Yes. >> The notice requirements of the open public saf meetings act has been satisfied with respect to this meeting. Specifically, the time, date, and location were included in the annual notice of meetings adopted by the
municipal council of the Burough Wick posted in the administration building 63 Franklin Turnpike Waldick, New Jersey by the municipal clerk's office sent to the Bergen record. Additionally, to the extent known in accordance with the open public meetings act, the agenda for this meeting and whether formal actions will
be taken were posted in the administration building and per 2025C72 was also posted on our official Bergen Burrow of Waldick's website. Clerk, please take the role. >> Mayor Giodano here.
>> Mr. Bick, >> here. >> Makola Drake here. >> Mr. Marello, >> here. >> Mr. Richie, >> here. Everyone kindly rise for pledge of >> allegiance. Pledge >> algiance flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Let us have a moment of silence for our waring veterans, all veterans across our country who have given the ultimate sacrifice to serve our country. Some
never returning home. uh we can live in a land that is free and assembled the way we are tonight. Would the clerk kindly do the prayer? >> Dear Lord, we start this meeting asking for your guidance and wisdom. May we find unity and fairness the outcome to reflect our wishes to assist the burrow
in all their endeavors. Thank you in his name. Amen. Amen. Tonight, I am honored to recognize Emily Tambbero, who placed third, receiving the bronze medal at the United States of America Special Olympics National Games in Minneapolis. capitalist, Minnesota.
Emily is a lifelong resident of the burial of Waldwick. She graduated from Waltwick High School. She then attended Bergen Community College, receiving a bach bachelor's degree. Emily has been participating in the Special Olympics National Games, playing a variety of
sports since she was 8 years old. Emily played tennis last year for our local team, the Burden County Aces, participating at the state summer games. and they received a gold medal in singles and doubles. Those gold medals earned them an invitation to try out uh
for canoe for team US for team New Jersey. Team New Jersey selects a limited number of athletes who represent the state of New Jersey and the United States Special Olympics National Games in Minnesota. Emily was very proud and honored to
represent New Jersey and most of her hometown Republic. Emily began practicing with her team, traveled a lot, and did a lot of fundraising. Through it all, Emily's main goal was to be the best she can be to win and make everyone know how great New Jersey and
Wick is. Emily continued to play tennis with her local team Ace Project Love Match Program, her local instructor, and team New Jersey, traveling to Lebanon, New Jersey on weekends for team practices and to prepare for the national games. Emily and team New
Jersey were filled with excitement, enthusiasm, and so eager to tackle the challenges that await them. This was truly an experience of a lifetime for Emily and for everyone else that was part of this the team. Team New Jersey arrived along with the
rest of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the games began on June 20th. Dirt Week began with three to four matches plus daily and daily practices while qualifying during the preliminaries then moving on to the competitions with the rest of America.
As Emily competed, she played extremely well. Also, I was told that she had a knee injury and she has a brace on her knee right now. But through all that, she did not give up. She was determined with courage and ambition to be the best she could be. She pres she persevered
through it all with the knee injury and at the end Emily never became a quitter. She was always representing her country and representing Waldick with pride and honor. Emily went on to to become in the third of the women's tennis winning a
bronze medal. We are very proud of Emily for winning this bronze medal. Emily made New Jersey proud, especially our hometown world. And Emily, you should be very proud of yourself. You are truly a champion. We want to thank you for your dedication and hard work to the Special
Olympics of New Jersey and for representing our great state of New Jersey so well as you did with grace and with sportsmanship. Emily, you trained hard and every bit of this and you deserve every bit of this moment. The bronze you received proves your amazing
power and focus. You showed all of us what it means to be a true champion. Your big heart and strong spirit brought you to the podium as a hero and we want to thank you very much and on behalf of the mayor and council of Bar Waldwick we would like to present you with a certificate of recognition that
congratulation congratulating you on your win and making us so proud of you and you are truly a Waldwick hero. Thank you. Thank you. Let us know how you think about. And now what we'll do is we'll have our
uh finance uh chair of the finance committee, Mr. Martinalo, give us a little update about our finances of the burough. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This will just be uh brief this evening, just a couple of updates and then we'll take any questions from the council on on budget
process. So, um uh tonight we we did get a letter from our adviserss on the cell phone towers. Uh looks like there are some expiring leases and some upside that we might be able to take uh advantage of. We put it out for for bid
on those RFPs. Uh potentially bring in a couple more thousands a year in terms of revenue um for the tower by the DPW and the one by the uh the mulch pit. Tatiana, anything you want to add to that on that one? >> Uh so for for residents who might not be
aware, we do have two telecommunication sites in town. one's at the mulch uh site and the other is at the DPW. And as the councilman noted, uh some of those agreements are expiring. And when we uh when the burough brought Peter Lupo on from Hop Lake Telecommunications
uh to do an assessment of the rent that we were collecting, um there was at the time there were things going on in the market that um made him advise the burrow to um pursue the avenue of uh of actually taking ownership of the polls.
Um, since then there have been some rapid changes in the uh telecom telecommunication space, including the recent spectrum sale and chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Dish Wireless. And so this model um is not uh in the best
interest of Waldick at this time. Um Peter believes that the bureau can better achieve immediate objectives by rebidding the two expired prime leaseold interests and um this should bring in some competition and some additional revenue um than than we've been seeing. Uh in addition, his office has been
looking through all the agreements and uh there's opportunities to um you know, make sure that all of the uh rents are are being paid uh in a timely fashion by these uh companies and that uh any of them who are potentially um receiving
undisclosed rent amounts to Crown Castle that uh the burrow is able to capture um those amounts back uh to the burrow. So um Peter and his office have been working diligently on this. We've been um checking in with them and uh you know we are maximizing to the best of the
burough's ability the uh telecommunication uh services that we have in town. >> Thank you. Um next up was you'll start to see that there's uh quite an inventory of of vehicles that are are building up in our our lot here. That's from all of the replacements that we've
done for DPW and and the police. So those vehicles and trucks with plows and everything will be going up for for auction. Um um our Lindsay will be working on getting that auction together. We look forward hopefully
early this fall uh being able to sell off some of those units and recoup some cost and uh bring that into the burrow. Um additionally, we're continuing to monitor the the budget lines. We're continuing to stay on budget so far this year. The only line that we um had any
kind of over John so far was on the snow removal. Clearly, it was a very difficult summer. Um, so we'll continue to watch that. Uh, we'll also continue to watch other other lines with uh with department costs. Um, especially as we head into the summer months with vacations and overtime and things like
that. So, we'll we'll continue to monitor those things. Um, Tatiana, I think you want to add on that topic. >> Uh, no. We can give a report at the next meeting in August. Uh, we'll look at those lines again and uh, as you mentioned, we are we are on course for
about uh, midyear uh, for right now. >> Right. So, at this point, we have no other contracts that are uh up for negotiation other than that cell phone tower that we're out on. Um, our PBA contract will be in our uh open meeting
discussion today to finalize that. Um, DPW contract was finalized uh late last year, so we're in good shape on our labor contracts. Um, the next thing that's out on the horizon is obviously our waste management bill, which is a large portion of our budget. Um, that's something that we'll we'll start to look
at. uh open it up to any members of the council if you have any questions on >> Just want to make one other note on the contract the council has on their agenda this evening an extension of a contract with uh ERRI down at the mulch pit. Uh we have concluded the first part of the agreement with them and um on on
tonight's meeting uh the council is being asked to authorize an additional 2-year agreement with them um at an increase of revenue for 2026 uh to 27 27 to 28. >> Thank you. Forgot about that. Um any members of council have any questions
related to budget that you want to bring up or any ideas? >> Great. Thank you everyone. look forward to uh next uh presentation in a few minutes. Mr. Mayor, that's it for now. >> Okay. Thank you very much. On my report, just a couple of items. Uh first of all,
I attended the the junior police academy graduation. I want to thank uh Chief Seafford and the police department that did a great job this year. I think they broke the record of how many students were there. It was a great turnout and I think they learned a lot about safety and learned about our community. Also, I
attended the uh bike ride in honor of police officer Christopher Cadell. Uh on Friday, it's his 12th anniversary of his death. So, keep him and his family in your prayers, please. I also went to the Walter pool on on Monday to uh say hello to our new pool manager and to see if
everything was all right. I met our pool manager. Everybody there seems that they're very happy with is going on. Uh he told me that there was a save last week, which I didn't know about. So, what I did was I did tell him that I will uh reach out to the young woman that did the save and I will uh see if
she could come to a meeting and honor her like we honor everybody else. Also, I'd just like to make a quick statement and then I'll turn it over for for the next committee person. It seems that a couple of days ago a resident posted something on social media about me recusing myself from the Harrison Avenue
project. Not only did they say that, they said some things that uh they thought that other they thought that things were being done shady or whatever and that uh he would like an answer from me. Uh the person the moderator of the site said why don't you call the mayor
and speak to the mayor of direct instead of going on the site. Somebody else went on the site too and agreed with him. So what happened is he re he called he sent me an email telling me he wanted to speak to me and I sent back an email saying there'd be no problem. How about we meet on Monday at 4:30 to talk about
this in my office face to face instead of on a on uh Facebook or anything like that. Uh please let me know the time and time is good for you and I still didn't hear back from him. So I will make a statement to him and to everyone else and I hope this addresses everyone's
concerns about my recusal. I want to address questions that have been raised regarding my recusal from the Harrison annual redevelopment application. From the very beginning of this process, when the application first came before the planning board, I recused myself from the decision and decisions relating to
this matter. This decision was made before the application was ultimately forwarded to the burough council. Prior to doing so, I sought guidance from the planning board attorney, the applicant legal council, and the burough attorney. each advised that under the circumstances recusal was the
appropriate course of action. Throughout my years of public service, first as a councilman and now as a mayor, I have always relied upon the advice of our legal professionals to ensure that every matter is handled ethically, fairly, and in accordance with the law. At that at
the time the application was before the planning board and later before the burough council, I in intentionally chose not to publicly discuss the reasons for my recusal. My decision was made out of respect for the integrity of the process and to avoid influencing or
appearing to influence the independent judgment of either board and the members. My goal has always been to ensure that every applicant, every resident, and every public body receives a fair and impartial process. Unfortunately, there have been rumors and speculations suggesting that my my
recusal was motivated by personal gain, financial interest, or favors. Those allegations are completely false. My decision was based solely on following the legal guidance I received and maintaining the high ethical standards expected of public office. Anyone who
knows me understands that I have always acted in what I believe to be the best interest of the burrow and its residents. While I respect everyone's right to ask questions and seek transparency, I also ask that we engage in these discussions responsibly and
avoid spreading unfounded accusations that unfairly question the integrity of those serving our community. I'd like to thank you for understanding this and allowing me to voice my opinions to you. Some of you might say, well, he's just saying what he wants to say or to hear
what he want what you want me to hear. This is not true. And if anybody wants to speak to me about it, you know my email address. You know my my phone number down in town hall. I'd be more than happy to talk to you face to face [clears throat] >> financial administrative committee. Mr.
Monell. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Unfortunately, I won't be as brief this time. Um, just one other note before I get into the u meat of the topic here. On the agenda tonight, council, you'll see um a consent agenda item for the body cam equipment. This is part of our budget
that we did earlier this year for the police equipment uh for body cam, the upgrades that were needed for that. So, that's the large purchase that you'll see on the agenda for tonight. Um that was part of our our capital expenditures for the year. Okay. So, um, I wanted to give the
community kind of an update along the lines of what's been going on with, uh, the Harrison Avenue redevelopment project. Um, so to be clear, there's nothing on the agenda for this evening. Uh, there's no introduction, there's no
public hearing on that. Um, but of course I wanted to present some information since there's a lot of uh incomplete and some misinformation that's floating around and uh even the fact that some folks were posting that
it was going to be on the agenda tonight before an agenda was even released. So surprised by how that spreads out on Facebook. Um so the history of of where we are right so first the area uh that includes the
right aid block down to Harrison Avenue um the Rocket property and properties down on Houston was declared an area in need of redevelopment by the council about five or 6 years ago in a unanimous vote. Um that was done because at that time the the council was looking at the
future of the budget and surplus funds and we're looking for ways to increase income to the burrow to offset some of those things. So a redevelopment plan was created for that area. Over time, we got multiple proposals submitted from
different um developers or different owners of the properties and many were rejected for too high of density, no retail, uh too tall of a building and so forth. So, multiple councils rejected um plans for different plans that were
submitted. Eventually, a plan was selected u only for the Harrison Avenue project uh which was purchased those properties were purchased by Harrison Avenue redevelopment LLC which is an affiliate of DMR which is a a a company
here located in Waldwick. This was done unanimously by vote of the council. Um everyone approved that plan. There was a meeting uh an introduction of ordinance and a public hearing where many folks came out like tonight um to
voice opinions and the council at that time voted 6 nothing to approve that um plan. The redevelopment plan was then sent over to the planning board. It was reviewed and accepted u by the planning board. the professionals in town,
police, fire, um, and building maintenance, had plenty of opportunities to ask questions, made changes to the plans, increased fire suppression, etc., etc., and it was unanimously, uh, was eventually approved by the planning board and sent back to the council for final approval, which was done
unanimously. Additionally, the planning board approved the redeveloper site plan. Right? So, the site plan is what they're actually going to build there. So redeveloper approved or the uh a planning board approved that site plan.
