estimate of what a shared service um or what renting out this facility would look like from a revenue generating point of view. I would appreciate I'm sure the rest of the
council would as well a refreshing of that. And when you said, "Oh, I've mentioned things other uh departments." what we've been asked by residents is whom and have you actually gotten letters of intent. So I think any sort
of documentation of these conversations of um you know what this model could look like um and what other if there are references to other towns that have a virtual firing range that are doing this
and rent out their facility. We really I would appreciate that level of detail because the residents are um asking us, you know, what this could potentially generate just this room. Um and we'll get to some of the other rooms in a moment, but those were my questions and
thank you, >> Lieutenant Juliano. >> Yes, thank you. While my hand was raised, the chief actually uh touched on it. um is on point. But I really did just want to stress the flexibility of the virtual training. Um I think it you
know it's very very important that with virtual scenario training room uh it's designed to incorporate the layouts of Verona schools. We could take those layouts of the six public schools we have in town and really train with training that's focused on what we
do here in Verona. Um, you know, we've been hiring officers um that aren't growing up in town. Um, you know, they work hard. They learn the streets um as much as they can about the community and it would just further that training if we can train with our schools and the
specific layouts. Um, so you're getting the active shooter training, you're getting familiar with all the schools, and um, you know, it's just really tailored to us. And that flexibility, I think, speaks for itself. Um, like the chief mentioned before, the traditional
training of going out to the school, reserving a spot. Um, it's much easier with virtual costs go down. Um um officers on overtime obviously on their days off have to go out as compared to virtual training. We're here
on a 12-h hour shift. Um you know we could designate um an hour, two hours here and there on every tour for each officer to really get hands-on and do this virtual training where the traditional in-person training at the school is much more limited to us. And
that's what I just really wanted to stress about the advantages of virtual. Well, thank you um Lieutenant for uh specifying that. I think if we can put pen to paper on that estimate of time and overtime saved and do the
mathematical calculations over a course of a year, that would be very helpful for us and for the public to understand when we talk about cost savings. Let's see if we can estimate it. So, I really appreciate that. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Councilwoman Holland. Thank you. Um I also appreciate uh the clarity around the changed plans from the June 23rd presentation to today. Um I did um also want to get clarity around
the fact that the prior plan that we had seen also identified this as an armory and a virtual firing range. Um there is an armory referenced on the first floor. Um, is there is there no longer need for
that? And this is really more accurately describing what the space would be used for. >> It it was a it was a label a mislabel calling that an armory. It was the virtual firing range. It it was mislabeled as an armory. That's on our end. >> Okay. Well, that's helpful for clarity
as well. And I can see that the room is changed in size and it looks like perhaps that was just addressed by expanding the locker room next to it. But as we go through the remaining rooms on this floor, um if we could clarify
where there were some of those changes, that would be really really helpful. Thank you. >> Uh Fire Chief Palino, do you have a comment on this room or >> Uh thank you Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to comment in support of this room. So obviously the benefits to the police
department are well known and and very well explained here, but I think in a broader a wider scope, more of an OEM focus, uh this room could also serve a huge benefit to the fire department and the rescue squad. Um with these virtualbased scenarios that Lieutenant Giuliano spoke about with the schools,
um that could be very important for all aspects of emergency management in Verona, all of our first responders. Um, I know the police and OEM conduct those types of drills hands-on in the schools, but um, speaking from a fire department perspective, what we'll do sometimes in the colder months when we can't train
outdoors is we'll do pre-planning of our school properties and we'll use Google images and Google mapping to kind of overlay them. If we could be able to utilize uh, a virtual training where we could see and kind of be interactive with schools and and locations and
doorways and utilities and stuff like that. Again, just another way that this room could really benefit all of the first responders in Verona. >> Thank you, Chief. Uh, Deputy Mayor. >> Thank you, Mayor. Uh, I want to point something out. Obviously, with the cost
of this building, we making comments focus on a dollar figure. Uh, I want to go back to when I first got on the council. I was actually invited to FM Brown for an active shooter drill. And thankfully I was given a pair of glasses
for the drill, but I was hit in the face with a rubber bullet. So when I first saw this room getting put on here, I was actually excited for our officers that they can go through it virtually and not
have the risk of getting hurt by a ricochet rubber bullet. Like I wasn't hurt, but it it could do some damage. So, I was in favor of this room for that one specific reason. So, I just wanted to point that out.
>> Thank you. Uh, Deputy Mayor, uh, Chief Palino, do you have a follow-up? >> Your head, your hand is still up. >> No, that's all. >> Okay. Um, Chief Kieran or anybody else,
if any council member wants to understand the training stuff better, is this something that you could run them through with in like a scenario to understand what you're doing? >> Absolutely. At any time, I I'll set that up. I'll reach out through the clerk and
uh we'll see what we can do. >> Okay. And just one one other question on this as well. If the there's a virtual firing range component, um does that lower the expense in in
bullets that the um and maintenance on firearms and things like that a year for the fire department or for the police department or is that separate due to other you know requirements that have to be done at a standard range? >> So the attorney general guidelines has us live fire twice a year. Uh we would
supplement that with this virtual training. Um we do uh have we have officers who have uh carry special uh weaponry that they have to qualify more times a year and we always try to incorporate some type of
exercise within uh the qualifications to put the officers under stress. Uh better training. Uh this would expand upon that and it would allow us the opportunity to be more proficient by having more
sessions on site not on overtime and we could run people through different scenarios. >> Right. Thank you, Chief. All right. Uh next room chief. >> Uh moving over to the uh classroom uh
the training room. So, the one thing that we lack a bit in Essex County and especially in the West Essex area is a training room. Um, tough to come by. Uh, most of the training,
whether it be um mandatory, believe it or not, or optional um which we we participate in and and you guys know my spiel on training. It's tough to find the room and the agency. there's private vendors who run
this training um and they're constantly looking for a classroom. So, one of the advantages of having a training room for our department is not only for the mandatory training that we run, but it is also for outside vendors who would
come in and host classes. And I'll turn this over to Captain Paul Watkins, who is an instructor in various uh training uh not only throughout the state, but throughout the country. Thanks, Chief. Thank you to you guys on the council. I'll say good evening on
giving us this opportunity to share this information. So, the training room, it is going to parlay off of what Lieutenant Sheper spoke about with his virtual room. The virtual room's more practical, hands-on. This would be more classroom based setting. So as chief stated, yes, uh there is potential to
bring outside vendors in to hold training, but mainly how we would benefit from not just bringing in some revenue in that way. We'd also be saving money. When these companies come in and host trainings, they will give you free seats in the classroom, ranging anywhere from two seats to seven, depending on
what the company is. And when you look at some of these trainings, they run on the low end from about a $100 for a one-day course to upwards of two grand for a three to five day course and even upwards of $4,000 if it's a course that meets multiple weeks, one day a week,
for example. In terms of our own inservice training, a lot of stuff is done supplemented through online based programs, and that's all well and fine, but it doesn't replace actual in-person training where we can check on understanding, clarity, feedback is
present. That's not always the case with online. The state mandates a large level of training for us each year, and it keeps expanding as we go on. And some of these areas that we've been required to train on are workplace harassment, those crisis intervention
techniques, suicide prevention, motor vehicle pursuit and use of force twice each year, biaspace policing, legal updates which are continuously changing week by week, bloodborne pathogens, hazmat ethics, domestic violence, active
bystandardship, and again specific deescalation tactics that are in line with crisis intervention. Having this space would allow us, as Lieutenant Juliano hit on before, to bring people in potentially while they're working, could be a dedicated training day, but it gives us that flexibility. Now, we
have to rely on when are these courses uh being held, where are they being held, and we don't have full control of those schedules. What we've been doing now, we have been borrowing space from the community center ballroom, the firehouse one training room, the fireman's room at the community center
up on the second floor. And in the past, we've used the annex. It's just not ideal training environments. The equipment is older. The other thing is the rooms are small and most importantly, a lot of times when we're in those spaces, we're taking away from other programs in town that are using
those, such as a lot of the senior programs. We have a lot of talented and experienced instructors in this department and within our ranks. They can deliver training on a variety of topics within their own officers and departmentwide. I talked about the sponsorships and the free classes that
could be held. This also, as the chief touched on, training with our neighboring towns, joint trainings, bringing other agencies in, whether or not it's charged or just in conjunction with those trainings, that's going to benefit us and the community as a whole because we're going to have mutual aid responses that'll be
much stronger. Our relationships will be developed and we'll have people that we can rely on and overall, you know, achieve the mission of our of our department. flip side with this. I know that there's an EOC and there's a conference room, but the chief has many meetings each day. He gave the example
of that Axelon project. Just from a uh personal side here, we run a lot of different programs in partnership with the high school. Be it the capstone internship program, periodically we'll bring in college interns. We are continuing to hire and bring on new
people because of retirements in this department. A lot of these things are done again in borrowed spaces, be it the council chambers, the conference room in the township. The Verona Public Library has been very nice to us allowing us to use their conference room. And a lot of times it's just not ideal. If we had our
own space to sit down, go through our hiring process, engage in our panel interviews. We had discussions through the juvenile officers in town about possible future youth policemies or citizen-based policemies. They haven't gotten off the ground because we don't have the space to operate such things.
We have annual crossing guard training that we have to do. We have been giving educational programs out. Officer McGary and Lieutenant Giuliano specifically have given senior fraud prevention education trainings to seniors. It could be used for that purpose. We have our police academy recruits uh dur during
their six-month process. They are sent back to us in the middle of that training to go through agency training that lasts a week. That needs to be taken place somewhere as well. Again, you guys have all seen how well trained our officers are. Their level of professionalism and having this dedicated workspace would only take that
further. Thank you. >> Thank you, Captain Watkins. Any questions for Captain Watkins? Councilwoman McGrath. >> Thank you. Um, so can you zoom out just a little bit? So, this space has been a
little changed, I feel like. Sue and maybe Frank can address how this space has changed the layout since the last version we saw in June. Can we start there, please? >> Yeah, I I mean the layout hasn't changed from June. The the the room is set up as
a 2/3, 1/3, and whole room. So, if it were used in total, it could handle this much space. There are sliding doors that would close and the room could be used as a smaller training room or a larger training room. And where this wall is, I mean, it's nebulous right now. It could
be here. It could be in some other location. But the idea is that this training room um of this square footage was intended to be um you know, flexible. It could be used, you know, for more than one purpose. Um so it really hasn't changed since our June
meeting. Uh the unisex toilets. So to use this room, one would come up this stair. Again, it's a secure corridor. It doesn't involve going into the police station at all. It doesn't involve going into secure areas. However, you come up, you use this room, there are two toilets
dedicated to this. There is a small kitchenet upstairs that serves that training room. Uh could also um you know be shared, you know, by anybody else in the building, but it serves the training room for events and things like that to uh you know, refrigerator to house uh
you know, sandwiches that are brought in, etc., etc. There is a small administrative copier area you know for use for making copies or doing what needs to be done for that training session when the furniture needs to be stored and the configuration is changed
from you know general seating like this to a U-shaped room which is what we may may have shown in the last presentation. Uh we're trying to show different areas but there is storage for those chairs and storage for implements in that room. So those all kind of go hand inand with the room.
>> Okay, great. Thank you. One question we um so the same my same comment to the virtual training space applies here. So I think there was a draft a while ago but it should be updated on the
mathematics of you know potential time saved. I I really appreciated how you talked about how you're using a lot of different spaces in town. If we could have like a snapshot of the last six months of when that happened, when you
used the fireman's room, when you used the ballroom, when you use the library, I think that would be helpful because we have gotten this question a lot from residents. Well, we have a lot of spaces in town. Why do we need this particular wing of this $40 million building? Um,
and so how you use those space, how you're currently using those spaces would be great. And then a quantification of again, you know, free seats, can it be rented out? You the a comment was made, I believe, from the chief that
there are outside companies that host training trainings and there's not a lot of spaces like this and they would be interested. Can we get a letter of intent from them that says if you build this, we will rent it. Um that's the
kind of things I'm looking for um as followup to this meeting. And then finally, a common question that we've gotten asked about this part of the building is whether or not um Verona residents and other nonprofits in Verona
can use this training facility and either rented or will it be um another like the library and the community center for nonprofits, another space that can be used for free. Uh does anyone want to respond to that?
I would say at first glance, no. Uh it's more of a secure area, you know, centric to first responder training. Um yes, we would be bringing in uh these vendors who would teach the classes and outside
personnel would be coming in. That's why it's blocked off, but I didn't envision it as that. I would say that there's a lot of uh specialized training that would go on up there. So, I'm not sure. But I'd gladly have further conversations with you about it.
>> Well, the question that the public asked, so thank you for answering that directly and uh just something to marinate on as we have further public conversations, the public may have followup. Thank you. >> Councilwoman Holland,
>> thank you. Um, regarding the training space specifically, some of the questions um that I have been asked by residents um include discussion of and this may I I don't know if this is appropriate for
police or or the township administration, but when we look at the total square footage of the training room, the larger training room and the associated training space, you're coming close to the square footage currently.
on the first floor of town hall that's dedicated to police. And a question that I've been asked is why that existing space can't be repurposed for the training space or or in addition to an
EOC or something to that effect. So rather than building new, can we retrofit what's existing there because we are pulling those other services into this new building. Uh I would let administration talk about
what the new uh if we were to move what the new purpose for that would be. The problem with doing any type of training is the problem we have right now is parking. Uh I have no parking for officers. There's no parking for town employees. Um everyone knows what it
looks like downtown and and especially when school's in session. Um there's no way that I could have a training room and invite people in um and supply any type of parking without negatively impacting the school businesses and the
surrounding area. Um so I mean I I I'll definitely speak to you more about it. Um, but I think that uh it wouldn't be very practical based on the layout of the current police uh
areas that we occupy. >> Thank you. and and another I believe we were emailed earlier today from a resident inquiring about training facilities in Cedar Grove and whether or not those are currently utilized or
could be utilized by um police or fire as appropriate. Could you address that resident's comment as well? Just just to clarify, Chief Kieran, because I don't know if you got the email, uh I believe the resident was talking about the Essex County Police Academy.