The council hired independent financial adviserss and specific redevelopment attorney Anna who's sitting up on the deis with us today um to represent the burrow in those negotiations. So no one um is sitting up here on the back of a napkin at uh Nelly's or W's and figuring
it out. We actually hired professionals um to do this work for us. A redevelopment agreement was then signed by both parties for the area which set parameters for construction timeline etc with protections for both the developer
and the burrow. That was unanimously approved by the this council earlier this year. So why redevelopment? There's a lot of questions about why we need to redevelop. One, it addresses budget concerns and
identifies additional areas of revenue sources. We don't have many different revenue sources. We don't have a lot of um industry in our town like many others do or retail that many others do. So, uh we looked at ways where redevelopment could
bring in additional revenues to the town. Our surplus, as we discussed earlier in the budget meetings where some of you were at, is depleting faster than we could tax you out of it. Um what that means is every year we have to balance our budget. We have a bank account, if
you will, a surplus that we've built over years, and we use that surplus to fund the additional part of the budget. We aren't the federal government, so I can't print money, and we cannot deficit spend. So, we use that surplus to plug
the budget in hopes that you will recoup some of that budget. How do you recoup it? if you don't spend some of your budget lines or you bring in other non- tax revenue which is higher than anticipated just like any other uh company or your own personal budget. So
[clears throat] for the past few years that pendulum has shifted to where we use more of our surplus than we were able to generate to the tune of a million dollars last year. This year we had to raise taxes to stem
the tide there because there's nothing further to cut any deeper in terms of our budget um without um putting into risk services, police, fire, DPW. Those are things that we want to make sure our town has every
service possible. So we keep those in the budget. So, we had to raise taxes, unfortunately, this year over 9% to plug that budget gap. We have agreement from the council that we would seriously look at uh additional forms of redevelopment to bring in more money.
So, why is our budget going up every year? There's increasing cost from the state around benefits are killing small towns, boards of education everywhere. The percent increase is astronomical. those things are not uh trending in the
other direction at this point from our our our state government unless those things change. Um the cost will continue to go up. If we want to continue to provide uh multiple days of trash pickup, that cost will continue to go up. We have to look at ways could we um
look at shared services to continue to bring down other cost, but our budget continues to go up. And our biggest lines on our budget are salaries, right? and pensions and things like that. Those are non-negotiable for me. I want to keep everybody employed. I want to keep
everyone in the town protected and safe. What else does redevelopment do? It encourages business growth growth and local econ economic activity. So, we look around town, right? Probably our biggest retail spot in in the area is
vacant for multiple months now. It's owned by someone and they can't fill the property right now. You know, when you go by Food Emporium, it's a brand new uh store in town and they're not quite as busy as they were when they first opened, so maybe they
need some additional uh foot traffic to those stores. We have the Odyssey Gym, which is probably a second one of our biggest properties in town. It's vacant. Um, so some claim that we don't need a pilot to revitalize or to invigorate
investment into the area. I' I'd say the opposite because we can't fill some uh pretty vacant spots in town. The right a you get thousands of cars that drive that past there on a daily basis. It's a huge parking lot. It's a great opportunity for someone to come into
that spot for some reason. Um it's sitting vacant still and I think they changed a sign up there over the last couple days saying uh you know space for rent. You want to put underutilized land to more productive use. So, if you look at the area on Harrison Avenue on the
corner past that hair cottage there, there was a vacant lot for multiple years when after the the old hair cottage was was taken down, that spot has been empty. And then there's been those few houses that were next to it. You know, there were fine houses, but on
the older side maybe could bring in some more revenue. You also have Rocket Property, which that um business has closed or reduced operations. So that property is underdeveloped and it's in prime location. It's in
student transit location um which is highly soughta for people who are are looking to commute into the city. We also have from the state of New Jersey requirements on low-income housing, fair share of housing. We had people come here at at a council meeting
and speak passionately about increasing the burrow's um um use of low-income housing in the town. We have submitted a plan to the state of what 144 units that we have to hit. Part of this plan uh
includes six affordable um housing units which we get credit for and some that one and a half times credit which help us meet the 144 units that we have to provide. If we don't provide it there, we have to provide it someplace else. We're mandated and audited by the state
to provide low-income housing. The re redevelopment plan gives the burough control over what is to be developed and where. No one in town wanted a five-story building. No one in town wanted a six-story building. No one in town wants a full low income um unit
down there of 100 um rental units. I'm sure we don't want that. Um we want something that is lower density. We want something that brings potential retail and brings um you know interest in other areas around that spot.
So then what happened with a pilot? Pilot was proposed several months ago not when the original application was submitted as the right of any redeveloper would be. The pro has independent financial adviserss in
Phoenix and our legal council Anna have been working with the redeveloper to evaluate that proposal. The agreement would establish a percentage of project revenue paid to the burough in lie of conventional tax payments.
Under New Jerseys long-term exemption framework, pilot payments are structured as annual service charges rather than a traditional tax bill. The county still gets their 5% share which is stat statutoily obligated under
the current exemption law. Further profit for the redeveloper is capped at 12% by law. So if they make any profit after expenses from that gross revenue, it goes back statutoily to the municipality. So, if they're
killing it over there and are able to rent all of their properties and eventually raise rents or whatnot, that additional income comes back to the burrow over the length of the of the agreement. Also, over time, there are percentages
within that agreement where conventional tax is compared to the percentage of revenue that the borrow would collect. So 60 to 80% later in the agreement. Whichever is higher the borrow would receive. So if the conventional tax at
60 or 80% ends up being higher than the percentage of revenue we're taking in, we get the higher number which comes into the burrow which brings in more money. So the the developer, the redeveloper, the owner of the property is capped at what they can profit by
law. It's not because the burrow's playing nice. It's because it's by law. Right. Additionally, there's also what thing called land tax credit. The developer or redeveloper has to pay
the tax on the land, not the um um improvements, but the land itself. That credit is then given back in some accounting treatment, right? But the land tax would still be included in the schools appropriation for collecting
that part of the money. So if you we'll go into an example in a few minutes, but you think about it, the four or five properties that were there were paying a tax that was roughly around 65,000 of that and a portion of that was going to um the school. So now the land tax would
be potentially um in that number. So it would be a little less than 60, not much because there wasn't a lot of improvements there, but that portion would still be attributable to the board of education budget. Okay.
The pilot is expected to increase revenue to the burrow no matter if it was conventional. the portion that the burl con uh talks about when we talked about budget several months ago. We talked about how the burrow maybe keeps about 20% of your tax revenue comes to
the to the municipality. Uh 60s something% go to this to the board of education and some percentage goes to the county. So, if you look at a comparison of the revenue generated by the pilot, which I can't get into specifics tonight because that agreement
is not ready for um presentation to all of you, we would still bring in more than what the conventional tax would bring to the barrel. So, win for us, right? The project is limited in density
and number of units and includes retail and low-income housing. So those things take down the financial benefit to the owner of the property. If we're telling them you can only build x number of units, that's how much rent he can take
in. If we're telling him you have to include affordable housing, that's less rent to him. So, if we know how the low uh low-income housing works, the rest of the community in that development have to compensate for the lower income of
rent that's coming in from the folks that are paying low-income housing pricing. We also asked for retail on the first floor. The retail space, which might be subdivided into three or four locations, will bring in less revenue than a rental
would bring in. So that li further limits the developer's ability to uh have revenue stream on it. The smaller scale and lower income potential uh reduces developers projected return,
right? And we compare that to what happened at the station, right? The station property was 120 units or so so far about more than double the number of units that we're putting in here. So the station didn't need a pilot program because they had higher number of units
to tell their bank here's the revenue I'm bringing in. I don't know if any of you are developers or builders or what whatnot but or investors but the way it works today as I understand it from reading is people want to make money on the bank's money. I'm not going to put
out all the money that I have in my bank account and then try to make money from it. I'm going to borrow that money and try to earn income at a higher rate than I'm paying in interest. That's called cash flow. That's what any developer will try to do. So, they'll present a plan um to the financial adviserss and
look at it and say, "We need a pilot to make these numbers work because if we're paying at the conventional tax rate, um the rate of return won't work." And no matter how good a redeveloper is or a business owner is, none of us own a business um from the goodness of our
heart to make money. The project must be financable by a bank. So the bank needs to have asurances by looking at the structure of a deal and sign off on that to give funding to whoever a developer is. Just like you were in a small business, if
you would say, I'm going to open a business and I need a small business loan. I need to provide projected financials. I need to provide P&Ls. I need to say this is how much money I bring in. How can I get that loan? The redevelopment agreement that we signed and that the developer signed
also includes safeguards for the burrow, including timelines on construction, payment obligations, and other compliance requirements, including audited financial statements, which are required by law um from a CPA.
uh can't be uh you know me fiddling it out here. I'm not a CPA. Has to be done by a CPA firm and submitted annually. So we move on now to school impact which is another uh you know big point of this. So um as our financial adviserss
have said here the school district is funded at 100% of its approved budget. I'll repeat that line. It's 100% of its approved budget. So how does it work Joe? Right. So, the school budget tax
levy for the last 3 years, okay, 2024 school year was 33.5 million. For the 2025 school year was 34.6 million and for the 2026 school year is anticipated to be $36.3 million. That's your tax
revenue. Add in the state and federal aid and other income from capital or whatnot that they have. If you start looking at their financial statement that's that's produced on online just like ours are is in 2024 was 44.5 million in 2025 42.7
million and in 2026 44.2 million. So in our example we're going to take 36 million is what you all pay. Okay for simple math I'm going to make the assumption that there are 4,000 taxpaying residents in Waldwick. That's
a little bit high, but I'm trying to make the assumption and make the math work because it's late and I don't want to make uh decimal points. So, if I take 36 million and divide that by 4,000 taxpaying homes, I get $9,000. $9,000 each of you is what is attributed
to uh the school to the world board of education. Let's estimate that all of the houses are worth the same in that scenario. My house is worth less. I pay a smaller portion. If uh the
mayor's house is worth more, he pays a higher portion. Right? So, it's all proportional. It's filled out by um the the county and they fill out those those calculations for us. Let's estimate that that 9,000 is roughly 65% of your total
tax bill. Let's estimate that your total tax bill is around 14,000. I know many of you will say, "My tax bill is much higher than that." Sorry. Um the balance of that difference between 14,000 and 9,000 is the portion that goes to your
county tax and the portion that goes to the municipal tax. Right? So large portion goes to school. Small portion goes to the county. The rest of it comes to municipality. Now let's build 10 new homes. Let's knock down Burough Park and
build 10 new homes. Nobody owns that property. I'm going to build 10 new homes there um for development. The school doesn't get the additional 10 * 9,000 of 90,000.
So they don't get 36 million and 90,000. Their budget remains the same. The increase of 9,000 is then spread out over all of the 4,0 homes now. So now your uh bill is $8,977
that's due to the board of education. So maybe it's 64% of your tax bill. Your municipal taxes are not impacted in that calculation. Your county taxes are not impacted in that calculation. Those are calculated separately. It's all put
together. That's how they come up with these fancy number of 65% of your your bill is school. That's not the way it works. It doesn't say your house is worth 500,000. I'm multiplying it by 65,000. That 65% I'm taking that tax revenue and giving it to the school.
That's not the way it works. It's a budget-based number. It's divided up across the the community. Okay. The dollars for the new home are just added into the pool available for the board of education calculation.