>> So, the Essex County Police Academy uh is booked solid between corrections classes and recruit classes. Uh there's not a lot of training outside training and mandatory training that's held at the police academy. Um even getting
range time is um pretty difficult down there. Uh the county has been very good to us. We have a nice working relationship and we do send instructors down to keep the uh costs of uh our training down and when we send recruits,
but again it's just not really equipped. Uh and they don't offer uh any outside training. It's it's rare. Um maybe one of my committee members has a better idea of number of uh outside uh classes that they do run there, but I'd say it's
under one a month. >> It's not even it's less than a handful. They'll run a instructor course for new instructors. They'll run uh PT and firearms instructor courses for their own it's for their own benefit as well as ours. But as the chief said, there is
just not the room. There is only four classrooms in the main building. And you got corrections classes, as you said, and police classes. There's just no room there. Uh if they do squeeze in classes, they try to do it between the police and corrections classes. So that's why it's still minimal.
>> Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to to come back and talk a little bit about the existing town hall space and the use of this training space for public. I think the the idea of having a dedicated training space for first responders is is
valuable. I think there's an opportunity to uh re-evaluate the existing town hall. Uh we currently have uh uh three main locations where we have uh different facilities for different departments. Uh our current community
center is uh probably uh over overstaffed or overbuilt with uh tax assessor, zoning, construction, recreation. We have employees that are are being fit into retrofitted closet spaces to try to make the correct office
space. So there would be a full evaluation of the existing town hall space. we can consolidate a lot of the regular municipal services uh into a town hall space, but that would be an exercise that we have to run through with with uh an architect and a
designer. And ultimately by pulling the police and having this dedicated training space here for for police and fire or other first uh for rescue as well even it it does free up the spaces in the community center which are intended for more general community
uses. So I just wanted to at least highlight those few few points. >> Thank you sir. Councilman Holland. >> Thank you. I just wanted to conclude my line of questioning and I I do really appreciate that additional feedback from
the administration. I think it's helpful to have that on the record. Um I guess in term just to be briefly responsive to that, I think I'll echo what Councilwoman McGrath had said about getting some of that data about those
rooms usage um how frequently they're booked and if there's revenue associated with that. I think that would be helpful as well. um because statements have been made about taking away from senior or recreational programming. Um so I think that would be really helpful. Just one
last comment that I've received repeatedly from residents when talking about this. Um, and I'll I'll compliment the the team for, you know, taking a step back and really re-evaluating the virtual firing range space and looking
at that as more of a multi-purpose space for kind of virtual scenario training. I think that's very positive. One of the um a significant amount of feedback that I have received with regard to this layout um the first and the second floor
is how much conference room space there is between the training center, the EOC, the ready rooms and different rooms and how those could be combined into multi-purpose rooms. Is there an
opportunity for a ready room to also be an EOC? Can it, you know, can it be restructured such that we have space savings and efficiencies gained in order to do that? Um, I think when the public are looking at this, they see an awful
lot of conference rooms and there's a concern that a lot of space is not going to be regularly or fully utilized. Um, if that's not the case, then I, you know, and I I heard the presentation, um, and I do think that our staff and
our police force is incredibly well trained, and I think you're consummate professionals. If there's then documentation and data that can be provided to the public to show how frequently these spaces would be used, I think that would be a tremendous asset
to, you know, furthering this $40 million building. Um, but right now, you know, the feedback that I get from different residents is how much of the space is going to be vacant on a normal day. Um and last but not least, just because we did mention the virtual
scenario training room, um after uh a after there were some further comments following my last uh discussion of it, I was thinking more should it actually be in green if there is an opportunity for that to be kind of a shared space as
well. Maybe not because maybe it needs to be more secured, but I'm noting it right now. It doesn't seem like it's behind a secured door anymore, which it was on the June 23rd plans. It looks like that door is now moved further down the hall. Maybe there's an opportunity,
too, where that can be presented as a shared space. Thank you. >> So, I would say yes, we would definitely train with the other um emergency agencies in town. However, it would have to be um PD controlled based on the fact
that there's going to be live fire, tasers uh in that room and in storage. Uh there's going to be other different sensitive and police specific um equipment, I won't say weaponry, um in
that room. So yes, we would definitely share the space with the other uh rescue squad and fire, but we would just uh want to maintain control of it for those reasons, safety reasons. >> Well, thank you. That is a helpful clarification. I did not realize that we were going to be storing that stuff in
there further when it was indicated that it was no longer going to be an armory. I had assumed that meant we weren't storing the tasers in there. Um but that makes sense. And perhaps then we should reconsider readding that security door in the hallway.
>> Yeah, there wouldn't be weapons, firearms, but there are taser training that happens there as well as the you know simunition that is used for those things. Um, and to go back to uh deputy mayor Captain Wardrobe looked
it up for me uh was talking about the uh active shooter training. We just spent uh $1,600 on simunitions um for our next training. So again, if it was done virtually uh we would save money there. Just to go back to that, I just didn't
want to miss that fact. >> Chief, um going to Councilwoman Holland's point on the the conference spaces. Um there's been a lot of discussion about the day-to-day uh use of these things which is a valid point. Um, I was wondering if you could touch
on or you don't have to necessarily do it now but also later is what this building and these spaces would look like during a large-scale emergency situation, right? When the emergency operations center is no longer police conference room and it's an active EOC
because of a hurricane or um some kind of larger scale disaster. um that how this room, the training room, the ready rooms for the police and fire would be used during that time. Um and why or why
not could they be combined? Um considering what might happen in a large scale emergency. >> So the ready room for the police department, uh it's you know traditionally called the roll call room on the first floor. Uh that is where the
officers receive uh direction from the supervisors. They obtain uh the weapons that are kept in the car, the long arms. Uh they update their uh emergency uh response equipment that is kept in the
trunk. They update their first aid. They go through their car check uh and they're debriefed on incidents here uh ready to go on the road. So that that's really a police specific room. Um we do uh envision
uh it as a multi-purpose room as far as um for police, you know, uh we critique incidents from body cams and and uh dash cams. Um on what we're missing as far as equipment, uh what what techniques
worked. Um so again, that room would be used for that as well. Um, you know, the high top tables, uh, you know, looking at is is a concept. It's an idea, but I'm sure it would look totally different if we ever had it. But again, that's a roll call room, uh, where officers get their assignments, get their weaponry,
get their first aid supplies, and everything else that the car needs, and go through their car check. Um, as far as the um the conference room on the second floor, which would double as emergency operations center, um,
if you had if we had the emergency operations center, you know, that would, uh, be with representative from fire, from rescue, public works, uh, building and grounds, board of ed, uh, depending on the nature of the incident. But it
would also be a room to meet with um when we have a a lot of incidents in town, I should say a lot of events in town where we could talk about it to to mitigate um any potential problems. That could be anything from the Valerie fund to our own uh events uh from fair in the
square to the concert series to anyone renting or or getting space in the in the civic center. Um that's where that would be people would be brought in from that. If there was an incident, obviously you would kick off the uh emergency operations center. There's a
whole protocol for that. Um under office of emergency management, uh you would also, you know, if if you had a full scale incident, you'd bring in uh PSENG sends a rep. Uh Verizon would even send a rep depending on what the nature of the incident is.
>> So, uh presumably you can't have an EOC in the patrol room because of firearm storage, right? Um I think that's so all these spaces would be the fire ready room would be used for firefighters responding and recovering from an emergency. The um
um the patrol ready room obviously has firearm storage in it. That doesn't make a really good emergency operations center. You would have upstairs an emergency operations center active and then you have for your core emergency team presumably and then the uh training
room could be for your larger team for briefings things like that with various people from various different organizations and large groups for operational periods. So, I guess my point is during a um a large scale
emergency, all of these spaces would be active at the same time. And that's just something to consider as we um as we go forward. >> That's correct. And and I will supply the numbers that the mandatory training is our number one uh overtime
occurrence. It's it's highest uh number of hours is mandatory training that we do uh each year. It's always the number one uh uh you know uh we have different categories in our our uh you know time
management system. Um but that's always the lead uh and any way to cut that and have on-site training uh would would help. >> Right. Next next zone, chief. >> Uh you have your coming down uh
clockwise here. You have your um offices. Um those are just placeholders with uh titles. Uh we do have a video editing room. Uh we have an increase uh in not only Oprah requests, but discovery requests uh for body warned
camera footage. Um it's basically a full-time job at this point. Um, and a lot of the footage doesn't capture people at their best. Um, and it needs to be edited. But there's anything from foul language to
sensitive um incidents that that the officers are present on. Uh, that's why we have a separate room for video editing um that people could go in. We have uh three people who work on video editing. Uh we've had over I believe
it's 300 um requests uh for Oprah for video so far this year. Um and any attack on any court case uh any more vehicle summons um it it's it's pretty indepth. Um, any other rooms are just
placeholders that, you know, they could look differently, they could be titled different as we uh move closer to um looking at a a layout of a of a second floor, the um training area and the fitness
area. I'm going to turn over to uh Lieutenant Giuliano, Sergeant Maguire, Officer Cologne. they can each chime in on uh mandated uh training that we have as far as defensive tactics and then we can talk about the uh fitness room.
>> Thank you, Chief. Uh I'll touch briefly on it. Like I said, others are going to um jump in as well. Um you know, the building committee has taken the time over the last few years to research and really visit recently built police departments. Uh Fairfield Police Department, Garfield Police Department
to name a few. Um, and what we're really seeing is that newly constructed buildings are including on-site fitness centers. Um, you know, it's it's what we're seeing is that towns are looking beyond the perks and really seeing the operational needs um of the fitness
center, which I'll touch upon briefly, um, including but not limited to officer wellness, reducing officer injuries, and most importantly, decreasing use of force. Um, you know, touching upon officer wellness, I think law enforcement is
really fundamentally different than many professions in terms of physical demands. Um, officers in the patrol division, which is really the backbone of policing and the bulk of our department, are required to wear an outer carrier vest, which houses ballistic panels for protection, and a
slew of other emergency equipment such as body cams, radios, tasers, handcuffs, flashlights, uh, your duty firearm, and many other tools that our officers see fit to have on their persons, um, that they need on them when they're walking
into an emergency. Um, you know, it's a lot of gear. Uh, it truly is. This gear adds approximately 25 to 30 pounds of additional weight to the officer. Um, and not only is it a lot, they're required to wear all this weight for a minimum of 12 hours, which, you know,
can reach upwards of 16 hours per shift should they be held over for a storm or an emergent uh temporary restraining order application after the court is closed uh for the county. Um, so 16 hours to be holding 30 pounds of additional gear does take a toll on your
body and we are trying to think about officer wellness. Um, also I want to stress uh the correlation between officer physical fitness and improved decision- making under stress uh reduced use of force incidences and
really reducing those officer injuries. Um I think one of the most critical goals in policing is to resolve incidences as peacefully and safely as possible. Um while communication and deescalation tactics are always preferred and we spend as the chief
mentioned an enormous amount of um overtime money on further training for our department. Um inevitably there are going to be situations where officers must must engage physically with a threatening or active asalent. Um, in
these moments, physical fitness becomes a crucial factor in determining how these situations are really going to unfold. Um, physically fit officers are going to be more capable and comfortable when it comes to gaining and even more importantly maintaining control over a
subject in these situations and really reducing the duration and intensity of a physical altercation. Uh when officers are able to effectively use hands-on techniques, uh this is going to reduce our reliance on higher levels of use of force such as mechanical force uh which
is the police baton and OC spray as well as enhanced mechanical force which is you know your CEDs conducted energy devices uh commonly known as the taser which we carry here in Verona and um you know obviously reduced deadly
force which is at the top of the continuum of the use of force. Um, officers that are more physically capable, and by capable, I mean cardiovascular fitness and strength are going to be able to maintain physical force for longer. And although necessary and appropriate, they may not need to
increase force options. They may be able to stay at the level they are without having to go to those mentioned uh mechanical, enhanced mechanical, and uh ultimately deadly force. Um, I just see that there's a lot of benefits to having an on-site fitness center that really go
beyond it, just being seen as a perk, but being more of an operational need. Um, and I think it's going to benefit not just the officers here, but it's going to benefit the public and really increase that community trust when they see how well trained uh, our officers
can be. Thank you. Hi, I would just piggy back off of uh Lieutenant uh Juliano. For those of you that do not know me, I'm Officer Cologne. I'm was with the Verona Police for about nine years. I'm also a physical conditioning instructor
at the academy currently. Um I just want to pretty much the importance of having an on-site gym facility. Um, as police officers, we're faced with high stress, high-risisk situations regularly, which
can impact our mental well-being. Um, exercise can enhance that mental clarity, focus, and emotional resilience. Um, with having an an accessible space for physical activity, it can encourage
consistent mental health support without stigma. It's also that time efficient and opportunity. As police officers on the patrol division, we work 12-hour shifts, sometimes up to 16 hours, could
be long, irregular, and unpredictable, which makes that outside gym access difficult. Um, having that on-site gym allows officers to work out possibly before or after shifts, maximizing the
time use, possibly during shift, although we don't have a current policy in place that allows officers to work out during their shifts. Having an on-site gym facility can allow officers to engage in physical fitness activities during their shifts under a structured
and supervised policy. Um this can promote culture um wellness, ensures operational readiness and allows officers to maintain a peak physical and mental performance without compromising
their duty responsibilities as well. Um and also also encourages more frequent use uh due to the use of access leading to a better uh overall fitness. uh supports work life balance by
enabling officers to stay healthy without sacrificing. I know in Frank's PowerPoint, it said that it's an optional room. Uh personal speaking I think it's a necessity especially being a uh law enforcement officer we're
constantly um dealt with physical you know incidences where need to have that um I feel like uh on-site facility
um I would consider it a convenient um I would consider it and necessity to have a uh facility on site. So that's that's my uh personal
>> Thank you, Officer Clone. I will add that the contiguous towns around us all do have a fitness room available for the police department. The uh defensive tactics are or CQC training area. Uh, I'll turn over to U.
Sergeant Maguire. Captain Wardrobe. >> I guess I'll jump in there first. Good evening everybody. Um, I know it says CQC training area, but if you could really envision that, you know, this large open space is also going to be multi-purpose. It's going to be one, an
extension of the gym, and two, it can be an extension of our training facility. Uh, next door. We could be hosting classes that have to do with searches, um, handcuffing procedures. That open area is going to give us a space to
expand on our training capabilities. They're not going to be stuck in that room, um, having to move tables and desks out of the way. Hopefully, this could be an open area. But as far as our defensive tactics go, in 2018, we invested um with forfeite funds into
purchasing five 6x30 uh roll mats specifically for defensive tactics. Um they're not like little mats where your kids do somersaults on. They're more like full-sized uh wrestling mats. Currently, we have four officers who certified as defensive tactics
instructors. The department has invested over 280 hours certifying these trainers and that's not including the time they put in personally. That is what they've done with the department's 280 hours um to get certified. In 2025, the attorney
general mandated defensive tactics for the first time. Um it was a 4-hour block, but being that we are the Verona Police Department, 2025 was not the first time we were doing defensive tactics. We've been doing them since we've gotten the mat. um looking at at
least twice a year with four-hour blocks and we would like to do a lot more but one of the things that's hampering us is we don't have a dedicated facility. Um we've used the mass at the community center um in the gym. We've used them in the annex and we've also used them in
Cedar Grove facilities. Now some of the problems we've encountered with that is time spent moving the mats. The mats weigh each individual mat weighs over 100 pounds at estimate. So we have to get um assistance from DPW. Uh it takes us probably well over an hour to move
them from location to location and then when we are moving them to location to location, we have to make sure they're properly cleaned and sanitized every time. So that's not only adding into overtime and it's or it's increasing the time we need for the class because we have to sanitize the mat before
everybody goes on the mat and after everybody is on the mat. What does that stop? it stops any kind of diseases that can be transferred on the mat. Um, anybody who's familiar with wrestling knows that just by bodies being on the mat, um, stuff like that can happen. So, we're really on top of that. Make sure
they're clean and having a dedicated space where we can lay them out, clean them, allow them to properly air dry is what we're looking for. Um, also to importantly note with the defensive tactics um that was required by the attorney general, the GIF got involved and they
laid out some best practices that they think police departments should be following when implementing this defensive tactic training. Are we hitting some of those? Yes. Do would I say we have a um room that is free of hazards and adequate space for all
participants? No, not all the time. We're probably pushing our limits. We're trying to train as many officers as we can over usually a five day period because we're usually battling when we're like in the gym, we're battling basketball, we're battling senior activities in the annex. So, it's the same thing. We don't have the space to
do this all the time. Um, so what this would do would really just allow us to have a permanent place to store them, roll them out when we need them, roll them back up and have some available space. But I mean, in my mind,
it's really look at it as multi-purpose. It's not just a mat room. It's going to be an extension of the gym, extension of the training room. I know it was only four hours that was required by the attorney general this year. But if we look back at what's required for the basic police class in 2020, they
recommended increasing the hours from 40 hours defensive tactics to 80 hours of defensive tactics. So, I think that is coming for inservice training and we'll be soon seeing the attorney general mandate more and more defensive tactics training.
>> That's all I got. >> Thank you, Sergeant McGuire. Thank you, Officer Clone. Chief Kieran, anything else? >> Uh, currently we do uh Captain Wardrobe can can touch more on currently we do cross trainin with Cedar Grove on defensive tactics, North Caldwell,
Caldwell. Uh, Captain Wardrobe can just touch on that how it would be uh, shared services and and bring these in. >> Big good evening everyone. Uh, thanks for attending. Just want to pick up where Sergeant Maguire left off. Um,
training four hours a year is insufficient. I know it's the minimum set by the attorney general guideline, but who anyone who's ever played sports before, you can't practice four hours a year and expect to be any good at it. So, we were ahead of the curve and
thankfully to the chief, he's uh allowed us to get certified and we started training before it was mandated. This last training was held uh in Cedar Grove with our mats and additional mats from them. And we were able to certify or get
trained uh Cedar Grove, Caldwell, and all the Verona officers. So, that was over at their LRP school. That is not going to be available much longer. And the other uh battle we had was with the annex. Not necessarily a battle with them, but a
battle with scheduling. Um trying to maintain the senior programs and working around their schedule where we'd have to roll the mats up, roll the mats out. Uh clean the mats. um it becomes cumbersome and also very time consuming and it's
harder to schedule officers efficiently so they can train with without trying you know we're trying to minimize overtime which has been difficult but uh I think Sergeant Magguire hit most of the key topics on that it's
very important aspect of our line of work uh we would rather not resort to the tools on our belt first we try to use our words and then we have to use our hands without escalating to mechanical force or enhanced mechanical force and and a
last resort deadly force. The other thing I've been approached by members of the rescue squad also very interested in this training just to defend and protect themselves from combative uh crisis patients or patients in general. They're enclosed quarters in the back of an
ambulance and they would highly benefit from this training as well. So, I would also consider this a shared space, not only the gym, but also the matted area where we could have members of the uh rescue squad participate and also learn
some of these tactics and techniques to protect themselves. >> Anybody have any questions about this room? >> I'm gonna let Juliana jump in and then Council McGrath can uh start our questions. Thank you. I just wanted to just
piggyback real quick. Um, thanks to the chief um for allowing Captain Wardrobe and Sergeant McGuire to really go to all these trainings. Uh, take it all in, understand it. Um, but it's even it's not just the fact that they went and
they understand the defensive tactics. It's a whole another art to be able to come back and really teach it. Um, you know, it's just like sports. The best athletes don't always make the best coaches. Uh, they've really come back. Um they put a lot into the defensive defensive tactics program to the point
where I'm very comfortable saying that Verona is really you know head and shoulders above other agencies and being in front of the game like uh we said the AG just mandated this DT training in 25. We've been doing it for years to the
point of our last training we just had we had Caldwell PD there we had Cedar Grove PD there. Um, you know, there's no question we're really um done very well with this. And just to go into my point, I just want to say it's not just a
matter of, you know, bringing the mats to a different room that we might have in town. Um, you know, we've trained a lot at the annex before we were using it as a police department on one side. Um, the town's been great with us. The community center has been very um um
accommodating um in letting us use that area. It just comes down to it's just not an ideal space for us. It's not ideal because um safety really becomes an issue. That room although it's a good size for us in the annex. Um the window
height u makes it dangerous. Um you know you're rolling around on the mat and then all of a sudden the window is right there due to its height and then you know we got to stop training and you know restart at the be at the center of the mats or on the other side and have a spotter. Um it just makes it difficult
for the training and like uh the sergeant stated before you know we got the mats through the forfeite we have the uh 280 hours invested um for the training uh certifications and um we've taken the initiative to really be doing this for years learn the
art and start training other agencies in addition to oursel and it would just be really ideal to be able to have that training um fitness room where we can make it that multi-purpose not just the gym but also the DT uh area and like uh
Sergeant McGuire mentioned also bring in from the training room if you know we want to do handcuffing different classes like that where we can also do them on the mats to make it more safe. U just wanted to reiterate that point. Thank you. >> Thank you Lieutenant Councilwoman McGrath.
>> Thank you. Um so my comments are uh first of all I just want to say again the level of training in our department is uh so impressive and so superior and I do appreciate all of this um heavily
uh researched um aspects of policing and um you know obviously from the leadership um of all of you that spoke. I I just want to thank you and I definitely agree with the interaction of
health and wellness of our force, right? Uh and I love the uh fact that you detailed what it's like to wear the vest, right, for a certain period of time. Um but as you can imagine, this part of the facility is getting a lot of
attention from the public. So, similar to my previous requests, I heard a lot of, you know, information about minimum amount of training that's required, what the optimal amount of training is, how you're using these mats currently and in
what facility. Can we have a one-year sketch out look back on, you know, where did you do these trainings, where were you lugging these mats, some of the costs associated with that DPW? When you have these uh trainings with other uh
West Essex municipalities, again, I'm getting the impression that it was sort of like a coming together money, you know, wasn't a formal shared service. How would that change if we had this facility or does it not? Uh I think some of that clarification on this would
be great. Um and you know my thought process similar to Councilwoman Hollands um and I'm sure other members of the council is about continuous use. So, I'm looking for that additional data on this training area because a question we're
going to get is why not use um the conference the training center with the tables that are movable which we've already stated. Um we have storage to put the tables and the chairs somewhere else. Why not just combine those spaces?
Um so that's sort of a general set of follow-up information that I know I'm looking for, the public was looking for. In addition, Chief Pieran, you mentioned um and also others mentioned that in these newer facilities, um you know,
fitness centers are, you know, built in. Um and obviously we want to attract and retain a really competent workforce. Um and so, uh sometimes certain things that seem optional to the public are really table stakes for those that know what's
required with hiring. Um, but I would like specific room sizes of other fitness facilities that are in um in police buildings. So, this is my eyesight's not so great anymore, but
this is a 1600 square foot. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, 1651 square foot, you know, room. Can we benchmark that against what Fairfield has? I believe you mentioned Garfield. that would be uh helpful as a follow-up piece of
information. Thank you. >> Yes. And I'll get it from the surrounding towns who have older buildings but also already have fitness rooms equipped. >> Yes. Thank you. I would just I would just point out that the size of the fitness room is
predicated also on the size of the force as well as the fact that it is shared with uh fire. >> Thank you, Mr. Pino. >> Then uh again, obviously the second floor is just earmarked for uh offices
and a detective bureau as well as what you see there is as a resiliency room. Um the attorney general has mandated resiliency programs for police officers. Um there's a lot of uh horrific stats
out there about uh the dangers and um mental crisis that officers face. I won't bore you with the numbers, but it's something to the effect of over 200 and 300 uh through the course of their career that they suffer through a
traumatic incident where the average person would suffer through one or two uh critical incidents. Um so resiliency has become the key word uh from the attorney general's office. He's mandated resiliency officers and mandated uh resiliency programs. There's a whole
structure for it. Uh the buildings that we did visit uh recommended resil resiliency rooms. I'll let Captain Wardrobe speak about it briefly if I'm missing anything on that. He is one of our resiliency officers. >> Captain Wardrobe.
>> Thanks Chief. So like the chief said in 2019 the attorney general issued a directive promoting law enforcement resiliency and since then and prior to before that the BPD command staff has embraced it. So the directive
acknowledges that officers regularly encounter some of the most traumatic events affecting their community. They typically operate in a state of hypervilligence uh while on duty and the emotional and mental toll of this work can build up over time which we've seen
and later contributes to a range of health issues. Um, it's documented, you know, increased blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, substance abuse, family and relationship stress, uh, self harm, and even the risk of suicide. So, this directive requires that all law
enforcement agencies appoint at least one resiliency officer. We actually have two. Uh, I'm one and officer Karatini is the other. So, additional research suggests that, like the chief said, anywhere between 200 and 300 critical incidents. um police officers experience
throughout their career where the average person encounters two or three in their lifetime. Uh studies also concluded that law enforcement officers have a 54% increase in the risk of suicide compared to civilians. Uh just on the same vein as wellness and
resiliency, in 2020, the World Health Organization classified night shift work as being a probable class 2A carcinogen. And a number of independent cohort studies of both night workers and shift workers in general have observed
increased frequency of certain cancers. So between shift work, long hours, you're at a risk for reduced performance on the job, obesity, injuries, and a wide range of chronic diseases. We've had officers bounce from domestic
violence calls, uh sudden death investigations, and then they're taking a parking complaint. So throughout one shift, you have the highs and lows. um the highest of highs and the lowest of lows sometimes where you're helping somebody through the their worst day and then uh you know you might be taking a
parking complaint and everything in between. The other thing for resiliency to look at and this is coming kind of coming full circle with the gym and with the defensive tactics training and training in general is studies are also showing there's an unintended consequence of overtime and 12-hour
shifts. Uh there's recently an article written in March of 2025 the original 12-h hour shift, and we went to this shift for this spec specific reason when under the uh former administration was to see a decrease in
overtime from when we were on an eight hour shift. But now, in fact, we're working 12-hour shifts plus overtime on top of that. So, we're getting close to our 16- hour limit on many occasions.
So, it's just uh routinely adding overtime onto this 12-h hour shift. It's creating a dangerous uh cocktail as they put it for both physical and mental health. So, it creates a strain on the body and then it also creates a mental toll.
So, burnout, emotional exhaustion, sleep disorders, increased risk of depression and anxiety, relationship problems, and an increased risk of making mistakes, which we try to avoid. So, one easy way to help combat this is with a resiliency room or what
some departments or agencies would call wellness room or a quiet room. So, these are important spaces designed as a dedicated private area within the law enforcement building where officers can participate in critical incident
stress debriefings. The last critical incident stress debriefing that I was involved with, and we've had a few, was up at the ballroom, and you're in the middle of a critical incident stress debrief, and you have civilians or other township employees walking in. It's not a secure location.
It's not private and there's really no confidentiality. So, the other thing this room could be used for is you could privately speak with peer counselors or you can contact copto, uh, which provides crisis support. They'll provide answers to legal questions.
uh financial give you financial help, employment and relationship uh questions as well as provide you with clinical referrals um within police and clinical networks. It's also a room that could be used briefly for officers to take a mental
health break if they've just experienced a stressful call or multiple calls in a row. It's someplace they can go in private, decompress a little bit, and then move on with their shift. So this space should be as outlined in the
uh the layout done by Frank, private, quiet, comfortable, suitable for hosting these critical incident stress the briefings and having confidential conversations either with a peer counselor, a resiliency officer or you know getting on the phone calling cop to
cop or someone else. So the goal is to mitigate stress, reduce risk of burnout and support overall mental well-being and operational readiness. So as I the way I feel and the way the chief feels and Captain Watkins feels as a police department and a community, we
have an affirmative duty to assist and provide for our officers physical and mental well mental well-being. So this is a small room with big impact on officer wellness. So this room in particular is pretty important. Uh the way it's currently laid out could be
different, but I think it's laid out pretty well. You have access to workstations where you can, you know, look up resources. You have um room where you can spread out casually and have a critical incident stress debriefing if that's what you want to use it for. You also have storage. So, I
think it's a it's a small ask for a uh a big reward. If you have any questions on it, I'd be happy to answer. >> Councilwoman Holland. So I didn't have specific questions about the resiliency room. I had raised my hand before we had moved on from some
of the other spaces. But I will um ask some of those questions. Um moving back briefly to the fitness center. Um, I do just want to get
clarification when we talk about how the training area could be the the the Matt training area could be also utilized as additional training space. It only appears to have the access to it from
the police side. There is the door that allows access from the fitness area and presumably you can walk through the fitness area into the Mat training area, but I'm not sure if that is reasonable to expect anyone that would be using the
training to be walking through the gym first in order to do that. And I just wanted to note that that Frank did add the the red door back. Um, so there may be access issues if you were going to try and make that a multi-purpose space.