It's like if we were to take um homes off of the role, that's taken out of that pool. So then your portion of the school budget would go up because there's less homes. If we knock down three homes, consolidate them, and the
the the council approves a tax abatement on three homes because they're combining it to one, whatever, it could come out to a little bit different. So adding a new home does not automatically increase the total amount of funds going to the board of
education. So dispelling that myth instead a new taxable property can affect how this existing school tax level is spread across the tax base. School budget is not directly proportional to the number of students.
Enrollment over the past 3 years from the school budget has decreased. In 2024, we're at 1563. In 2025, 1,529 and 2026, 1,517.
Out of those, there's 252 students who are special ed, that number was the same for all three years. Maybe in 2024 was 253. So, you could see even though the number of students reduced, your tax bill continued to rise. So it's not
proportional. Even if I added 20 students, I'm still below the number of students that was there 3 years ago. So keep that in the back of your mind for a few minutes. So the Rucker study, we had professionals, the financial adviserss
look at it and study uh bringing in 44 new units or 42 units, whatever the number is. What's the potential impact to the school? So the Rucker's calculation comes up with about 20 potential students for the development.
We look at anecdotal evidence and look at the station apartments which is we already said earlier about 120 units. Uh current students on the role from station apartments is nine. Right? So that's a lot lower than 20 at a a complex that's more than double the
size. So we can still use 20 as our our estimate for what we're looking at. Another thing I saw on Facebook was the cost of pupil, right? So, someone took the math and said, "Uh, look at the board of education budget. The number is
about 23,000 for a total cost of pupil. You multiply that by 20, you get $400,000 a year. How does the math work, councilman?" Well, that's not quite right. That total cost is everything in the board of education. That's the principles. That's the superintendent.
That's the school nurses. That's the building facility staff. That's the coaches. That's the basketballs. That's the footballs. That's the gym uniforms. That's everything else that gets there. And divide it by 1500 and it comes out to somewhere around 23,000. There are certain lines that come out. Couldn't
quite figure out the the number of where that comes from, but it gets pretty close. Then there's a line that says classroom instruction. the classroom instruction per pupil is about $15,000 per pupil. And then the next line says the classroom salaries and benefits, so
teacher salary is $14,000. So when I start looking at those numbers, uh the cost to me is the marginal cost. What's the marginal cost of adding a student? It's probably somewhere between 1 and 5,000. Not 23,000, not 15,000. It would only be
that if I needed to add teachers. So, how do we add teachers? So, if we said we're going to take 20 kids at the high end of the estimate compared to the nine at station, we're going to take 20. If all the kids were in the same grade, all in fifth grade going to Crescent School,
all 20 kids, maybe I need to hire a new fifth grade teacher to come into that classroom. But in actuality those 20 students are spread over three schools. Crescent school, Waldo Middle School, Waldo High School across 13 grades. So
what's the likelihood of all 20 kids being in the same grade? Probably pretty low. Some won't be school age. Some will be over school age. Some will be in first grade. Some will be in 8th grade. So it's probably an average if you took 20 divided by 13 somewhere a little over
one um per grade. I don't think we would have to be adding too many teachers at one per grade. I don't think we're building new buildings. I don't think we're adding a new principal. I don't think we're adding a new superintendent. So really, in my opinion, from looking at the numbers, it's the marginal cost
that you have to look at, not just the total cost per pupil. Okay? And I'll further add, right? So we're talking about 20, we're talking about 42 units. Seven of those units are single-bedroom homes or apartments. So
that the likelihood of those producing additional children for the for the uh system is low. So we're really talking somewhere around 35 units that could produce additional kids because they're two and three bedrooms. We're also talking about a commuter
location which is close to transit. So you're looking at people who are maybe single, maybe working in New York City and commuting into work and looking for a place that's close to train station to improve their their commute. I commute to New York City sometimes. I know it's
not fun even from Walden. All right. So in summary, a lot of due diligence, as you can tell, has gone into this so far. A lot of learning, a lot of reading. I didn't know anything about a pilot program about 6 months ago. I've listened to uh our development
experts and Anna and Brian. I've done a lot of reading. I've looked at the bad pilots that people post about Hackinack and Jersey City and Mount Laurel um and Patterson. Um those towns are are
different than than Wald for sure. They're talking about mega projects, hundreds of units, much different scale than we're talking here about 40 units. Also, I look at the DCA website, which I learned from actually one of the folks that sitting out here tonight, where
they list all the pilots, and I look at Allenale has five pilots. People are saying that Waldwick doesn't need to incentivize development um because we're, you know, in Bergen County, we're a good town. We should we shouldn't need to do that. But Allenell's probably more
affluent than us and they have five five pilots and I don't hear anybody reporting that Allenell's pilots are going poorly. You I'm hearing about Hackin Sachs for sure. Um it's a different different community. So our professionals and council have
worked on negotiating a financial deal that would benefit the burrow and we are doing this on the back of a napkin at the bar. Without a pilot, the redeveloper will have to determine if the project is achievable in the current plan. They would have to either leave it
vacant, try to do it without a pilot, or potentially come back to us and say, "Council, I can't do this project the way you want it at 42 units and still get it financable. Can I build 20 more units? Can I add a floor? Can I do these
things?" And I know we hear from all of you that we don't want to do that. We don't want to make it taller. We don't want to make it higher density. We want to have some green space there. So, those are things that I don't think we really want to do, right? So, the redevelopment helps us
meet our fair share of housing, which we worked hard to be in compliance with. A lot of communities are not as well as us. Thanks to Craig and councils before us who have worked hard to stay in compliance with that number, and we are compliant. We are 144, 147 units,
whatever it is. we are in good shape there for the next 10 years meeting our requirement without having to build a um a housing low-income housing project which could be bigger and we wouldn't be able to control it
because the state could sue us and tell us to do it. A pilot program could bring in more non- tax revenue to the burough than what we were currently collecting on those properties. Much more than what we were currently collecting on those properties. When a full presentation is made for a
public hearing, all residents will be welcome to have questions, make their opinions known. I do ask that everyone come with an open mind and listen to all the facts, not just the one-sided opinions that are on social media right now.
In the end, the full council will need to vote on the presented pilot application. We'll need to listen to the concerns of all of you and those who support the pilot and make a decision that we think is best for the bureau. That's all I have to report tonight.
Obviously, an open comment. Many of you are welcome to answer questions, but there will be no public debate on this tonight as it's not on the agenda. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sorry for length. >> Thank you. Fire protection committee. Mr. Bren, >> Mr. Mayor and uh
in lie of the time I think I'm going to uh keep my comments till uh next month. >> Oh, okay. Thank you. >> Public safety committee and recreation and health committee, Mrs. Miss Windgate is out of state with the family on vacation. Before she left, she told me
that she'll do a double uh review of everything when she gets back. And also um Mrs. Smith, she's in another country on vacation. She'll do the same thing. Public voice committee, Mr. Richie. Oh, [clears throat] thank you. And it's so good to see everyone here. Packed room.
Every every seat is full. It's a It's not something that we're used to seeing. So, it's uh I welcome the community involvement. I uh first want to say uh you know, big up to the uh public works committee. We've had some big storms over the last uh couple weeks to to
month. Um and as a an avid runner uh going through town and through other towns, you can see the uh it's not pretty. Katie's laughing. It's not a pretty sight when I run, but as an avid runner, you you come across all the debris that falls. And what I will say
is uh my traditional route to run goes through Waldwick down Sheridan Avenue. And what I can say is Waldwick's uh sidewalks were very clean. And as I run through other towns, there was debris up into and including this week from the the past storms. So, I think our DPW
does a really good job of kind of cleaning up after uh these storms. It's it's a lot of work in in addition to everything else that they've done. I have some other comments that I'd like to make on on redevelopment because of uh I I I surmise you're all here for uh
comment or to hear on that. So uh I can say that now or wait till old business mayor. It's >> Yeah. So thank you. So I I'll do it now. I won't be as as long as uh the council president. That was really eloquent. I just want to say that I agree with, double down with and uh uh empathize
with everything that you've said. Uh I too have though um you know thought to myself uh this is a process that's been going on for the last 5 years. Uh we uh we really initiated the idea of redevelopment uh when when when really I
think Katie and I won back in in 2021 2022. I honestly can't even remember anymore. But um but uh I think that obviously the community is now very interested in what we're doing. Uh which is great and I welcome the feedback. I welcome the support or uh the uh the the
opposition. I think community involvement is what makes these decisions fun and I think it's what makes them uh ultimately the right decision. Um I will say that I understand your frustration and I sympathize with it. We're taking uh uh we're taking our time here as we uh
evaluate the pilot. We are uh we're not going to rush to a decision, right? We're going to try to make the right decision. What's in the best interest of the borrower? What's in the best interest of you? We also live here, right? It's sometimes I think people forget that we also live here. We're also taxpayers. We're subject to
everything that gets passed up here. Uh but we're not going to rush. We're going to take our time. We want to make sure that this is the right decision. This isn't uh an undoable uh decision, right? Once we make this, it's not like we can uh you know, call time out and do over 16 months from now. So, I do appreciate
the the patience. Um, and when the time is right, as as the council president said, we will have a uh give everyone an opportunity to speak uh in support or or against it. That notwithstanding, I I am intrigued by some of the things that I've seen on social media of late. Uh
particularly associated with the comparison of Waldwick to uh the Hackinack redevelopment and and pilot projects. Um, I have an office in Hackinack, so I spend a lot of time down there. And I can tell you that, uh, subjectively, Hackinack is not is not
Waldwick. Um, it's a big city. You'd have to combine Waldwick with Allenale, Hocus, Saddle River, Ramsay, and Midland Park to get a applesto apples comparison on a per capita uh analysis of of
Hackinack to to Waldwick. So, um I found it intriguing that there were uh there was a group in town uh led by formal council uh uh folks who uh voted unanimously uh in support of this project uh comparing this to to
Hackinac. Um I just don't think that that's the case. Uh so I dug I dug deep and I will agree that I think Hackinac may have they they may have overdone it, right? They may be overutilizing this tool. Uh I believe that in the near term
they have implemented 28 uh pilot programs, right? Uh with no no less than 3,000 new uh residential units placed within that city. Um I did the math and I had people check it. That's 28 times more pilots than we're discussing now
and 50 times more residential units that we're even considering for this project. Right? So uh it's it's it's really not a fair comparison and uh and I think it's misinformation. And I would urge uh those of you who are interested in looking at success or lack of success of
pilots to look at our neighbors in Midland Park and uh and Allenale as the council president said who have both implemented pilots. Uh and I'll and I'll leave it to you to decide whether it's been successful or not. Um uh and and uh and so I think that um you ought to look
at uh the folks that are putting this information out there, right? Uh we've also seen kind of claims on social media that uh this will absolutely raise our taxes, right? Um and and what I would say is I welcome the detailed financial analysis on how this will raise our
taxes, right? I'm just a lowly uh a lowly civil servant. So um you know, I would like to incorporate that information into the information that we have uh at hand as we uh as we decide on this pilot. So, if a detailed financial analysis was performed by a business
owner in town, um, uh, I'd welcome the opportunity to see that. I'd like to look at the variables. I'd like to look at the, uh, the, uh, the the basis. I'd like to look at all of the, uh, the details that went into that to to basically say, hey, uh, this is really bad for for the town. Uh, I think that's
information we should all we should all have, uh, as as we move forward. So, I'll work on that information. Um, and you know, as the council president said, as as we went back to 2022, we we were looking at a number of issues. Uh, the first issue is the financial uh
financial crisis. I will I'll call it a crisis of the town, a 2.5 million budget deficit. Um, we don't we basically lack $2.5 million every year to fund our budget, which means we have to take it from our savings account. That savings account is dramatically reducing every
year, and we are simply running out of money as a town. uh some of the folks who are are putting information out there about uh how pilots are destroying towns uh denied this financial uh uh uh financial problem uh within the bow. So
again, I I I urge you all to kind of question the sources of the information uh who's putting it out there. Um but as we looked at the financial problems within town, we also looked at the you know, you know, simply unoccupied properties, unoccupied businesses in
town. Um when I when I joined council, uh I think the biggest in my in my view eyesore of the downtown was the property that we're talking about right now on Harrison and uh Prospect which I believe was vacant for for uh about 10 years. Um we have the Rocket property as the
council president said behind it that uh has been inoperable or vacant whatever you want to call it. We have the right aid which is now vacant. We have Odyssey which is now vacant. And what we don't have is a line of developers wrapped around the uh corner who want to put businesses and buildings within this
town. So uh we sharpened our pencils. We implemented this uh procedure to uh you know designate these areas need in need of redevelopment. Uh as the council president said uh we don't want massive uh buildings. We don't want 10-story
buildings. We don't want hundreds. We don't want thousands. We don't want to be hackin sack. We want nice small lowdensity uh buildings. We want retail uh you know we want town homes, not just apartments. We need to meet our our affordable housing mandate. Um and so we
were very picky with projects that you know that we uh agreed to. As the council president said, it went through process after process after process through the council and through the planning board, unanimously approved by multiple councils over a period of 6 years. Uh the planning board approved
it. Um and you know, quite frankly, as we look at the tools available to to recruit these types of properties into town, uh a pilot was one of them. Uh we haven't uh made our decision yet. I think we will uh you know, in the in the coming months. Uh but but rest assured
we are doing so with all of this information as Joe said with all of the diligence with professionals uh on the financial side with professionals on the legal side. Um you know we we want I think the same thing everybody else does which is a a vibrant community. Uh we
don't want high taxes. None of us I don't think any of us want uh high taxes. Um we none of us gain anything from that. uh and and and I think that when you are asking yourself whether this is the right project or not uh ask
yourself about the alternatives right uh take a stroll down prospect and ask yourself whether that's what you want uh or go to hackinac and look at the massive developments that are being put up there and ask yourself whether that's what you want right uh because those are
the two alternatives to I think what is before us right now um and so I welcome your feedback and your comments uh tonight and uh to the to the meetings that come in the future. Um and I think it'll be a good conversation. So uh mayor, that's my report this evening.
Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Buildings and Grounds Committee. Makola Drake. >> Thank you, Mayor. I spoke with Tatiana. No update on the buildings and grounds from the last meeting, but if I could make a couple of quick remarks on the redevelopment. I know that everyone has their own um opinions that they want to
speak on, so I'll keep it brief. It's that's okay, Mr. Mayor. >> Sure. >> Thank you. So, I proudly support the revitalization of Waldwick. I think that's been pretty clear uh a number of reasons, but I think as some of you were here in that meeting in December of 2024
when the room was just as full as it was tonight. And there was so much support for this project and a brighter um downtown revitalized, more people, more businesses. Um, and as someone who grew up here and I chose to stay here and plant my roots here, I think we need to
think about the future and um, with the dwindling surplus, that's a huge issue. I voted no on this budget because I just don't think that a 10% tax increase is responsible or acceptable for the residents of Waldwick. So, that's one of the solutions that we can have moving forward is hopefully plugging this um,
issue we have in our budget with redevelopment funds and the revenue is very important. Um, I know there's a lot of misinformation surrounding the project, so it's encouraging to see everybody out here today. I'd also like to thank Joe, Councilman Joe, for um, his wonderful, thorough remarks. I hope
that you learned something coming here tonight, and I hope to see more of you at the future meetings. Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you, Administrator. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, just wanted to echo the mayor's sentiments on um, the pool. We've been having a fantastic
season. Uh happy to have all of our guards back. Uh our management team is really enjoying their time getting to know the residents. Uh every day they they call and and say that, you know, they're they're so happy that they're there together as a team with the guards and uh it's been a great experience and
a nice feeling down at the pool. Um our swim team is underway. They're doing fantastic this season again and um it's a really good opportunity for you know community to come together and enjoy the facilities. Um registration is still open. It's on our website. So um if you
haven't uh signed up yet, it's still available. Um and you know any questions you can always hop into Burrow Hall and and give us uh you know ask us any questions that you have. Thank you Mr. Mayor. >> Thank you. >> How about clerk? >> No report. >> Okay
attorney. >> Thank you Mr. Mayor. No report this evening. >> A redevelopment journ. >> Um, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have no report, but I'm happy to answer any questions if anyone has questions. >> Okay, we'll do that in the public.
>> Consent resolutions and resolutions of the governing body. >> It is all that the following resolutions herewith listed by consent, having been considered by the governing body of the Burough of Wick, are hereby passed and approved. 2026 204 approval of consent 2026 205 approval of minutes regular
meeting and close session meeting June 23rd 2026 policy votes A Tracy Britain requests to use pavilion B on Sunday August 2nd from 1 to 6 for a birthday party with alcoholic beverages being served B. You and Associates request uh to use Pavilion A on Saturday August 8th
from 2 to 8:00 p.m. for a picnic with alcoholic beverages being served. C. Lisa Puchini, request to use pavilion A on Sunday, August 30th from 9:00 am to 7 pm for a birthday party with alcoholic beverages being served. D. Alyssa Frisco, request to use pavilion B,
Saturday, September 5th from 12 to dusk for a birthday party with alcoholic beverages being served. E. Midland Park Community School request to use the Waldo Municipal Pool on Tuesday starting July 7th for campers. 2026206 change order number one final and current estimate number four final to
Sovereign Consulting Inc. for the rehabilitation of the Malcolm Street pumping station in the amount of $51,2771 2026 207 award and open contract to Axon Enterprises for police integrated equipment suite in the amount of $413,186.926208 award a fair and open contract to DS
Meyer Enterprises LLC for the 2026 curb ramp improvements in the amount of $88,17 2026 209 authorize Amended lease agreement with Environmental Renewal LLC for the lease and operation at least and operate the vegetative waste transfer
station 2026210 authorized autoc cab license for all county car and limo 2026 211 authorized premium of 65,000 to uh eset from ATFC ljlc to the borrow for this tax sales
certificate 20-0625 2026 212 or tax overp payments various and 2026 213 uh payment of vouchers. >> Do I have a motion and a second to accept? Motion by Joe, second by Andy. Anyone from the council?
>> Uh Mr. Mayor, regarding 20 2026 208, the award of the fair and open contract to DS Meer for the current ramp improvements. We had that bid opening last week. I oversaw the bid opening. Uh Boswell Engineering reviewed the bids that we were that were received and uh
it is being awarded as such to DS Meyer Enterprises. Just to give you an idea of uh the area of of focus, we start to look at the areas um that we anticipate in the future will be paved. Um and so these curb ramps are all along Long View Drive at the intersections of Pine View,
Lindberg, Mary Lane, Chestnut, Long View Court. Um as well as the intersection of Van Dyke Road and Birch Lane and Wilder Lane and Cecilia Drive. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> Clerk, please take the role. >> Mr. Brown, >> yes. >> Miss Kola, yes. >> Mr. Martinelloo, yes. Mr. Richie.
>> Yes. >> Okay. We have two public hearings. Number one, with the cl court clerk kindly read ordinance number 2026- 10. >> Ordinance number 202610. An ordinance amending ordinance number 20201 fixing the compensation, salaries, and wages of
officials and employees of the Burough of Waldick for the police. >> Anyone from the council like to comment on this ordinance? >> Yes. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is in agreement with our PBA contract that we negotiated with the uh the local. Um
this is everything that we've discussed through there. Happy to report that we'll have a labor agreement in place that will take us through the next several years and uh uh keep our men compensated fairly. >> Good. Anyone else? If not, I close the public comments and I'm sorry, I close the council's comments and open up to
the public. Anybody from the public would like to comment on this audience that was just read? If not, I close the public's uh comments and uh ask the clerk to authorize to advertise on local legal newspapers required by law. Clerk, take the role.
>> I need a motion. >> Do I have a motion? >> Joe, second by Mike. >> Thank you, Mr. Bernick. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sakre, >> yes. >> Mr. Martinell, >> yes. >> Mr. Rley, >> yes. >> And then we have the resolution. Right. >> Okay. So this is resolution 2026 214
approval of public safety, excuse me, public safety salaries for the years 2026 through 2030. [clears throat] >> Anybody from the council want comment? >> No. Close the council comments. Anybody from the public?
>> No, this is just a resolution. >> Just need a motion. I >> do have a motion and a second to accept it as a resolution. >> Motion. >> Motion by Mike, second by uh Joe. Clerk, please take the role. >> Mr. Bernie, >> yes. >> Miss Sarah Cadre, >> yes. >> Mr. Martinello, >> yes. >> Mr. Richard,
>> yes. >> We have two introduction of ordinances with the clerk with Ordinance number 2026-11. >> Ordinance number 2026-11, an ordinance amending chapter 63 park and ride lot section 63-2 parking fees.
Uh 63-3 restrictions B and C and 63-7 violations and penalties. Clarify hours, overnight parking regulations, and penalties. Motion and second is in order to accept this first reading and that the clerk be authorized to advertise in a local legal newspapers required by law setting a hearing two weeks from
tonight's meeting or soon thereafter as the matter may be breached. Do I have a motion in a second? Motion by Mike, second by Joe on the question. I'll come this is an update uh based on the new uh lease agreement that we have in New Jersey Transit for the lot. We
need to do some tweaks to the existing ordinance. So that's what the 202611 is and 202612. >> Okay. Anyone else? Take the role. >> Mr. Brennick. >> Yes. >> Miss Sarako. >> Yes. >> Mr. Marelloo. >> Yes. >> Mr. Richie.
>> Yes. >> Cler Connly read. Ordinance number 2026-12. >> Ordinance number 2026-12. An ordinance amending chapter 48 fee section 91-12.2A vehicles and traffic paid parking fees to clarify days and times for fees.
motion. The second is in order to uh to accept this on first reading and that the clerk be authorized to advertise in the local legal news papers required by law setting up public hearing tonight two weeks from tonight's meeting at 7:30 p.m. or soon due thereafter as the matter may be reached. Motion in a
second by Andy, second by Joe. It's what the attorney said. >> Same idea. >> Same idea as the attorney says. Anyone else? >> Okay. Clerk, please take the role. >> Mr. Bernick. >> Yes. Miss Sarah Cre. Yes. Mr. Marello. Yes. >> Mr. Richie. >> Yes. >> Okay. Anybody on the council have any
unfinished business? >> Anybody from the council have any new business? >> No new business. Okay. Public comments. Anybody Anybody in the audience would like to comment on anything, you could kindly come up to the microphone. Just please give us your name. If you're going to do anything about the pilot
program, please address the council president with that uh issue. I have to recuse myself from this, but I'll still sit here and look at your faces and listen. I thought you liked my face. >> Hello everyone. Ray Cruz, 15 Cypress
Court. >> No address required, sir. >> All right. I'm old school, man. Sorry. I remember how you guys used to run me through the ringer here. I had several one statement and several questions. The statement and I've never
done this, Michael. >> Yeah. >> That came across as condescending and and dimminitive [clears throat] >> when when you mentioned that I like to see the details of their financial analysis. I'm sure there's plenty of
people here. >> Could you speak a little louder? >> I'm sure that there's plenty of people here that can do a financial analysis and then state factual concerns on Facebook or wherever they're doing that. But as a public official, it just came
across that way. >> I mean, listen, I I just want to integrate information that's correct into our assessment. I get it. I get there's a lot of people that throw a lot of a lot of crazy stuff out there without facts and they're it's uninformed. But >> here it's just asking for facts. I'm
sorry that came across as uh >> next time next time I'll ask for opinions. >> Yeah, it's just it's just a matter of you have a lot of anxiety around this project. You have we have a budget deficit that we're trying to plug right as you mentioned. We have uh issues
around um you know ensuring that our schools are well funded. I assume I got several questions I actually wrote down here. Would you would you would you prefer that we we don't use facts when we make our decisions? Is that what you're suggesting? >> I'm not the one.