Um, as Councilwoman Holland, uh, as Councilwoman McGrath had indicated, I've heard question about why the Matt space couldn't couldn't just be one of the training rooms that's already in existence as well, like whether or not that that could just be used as a
multi-purpose space. Um, I did hear some of the comments already. Um, so I do appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure that some of that was on the record. I also have some questions about the office spaces, but not specifically the resilience room, but I do see that Captain Wardrobe has his hand up. So, I
don't know if you want to respond to me. Sure. I just wanted to respond about the the matted area. What I envision for that is you would walk through the gym. There would be an area where you would be able to change your uh gym footwear. uh either you would go barefoot on the
mats or you would have dedicated shoes for the mats only. So we take the hygiene of the mats very seriously. We would probably have like little cubbies there or even build a half wall uh to separate maybe some of the train uh matted area from the gym itself where
you'd come in, you'd have a bench, you would change your footwear. Um either put dedicated shoes on for the mats or go in barefoot. anytime you step off the mat, you would step back into an area where you can put your shoes back on. So, we're not transferring uh germs or,
you know, a foreign matter from the gym floor or from outside onto the training mat area where we would be, you know, rolling around and we wouldn't want to expose officers to uh, you know, you want to get empgo or some kind of fungal infection or a bacterial infection. So,
I would do see us walking through the gym, hitting an area where you can change your shoes, maybe like I said, cubbies or a small bench, and then coming onto the matted area just to keep it uh keep the hygiene and keep it clean. Hopefully, that answers your question.
>> Yeah, I I do just want to note that there is still that other door as well, so I don't know if you would keep that or not. And if if you're going to keep the matted area with the mats out all the time, um that might limit its use as a multi-purpose area. So, not really
anything other than a comment, just flagging it in this design as I as I see it. But thank you for that clarification. And certainly nobody wants any kind of dirty mat mats. And the reference to wrestling earlier brought back uh memories so of uh
brothers. So >> yeah, that that's that's one open room. Um it just appears to be two different rooms. >> Um but as far as a multi-unctioning for training, that would be under the direction of the police department and we would bring
people in uh for those mats. There's a numerous courses that the attorney general uh has endorsed on not only effective handcuffing technique but that's where we would attempt to uh bring in the other agencies and bring in the uh the the vendor to train.
>> Thank you chief. Um I did also have some additional comments about the office space. You've you've touched on that a little bit. Um and I didn't get an opportunity to speak. Uh, one of the things that that became apparent to me is the size of the different offices
throughout the second floor. Uh, and I had said at our June 23rd meeting that I thought there was opportunity for efficiencies. And so, allow me to be a little bit more precise on that. Current office sizes, as I could tell from the
prior floor plan, kind of range from 140 to 170 square ft. And right now the only kind office facility and I'll put office in air quotes and thank you for for moving the uh slide down is really the
lactation room at approximately 143 square ft. Uh so with this space you're you're going to have a small kitchenet uh I believe and you know space for a nursing mother to be pumping. Next to that you have a video editing room of
200 square ft and a series of offices that are 200 square ft. Elsewhere on the second floor we have offices at 200 or exceeding 200 square ft. I think there are opportunities to reduce the size of these offices. I do appreciate everybody
likes large spacious offices, but I think for example with video editing, it is more important to have space for multiple monitors than it is to have space for what appear to be filing cabinets. I live with a video editor.
You do not need 200 square feet for video editing. If you were going to have multiple video editors in there, maybe that would justify the 200 square feet. Where you're proposing right now, a single desk in the different offices,
200 square feet appears to be a little generous. And so I do think that there are opportunities for square footage savings there. Similarly, in the police chief's suite, I think that we can see that we have a square footage total
overall between the admin, the shower, and the office of more than what's currently the square footage of the second floor of town hall for police. I think there are opportunities for some efficiencies there. Uh we could probably have all the same amenities, but we
could reduce that square footage and realize some savings. And while I appreciate statements earlier that it's not necessarily a onetoone savings, but when you look at overall reducing perhaps some of the size of the office spaces when we consider that this is
going to be built for future use, that's likely going to be a lot less paperheavy and we're not necessarily going to need um the filing cabinet storage and the like. I think that there are those opportunities for cost savings. Uh I did
also want to just flag and it was next to the resiliency room is the second kitchenet on the second floor. We have gotten resident feedback that between the full kitchen on the first floor, the kitchenet on the second floor and then
the multi-use kitchenet on the second floor that there is a a lot of redundancy there. I think I do understand having worked in large offices that it is helpful to have small kitchenet areas and like located
strategically but these are rather large uh in terms of square footage. I think there are opportunities for some efficiencies and space savings there where we could reconfigure this space to save on some of that square footage and
realize some additional cost savings. Karen, anything else on the space? >> No, as far as the offices go, that's just again those are placeholders. They wouldn't necessarily be set up that way. It's just to give a visual uh from Frank. Um and as far as the size from
one office to the lactation, we I mean Frank could probably expand upon it. We're talk we're picturing persons who use the room where the lactation room would obviously be one person at a time where these offices would have potentially multi pe multiple
uh people staff and personnel in there. As far as the the number of offices uh you know that could change. Currently with our current lineup each office would be filled at this time. Um, at one point we had uh one extra office um that
we were just following a guideline with. Um, as far as having that in case someone was out injured or assigned a project or an outside agency came in um this has shifted and shrunk a bit. So there is not one currently but um we would figure
something out. Uh again walls walls would come down and possibly combine different areas. As far as the kitchenet by the conference room, yes, kitchenet, there's a sink there is the envision. Um, but uh
you know that that's why it's referred to as a kitchenet. I understand what you're saying as far as there's one down by the um training room. >> Council McGrath. >> Yes, thank you. Um I uh appreciate um
Chief your um uh response to the councilwoman's comments. I have also heard that feedback and um about um just and have the similar feedback, same feedback on the kitchenet and those spaces and just in general kind of
reducing the size of things as much as possible. Um uh Mr. Minino, you mentioned a comment at the top. um residents are counting the number of bathrooms um in this facility. So, one thing we haven't talked about because
they are um on top of each other is there are bathrooms on the um one side of this facility um for men and women. And you mentioned at the top of your presentation that there are standards uh that need to be followed. So again, as a followup, can you please cite those
standards specifically on how many bathroom facilities should be provided because again residents are um um they are questioning um you know why so many um in short short terms clearly we need
to have convenience and we have moved as a society more to single use. I think of singleuse uh bathrooms as continuous use um instead of making assumptions on how many we need for men and women. So just something to be um considerate uh in the
future, which I know there's some uh single-use bathrooms in the facility and we need to make sure we have that available, but um but also maybe we can get some efficiencies if we just kind of rethink some of them. Uh but I would
like to see those standards as we have been um asked. So I appreciate that. Thank you. >> We can we can certainly provide the plumbing calculations that were done, plumbing fixture calculations. They are based on the number of men and women in the facility they need to be
proportional. And as I said for a facility with multiple uses and security uh locations, the there are grossing factors on top of those calculations. So we'll share them with you. You can certainly see the the how we arrived at the number of fixtures. Uh to your point
about singleuse toilet rooms, um they actually take up more square footage than uh a group toilet. Um for example, if you were to look at the locker shower area, we can put two fixtures in the same uh square footage that you would
put a unisex toilet because they need to be ADA accessible. ADA accessibility requires a big turning circle turning radius for a wheelchair should someone have a wheelchair. Um so you can put two fixtures in the same area that you could put one uh you know regular fixture in a
unisex toilet. So when we come to things like locker rooms and and locations like that, it makes more sense to provide group toilets. It's more efficient in terms of square footage. But to your point, you know, one of the things about this whole presentation is that again,
we've done a a lot in terms of conceptualizing this building, but this building is by no means designed, and I did say that in the beginning. We've conceptualized it. We've come up with what we believe are square footages we can work with. Are there things that
will be trimmed and and and as evidenced by the very fact that this unisex toilet was added later? And we did that to try and show that you know there are things that will happen as we look further into design. Um you don't want to spend
design monies without having approved this you know us doing uh you know detailed design monies without having you know knowing that we're moving forward. So at the end of the day we will definitely look at all of the comments made by the council the public.
Uh you know we did hear things. So that's part of the reason why some of the spaces were already modified uh just to try to show you what was possible. So uh you know I take your your comments into you know obviously very seriously in terms of being able to um marry the
building. The only other thing that I will say is that what we change on the first floor affects what happens on the second floor and vice versa. There is a you know there is a um a consistency of structure and things like that that have to be met. So it's not it's not as easy
as just you know moving a wall. So but we will absolutely take all of this into consideration and you know uh make make uh any of the positive changes that we can to reduce the size of the facility. If you will notice, we've already done
that in some measure. Uh, from the original, obviously, it was 47,300 at one point, it was 41,900 after that, and now I think we're down to 40,400. So, we are continually continuing to
reduce the building. Um, you know, we just need to, you know, make sure that we can, uh, reduce the building and the cost at the same time. Right. All right. Moving on to the fire department, unless Chief Kieran, you
have anything else to add? >> No, I I thank you all and I I've been taking notes and uh make sure that I will follow up um for what was was requested. >> Thank you, Chief. And thank you to all the police department employees and
officers who have been on tonight for what has become a quite a long meeting. We appreciate your involvement and answering questions, providing your insight as well so everybody can understand better the design. Uh move on to the fire department. We have with us
uh Chief Nick Polyino. Chief, is there anybody that you need promoted at this point from the attendees list to the panelist? >> Uh no, I'm with I'm sharing a space here in the training room with uh ex- chief Tedesco and X- Chief Magatti. uh they're
here with me, but I'll be doing the speaking on behalf of the department. >> Are you able to turn your camera on so we can >> I can uh just a warning that we're sitting in the training room projecting this so we're in the dark? >> Oh, okay. All right, that's fine.
>> But I will turn it on. And >> is it displaying? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Um so, Mayor, thank you uh for setting this meeting up tonight. We're definitely looking forward to it and the feedback and engagement with the council and anyone that has questions for us. Uh
just a little overview of how we got to this point. So in 2009, the then fire chief was approached by the town manager at the time to put together a committee to start looking into a new station 2. Um there were architectural plans drawn
up for the existing location at 209 Bloomfield Avenue. And you know over the years things have changed and ideas have changed and here we are now in 2025 and we have this shared space opportunity. We have a physical location and we have a building concept and design. So um
I'll turn it over to Frank if he wants to start with our spaces and I can explain them to the best of my ability and uh take any questions on those spaces. >> Yeah, I mean that's that's great. Nick, what we'll what we'll do is we'll start I mean the the first the first and the probably the biggest component of the
fire department is the garage bays. Um there are three bays as we know we don't have proper clearances within within the existing firehouse between vehicles. Excuse me. So laying out hoses and trying to open doors of two two
apparatus that hit each other. So this uh this garage bay and or the three bays have been sized um you know to the bare minimum with the clearances required and and suggested by NFPA and uh the design
guidelines. Um we're designed this garage for six for four vehicles. Uh it certainly could fit a fourth vehicle. Uh I'm sorry a fifth vehicle. Um the other component that's built in here is we have gear racks on all the walls on the
two walls uh for the for the um garage bay. Uh and then there are storage rooms and work areas off that bay. So Nick, do you want to talk more about the the the bay and the apparatus? >> Yeah, so uh the apparatus. So one of the important things to keep in mind with
this uh conceptual design. So station 2 houses the ladder truck. Uh it's the only ladder truck currently in Verona. It is the longest vehicle uh in our fleet by by a long shot. The ladder truck is 53 feet long. Um so that's evidenced in in Frank's drawing here
with the length. Um the engine is substantially smaller. The utility truck even smaller than that. And those are 16 and 13y old vehicles. So we did speak with some other local departments that are purchasing new vehicles. we can expect the length of those vehicles to
each grow by five to six feet um by the next time Verona goes out to purchase a new ladder truck and a new engine. So just you know this the way we have the space designed now it leaves us a little opportunity for growth in the future. Um, you know, we worked with Frank to design door heights that would not only
last our current needs, but would also last the future needs of potential height increases on apparatus. And as everyone's aware, I know all five council members have been through station 2 at one point or another. The height clearance is one of the major issues as as well as the width and the
depth of the the bays, but the height was one of our biggest concerns. So, you know, this new space, and Frank, I believe you touched on it earlier when you talked about how there wouldn't be any structure, uh, any offices or any physical space on the second floor above the apparatus rooms. I think one of the
main reasons that leads to that is the height of the apparatus and again allowing for potential growth and expansion and redesign of vehicles over the next 50 to 75 years. Um, so Frank, if you want to zoom into those rooms in the back, I'll go through them. Uh, I'll
start on the left with the fire equipment storage room. Uh, that would be a room to store firefighting equipment. That could be turnout gear, helmets, boots, gloves. Um, that could be axes, and anything that's not being utilized on a fire apparatus. We want to
have it safely secured somewhere, not laying out on the floor, not a tripping hazard. So, that allows us space to store all of our spare equipment. Uh, moving next to the mechanical room. So that would have the mechanical functionality of that part of the building. Um the compressor that you see
in the back there, that is a portable um compressed air breathing system, that is to fill the air bottles that firefighters wear on their self-contained breathing apparatus. Uh currently that compressor sits out on the floor in the bay about a foot and a
half from a fire engine. Um so again, you know, that gives it its own dedicated space. Um it keeps it out of a hazard area. right now as you're filling an air bottle to open the door to that compressor to load it. You basically have to pin yourself against the engine
to fit it in. Um, moving over to the work area. So, that is our mechanics table. Right now, the mechanics table we have in the current station 2 is adjacent to the ladder truck. Um, it's a workbench area kind of man-made with some shelves underneath it. We do do a
lot of in-house repairs both to apparatus and equipment. It allows us a space to work on things, repair things. Um, there's a lot of maintenance to the valves and the different appliances that we use for the engines as well as fire hydrants. So, it gives a place to work
on that stuff. The current workbench, which may have been evidenced in some of um Frank's photos in his earlier presentations, is currently being used to store turnout gear um because we don't have enough racking space for the members. So, the workspace is kind of taken up. And this new space here allows
us a place to work on all of that uh stuff. Uh moving down to gear storage. So this space allows us um what can fit in the fire equipment storage room. It gives us that second space. Um yeah, right now um
station one has a washing machine. We have a washing machine for station two, but um we don't have a current location for it in the existing building. So, this could potentially be a room where we could store or more importantly, if we don't go out and purchase a dryer, which the dryers are twice the dollar
amount of the washing machines, it does give us a place where we could hang the gear up and dry it properly, um, and allow it to drain properly so it's not standing water on the floor. Next to that is the hose cabinet. Um, we specifically designed that room to be on an outside wall so that we could have
fresh air ventilation. Um, fire hose has to be stretched or hung to dry. If you roll it up, uh, that promotes mold and mildew and can damage and deteriorate the hose. Currently, what we do now is we roll the hose in between the rigs. So, as members come into the firehouse
to uh put on their equipment to go on calls, they're stepping, sliding, uh, and all that, it's not uncommon that as an apparatus is backing back into the building that a hose or a coupling gets run over, is damaged and needs to be repaired. So, this would give us a
dedicated space. Um, our firehouse number one has a hose closet. It's very functional. Uh, the only change we made to this hose closet for this fire station again is putting on the outside wall for fresh air ventilation. A, that'll help with the drying of the hose. It'll reduce the time it needs to
dry, and it'll also reduce the smell. Um, wet fire hose tends to smell pretty bad, especially in warm weather. Um, the outside walls on both sides have the gear storage racks that Frank spoke about. Um, right now we have space for
20 sets of turnout gear on racks on wheels in the current station 2 and we have 34 member station there. So there's 14 sets of gear that are unsafeely secured throughout the building. And again, this this causes damage to the equipment. Um, it's not uncommon that
something could get dropped, broken, run over, or you know, just it allows a safe space to store as well as put the equipment on and off. Do we have any questions on the on the bays and that or do you want to just keep going and then we'll just take all
questions? It's a smaller area. >> I don't see any questions. So, let's continue, please. >> Okay. >> So, decon room. >> Oh, sorry. >> No, no, go ahead, Nick. That's fine. >> Okay. >> Uh the decon laundry room. So, that's a
place for We have the ice machine in there. uh decon there are calls where we come in where members need to wash off their boots or their gloves or their equipment. Um this would be like a prep place where we get all the contaminants off uh in a safe contained area. From
there we would bring them over to the washing machines and properly wash them and dry them so that they're ready for use again. But this gives us that opportunity to uh again get all those contaminants off the gear, any bodily fluids or anything like that that we don't want the member to keep on their their personal gear or to track
throughout the firehouse or bring it to somebody else's home on a future incident. >> Shar >> and that is shared with the police department. >> Yep. Correct. Um so our ready room. So this is a room that's been redesigned a
couple times on our half on our behalf. So, what we did was we tried to make this our multi-purpose room. Um, in the fire service, a ready room is kind of the heart of the firehouse. Um, we have a kitchen in here, which previously our kitchen was upstairs. We eliminated the
K kitchen functionalities upstairs and moved them downstairs into this one space. Um, we have a storage room off of there. We have tables, chairs, a television, couches. We can conduct uh informal meetings in here uh for committee meetings and stuff like that.
This is really a place for members to come to enjoy. It's also a good space for them to come on a hot day like today uh after a fire call they want to come back and get a bottle of water, sit down and cool off a little bit before they go back home or return back to work. Uh the current ready room we have right now is
the shared meeting room at station 2, which is the room directly behind the apparatus room. The air conditioning in that room has been broken for five years now. So the firemen went out and purchased window air conditioners. So today with the air conditioners going full blast, that room was 84 degrees.
The apparatus rooms today were 89 degrees. So again, we did have an alarm today. Guys came back, they were hot, they were sweaty. There's really no place to cool down and compose yourself before you leave and go back to your your daily life. So this room allows us again space feasibility. And the biggest
thing in the fire service, firemen are creatures of habit. They always love to be near the fire trucks. So, this is right off the apparatus rooms. If an alarm comes in while they're in this room, they're right there. Um, we felt that our space was better utilized on the first floor as opposed to the second
floor. And again, that's just firefighters are creatures of habit. They like to be near their apparatus. They always want to be ready to go at a moment's notice. So we feel that this ready room in this location allows us to handle most of our functionality out of the firehouse through the first floor.
>> Uh officer administrative room. So currently at station one, we have an officer's room in the basement. Um this is basically just a replica of that room. Uh the current administrative staff in the company is four. There's a captain, a lieutenant, a secretary, and a treasurer. This allows them a work
space, a meeting space, a storage space. Um, there are records that are kept there. There are uh personnel issues that are addressed in there. There are private conversations that go on in there. Um, it's a secure space that allows the officers to handle any
business that they need to do. Um, there's storage along the walls if needed. It really gives a good workstation to accomplish any of those administrative tasks that they may be dealing with. uh the the shower and the locker rooms. Those are pretty self-explanatory. Frank, if you want to just touch on this
a little bit. I know we did reduce down the number on the female side just based on what we currently have on our roles as well as what we project for the future. >> Correct. And and I'm just noting that it says eight lockers. It's really four lockers. Um we we went through a couple
of iterations with this. So um you know we were we talked about the the equity in the in the beginning when we designed this we were looking for some equity but given the number of personnel and the fi the fact that there have only ever been three maximum female firefighters uh we
decided to reduce the space. We also uh put in a unisex locker area or shower area uh as well. Um, so we do have um a a a much reduced uh female locker area
um and a larger uh male locker area which accommodates uh the squad. >> Yep. Um and again, right now we have two female members in our department, one in each station. So again, with potential growth and expansion, I can't see that number going higher than three or four.
So I think the four lockers on the female side would be more than adequate. Um, we do have less lockers than members on the male side, which I think is okay. Uh, lockers would be issue on a on a need basis. Not every member would utilize a locker. So, I think we're okay
with a smaller space there with reduced numbers. >> Well, those lockers, it's 20 lockers, but they are half sizes. So, you're getting you're getting 40 lockers in that area. >> Okay. And then this and that would allow for the members that would allow them to
keep a change of clothes, an extra shirt, a pair pair of pants, spare pair of pants to change after an alarm or something like that. So, uh, really, you know, small lockers are ideal for us. We don't need anything bigger than that. >> Nick, did you want to just go over the last room on this floor? I'm going to
I'm going to cover that because that's actually a this this actually was changed a couple times and that should be the off the room that's labeled office firewatch is really the patrol storage room and this is a mechanical space uh the same as they were on the original plan back in June. So uh
through our through our iterations that just got missed. apologies. >> Thanks, Frank. >> And then finally, we have a secure vestibule that it provides secure access just for the fire department uh to enter into their area. While anybody can go in
through the main uh entrance of the building and get to the fire department, we do we did create a secure entrance on that backside as well. And this would be for more non-emergent events, uh, meetings, drills, training. Uh, if you're just going to the firehouse for
any reason, no reason to walk around all the way to the front of the building and access that door. Uh, you could come in right here and you could access all the spaces on the first floor pretty easily from the parking lot. >> Thank you, Chief Council McGrath.
>> Thank you. Um, I do want to acknowledge and thank there was some reconiguration of this space since the last time we saw this plan. I want to acknowledge that and thanks for the for the reimagining where this space is getting closer to that concept of continuous use um for a
lot of the spaces. So I do appreciate that. Um uh if you wouldn't mind just walking walk me through very briefly. So after a large scale fire, people will go into the decontamination room um to take off some of the contaminants and put
some of the gear in the washing area. So what are will people as you envision with this space because I know you don't have the facilities now then go into the locker room area and take a shower like how do you envision after a fire um
people using the locker room area? >> There are actually two showers in the decon laundry that is a decontamination laundry room. So everything after a fire will be done in this room. They will take their clothes, put them in the the
washer and dryer. They have a rack that they'll put their new clothes on. They will scrub and take a shower in this room. So, no contaminants leave this room. Um, this is uh, you know, uh, isolated from the locker rooms themselves.
>> Okay. So, >> and that's the biggest thing for us is coming out of those apparatus rooms. We don't want members with decontaminated equipment or gear to go any further than that room. We don't want them going into uh any of the common space or any of the ready room or dedicated space. We want
to really isolate those contaminants right there in the decon room. >> Then explain to me a little bit in the locker room area how those sha showers would be utilized by volunteers. >> Yeah, two different scenarios. Yeah. >> Um the shower would be used again if a
member was doing a station standby or maybe they had something where it's just a hot day and they needed to take a shower and cool down uh and put a change of clothes on. They were overheated at a call or something like that. The showers in the decon room would specifically be used for um decontamination hazardous
material situations. We wouldn't want members going through that room if if the decontaminants didn't exist on them just because we wouldn't want to expose them to anything even though you know that room will have drains and and be cleaned and everything but those spaces are really separate for those needs and
that's a shared space uh with PD as well whereas the locker room space would be dedicated just for the male and female firefighters. >> Okay, great. Thanks for that clarification. Thank you. Hey, any other questions for the fire chief?
Okay. Um Frank, could you just go over maybe some of the I think we have the um the atrium left as far as the the last uh the last items. >> Yeah. So, um you know, obviously we've
got a a main lobby. I shouldn't have marked it up, but we have a main lobby that you would enter in. There's obviously a secure vestibule. We have our dispatch and our greeter. So, anybody coming in would either talk to police or if they were coming in for records, they would come around. There's
a records window and a records office. There is a public toilet in the lobby. Um, but they do have records um right here on the first floor as well. Um, we've created a an atrium, a an open courtyard. It's an open air courtyard.
It is covered from the roof, you know, against rain, but it is open on the sides for air. Um it is a uh you know a wellness space. It's you know it's it's it allows natural light into the into the center of the building. Uh you know it will be obscure from the from the uh
lobby side so you won't be able to see into it but it'll be open from all other sides allowing natural light coming in from above to uh to to light up the courtyard. So it's really a wellness space. Uh and it is double height so it does translate to the second floor. Uh
so on the second floor um that same uh space here is open to below and it allows light to come down and you'll be able to see light from the fitness center or from the training room. Again allowing natural light into the space as opposed to just dealing with LEDs uh all
day long. >> All right. Thank you, Frank. >> You're welcome. >> Um does anybody have any final questions? any of the design elements in particular before we move on to comments. We're just looking for questions at this point.
Councilwoman Holland, >> thank you. So, I just one topic that hasn't come up at all um and you know it doesn't really lend itself to the floor plan that we've been discussing, but we did get a couple of comments from
residents expressing concern about the ingress and egress from the site um with the only one access point on Pmpton. Um thank you for for switching over the screen. So, I just thought if either police or fire, I think maybe more
specifically fire wanted to speak to that point, that could that could be very helpful to have on the record for residents um that had expressed those concerns. Thank you, >> Frank. Do you want to address this as the designer? Well, again, I mean, we've
gone we had several discussions about the access from the facility, the discussion about the lights being controlled um during emergencies. Uh there was discussions about sound and noise. Um, in fact, I might even have
um uh there was uh discussion about the noise from alarms and you know there was a you know the chiefs I think can answer this better in terms of when things occur. You know the patrolman uh the police patrolman are normally out on the
street so they're there already when there's a fire. Um the fire do not roll with sirens going. they wait until they get on on the street. Um, but there are ways to control the lights going in and out. Uh, so as far as the single access,
is it ideal? No, it's not. But it is the site we have. And um, you know, we've made it work from a uh, you know, a a a design standpoint, from a site standpoint. But obviously that was after discussions with both police and fire in
terms of how they operate and how they access the site. Thank you, Mr. Midinio. Councilman Grath, >> thank you. To ask a followup though, I think people are concerned and I just want to make sure the analysis was done from the fire point of view that the
truck can actually make the turn out. And also, I see that there are parking spots. you know, some of the questions we got and this may be more of a question for fire is like what happens if people are coming in while the fire truck needs to come out. Um, that's
where there's a lot of concern also from the public. I see e ADA EV parking. So, we just want to make sure everything can fit, you know, in an emergency scenario where the fire trucks are pulling out, especially since they're in the back. So, we actually have a drawing that
shows turning radiuses of all of the vehicles, including the vehicle sizes that we have. And what it shows is how that vehicle swings out and moves back. And we have these turning radiuses. This looks narrow, but this is actually close to 40 ft between here to here. So, there
is a significant amount of room between the parking spaces um and the the area. But I will allow the chief to to elaborate on how they, you know, when and how uh they do go go through this. But we we can share those plans with you that do show the turning radiuses for
the vehicles uh and coming in and out of the spaces. >> Yeah. So again, Frank, you took the words right out of my mouth. So we gave uh Frank's team all the turning radiuses for all the vehicles in our department. Um so we know that we have adequate space to make those turns. Uh again he
mentioned the 40 foot uh width of that area. If a car was entering clearly they would hopefully see the lights and they would know to move over to their appropriate lane. We would have our lane to to move out into traffic. The biggest thing which I want to bring up uh with the egress of the building and also with
uh how it relates to the parking situation. So both fire stations currently if an apparatus is coming back to the firehouse, we have traffic lights set up in front of both firehouses that will stop immediate traffic and that will then tie up four lanes of traffic to allow the fire apparatus to back in
on Bloomfield Avenue into their uh bays of their firehouse. Uh the way we've designed this and again Frank's team has gone through with all the turning radiuses to make sure that it works. Uh and we're confident with what they've come back to us with in our our meetings with them. we can actually pull into this facility instead of having to shut
down four lanes of Pmpton Avenue when we're coming back from an alarm. So, we can pull forward. We checked with these parking spaces right on the end with where we're going to be parking the ladder truck uh closest to the police side. It gives us plenty of room to make the swing to back in safely. So, that
will be a huge benefit as opposed to or compared to what we work with now where we have to shut down four lanes of traffic every time we come back with the fire trucks. Now we can keep traffic open and we can make the turn right into the facility and we can handle the backing up and turning all on our
property and and not tie up Pompton Avenue with that. >> Okay, that's excellent. And I guess my followup would be you mentioned um that the new fire trucks are five to six feet longer. So, can we just stress test these turning radiuses
um if you haven't already for the future fire truck that we're going to need to buy? Um and I think the Yeah, I think that would be a good idea to just make sure um that we would still have that room, but residents are have been
concerned about this. So, I appreciate the clarification. And when we say, you know, we're looking for fire follow-up documents. Would be great if we could put everything on the website. I know the mayor is really big on that. We can get all of these fire up follow-up documents in one place. So as residents
have questions, we could say, "Hey, look, here's the drawing on the turning radiuses and we can just direct them right to one centralized location." That would be great. So perfect. Thank you. beat me to that comment from McGrath for sure.