>> I mean Michael I'm not the one of the two accus you of anything. I said condescending. >> Yes, you came across condescending. That's my opinion. I'm sorry. >> That's my opinion. I did not say that. I I I'm going one way or the other on
anything. >> Well, that is >> I am not the person to go after. >> You're calling me condescending for asking for facts. >> I'm sure others will agree. >> All right. The uh state >> in regards to the pilot program, uh was the June 29th
meeting with the board of ed actually held? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, you found time to actually do that uh with the >> Yes. all the parties found time to to meet at that time. there is uh any sort of uh agreement made to push for inter you know I guess I don't know what they
call it inter agreement in which the board of ed and the council for the next four or five years 30 years whatever there's a natural agreement to ensure that the council can pay them when they do need a a relief from um you know any
of the pilot money that may be going towards >> from from what though so I explained earlier so that the the the board budget and a Stop me if I say something wrong. Where veg budget would be funded 100% as always. Right? So we we talked about how
um any new revenue from the pilot is not included in the pool. Right? We also talked about how if there's a land tax that's still attached to that property, that land tax would still be part of the pool that would be given to the board of education. Mhm. >> So we talked about how that would be
almost still full of what they were getting today, right? So we talked about how um the increase in students might not be directly proportional to uh the number of the budget, right? Because increases to the cap every year of 2 and
12% or 2% whatever it is. It will continue to increase that will continue to increase um the school tax as normal, right? And you know that's what we have at the time when we had the meeting you know in full transparency right we we still do not have an agreed upon
agreement so we cannot share terms of that financial agreement with anyone including the board of education. >> No I'm really just focused on an agreement between the board and the count and the council. Well, but to so there's a bill actually there's the bill that's S that's S1807 I think
>> that's coming out >> prior to that bill going or even maybe deciding to wait for that bill to pass >> you [clears throat] know to try to get ahead of that can you make an agreement with the board of ed to commit to them that you will fund them as you say you are right you would to ensure that that
actually happens that may allay some of those questions and some of those assertions that people >> right we always have funded the board of ed and we're always obligated to fun the board of ed [clears throat] not fund them >> and then no am no from pilot money I don't think that that's >> that's different right so maybe you can
explain this better than I am I'm >> as I understand you can't you you don't necessarily have to pay use the pilot money that you're receiving >> the pilot money does not go into the pool of funds that's allocated to board of education payment >> correct correct so that's that's what I'm talking about figuring out a way to
carve out some money for them >> well so we would still keep their budget whole at 100% >> okay Um that's so as long as you guys have been discussing and there's an obligation either the bill will obligate the councils to do that or you guys have an >> it will not it will not sorry
>> yeah can I just address that for one second right now it is a bill right it's not law so we're going by the long-term tax exemption law >> which does not provide for any portion of the pilot payment to go to the school board it's just the municipality and the
county however Um I just want to clarify if they is a if they are still paying land taxes then there is a land tax credit and that portion of the pilot payment will be reduced that portion
comes out of the burrows um pilot and what happens is the portion that continues to go through conventional taxes that percentage that goes which I think is 60% here to the board of ed They still get that. They still recoup that,
>> right? Whether it's that 2% or whatever that is they're getting. >> It's it's based on their conventional taxes. So I believe it's 60%. >> 60%. >> Well, that's based upon math, right? That's depending on the >> We don't do public math here. You do. >> Yeah, >> we tried, right?
>> Uh Phoenix advisors, have they completed the evaluation regarding the potential sale of our water utility? I know that was on the agenda at some point. We have not taken any further action on sale of water. >> Okay. I'm just looking at ways we could raise that that that budget deficit
because even if we do Harrison, right? Even if we do some of the other uh projects which I as I understand are >> not using pilot uh and these include >> Houston came and presented a couple couple councils ago. They came out
properties. >> What's that? >> Durant properties. >> What? Durant properties. Who knows what that would do? Uh we rejected any other plans at this point for density. >> Right. So 30 high-end town homes. That's what they were offering. >> That's what the Houston project was, right? In the Houston project, what they
presented to the council that night was that would not be pilot based. Okay. >> Because those would be owner occupied, sellable, pre-sale type things where then they wouldn't need to do pilot financing on those. So, so the challenge is this. >> And also, Ray, let me say we sell the
water. We we can't just use that money to plug our our budget. We have to actually pay down our debt, >> you know, which we we spend about 500,000 a year on debt. So, we would we would sell effectively sell our water to a third party. They'll double your rates, everybody, and then we would make
almost no adjustments to our operating. >> Got it. >> And it's a one-time thing, right? So, if we if the if this council eventually goes through that um financial analysis to say we're going to sell the water, it's a one-time fix that we could do now. In 20 years, a council that's
sitting up here might say those idiots 20 years ago should have held on to the water and made that investment. Now, you brought it up, right? We have to continue to make capital investments in our water no matter if we decide to sell or not to continue to improve the
quality and whatever H2M was the analyst that came back uh they're due back this fall to give us some further data after the settling period that will determine what future capital investments. So we can't make capital investments without additional income too. Right.
>> Have uh and who does the actual financials here? Is it uh you or >> the financials? >> Yeah, all the financial productions. Is it you? You, Joe? >> No. So, we have our CFO. Our CFO who does the our financial work here. I I'm not a paid financial adviser.
>> You sound like one in my private life. I was an accountant at one. >> I'm not a financial adviser by choice. >> No. No. I just listen. >> No. Thank you for all the work you did on on, you know, and and the statements you've made to try to clarify some assumptions.
>> Sure. the what I what I do want uh to state is um that this is a a mode of confusion. You guys are in the weeds every day on this. You're trying to plug I believe uh what the auditor said a multi-year multi-deade hole in our
taxes. >> Correct. >> The auditor said we have a surplus problem coming. They rang the alarm this year. >> Well, it's what $6 million or surplus right now? 5 million just about >> roughly. >> Right. And that will be depleted within two years. >> Not two. They said probably within five. >> Within five, >> right?
>> This project goes forward with pilot. We're not even going to see revenue until it's completed. Right. >> That's correct. >> So, what's that? 2 years construction, 3 years. So, we now have to pl I'm saying I'm doing this public math here. We we have to figure out how to p that budget
deficit and not eat away at that surplus for the next 2 three years. >> That's correct. And even if that pilot program is approved, right, for disharison property, it's a small dent in the new deficit. Correct. >> That's correct.
>> Okay. That's I think having some sort of easy to understand. >> Yeah. So, right >> presentation to the to to the community on that it would probably help allay some of these assumptions that are coming up >> from some of the social media experts. >> Right. So the financial advisors will
come back and do another presentation. >> But the idea of a pilot and the idea of redevelopment is that this is a first domino, right? So you do that project, maybe the Houston project happens, maybe the Durant project is spurred on to do something else, maybe somebody comes in
to write aid and puts a new store in and starts to bring additional revenues into into the town. That's the idea to generate new construction to generate new um taxable renewables for for the uh for the community. >> The uh I want to I'm sure there's plenty
of people here who want to uh come up here, but um the I'll I'll say one more thing. Um, I think if if there's a committee that can put together something for the public to see of how we aim to do this for the next 10, 20, and 30 years, depending on how, you
know, the I I I would hope that this uh pilot program is only for like 10 years or 15 years, not a 30-year pilot program. But I'm sure we have the leverage, right? This is the hottest town in in in Bergen County. For all the realtors behind me, they'll attest to it. >> But but Ray, I think we agree,
>> right? There's no there are no developers lining up to do anything in this town. Maybe residential properties go very very quickly which is fantastic but that that property is sat vacant for for how long? Rocket has sat vacant for how long? There's not there aren't a lot of people looking to come into Waldwick
to do anything. And maybe that's what I what I was trying to head to is really put together a committee that looks at the next 20 30 years and what we can do to do this not just from a you know pilot cutting budgets you know doing these sorts of things but looking at
things like how do we attract more business attract more people to to Waldwick right that are going to invest reinvest into Waldwick but at the same time figure out ways without raising our taxes so high because they are already
extreme extremely high to really give up give our residents some tax relief and at the same time give us more amenities. That has happened. You've seen it all around us. All the other towns have been able to figure that out whether they're doing shared services. >> Who's figured it out? We have Glen Rock
had a >> 15 little town, right? >> Had a tax increase and they have more industry than all the towns around here combined. >> I was throwing out >> had a large tax increase. >> I'm just throwing ideas out there. You're throwing ideas out, but you're also saying that all the other towns have figured it out except for us.
Allenale has five miles and a larger problem. >> I said some people have figured it out, >> right? >> When and I was about to say before you you you you started speaking uh shared services is a way to do this. >> Absolutely. >> As you mentioned, >> we already have some and we're looking at others,
>> right? But I also like to uh propose and I'm about to get stabbed here, maybe even discussing that with the board of ed. Thank you. >> Thank you, Rick. This is a big pair of shoes to fill. [laughter] Um, Tammy Moses, I'm not a Democrat and
I'm not a Republican. I just vote for the right person. Um, this I think really is blowing my mind that like two months ago you started talking about this pilot. Okay, the, you know, the redevelopment, it's a done deal. Okay, we're getting this big condo. we're
getting, you know, businesses on the bottom, whatever. That's a done deal. But nothing was talked about in a pilot, which means why should this developer pay part of the money? And you I know you've explained it, but to me, I'm not
a rocket scientist, >> but it just doesn't seem right. Why do we all have to pay full taxes every year, and this guy pays a portion of it? It It's just does it just doesn't seem possible, >> right? It doesn't It doesn't. Right. So,
people who who are wealthy building uh >> me [laughter] >> people who are wealthy who are building projects and trying to make income off of it, right? And and me and you are paying our full taxes. I get it. But the the problem is, right, a business,
you're a business owner. You don't you're not in business to lose money. >> No. >> Right. So, they have to build a property. I had to acquire properties that were already owned by somebody else. They weren't free properties. the burrow didn't own them, right? So, they had to go spend money in this economy,
in this market that Ray was talking about, probably overpay for that land. So, they have to pay for that. Now, they have to develop what we tell them they're allowed to develop. That would be like me telling you what you're allowed to sell on your store. >> But what I'll finish, right? So, that we
tell them what they're allowed to build. You have to build us a low density. You have to include low-income housing. So now they put all those rents on a piece of paper and they take them to their bank and their bank says, "I can't approve this project because you don't
have the cash flow to make the payments that I I require." So they have two options. They can come back to us and say, "Burl, I can't do this at this um density. I need more. I need 60 units. I need 100 units." And
we're going to say, "We're Waldwick. We don't want a six-story building, right? We don't want that. So, no, I can't let you do that. >> Say, okay. >> What's that? >> Then what would the developer do? >> The developer can either sit on the property and do nothing. >> Mhm. >> Or try to sell it to somebody else who
will probably come and ask for a pilot. >> But why should the town be voting on the pilot? Don't you think the residents voting on the pilot? >> It's not legal. >> It's not something that can go to a >> See, like I don't know this kind of stuff. And yeah, I was the one on fist
with Thornton and and on the soap box. That was me. But I'm not into this kind of stuff. And when I when I know when I read about this, I was really picked, >> right? >> Why should everybody, especially our seniors, have to pay full taxes? >> I know, but you know what I'm saying.
They have to pay every year. So do we. >> So, but the idea, >> it's just it just really bothers me, >> right? So, it bothers me. >> And they got more money than we do, >> of course. But the idea is right at some point, race correct, we're not going to see pilot money tomorrow. They have to finish it. They have to start
>> and they'll probably back, you know, they'll probably drag their feet. Oh, but they're not going on yet. We can't, you know, open it. >> Would you not want to open your business as fast as possible? >> Yeah, but they they're going to drag their feet. >> Of course, there's always construction delays. We're not going to see that revenue until they start getting rentals
and they till they start seeing that. >> But tenant, we can control the timing. It's in the It's in the redevelopment in the redevelopment agreement. So there >> there are safe there are safeguards that dictate that they need to start and complete construction within a specific time frame and um and if not they break
the redevelopment agreement. >> But here's my thing, you know, like nobody knew this. Half this town probably didn't even know what a pilot program was. Would anybody here know what a pilot was? >> Correct. So Tammy >> pilot >> two months ago, >> Tammy, that's not true. Right. So the
fact is about 6 months ago the developer and go back further in time we had residents over a year ago come to the council and start talking about a pilot before the developer even asked for one. So we could have spoken it into
existence number one. Number number two. So several months ago, six months ago or so, they presented for a pilot. >> We had at this council meeting, Phoenix Adviserss came in and did a presentation. >> Watching it. I never come to a council
meeting. I always watch them on Zoom because I open my mouth. >> So they they gave me my mouth. >> You're allowed to open your mouth. They gave a presentation on what a pilot program is. I didn't know what a pilot program is either until about 6 months ago until I started doing stuff. But I feel we're going to be stuck with the
extra taxes that you know the taxes are going to go up. We're going to be stuck with it. And if we do a pilot down on Houston Avenue, that's more >> Well, we said there would be no pilot on Houston Avenue. >> Okay. I just >> I think that's why I'm pushing back. We don't know that taxes are going to go up. And in fact, we're doing it and in
fact, we're doing this to avoid further taxes going up. Well, >> I think we're still going to be tax but I have a question. >> So, we're doing the financial analysis and that's the decision. That's what we're going to base our decision on. We've hired financial experts to do an
analysis to show us and and hopefully at the next meeting, and I know everyone's frustrated you haven't seen it, but hopefully at the next meeting, we'll be able to present the financials end to end to show you what we're looking at. But I promise you, the the premise of all of this is so that we don't have to
continue raising your taxes 10% every year. >> Okay. The thing is, >> I'd like a show of hands. Who voted for this p for this? >> No, the three red develops. >> Multiple multiple councils.