>> Um, all right. Any other I just have one design. Oh, go ahead, Chief Boss. >> Um, we didn't touch on the second floor of the building. There's no dedicated fire space on the second floor. It's only shared spaces we have up there. Um,
but I just want to briefly touch on the training room. So, the training room will also serve as the fire department meeting room. Um, we conduct company meetings monthly. We conduct departmentwide meetings um, every other month at each station. So, there'd be
six uh, department meetings up there, which would house uh, the full department, both companies. So, we would be basically eliminating that room from what we currently have and using that as a shared space and a multi-purpose room. So, really that training room would just give us an extra element, an extra
benefit. Did you want to address um the gym or anything? Uh >> uh we can. So just to touch briefly on the gym. Um so this gym would have access it'd be shared obviously police and fire. It also would be shared within the fire service. So uh there's two
companies in town. Every member, all 70 would have access to this gym. Um, so you know, I'm confident that we can share the space appropriate and correctly with the police as well as keep it it busy throughout most of the day. Um, I estimated within our department, you know, just informally
asking there's roughly 32 members right now that have gym memberships. Um, that would be great if we could get all those members to utilize the gym, the fitness room in this public safety building. One of the big aspects aside from all the health benefits and we know that cardiac is one of the number one killers of
firefighters annually and our equipment gets bigger and heavier every year. Uh but one of the biggest things in a volunteer um emergency operation is having firefighters near the firehouse or in the firehouse when emergencies come in. So if we could get on a daily
basis an extra three to four guys coming through the firehouse at a time using this fitness center if an alarm and emergency comes in in town, we already have a crew ready to go that can respond with an apparatus and that would really help reduce lead times and arrival times and uh help us respond better to our
emergencies in town. >> Thank you, Chief Palina. Um, I just have one comment, Frank, if uh we could go to the the outside view of the building. >> Just I I know I think we took out of this presentation some of the the
elevations of the front and the side of the building. >> Um, and one comment I just wanted to make and I've made it a couple other meetings because I know we have a number of residents on is that the building as the concept plan and I know this is not the final design. we're really focused
on, you know, what the program is at this point. Um, but one of our members of the public brought up in a previous meeting about the large windows in the front being expensive. Um, my personal opinion, and obviously we need all the
council members to agree and and get some comments from um the committee, is I would like to see the building be a little more traditional in style. Um, this building is definitely different. Um, and it is does like to
fit a little bit more into the the character of that side of the street um in on Pontton Avenue. Um, so just I would like the building to look a little bit more like the Verona Community Center, Town Hall, or the um the multi-purpose office building up at 195
Pompton, which is right down the street. um just to to have it fit a little bit in the neighborhood a little bit more. Um being cognizant of that. Uh there's some modern elements and things that um I think are neat designs from an architectural standpoint, but may not be
the right designs for the neighborhood. Um so I I didn't want to not, you know, forget to comment on that. Um and the same idea, there are just some things I think we can do to u to have fit the neighborhood a little bit better. Um, we
have talked just for the the public that is on here because I know a lot of people haven't attended all of our meetings, but we did talk a lot about the buffering between the properties, um, putting some screening up on the side of the building as well, so
residents looking out would see green versus a, you know, a large building. Um, so some of those items are there and I just didn't want to lose sight of that since we were focusing on the inside. Don't want residents to think that we forgot about that. Deputy Mayor Makavoy,
you're you're muted, Jack. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just want to touch on something before we get to the public. Uh I know there's a lot of people and I'm don't want to prolong this. There are, you know, some design issues within here. I am going to reach out to Frank and Kevin and possibly the
chiefs and go over a couple things. So, I don't want to pick away at the little things in this tonight because it's just going to prolong it. But I just want to let the public know this is we're we're all looking at this like current day, current squad, current fire department,
current police department. Uh we have to keep in mind obviously everybody knows all the building and construction that's going on in town. Verona is only getting bigger. Uh so obviously what's going to follow police department's going to have to get bigger. Fire department's going to have to get bigger. So keep this in
mind that okay some of the offices and some of the space might be big for now but down the road 10 15 20 25 50 years down the road it's going to be the the police department could outgrow the facility such as what's going on right
now. We took a facility in the center of town that had the uh fire department and the police department together and we had to remove the fire department from there and put it at the community center and that became part of the police department. So we have to remember this.
This is a long-term investment. It's possibly a 75 to 100year investment for Verona. And I just want everybody to realize that because it hasn't been talked about, but we have to realize that moving forward and, you know,
design this for future use. So, thank you. >> Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Um, Frank, I was wondering if you could touch on we we talked about the cost of this building, which is obviously of significant concern to the council and the public. Um, I was wondering if you
could touch a little bit on what the the costs of delaying the building might be. Um, as far as trends you have seen in >> increases in building cost versus CPI. Uh, is one outpacing the other? Uh, and
what the potential issues could be delaying this for, you know, indefinitely as it has been for the last 50 years. I I I can only tell you that um we continually probably once every couple of months get
letters from our contractors that we're working with who get letters from their suppliers who tell them about increases in costs um material costs going up. uh you know we've got issues going on in in the country like tariffs and things like that which are increasing costs but we
are seeing a steady increase um since co uh construction costs have steadily increased after co when during co you know we saw very unreasonable pricing you know the $124 but prices have stabilized since then
but that normal $24 is still $5 we're never going to get back down to where we were. And every year costs continue to go up. Um I can I can share with the council um a a a cost uh report that we
prepared uh for public facilities um that shows what this you know roofing roofing systems were 5 years ago were $28 a square foot. Now they're 50. Um so every cost every year that we go through
cost continues to go up. Um we're we're working right in Little Falls. They did they put forth a referendum three years ago with uh someone else. Uh that referendum went down. The same square footage of a referendum that was 34 million is now 47 million. And that was
3 years ago. So we're seeing incredible increases with uh with construction. And that's the only thing from my perspective um in looking at a building that I've given you budget numbers that were designed to go out three years. You
know, as we as we go down to a year on this thing or a year and a half, those numbers will need to be adjusted in in the future. >> I know a lot of council members have been, you know, providing some homework assignments and looking for some
additional data for the public. And I was thinking recently um looking at the phony community center which was built about 20 years ago. I think it was 1997. Uh Chief Kieran might know better. >> Um and that building it has a three bay
firehouse with a training room and a lot of similar kind of specialized equipment. It's missing the police station part. But this square footage entirely of that building with the the gymnasium and the ballroom and some offices in the front is probably
somewhat similar to what this is being proposed. This building might actually be a little bit smaller than the community center. Um, but I'd be curious to do a little analysis of what the community center cost in 1997 and what that same building would cost
today. >> Sure. >> To build. Um, and then would might be an interesting comparison to see if that cost has outpaced the CPI and what the value of building that building in 1997 was versus
building it 28 or 30 years later. Um, and and what the impact of that is. So, just something out there. I'll I'll put a a written request in as I've asked of all the other council members for that. Um just to get an idea of the the
benefit versus the the cost of doing something now versus delaying um for you know another couple years or indefinitely or whatever. That building just kind of popped into my mind. >> Okay, we can certainly do that.
>> Um so at this point I think we have exhausted questions. I did want to give the committee members an opportunity to from the fire and police to just make some closing comments. They've heard a lot of questions. If you have any
general responses, questions or any anything you'd like to say to the council. This is your open mic session now. Then we'll have our council any council comments and then we'll move on to public comment. Yeah, if I could, I would just like to
um make my statement that that I've made before that um to rehash for this was first noted 47 years ago in master plan. Um and it was front page news in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s back when we had
newspapers. Um, we know the current police headquarters is outdated and it no longer meets uh operational techn technological or safety needs of modern law enforcement. Space limitations hinder efficiency.
Aging infrastructure increases maintenance costs and outdated systems compromise both officer readiness as well as public service delivery. This proposed new facility would provide adequate space, updated technology, and
enhanced security, enabling the department to better serve the community and support future growth. Moreover, we would meet the requirements from the attorney general guidelines, Department of Correction mandates, and be compliant with police facilities recommendations from the International Association, the
chiefs of police. So, I thank everyone for this process tonight as well as this process that has been ongoing. I think something that I should note that I I've mentioned before but needs to be repeated.
Uh I came on in 1990. Um we would do anywhere from 8,000 calls to 10,000 calls on a busy year. Um believe we did 26,000 calls last year. So call volume has increased. Time spent on calls has
increased. Uh all these things lead into the fact that this wasn't uh sufficient 47 years ago. You can only imagine where we are now. So I thank everyone for their time. I got a lot of good uh questions and I'm going to get some
answers to everyone. Um and again I appreciate all the work of Mr. Msinio. And I said last time I think he was going to ignore my uh block my number and I think he did this time because I had a hard time getting a hold of him today. So it came true.
>> Chief Karen, any other police or fire representatives wish to make any closing thoughts, comments? Just raise your virtual hand, please. >> Chief Paulina. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to thank everyone. Um, so I joined this
committee two years ago as assistant chief. Um, it's been stressful, but it's really been enjoyable working with PD well as well as working with Frank and his team and representatives from town administration as well as my committeemen here in the fire department. Um, I know that every person
in this town as well as every council member knows the need for both organizations. Um, I feel we've successfully passed those hurdles. Uh, everyone acknowledges the conditions of the two buildings. Everyone knows that change is needed. This building is needed. Um, I'm hopeful and confident
after today's presentation, uh, Frank did a great job putting this together, uh, and cleaning it up and really making it I hope we can answer all the council's questions, all the residents questions, and I hope that, you know, we can take another step forward in this process. Um, again, you know, I'm proud to say that the fire department is
growing. Um, we're probably the second, if not the largest, volunteer fire department in West Essex. Uh, we're taking on a ton of members this year, but we are busting at the seams. We have gear all over the place. We don't have enough parking spaces. Our building is literally crumbling to pieces. We no
longer have air conditioning. We have problems with the heat in the winter. We have problems with the furnace. We have problems with the plumbing backing up. Uh the town does a great job, buildings and grounds, of trying to to band-aid things and keep the building functional for us. But, you know, we really are on
borrow time with this. So, um I really hope that we can following this meeting take a huge step forward in the process. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other police or fire representatives? Okay. Um I I've been good about calling
everybody else uh first, so I'm going to take this opportunity to to speak first with just some comments. Um I first off, I want to thank all of the committee members who I know have uh spent hours and hours and hours in this process. um
that was started under uh township manager Joe Joe Dearco uh even before the tenure of our current township manager and Mr. O Sullivan. Um and I know there's been a lot of time spent, a lot of research, a lot of deliberations.
Um, I think one important thing that we that really didn't didn't get into tonight, um, but due to the the timing of the meeting, I think this is something once again we could post online is to look at what the original iteration of the building looked like
and what without the council's intervention, this committee started to cut away from the building, right? what requests were versus what are the needs that have been articulated to this point and then what are the
those limited want items that have been articulated at this point. Uh that is important to acknowledge and recognize the fact that everybody has been working hard to do this. Uh, I can't speak for the entire council, but this is a a
problem that I think most people in town um and I think most of our council would agree uh needs to be addressed in some way that the problem exists, right? The question that faces us at this point is how we address that and what the
associated cost and impact on the community and the taxpayer is. At the same time, it's important to note what the cost and impact on the community and the taxpayer would be of not fixing these issues. Whether that be legal liability we face from having an
inadequate facilities, the potential that a facility could cease to be operational um if a there's a structural issue, let's say at the firehouse 2 or something along those lines. Um, and that's those are items that we have to
consider as well in our deliberations as we move forward and not lose sight of that. In many ways, we are on bought time. Um, and we have been on bought time for a while, but eventually that timing changes. If the Department of
Corrections no longer grants us waiverss for the holding facilities existing at police headquarters, then we can't hold uh detainees in our facility anymore. Um and we have lost some additional use at
police headquarters. Um, as the township managers brought up in reports, soon the public will be seeing modular trailers on the front lawn of town hall to make up some of that space that is no longer usable within the basement of town hall.