>> Okay. But um I just I just kind of thought it was wrong having a meeting the night the week before this meeting to have a little conversation. >> That was a club. That was completely wrong. >> Yeah. But so it was just kind of ironic. >> It was a political club. It was a political club. The other side could
have also had a meeting. Hey, the EMS could have like the public safety could have had a meeting. >> My last my last comment is there's plenty of businesses in town here. >> Yep. >> That are vacant. >> Yes. >> Okay. Do you think these are going to
get filled quicker than the ones that are vacant? >> Well, the idea is to bring in more business, right? But we wanted more people than more people. >> So they're not they're not being filled right now, right? Aid is is been v vacant for >> talking about the little ones, you know,
>> little ones, right? So the the place the uh flavor on fire has gone out three different times. People aren't supporting it. >> There are there are places that are killing it in town like trying to go to W's, Nelly's, LS Tekka to go get dinner at some point and and they're crazy busy on a Friday
night. Charlie's place, you know, bagel on a line on a Saturday morning is around the corner. There's there's there's uh plenty of business in Wick that kill it and do great. But what we need to do, >> we all talked about wanting to have a food market in towns. We didn't have one
for for a while when uh the farmers market went out. Now we have the food emporium. Everybody was excited to have that in there. And you know, they're going on Facebook saying, "Well, help me. How do I do better for you?" Because I drive past there and the parking lot's empty. >> Yeah.
>> Uh you know, maybe if there's 40 new homes there, 40 new people, maybe they need a place to go shop and they're going to walk to food important. Maybe they're going to come and get ice cream at your place right across the street. >> Maybe. So at that railroad across the street, >> right? That's on THE OTHER SIDE AT ice
cream, but they still want the farmers market or the emporium. They're going to have to walk over that rickety old trestle that's all rusted. >> Yeah. Don't start me on that. So, well, that's another subject. But anyway, I just want to know who's who's running for council next this year.
>> You are. Terence is running for council. >> Andy, >> you'll never see me do it again. >> Huh? >> You'll never see me do it ever again. >> Well, [laughter] this is my last year. >> I just I just had to speak my peace because most of the people who talked to
them, they didn't know about this pilot. And then two week two months ago, you know, all of a sudden >> well that's when that's when the developer >> WHAT'S THIS? OH YEAH, I SAID all that. >> That's when the redevelop that's when the redeveloper submitted for a pilot, right? We can't assume that the
redeveloper is going to submit for one. When they submitted for it, that's when the process started. >> Well, that should have been brought up a long time ago. >> It was right. We we sat at this meeting about it. It was really quiet. >> It was at every council meeting. There was a there was a gentleman that came here every meeting [laughter] and I give
him credit because I learned from him. He gave me some things to go research. I give him credit because he was very persistent about it and coming every meeting. He was here every almost every council meeting asking about what we were going to do for a pilot program. >> Wow. >> So that was not
>> I think it stinks that he has he has to pay or she has to pay a portion we have to pay for and that's what I'm saying. >> But they're but they're they're paying a portion of their revenue. >> It's not of their taxes. And then what if they don't fill them all? >> There's safeguards in the redevelopment agreement. And also at that point,
right, there's a couple things. >> You can't get less than we can get, right? Correct. Correct. >> The bank has to the bank has to keep them going, right? They have to make enough money to keep the bank or the bank will repossess the property. >> We also have condemnation rights on the property. There's a lot of safeguards in
there that help. And if he's killing it and making a lot of money and going over 12%, >> then he's got to pay profit. He's got to pay more. >> Okay, well then good. Let him pay more because he should be paying more. >> And it has to be audited financial statements. It can't just be I made $5. It has to be an audited financial
statement. It has to be >> just kind of seemed a little bit, you know, like little shitty. >> Right. Thank you, Tammy. >> Thank you. >> Next. >> Hi there. >> Hello. >> I'm Sharon Corbett. Lotus Lane in town here. I'm a former project manager.
Okay. I'm just going to lay that out on the line. And I'm from the south, so I'm just going to use my southern accent. But anyway, I don't have a problem with the pilot itself. What I'm more concerned about is I'm not hearing contingency plans if
something breaks, if something fails. >> Meaning >> meaning, okay, you're using status quo uh numbers and everything for the students. That's great. uh we're we're not taking into account, oh, major floods could happen. Oh, snowstorms, unbelievable snowstorms
going to happen and everything like that. Where is the money that we're getting on a monthly basis or yearly basis, where is it going to be fed into in the uh budget? >> Our operating budget. >> Your operating budget. Okay. So, if for
some reason something happens and a couple of trees fell down by the school and now the school's going to cost some, you know, additional things and everything, you're going to pull that money out. >> So, the school would have if trees fell down, the school would have insurance which would pay for that.
>> Okay. Well, I mean, I'm hoping that now we do, >> right? >> And everything, but you know, I we we need to know we need to know >> where the money's going. Yep. >> How it's going to be fed in if there's problems. >> Mhm. >> And you know, we don't want taxes raised. And I know you said, "Oh, no.
We're not going to have that." Tax will always be >> always go up. But what what bothered us was we're hearing, well, you know, they're not going to pay taxes until 10 years down the line. But yet, we're
going to be okay. And I'm just worried that we don't have a plan. And also the second thing, well, first of all, I'm glad that Allenale has five pilots and everything, but if they jump over the Washington Bridge, we don't need to go.
I'm just saying that. Um, the the other thing too is for God's sake, uh, yeah, we have a CPA that's going to check the books and and that's good. However, I looked up I learned
about the uh you know the pilot today and it says that really the best way to go for any town is to work with the PFAF which is the local government services that deal with pilots to make sure
strict audits are in place. Now the big concern and maybe that's what happened at Hackinack and what happened in these other places was that I'm not saying this developer is going to do that but they understated the revenue
at one point and they also put in uh inflated costs so that their pilot payment was less. And if they jiggle the books and they hand it to the CPA and the CPA looks at it and says, "Well, let's see. This adds
up. That adds up. Oh, you're fine. We're screwed." >> So, you don't think a CPA who's a public servant? >> I think a CPA can do a lot of things, but I also trust I I like to trust our government agencies. >> So, let's ask Anna for a second. Anna, what what are the requirements for the
financial audits? Where do they have to go? They they have to be um prepared by CPA and they are um authorized. >> Okay. But what about the state getting involved too? >> The state doesn't get involved. >> Well, they should be because they have a whole department for it.
But have y'all knocked on the door at least if they said, "Look, that's not our job. That's not what we do. Good luck. You got it all in in par." their audited statement. So that the state has prepared this legislation,
right? The long-term >> Yeah. In fact, they also made a new legislation that I don't know if you heard about, but if it gets passed, your developer will have to send them the report of their employees paychecks to make sure that what they're saying, oh,
I got, you know, 150,000 in cash here and everything. I got to pay my employees. >> Great. >> That's actually what they get. and that gets passed. You should also make sure that's in part of the contract, too, that they have to they will abide by what the state says. >> Just say,
>> "Well, they will. They will abide by all legal rules." >> Well, I hope they do. And there's a process in place. I had a uncle promised me he'd never drink. And then I found him on the side of the wall drinking at his bottle here. But he promised me and he said he wasn't going to do it. But by
God, he drank it. means that wonder what happened to him. >> Anyway, it's >> hard to argue with a southern accent like that. >> Yeah, >> I'm from San Antonio. >> And uh you know, the thing is, you know, I just want to make sure that when you
go through the effort and you're going to present it, you get all these people involved and we walk through and we figure out that not only are we ready for this, but this is what we do if we have problems. Because that's a biggie.
I I I hope I hope that we can uh present that at the next meeting and take the feedback and okay, >> don't make me ruin my readers here and everything. I I >> I don't want to have to be stepping in a lot of stuff I don't need to set into. You know what I mean?
>> I think that interesting meeting. I appreciate it. >> Okay. So, that said, I'm going to go do my twostep and sit down. >> Thank you. That That's a hard one to follow, folks. >> Hi, my name is Jackie. I just have a genuine question. [clears throat] Just genuinely want to understand better. So,
please be compassionate. If there were kids who entered Crescent and somehow were all in the same grade level, say they were in my daughter's grade level. >> Yep. I I genuinely want to know where and the teachers went to the principal to the superintendent said, "Hey, listen. We we need another teacher for
this grade level." Where would that what what would be the thought of where that money would come from? The school board just combined my daughter's grade level, cut a teacher, can't afford to hire another teacher. >> They're down. They're combined. My daughter's class just went from 14 kids
to 22 23. There's only two second grade teachers now at her school. they shifted things around to accommodate other grade levels, whatever was going on that I'm not privy to. But I I if for some reason, you know, and then people come, people go and they all
end up being in a grade level, you know, what are the odds? But and the board came to you and said, "Hey, we need some money to hire a new teacher or I what would that process look like? What would happen there?" >> So, I I can't speak for what the board of education would do, but I I imagine
this is what the process would look like a little bit, right? Right? So, they have a cap of what they're allowed to raise taxes every year, 2%. If it came to their um knowledge that they needed another teacher in a certain grade, either they're going to reallocate resources or if they need to go over and
above that 2% cap, they need to apply for a waiver. I forget what the name is. Um President Maro and I think C um um Trusty Frey talked about what that process was to go over that cap. If they go over that cap, they could get approved. So if that were to go over
that, then the increase in tax would fall to the to the burrow to accommodate an additional expense. >> Okay. So then, right, that would have >> right. So an additional teacher we talked about earlier, right? About $15,000, >> right? So they would so they the the
programs wouldn't work together. They would kind of be on their board of ed would kind of be on their own to do what they would >> board would have to make up their budget. They would they would create their budget. if they passed their budget, it would get submitted to the to the um to the town and we would have to pay it. >> Is there a provision like the pilot
program that says, "Hey, this Waldo specifically would be out there, but we we can siphon off a small for emergencies for the school system." Is there, you know, I know somebody had said that it's not part of it or it's it's, you know, not something that they do, but is there something in there
where it's like, you know, this this could happen? Well, listen, there there's always things that this Burrow and the Board of Education have done together. We share services with them. We pay for SLEOs in part for for the for the board
of education. So, there's always ways to help the board of education or to do other things that are not part of the budget. So, why sit here and say that we can put that in a piece of paper on the pilot? No, because it doesn't belong there legally. But can we do something to help the board of education in a
couple years? Absolutely. We always have. >> You know, when there's when when the construction happened to do all that, we waved every single permit fee. >> Sure. >> Right. That takes money out of the taxpayers's pockets to pay for that. Yep. [clears throat] >> Right. That's not free. Um so that happened, right? If if we cut the grass
at Trap Hagen, if our DPW guys do that, that's not free. That that costs that cost money to do that. They we utilize the same gas service that's paid for by by the council. That's not free. That happens. The sle aren't free. That happens. So, these are things that that we do in conjunction with the board of
ed. And we would always help the board of ed. Now, our kids, too. My kid goes to Waldwick High School. Uh Mike has kids here, but not here. Katie might have kids someday. Councilman uh Councilwoman Smith had a kid that went through the the program. Councilman Breck has grandkids that probably go
through the program. Councilman Windgate has people in the program. So, we all want the schools to be funded for sure, >> right? >> Um, and we'll always work with the school, >> right? There, you know, that was a draw of us moving to Waldo. Has, is there a way for us to know if the board of ed
reached out for for the upcoming school year of, you know, they said that they couldn't >> listen the the upcoming school year has nothing to do with a redevelopment or a pilot at this point, right? And uh um uh coun um board of ed president Maro at
the last meeting that we had said they already had a 1.9 million budget problem for next year. He said that publicly. Right. So that's already a shortfall and we haven't even talked about pilots or anything else yet. >> Right. Right. >> So it's more work to be done.
>> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> I'm going to come because I'm on the education portion of this too. So hi, I'm Lisa Brown. I am a teacher. Um, >> and I am in a district and a town where a pilot program right now has caused a
bit of a struggle. So, I have some experience on what's happening. So, I'm going to give you some scenarios to to think about. Um, so actually the best case scenario would be if we had 20 kids, they all went to one class and you had to hire one teacher. The worst case scenario is you get 25 30 kids that you
then have to place three kids in this class, four kids in this class, two kids in this class, five kids in this class into classes that have already been like that person before me was saying combined. So now not you don't have to hire one teacher, you have to hire five
teachers because you've now filled these classes so full that they can't sustain them and you have to split them. So, that's some food for thought. Um, when I was doing some pilot research, not only for my district, but for um tonight, I
did read that there are some places um that have advanced ordinances to permanently dedicate portions of pilot revenue to public school infrastructures, capital funds. Now, I know capital funds, they have to use them for certain things, but they can
move it in ways that they can do that um you know, that gets approved, etc., etc. So, um, and then I also learned that there is a Senate bill, which I heard someone address over here, um, that I did not have a chance to read, but I'm encouraging all of you to read it to
maybe we can get ideas from that to get ahead of this kind of problem, which is a very real problem. And if we are already seeing not just Waldick but every school district in all of New Jersey is suffering um from budget problems
because of the rising cost of health benefits costs that we cannot control. Um we really need to get ahead of we need to get ahead of this. So um by reading into what things have been proposed um I really think we need an
agreement in place to protect the schools. I think it's great that we say we've done it in the past. We've helped them. And I'm not saying that to be sarcastic, Joe. Right. >> I it is it's wonderful. But >> the problem that we're having um under this pilot is not only is the school
going to the town, the police department is going to the town. Everyone is now going and saying, "Well, we need some of this pilot money." So, if you don't look at it ahead of time and say exactly how many kids are in each classroom, exactly how many officers do we have to patrol
these areas, exactly how much, if you're not really digging into those numbers and looking at what extraund and something people, 20 kids in each class, if you're not looking at those real numbers, it's it is going to come back and it's going to be a problem, right?
>> Um, so from my understanding is that there is no agreement reached with the board of ed right now. That's correct. >> Correct. Okay. So, I highly encourage you, please, please, please, please look into that. >> Make, you know, really dig into real
actual numbers, not um hypotheticals. Find out how many kids are in each classroom. Find out how many, you know, what what the limitations are. I don't know how many kids can be in a class in this district. I haven't read their contract. I don't know what their
guidelines are. Um, but those are very real scenarios that are going to come up really fast. >> So, you did say that you fund 100% of the budget. Correct. So, that's the approved budget. Correct. >> Correct. >> So, these people who like people who come in after and like she was saying,
catastrophes and things that happen, those are not budgeted things. So, that would leave the school in a bigger shortfall than they all are already in. So if we get 40 kids who come in that were not budgeted for, even if you are
saying to us you're going to pay 100% of what was budgeted for, that still leaves those 25 kids or 40 kids, whoever showed up at the door that were not budgeted for that you're not taking into account for. >> Well, I I I'd say a couple things there.
So one, those kids are not coming in tomorrow, right? So for approved budget for 202627 school year if I would imagine that they the board of ed would look at their budget when that pilot was or that building was close to being developed and take into account the
potential for increased students and take that into their budget. I I'd also point to the fact that our enrollment is is still below what it was 3 years ago and even if we took 30 kids and added in we'd still be below the enrollment of where we were 3 years ago. And during
those 3 years, the budget still continued to go up. So I'd argue that it's not proportional, right? So enrollment came down a little bit. So maybe um you know, there's something there that uh that doesn't add up to what the budget is coming back to. I
think that the board of ed has been responsible and always increasing to their cap every year so they can keep bringing in as much dollars as possible, which is what they should do. Um so I applaud them for that 100%. But it's not directly proportional to the number of students. If I look at
that, the number of students that coming down, even if I go back 10 years, it's probably even less as more kids. I think when our kids graduated, the the class was was bigger than what they are now. Um, so if it's not proportional, how do I do that? And you hit that nail on the
head when you said it's coming from the state and the state health insurance. And you I'm telling everybody here, all of our voters, if the state doesn't do something to change that health program, all small towns, all of the same trouble
that we are, and they're going to all be scrambling to do stuff, whether more shared services or whatnot that come of it, but the state needs to do something to give all of us some relief. It's it's a fact. >> Yeah. >> Governor Cheryl needs to do something today.
>> I I do have a question. Is our board actively uh or council, I'm sorry, I'm I'm usually a little bit our council, are you actively petitioning the state in any way about on that topic about um health benefits for town? >> A resolution after the last meeting?
>> Yes. Okay, good. Thank you. Um uh okay so on a different note um I also learned that well so you mentioned several businesses that are not surviving or are are are
empty uh I don't have I'll I'll just say right aid odyssey etc etc over and over again so when I was doing my research as to what the benefits for a developer was like what why would they want to pilot it said that they get protection ction from market
downturns because pilot payments are frequently calculated as a percentage of actual rental revenue. The developer's tax liability drops if the building suffers from vacancy. Is that is that true what I what I learned? And what are we doing to
protect ourselves if that is the case? Since we can't already fill the businesses that we have, what if that they're open, they have six businesses that they can't fill. What are we doing to safeguard >> our town
about the redevelopment? I mean the retail is a small portion of that development. First of all, it's like how many square feet? I can't 4,000 ft of retail space. >> So the majority of the building is um lease rent apartments and condo and town
houses. So the taking the experience from what has happened at the station across the way, it's fully occupied. We anticipate that those rentals will be fully occupied as well. And and that's what's in in the agreement. As far as the retail, great point. We don't know
how quickly that retail will be filled. And I don't know what's in the uh protections in the redevelopment plan for around those percentages. I don't know if Anna, if you could look into that or come back to us on that. >> I can look into that. But one of the um there's 5,000 total square ft of retail,
but one is already an existing barber shop. So, it is a very small portion, but I can look into that would be helpful because I I do think that's a very um viable I mean, that's we we've we've seen in town that we have a hard
time and it's not just our town. You drive through Richwood, there's space after space after space that's open any town, every town around us. So for us to imagine and and pretend that they're just going to fill up and give us all this money, I think that as an
assumption is a dangerous one to um to use towards the um >> so we Yeah. So we you know I I think it's it's I'd love to hear your feedback. We were really trying to envision a scenario where, you know, from end to end on Prospect, we had
retail that kind of matched across the street. Um, you know, to to to do two things. One, diversify kind of what's down there, but but two, uh, avoid kind of the overcrowding of of the apartments. So, um I hear your concerns
about the retail, but uh the alternative is to just put apartments there and that's going to only increase the number of people, students potential, and then it's just going to it's going to chop up, you know, kind of what I think we're trying to achieve with this kind of
quaint downtown uh view. So, uh I'm for the record, I'm I'm all for it. In a perfect world with my I am all with you. I would love to. And some of you probably even saw my comments on Facebook when I was talking to whatever the giant market that's whatever the
market is now saying, you know, they need to get what we want in that store. They need to listen to us as, you know, town folk cuz I really um I had high hopes for them and I do. So I I'm I'm with you. I hope it takes off. But having
experienced it firsthand in this district that I am in and seeing when they did not do due diligence and ask the questions that I'm asking, nobody asks in our town. And all of a sudden everybody's like, "Well, everyone has their hand out asking for that pilot money." And the town council is now
saying, "Well, how do we figure out who we're giving it to?" So, you need to figure out the plan of who you're going to give it to and how you're going to give it to them before you just blanketly say yes to this builder. One of the things that the develop the um financial advisor did was do a performer, right? So take the potential
income to the bureau and do an analysis of what would be the percentage of additional operating cost that we might have and take that away as our potential benefit. So if uh the chief came to us and said I need to add another officer because of all this or DPW needed
additional um services for whatnot and we factored that into what the uh and they came and presented that on >> and I I I just didn't understand it so I want to clarify at some point you were talking about later in the agreement the
town gets a higher amount of money >> right >> um when does that happen like is it >> I can't share that now. that's still out there. But at some point in the agreement, there's a comparison done to what number is higher, the percentage of
revenue that we would get according to the pilot program versus the percentage of conventional tax. So you would get the higher of those two. >> But does that only kick in after 20 years, 25 years >> in the in the in the uh agreement? I can't share that yet. >> Okay. because I think that's a very
important number because if we let it go on for 20 years or 25 years then we're going to be losing. >> Yeah. >> Um I think that's it. Can I come back if I go through my papers? >> Sure. >> Hi Scott Wiselle Sheran Avenue. Um first I want to thank all the public servants.
I know that times like this it's it's not always easy. Um just a lot of concern about what's happening in our community right now. So I do have a statement um and I do want to maybe correct some of the record that was spoke about here a little bit earlier. Two things. First, I'm for this
development, right? I believe we need it. I think our town needs to be revitalized in a lot of different ways. Um it's aging and we have some needs in infrastructure. Second, I'm an engineer. I sit on the owner's side. I do redevelopment. I do I
sit in front of planning boards. I talk to to planning boards all the time. [clears throat] And uh I know what developers are asking for, right? Because I sit in front of engineers, contractors, and understand the asks.
I'm here about the tax break though, right? the tax break. That may sound simple in some regards and complex in others. I just want to make sure it's necessary. I think that's all the public really
wants to understand. Why is it necessary? And here's the ask in plain terms. The developer wants to make the most amount of money that they can. I want to do that when I'm sitting on developer
side. My job is to maximize profits. I put $100 million request into my CFO and I'm putting 10% on top of that number. So numbers up front aren't always correct. Sometimes that balloons to 120. Sometimes it's 20% less. Those
numbers are fudgeable up front. We won't know until those numbers actually become reality. And we're become we're entering into a pilot without knowing all the true numbers. There's some interesting things in the developers agreement that I I think the
the town for answering my [clears throat] my Oprah request. They're paying in in in in the benefit of the developer. They're putting about 35% upfront, right? That's
roughly about $10 million they're putting into development cash up front. The remainder they're looking to finance. One of the three finance firms that or banks that put said they would finance it said that they would not do without
the pilot. The others were absent in speaking about that. Now those are non-binding letters. I understand all that. But it doesn't mean that the pilot can't the pilot is necessary, right? So there are options out there still and we're just asking for that to be proven.
There are some numbers inside that just don't make any sense. Right? So numbers are expressed in three different ways and three different documents in the application. One at 16.9 million for the bank source.
[cough] 18.1 for employment in the employment exhibit and 18.5 million in the architect certification for costs. can't have it all three different ways, right? So, there's just numbers there
that just don't make any sense. There's also the developer fee at 1.57% which is really low. So, comparatively industry somewhere between 3 and 5% for redevelopers fees. The burrow assumingly hired an expert to
look at this because the documents show that the bureau had made some comments to it. I haven't seen that document yet what was sent. I'd love to see that and what was asked for, but where's our certification or our financial
statements or our financial study? I'd like to see that released before there's any vote or another meeting on this. I'd like to build a model and demonstrate what is inside those numbers and to some degree I have but I can't do
it without seeing the numbers. I asked for several things. Um there is January 17th, 2024 the law passed that we can share with the schools, right? So I just want to put that on the record. there is an opportunity to share with
the schools. 69% of the school pro 69% of our tax basis goes to the schools, right? Just pure logical math. The remaining 31% 5% goes to the town or the county and the 95% goes to the school
after the pilot. How is our tax not going to go up according to this? Just be based on back of number back of the napkin numbers. It's somewhere between $500 and $1,000 per house when you do the numbers with the numbers that are out there right
now. I'm not saying that that is the case. Those are just hypothetical until everything's agreed to and we see the real numbers. But there are other developments that are being reconsidered here. Two months ago, the plant the board had approved redevelopment of two
other parcels over here. what we're doing here today. Significant tax burden relief off of the community. And last piece, I ask that you guys show us your numbers. I would love to to see that. I'd like to produce the results, share it with the
community. And again, remember what we do here today is just setting precedent for the rest of the redevelopment. Thank you. CAN I could I just ask could I just ask that uh you share those numbers? I uh I think
that that's exactly the financial analysis I was talking about earlier. Not not being condescending, but if you could email that to us, I think that would be really helpful. I think yours >> first. That's not how it works. That's not how it works.