Um, so there'll be a very public uh appearance of that that need soon. Um so at this point the question really is what will this building look like in the
end or what is our solution in the end? Um if we choose to move forward with a building which is not a foregone conclusion. Um and if we choose to move forward with a building what does that building look like and what the impact on the taxpayer is. Um, one of the
things that I know the town administration has been working on with our financial analysts is looking at debt that is rolling off as well um to assess the impact of what the project is in on the taxpayer but also if any of
the debt is rolling off. One of the associated pieces of constructing a building of this magnitude in cost is that other items and other needs that would incur capital cost might have to be
strategically uh deferred um or have some problem solving components that relate to that. Um and I think that's another important thing to do. This is not I I hate to
blame past administrations or councils or or anything like that because everybody over the years has made decisions that were in their mind in the best interest community at that time. Um but the consequence of that those all
those decision-m processes have been is that we're now at a point where this issue has come to a head and needs to be addressed in some manner or another. So uh I think that is important
to note like it is also important to note that this is a concept plan and that this plan will be discussed adapted changed as we move forward um and that there are a lot of opinions. It's also important to note that because of the
fact that we have to borrow money uh in the form of bonds and notes to finance this building that four council members so all of the non-conlicted council members must agree on moving this project forward, right? Um and I just
confirmed that with the the township attorney. Even though Essex County Improvement Authority is going to be bonding this in in our name, we still need to have our normal twothirds vote um of the entire council, which is four members in this case. Um so this has to
be a collaborative approach. We have to make sure that everybody understands and has their questions answered. Um, the public may have noted that I didn't have as many questions as other members of the council. And in part, I just wanted to address that that's not for lack of
interest or um or curiosity, but I've met a lot with department heads to discuss this offline and also have some background in emergency services um from having been a member of a of a fire department in the past. I was not a structural firefighter, but I was a
member of fire department in the past helping with scene security. I also worked for a police department um that had a a newer building at that point that was in the the 2000s I think. Um and I worked in the dispatch of a police
department and the facility that they built back I think it was built in the late 1990s. Um has basically the same programmatic uh elements that the proposal here has
as well. Um so there isn't you know a huge amount of of change in what the best practice has been um in buildings what they were building back then as well. So um but that's one of the reasons why just having a more of
understanding of these items um I didn't have as many questions but am seriously considering every room the impact the presentations um and I appreciate the cander and the ability of the of the council and and all of these representatives to discuss this in a
matterof fact and problem solving orientation. So, um, those are some comments. I think the what we'll have to talk about at the next council meeting or maybe another one after that, uh, depending on when we get some answers to these questions back is to come to a
timeline. And I think we need to put that out to the public as far as what our timeline for a decision-making process is going to be. um as um our panelists and our council has put out there, this has been a a concept several
years in the making. Um and at this point, we are in the position of making a decision and either moving forward or not moving forward and how that is conducted. So, we do need to have an honest timeline that we put out to the public um on those items as well. So,
just general comments, but really a lot of thank yous and thank you to the public for um staying on and engaged for the last four hours. Deputy Mayor Mlo, >> you had your hand up before. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to
uh also say thank you to everybody on here. I'm going to reserve my uh any other questions for the end if I have them, but I really want to hear from the public right now. Thanks, >> Council McGrath. Um, I also want to hear from the public.
So, mayor, if I can defer my final comments till after public comment, that would be great. They've been waiting a really long time. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. Um, at this time, I will open for public comment. Will the clerk please read the public
participation statement? >> I'll defer my comments as well, Mr. Mayor. Okay. >> Thank you. I didn't see your hand up before, so I didn't call on you. Mayor, I believe the clerk is having some issues with their microphone. >> All right. Um, let me see if I can
pull that up. >> Can you hear me? >> We can now. Jen, go ahead. >> Oh, did I do have a mic? I'm sorry. Anyone from the public wishing to speak on any matter, please raise your hand by pressing the raise hand button on your monitor. If you're dialing in by phone,
press star 9. Um, once you're recognized, clearly state only your name and township of residence for the record. You're not required to provide your street address. However, if you do, please note that these these meeting recordings are public record and
addresses will not be redacted for any purpose. You'll have four minutes to address the council. There'll be no cross dialogue during this public portion after everyone wishing to speak has been heard. The council may address your comments and or questions and it's open.
>> Thank you, Madam Clerk. We have Mrs. French. You are up. >> Can you hear me? >> We can now. Go ahead. >> Hi, Regina French. I am a Vernon resident. Um went through a lot of emotions listening to this presentation.
I am absolutely flabbergasted at how inadequate the police department is. Not the department, the building is. Um and also the firehouse. I have no idea. Um I'm embarrassed that these conditions exist for these these hardworking men
and women. I'm a little angry that this has not been greenlighted yet. um these brave men and women who put their lives on the line for us, remember 911. Um you know, if they want a gym, give it
to them. If they want a courtyard, give it to them. If the police need a quiet place and the firefighters need a a sleeping room or a room on the first floor, give it to them. Heck, if they want a cotton candy machine and a pony, I say give it to them. I am really
really aggravated that the current conditions exist and and that we've waited so long to provide. We need to have this building built tomorrow. And you know, I kind of resent that. Uh we're putting a lot on the police and firefighters to kind of justify what
they need and provide this information, provide that data. Um what kind of revenue can you bring in? They don't exist to bring in revenue. They exist to serve us in ways that we cannot do for ourselves. Um, and I really feel this is the perfect opportunity to show them our
gratitude in a real and tangible way, how much we appreciate them. And um, you know, in closing, I say let's take care of those who take care of us. And I have a question for council. I don't know if you're taking questions, but I'll make it more of a comment. Uh, Councilwoman
Cynthia Holland and Councilwoman McGrath. I don't know who these people you're speaking to, but I'm also talking to residents and a lot of people are in favor of this and don't know what the holdup is. Was there some kind of a survey fel uh sent out? I didn't receive
one, but I think if if you're going to, you know, bring up concerns of of of people um in the town, I think there needs to be something more formal like a survey or at least present both points of view that you must have also spoken to people. I would hope that were in
favor of this proposal. That is all I have to say at this time. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. French. >> Just to clarify, if members of public have questions, you can ask questions. We just do not do a cross dialogue. So, we'll take all questions at well, we may
answer all questions at the end of all public comment. Um, moving on to Mr. Chapani. >> Good evening. Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. Go ahead. >> Thank you. My name is Zachary Trapani. I live in town. Um,
there is a lot. I work in construction. I work as a specialized consultant for high-v value projects. My job is often to come in once projects have gone wrong and fix them. Um, there are a lot of irregularities going on right now with this project in town and they all
frankly scare me. Uh, many of these I brought up a year ago. I actually sent an email to every council member of which no response was received. But for starters, when we hire someone for a project, be it an architect, a contractor, anyone
like that, >> we first bet them with experience. And we're typically looking for someone who has completed a similar project in the past five years at approximately 80% of the expected value. Um, looking at the
current architecture firm's portfolio, I see nothing even like that. I heard talk of a project at another firm years ago. Um, that's really concerning. And that brings me to another point in that generally once you start a project like
this as an individual or a municipality, you start with a development consultant. You hire someone to tell you what to do first before you start hiring architects and engineers just to get you on the right ball. And it sounds like we kind of went straight to hiring an architect
to design a building for properties that were purchased with what it sounds to me like no due diligence. And by due diligence on purchasing a property for development, generally you purchase that property contingent on what's called a phase one exploration. Phase one
exploration means that you would go in on contract of the property. You don't own it yet to explore that the property meets environmental issues. Um soil density is checked. That way you know that we can even design a building this
big to go there. Uh things like water table issues, all of these other things. It sounds like none of this has actually been done yet. And if it has, please make that available. Additionally, we're also basing the design of this building on the property on
was a civil engineer even engaged designed a turn radius for a fire engine. That's a big truck. You've got to move things in and out of there. We're kind of just making it up as we go right now. And we just spent 4 hours discussing bathroom details, but we don't even have a site plan. Uh, this is
really, really irregular. I want to make sure everyone understands that. And you guys are walking into a hornets's nest. That's all I got. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Trapani. Uh, Fred, we have Fred. I'm guessing that's Fred.
Good. >> Can you hear me? >> We can, Fred. Go ahead. >> Great. Thank you for first of all, thank you for putting this together and thank you for all the emergency services. And I'll start by saying I I I truly do support providing them with with whatever they need. And you know, some
of the things that in the last year and a half that have come up and and I just am curious about um you know, first of all, the Cedar Grove firehouse, the North End Firehouse was built for $3.8 million. And I'm just curious why we couldn't
build something similar to that on the Pmpton Avenue lot. Uh the other thing that came up at the June 23rd meeting was the use of the Lakeside lot for a police station. It's a center of town. It's a flat lot. Uh we have heard that there we are really in a critical need
to do something with the police station. So, I'd expect that the work to do to that would need to be done on that lot to develop it into a a viable police station would be less than the work that needs to be done on Compton Avenue for a larger footprint project.
I also um think that I'd like to know what the cost overruns have been on the last four projects that the town has engaged in so we have some idea that of what we would also be expecting if this does go over which it probably will.
Also, um have you ever had any thought about taking the firehouse and turning it facing Pompton Avenue and making it a one-story building as opposed to a two-story? What would that do to the cost? And also, I would like to know what the
life expectancy is for the building. What other bonds do we have coming due that might also affect the taxes? And also, the tax increase for this building, is that on top of what our
normal 2% tax increase will be? And that pretty much are all the questions that I have. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Good. We have somebody that's just labeled iPhone. So, if you could, Frank, if you could stop sharing your
screen, that that would be helpful. Just so we can There you go. Uh, all right. iPhone, go ahead. >> Do you hear me? >> We can if you just tell us who you are. >> Oh, John Gy. I live in Verona. I'm just
uh a question. The the last proposal when it was 51 million and this one for 39 million, the 51 million had a 20 million grant fundraising, whatever the other heading was for to offset the cost. This one, when they
sent the new plans out, it shows zero there. That's my first question. So there's you're saying it's all going to be foot funded by the town. There's no grants, fundraising, any offset of money to for the cost. And the question I had is we eliminated it looked like from
what I could see the rescue squad, but between the fire and the police, the square footage went up on the each of the two locations, the police and the fire department. Um, so those are my questions. a lot of other questions that
concerns I've been asked by the council members and what they're requesting and stuff like that. I I had a hard time getting on. I was on knocked on and off and finally was able to get into the zoom where I could see and hear you as everybody was speaking. So those are the
questions I have. The questions about the offsetting of the fund raising from the in the first one the cost per month was $21 when it was 51 million. This one is costing 39 million and it went up to $29. So, we went down in price, but we
went up in in um cost, but partly I could see because there was no nothing listed as uh grant fundraising or whatever the other category was that was listed. So, that's really what I was curious about.
>> Thank you for your comments. >> Any other members of the public wish to raise questions or comments? Okay, this time I will close public comment um to just to respond to a couple of these things. Uh Mrs. French, thank you
for your um thank you for your comments on supporting our first responders. I um I I take that to heart uh certainly as well and I thank you for for bringing that up. Uh to Mr. Mr. Japani, um I I
think your concerns would be best addressed um by our um town administration. Um and on those items, I what I can tell you is that there were many properties and this goes to Mr. Good's um question as well. There were
many properties that were put forth for this project um and were analyzed. Um our our experts did look at them to determine uh what sites would be would be suitable. Um as you know real estate
in Verona is the very limited as far as available sites and that's one of the challenges that uh that we face unless you know the government were to invoke eminent domain which is not something I tend to be uh in favor of. Um so we are
limited in our number of items. we're limited. We can really build a building in the center on Bloomfield Avenue because we have some zoning pieces there where we've zoned for affordable housing and things like that. So, and a lot of people brought that up um as well. We even went as far as analyzing the
existing municipal building that if we moved all of our municipal offices out of the building and just had that building be a police station, uh would that meet the programmatic needs? And the answer was no to that as well. Um, and you know, as far as the the sites and things like that, I will uh pass it
on to our township manager to answer that and some of the other comments as well. Um, to Mr. Good's point, the to the uh $3.8 million um the firehouse uh the North End Firehouse, Cedar Grove, that was definitely that was built on an
existing lot. Um so the site work was significantly lower than what the site work would be for here. um and some of the foundational items and things like that were used, the the park existing parking lots and things like that. Um I think
it's important to note that you had brought up if we could do a $3.8 million firehouse here um and then uh that would suggest that there wouldn't be a police station here and I understand that is um was your point. Um there had been some comments about the lakeside lot. Deputy
Mayor Makavoy brought this up on a couple of occasions. Um, we had some analysis done of the Lakeside lot as a um as a site for this and it wasn't optimal. I mean, you couldn't put both buildings there. Um, it wouldn't make
sense to put the firehouse there based on its location anyway. Um, and that the lot isn't as big as it might appear. Um, so that's another piece uh going on there as well. Um, but it was considered. I I don't
want you to think that it wasn't. That was one of the places we looked at first uh on that on that item. Um, and the township does own the lot and did receive a million dollars in funding for um, construction of that into a parking
facility to help um, move some of the permit parking and EV parking and things like that from meal one over there to have more downtown parking, which has been a major concern in this town for as long as I've lived here.
Um, as far as the your point on the the bonds, what the life of bonds are, that's something that that I did bring up in in my comments and um think that is information that the manager has been working on providing with our financial experts um
as far as what that looks like and the the increase to your point um is yes, that would be above and beyond what that budget's years increase is in each of the 30 years of the bond. Um, so that is something significant as
well to uh to look at on that item. Um, I would analyze the impact on your taxes very similarly to some of the larger school referenda that have been pretty similar in size to this going back to
200 I think six. Um and then again in can't remember the exact date but um I think the 200 uh it was at least one of them was close to 30 $35 million even at that point um and uh those would have similar tax
impacts um as this question would as well. Uh John, going to your point um on the the grant and the fundraising, one of the comments we got um the the council hadn't seen the presentation before it went out when it was put as a $51 million building and then minus $20
million in fundraising and we actually took exception to that um and didn't include that in because that is not money that was guaranteed for the project, right? We wanted to be straightforward and transparent with the public that this is how much is this is
going to cost. That being said, the town administration has been working on fundraising uh efforts. I'll let the manager go into that as well. Um there have been movements for sponsorship. Um we have also applied for congressionally directed spending which is you get our
ear marks u on the congressional level and their applications in with all three of our um uh members of our congressional delegation in Senator Kim, Senator Booker and Congresswoman uh Macyver to get some federal funding on
that site. But of course that's not guaranteed. Um but they they are pushing the projects through and that would decrease this building in the overall cost. Um but we just can't guarantee that at this point. So I don't want to make any promises as far as being able
to uh offset the cost using congressional directed spending. Um and we've also brought the same issue up to to state legislators through meetings and and walkthroughs to the governor's office. um and um have been
um you know have been trying on those ends as well. Um and that's a an effort that continues as far as trying to offset any of these costs. Um, some other things that we might note when we're looking at cost offset to your points is that if
any of these rooms can either reduce maintenance costs or um reduce what we have to pay for off-site training um reduce operational costs and things like that that does help to offset some of the cost of the building as well. Um,
and those are things that we're looking at. So when you when you hear the presentation, there has been some effort by the committee to find ways of making this a revenue generating property in addition to it being a standard police
headquarters firehouse. Um and that's important as well. And those are using spaces that would already be part of the programmatic um desires of those departments. So, um, there are attempts at that and I think that the council's cognizant of the cost and is, uh, and I
know I'm hoping that our our legislative representatives are able to come back with some funding. There have been some projects in the past that have gotten congressional directed spending for this. Um, and we're hoping that that comes through as well. But once again, um, I will I'll yield attention manager
for, um, any other comments on any of those on any of those items. Uh Kevin. >> Sure. Thank you, Mayor. Uh to to go back to the some of the earlier comments, um I know early on in the
process, some of the first steps at the uh the beginning of the assessment or the analysis of the project included the uh engagement of site engineers who were tasked with performing freshwater wetlands delineation, flood hazard
verifications. They did some geotechnical analysis. Um there was a good deal of environmental assessment with a a full scope, a full engineer that was brought in to assess any limitations or any conditions that would be flagged on the sites that were
required. Um uh additionally um the uh the the site engineer that's been working with the architect has run turning radius analyses based upon the
sizes of the vehicles and the layout the proposed layout of the site. So there's certainly been good engagement between both the architect and the site and different site engineers who specialize in the different elements uh that they'd be asked to partake in. Um again to your
point uh the I'll reiterate some of the the notes that you had made. Um but the by comparison that Segrove's firehouse um it certainly is a a much smaller site. They built on a smaller site. uh they're I think they're limited in what
they're uh able to build there and limited in the program space that they're able to afford their their firefighters. Um and I think it's it may not be a straight apples to apples comparison on what we're looking at with this building where you're looking at two combined buildings where the
building cost is 25 million. think the the cost of construction for that site is uh exclusive of some of those other miscellaneous uh estimated costs that that Frank has included in his estimate. As for the lakeside lot, uh again, I know we've looked at even just program
space for the police department only. Um the the site is probably smaller than people realized because it is flanked by residential properties on two sides in addition to having some sloping issues on the front of the site and the rear of the site. So the actual buildable land
is or the flat portion of that of that site is um a little bit more limiting that than what might first appear uh at first glance. So for that reason that when it was assessed the the um construction of a police department
alone was was not able to fit on that site. And even if you could somehow find a way to fit the the police department onto that space, it leaves uh absolutely no parking for uh police vehicles or employees as well. Um we have put
together some analyses in uh some of the previous presentations as far as the bonds go and a comparison of this debt impact as opposed to how it layers with uh some of the existing debt that's structured to to um be retired in the
upcoming years. Uh for the purposes of this discussion, we've we've um not taken that into consideration. I think there was some concern that it was be uh it was presenting it as uh an an um
overly um uh positive approach on the financial uh impacts. Uh we we certainly can review those numbers, resurface that discussion and and present some materials that reflect what
this project how it would layer on with the existing debt when when you see some existing debt coming off uh the books in the coming years. And then also trying to figure out and anticipate what uh an anticipated capital budget might look like on an average year moving forward.
Uh we'll certainly update those uh those that those those analyses. Um and then to your point uh administration is is continuing to look at any grant opportunity that might exist. Uh I know the congressionally directed spending applications is the
the biggest chunk. Uh we have submitted an application for uh for $5 million in funding and has advanced to the congressionally um direct spending subcommittee levels. Um again those are are competitive grants. Uh we will
continue to pursue other grants. There are smaller grants available at state levels. If um if there's implementation of shared services uh there is an opportunity from for other grant opportunities. We'll continue to pursue those. Uh those grants would be separate
from any revenue received through the shared services as well. Uh and uh the uh the with the construction of this facility, the the township would have the ability to uh to sell uh the uh the
firehouse property and there would be revenue generated as a result of the sale and then there would be a property that would would be returned to the tax rules. So there are a number of financial uh impacts that um help soften the total cost and the total debt
service that would be incurred through this project. Um we've we've eliminated eliminated those from the discussion to to say that what the actual cost of the project is uh and what the direct impact is if none of those were to to come to
fruition because that was one of the concerns in some of the previous presentations. Um, I I think it's it's also important to note that the estimates that Frank has provided, those are all construction projects that are subject to public
bidding. Uh, the whole purpose of public bidding is to get competitive construction costs and and have an award made to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder. Um it is not the the cost that Frank is providing is is not u
an an absolute. Um if when the projects go goes out to bid and we see where the construction uh industry has has price this we will see um if there are any additional savings uh to be had once we've gone through that public bidding
process as well. And then I think uh Frank Frank might be best address uh best be able to address the police and fire square footage in comparison uh to what the original plans called for. Um I think that it directly
correlates to um some of the shared services that were being distributed across three facilities or three three program spaces were now distributed across two. But I'll I'll ask Frank maybe provide a comment on that. Yeah, there's there's two there's two
differences in terms of the cost that well the square footages that they might be uh looking at and uh first is uh with the elimination of uh EMS there were spaces that moved to either the police or the fire. The second part is when we
start looking at allocations of square footages for um uh for per capita calculations, it requires that we take common areas and shared areas and divide them amongst the two the two hosts. So,
police and uh fire. So, their net square footage or their their actual square footage of just police and fire went up in those calculations. So if you're looking at them in those calculations, they also include a percentage based on
how much space they occupy in the building of the common and shared areas to come up with those calculations. So it makes police look bigger and it makes fire look bigger, but it's only because it's part of they're they're including shared and and common spaces.
>> Thank you, Mr. Msinia. Any other council members have any comments to respond to public comment? Uh, I do see one additional public comment hand. Um, does anybody on the on the council want to open public comment?
Uh, again, I don't I don't see any movement in that direction. Um, do we any members of the council have any closing comments at this point or discussion items to bring up?
Counciloman McGrath. >> Uh, thank you. I just really quickly um I do want to thank everyone today. This was a really long meeting, but it actually was really helpful and I'm looking forward for the public to review
this recording probably in chunks. Um, but it really went through a lot of the detail. We have been getting a lot of written feedback from the public and we've had a lot of conversations over the course of the last year plus on this
building. As the public recalls, there was a huge public meeting on this building at the end of June. And so we as council members, since we're out and about in the community, we are getting a lot of verbal feedback. But we always encourage residents to put their feedback in writing. there's a
convenient form on the website where feedback can be sent to all of us. So, if you're watching this on the replay um please send uh using that form, it goes to all five of us. Um I am disappointed um and have been disappointed that these
key meetings are happening in the summer and that this meeting was not promoted as in advance as I think it could have been since we set this meeting date by the uh early July. Um and um you know, we really need the public's engagement
on this. I thank everyone who toughed it out tonight for as long as you did. Um my comments are clear. Um there for the last over a year, this building has partially been sold that the cost would
be reduced with shared services. I asked for analyses from the very beginning. This is the time to provide them. Um, I'm really looking, um, I'm a data driven person. The public is asking for it and we need to be transparent. Um,
uh, the mayor uh mentioned that our town attorney, Mr. Loya, gave him advice, um, and council, which we actually all asked for um, on how many votes were needed um, on this project and what the voting
process would be. Um, I am interested in seeing that. I do continue to have concerns um at mayor since as you have a role in the OEM department as you have your own consulting firm representation solutions
that's involved in PBA work um you know if we do need four votes um we really just need to make sure that we understand the recusal process and I do want to um say that uh Councilman Roman recusing himself from this discussion uh
was something that I was concerned erned about. So, it's it's uh good that that actually happened. I still have some outstanding concerns. So, Mr. Aloy, I hope you can send some notes to the entire council on this. Um, and I think
I look forward, not at our next meeting on Monday, but at a future meeting when we have a chance to really digest this conversation that we do have that council discussion on priorities um with this building because there is a lot going on that um would be great for
first responders, but we're hearing a lot from the public, but we need the public to have a chance to really weigh in. A lot of people are on vacation and so I look, we need to give them a little bit of time. So I hope by early September we can discuss this uh in the
future. Um and again my thoughts are really about continuous use. This building is actually I calculated maybe 3 to 4% smaller than what we saw in June because of some efficiencies. I think we can go a little bit further. So I
appreciate um Mr. Msinio and everyone um for all of their hard work tonight. uh long meeting but uh necessary and uh um and uh I really look forward to future uh efficient conversations on this building. Thank you.
>> Thank you. I I'm going to take a minute to address uh something that Council McGrath brought up. Um Council McGrath suggested that I might have a conflict of interest. It's not the case. Um I our Township of Attorney though I don't have to disclose this. Um, our town of
attorney has provided me with a a extensive written opinion that I do not have a conflict as I uh suggested prior. Um, I do want to address apparently I appreciate Councilwoman McGrath uh being so interested in my my upstart
consulting firm um and Councilman Holland as well. Um, so yes, I have worked with the the Township Emergency Management. Um, I get no more benefit from this building than anybody else does. the uh local government ethics law
denotes a conflict of interest if you have a a personal or financial benefit from this building and I have neither one. Um and further if any benefit anybody gets from voting on something is the same as any other benefit anybody
gets. That's section I of the local government ethics law uh which specifically states that that is not a conflict. So, for instance, Councilman Holland and Councilman McGrath vote on the pool membership fees um and despite being family pool members, uh because
they get no particular financial benefit over that despite being users of that utility, uh which uh the other three council members are not. So, that's just one of those circumstances. the same idea. If um all of us drive on township
roads and if there's a if we set the speed limit, uh one could argue that um we shouldn't be able to vote on the speed limits because we might use a road. So, the local finance board has had extensive opinions as well as courts
um on these items. And one of the the recurring themes that they bring up um would be that uh if you conflicted everybody in everything, you would have nobody with expertise making any decisions, right? Um so I I do
appreciate that. I um just for the public setification, u Council McGrath said I have business with the PBA and I want to to point out that I do not have any uh business with the Vona PBA local 72 nor I do I have any current PBA
clients. Um and uh and I appreciate your concern about um my my business and I appreciate you visiting my website and and reading the information about that. Um, and I know Councilwoman McGrath or Councilwoman Holland had emailed me prior and I responded to her. Um, and of
course, if you had called me or emailed me, I would have shared the the same information um, with you. But, uh, once again, I don't have a conflict on this property. And, um, and quite a few people have thanked me for being able to bring my expertise uh, into this and
demonstrate my understanding as evidenced by the background we have here. So, I did uh, want to respond to that. um and and point out that uh you would not see another member of the you wouldn't see me uh make a public comment
about another council member's conflict. Um as council members should be aware of doing that on their own. Um and uh the council members have the responsibility and their own ethics to be able to make those decisions as council Roman did and uh as I did. But I do want the public to
know that despite having no clear conflict at all, I did suggest a legal opinion and I would have been bound by that opinion uh either way. So uh but once again, I do appreciate your comments and your interest in my business affairs. Uh anybody other
council members have any comments? Councilwoman Holland, >> I want to reiterate some of the comments that I had made earlier at both the June meeting and the July 10th meeting. I I do think that it's unfortunate to have
these lengthy conversations about such an important facility um and such a significant expenditure in the middle of the summer. I do think that we get less public engagement as a result and so I do encourage us to have further
conversations into the fall um so that we can have robust public engagement in this. I I do appreciate those who hung on the line this evening and those who have sent their written comments and yes I did endeavor as best I could to bring those into this discussion this evening.
So again I really want to thank those residents who have spoken to me separately. I was disappointed that I didn't get some of the information that I had requested over a month ago um and on prior occasions. Um and so I'm looking forward to receiving that
subsequent to this meeting. I do want to spend more time with the presentation that we only received minutes before the meeting. But I do appreciate the conversation and I do just really want to reiterate the fact that I so I am so
grateful to live in a community with such an outstanding police force and such a great volunteer fire department. I it is genuinely a pleasure to meet with each of you. Um and this was a very positive discussion. Um so we're we're
well over four hours now. Um, but this I think has been very very productive. Um, so thank you so much for taking that time. >> Thank you, Deputy Mayor Muay. >> Thank you, Mayor. Just a quick thank
you to everybody who stuck it out and stayed online here. Uh, and especially to those who commented and thank everybody else on the on this panel for all of your time and all your effort you put into Verona and sitting with us tonight and putting up with all this. So, thanks a lot and I hope we can
rectify this and come to an agreement as soon as possible. That's all. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you, Deputy Mayor. All right. Um, at this time, I will call for a motion to dissolve the committee of the whole. >> So, I'll just make the motion dissolve
the committee of the whole. Is there a second? Well, we can just sit here if nobody seconds that motion. Thank Thank you, Captain Wardrobe. I wish uh I wish I could recognize you. >> Thank you, Captain Second, but I'll
second it. >> I uh I can always count on Captain Wardrobe to have my back. Um so, uh this is non-discussible motion. All those in favor? >> I I Okay. Uh we can't see Councilman Holland, but the motion carries
regardless. Um Mr. Um, patch manager, Mr. O' Sullivan. Um, we have there's one item I brought up for executive session, but given the time, uh, perhaps we could just talk about that on Monday.
>> I agree. I think we could talk about it on Monday as well. >> I don't think there's a necessarily an emergent need on that on that item. >> Happy birthday, Councilwoman Holland. Happy birthday. >> Birthday. >> Happy birthday, Councilwoman Holland.
Happy birthday and thank you. >> That's why I was off camera. So, but I did raise my hand. >> Well, thank you um for all the the members of the public uh who joined us and uh I appreciate everybody's comments that the the meeting was a success and
being able to hash out u these details and really get information. Um for the public, the council can only deliberate together when we are doing so in public uh to have all of us. So sometimes these things take a little while um but this
is how we have to meet and we're glad that you can join us for this journey. So at this point would anybody like to make a motion? >> So moved to close. >> The deputy mayor moves to adjourn. Is there a second?
>> All right. All those in favor please log off of Zoom. All those opposed can stay. Have a wonderful evening everyone. >> Thank you. >> Good night everyone. Thank you. Bye.