That's not how it works. So we we can't share those numbers with you yet, right? Once we before a vote would happen, those numbers would be made public to everyone. We can't share those yet with with you according to legal counsel. >> Yeah, I understand it can't be shared
yet, right? But um I share my numbers. If the developer looks at that, >> they have an opportunity to rebuttle it before there's any conversation or any proof. So we need financial statement to actually look at >> the way it'll work is the financial advisor will come they'll give a
presentation that's introduction you'll have a month to then review those numbers throw them into your model is it a month it's about a month right this before you actually >> we only need once we only meet once a month now till the end of the year so
practically speaking you'll have a month to review those numbers provide feedback put them into your model Um, you know, but this is not a gotcha moment. If you have information that can help us make a decision, I'd advocate that you give that to us. Now, I wasn't being
condescending. I was asking if if if there are people out there that believe with an analysis that this is going to change things, share it. We will consider it. I I I promise you that. But, um, but yeah, the at at I don't know if it's the next meeting or the meeting after, there'll be a
presentation from the adviserss full on. you'll have a month to throw it in and then you'll have an opportunity to come back um uh with that information to uh to then speak again. >> Yeah. So, hasn't there's been like me or Councilman Bren sitting there doing
these numbers? We're paying financial adviserss to do this work and they have done some of the things that you're suggesting already, you know, uh and going through the model and figuring out what is feasible, what's not and doing those calculations. Maybe you're better at it than they are. I don't know. But
these are the the the adviserss that we have hired professionals that are doing the service for this. >> Yeah. I'm not I'm not attacking your adviserss. Um there's just questions around it, right? And we would just ask that I mean those those comments from your adviserss I don't think are subject
to the negotiations at this point. The performance already been produced. There's already records out there that says that they've taken some of your comments into consideration. I would just ask what those comments were. There had been a sidebar study in order to make those comments. Right? So there's
some record out there of a study on the performer and they had to they had to produce a parallel perform in order to make those comments. >> Yeah, I'm I'm sure. Yeah, they have. Right. Then we're told we can't give that out yet.
>> Yeah, they have. But the financial agreement is not um >> I'm not I'm not asking for the financial agreement, >> but that goes into it. So it cannot be re released at this point yet. >> But the performers are released. >> That was the pilot application and that was included in there, but it's not a
final document. That's just their application what they're showing. >> So they're they're intending to amend the port for >> I don't know once the financial agreement if there are going to be amendments to the pilot application,
they can amend it. >> Okay. Thank you. And I think to your point about the the legality of whether we can or can't pay the school, I'm not a lawyer, so I I I rely on these I rely on these. >> That law did not pass.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> 1807 is not passed yet. >> Not even a corresponding assembly bill. It's not even out of committee. >> So, uh, the law I'm specifically referring to passed on January 16th, 2024.
It is C18 A 7G 151A C18 A col 7G 151A an amended PL 2023.
I'm more than happy to share that with the council. >> I'd appreciate that. >> Thank you. How you doing? Uh Dan Mel Vet President, I just want a clear fact that because they were at our meeting yesterday, our waiver cannot be for staff. Our waiver is for insurance.
>> Yeah, that's why I said I can't speak for you on that. >> Yeah. Well, I I I just want to make it out there because I'm trying to stay off the internet. You both I'm having a good 6 months. >> Um that we can only apply for a waiver for insurance. No, hocus just did it, but they went for maintenance, staff,
electric. They they built everything in. That's why they had to go out for a vote. >> Got it. >> Insurance is a waiver, not staff. >> Thank you, sir. >> Is that all? >> Anyone else? something different than
>> fantastic. Come on up. You know >> there's no order >> just to keep the subject going. So uh my name is Manuelina Maggie for short for you know to keep it short. I just wanted to ask again about the parking situation
by the train station. I know we're going through this. I'm not, you know, telling you that the price is too high or not. It is just something different that haven't been done in the town for a very long time. Since July 1st, the effective
rate went in for Dallas a day. Uh the signs are, by the way, still off, just so you know. And the app is really annoying to have it when you're parking there 5, you know, 9 to 7 to have a notification at 10:00 a.m. 10 p.m. that
the parking expires because you guys are putting the parking on the lot from I think 9 to 10 or whatever that might be. Uh the side parking is still enforced 5 to 5 Monday through Friday, which again the app is now reflecting that. Still
not sure where you guys were at the process. Not sure how many of you commute to the city or take the train on a daily basis. The parking lot has not seen much of an increase. It is the summer month. So I would just ask again
for the residents for our benefit of commuting to the city to have option of an annual pass. Increase it. I understand 250 a year is too low. I understand there's maintenance. You guys are leasing the lot from New Jersey.
You're making the roof and as you know commuters to the city, there's enough room as we saw before. It's 70% utilized regardless if it's mess or annual parking uh permits. Let's combine them.
Think about it. Drop it down. The people that are on the list have them the first come first- serve basis. You had said council that not everybody commit 5 days a week. So there is room for moving and getting extra revenue for a daily parking for those that don't commute
every day and those that do not have a parking permit. Towns around us have a combination of both. And if they want to be getting revenue, I think we should be competitive with them in terms of having the opportunity for the residents not to
pay $1,000 to park for a parking lot that we already pay about $370 a month for commute to the city if you're working every month. You know, every month you have to pay for the parking. So just my request, think about it. Think about the community what it
will do. And also people take the train over at the weekend with their kids, whatever. Not. I understand. But put it, you know, 5 to 5 or something. Put it on a Saturday. Have a Sunday free. Let the people go and enjoy it. Have everybody enjoy an opportunity to explore for the
kids especially. Cuz now if you have to walk with the kid or park, you know, $12. Yes. You say $4 a day is not a lot. But if you add it up over 52 weeks, 5 days a week, that's $1,000 going from 250. And I have not given notification
from you. the council or from the city that there are going to be changes. You guys have been postponing the permits from last year. We had six months for free. Why? We had, you know, a very short notice of a month that is going to
be turned into a parking by a day. And I also wanted to express I've emailed the council first time on June 2nd just the mayor and Miss Kelly on June 12th. more of you people I have not even received a response of thank you we'll look into it
I do not need answers I just want to express to have let's think about the community about the commuters that already are paying the New Jersey transit >> fee sorry did you say you emailed all all of us >> yes I emailed you I didn't email Miss Tatiana I emailed the mayor and I
emailed Mr. Kelly and Mr. Joe, Miss Kathy, I believe, too. >> I'm so sorry. I missed that. Yeah. >> Well, Dana was so I would assume you might have ignored it for reasons. One, it's been twice. >> I respond to every email that comes. I I >> No, please check June 12th.
>> I will. I will. >> Thank you, >> Becky. I just want to mention that today's um ordinances that were introduced are tweaking the hours um that you're referring to. So, there will be free parking and I'm I'm um uh is it the lot or street side on Sundays? I
don't have those notes in front of me. So, the street side parking will be free on Mondays. Okay. Uh I'm sorry, Sunday. Sundays. >> So, you know, and we took that into account for community events down at the train station. Um just like you said, families going into the, you know, into
um into the city. And uh and we and we understand, we've been monitoring very closely, I think, um to give it a fair shot. Um, we need to look at the summer months, but we need to look at the fall months as well. We are getting a lot of people um, showing up, but whatever problems you have with the app, let us know. We're not aware of anything.
>> That's not the problem. It's just that you have set up the time up to 10:00 p.m. So, if I pay a daily fee cuz I commute, I take the 8:37 train and I come back 7:02. The app still goes, right? So, it's the app. So, because the
parking is till 10:00 and again, why is it till 10:00? people do not leave the town at 700 p.m. and even if they do they're coming later. So, you've uh one of the emails and I'm not it's it was the street parking. Sorry. But yes, uh the street parking has increments of 2
hours, I believe. Uh the main parking lot is not it's just $4 a daily parking rate. But why are we making it till 10 p.m.? Why? Why? Like who's going out and you know on the train? People commute in the morning, not at night.
>> Right. The thought on that is that there are um people in the community um that may be using the lot for uh parking or overflow parking. So, um that's something that we had to consider and and keep in mind as well. So, um we did we we really did try to take a holistic
look at at everything that's going on and and I understand that a change like that, you know, affects um families and that's not the intent, but what we're really trying to man manage is that that there's a need there. Um and we continue to hear that need every day up until um July 1. So we know um and and the
difficult part for us would be we have so many uh yearly committed residents um and non-residents you know you you know it was open to both um and to be able to decide who um has precedence over the others was uh was going to be an near impossible task. So
>> I know I've been there last year so you know it's not utilized and I should think I think we should find a medium for both. >> We'll continue to look. Thank you. Uh Jeffrey Rodoff. So I actually um thought I wasn't going to say anything
tonight because I was trying to keep the comment about come listen with an open mind take in and I was really trying to do that and I still am. So I'm not going to comment anything on the pilot because I'm still taking in all of this information. But thank you for having this discussion. I would welcome more
opportunities for this um you know things where I could ask questions. I felt a little weird asking questions now because there's so many people here, but I welcome that. But since we started talking about parking, um I figured I would jump on that bandwagon as well. I have been uh had a parking permit since
2005 at this point. Um and uh it's it's definitely a change to not have a parking permit. And um so far I've adjusted by um getting a ride to the train every day. And I don't know if that's one of the um goals of this is to
drive down some of the people who were using permits um to change their behaviors. If so, success, you know, I have now drive driven that down. Um I will say I am not opposed in theory to it being higher than it was. like if to
the extent the concern was that it was charged too far below market rates and and you know we needed an opportunity to address that, I'm open to to hearing and having that conversation. Um, as you might imagine, this is a topic of conversation for a lot of the people who commute into the city. Um, and I've
heard a number of different concerns about this and and what it would do. Um, certainly the hours that was just talked about by the person before uh was a common concern. It ranged from I don't need that many hours to I want to go to a Nick game and I'm not going to be home
by 10:00 and so what do I do in that situation? So they're definitely, you know, like the fact of the set hours um that you're doing it is not flexible enough for some some people. Um I would if there is an option for a blended
approach of permits and and the park mobile, I would highly encourage that. Um I certainly um understand that there is you know the situation we were before where people felt like they could never get a chance to park. You know it was was less than optimal. At the same time
you know having a permit is really beneficial for a number of reasons. Not the least of which I am 100% convinced at some point during this year if I do this I'm going to forget to pay park mobile and then I'm going to get a ticket and then I'm going to feel like an idiot and it will be my fault. But nevertheless, I'm trying to avoid
situations like this. I also suspect there are a certain number of people because I've talked to them who are saying I'm just going to get a ride to down to the train. And so you're losing revenue on those people. You're losing revenue on me. I would pay more. I would be glad to pay more for the privilege of
having the permit that I've had since 2005 or at least putting my name into a an opportunity to get that. So, I know that it's not completely uncommon to have a parking lot where there are some permits and some park mobile. To the extent that could be um thought I would
considered, I would encourage it. And again, just to be also very flex flexible thinking about the hours. I know you said there were some tweaks. I didn't fully appreciate what the tweaks are. Um but yes, there are people who use it after 10. There were people who will use it before. And so, uh thinking
of ways to in include that. Jeeoff, I just want to give you one piece of information. I think one of the goals was that we had oversold the number of permits for the lots that were there, for units that were there. It was like 120 spots and we had sold 150 permits
and it still was underutilized and we still had a waiting list of anotherund and something people or 80 something people that were not allowed to park in the lot because we had already oversold the spots that were there. So correct, >> the objective was how can we free up
spots so that the people on the waiting list can also use those spots. I don't know >> because of our lease agreement, whatever. I'll I'll we can go back and look at it if we're allowed to aortion that and say half the lot's going to be permitted and half is not. I don't know
if we're allowed to do that. I'd have to ask and see if that's even a viable option. But at that point, how do you come up with out of the 150 people who have already had those permits like yourself, how do you come up with the 60 who are going to get it going forward? >> One one thing I would think of off to
the top of my head, I mean, first of all, I will say again, as someone who has commuted in that lot since 2005, um I have literally never seen every spot taken up. >> Correct. That was the point, right? That's the whole point and that's what
we were trying to address. So when phone calls were coming in every day from people who didn't have yearly parking passes and they were showing up for streetside parking and they were looking at a half empty lot, they were and the calls were becoming I mean we we were inundated with phone calls day after day after day in the clerk's office because
they're frustrated. I showed up at 7:00 in the morning and there's a lot with 50 spots in it and my streets and the street side um you know options are all taken. Why can't I park in the lot? And that's because if tomorrow every person that we sold the yearly pass to showed
up and the lot was full plus it we had 30 people who couldn't park because we were parked over then we had a problem. And so what was what what we discovered and what has really happened postco I guess is that people are buying a yearly pass and that used to be used 5 days a week but people aren't using it 5 days a
week and so some are >> some some are some are sure but not a lot and so the frustration from residents and and anybody trying to commute from our lot is I'm showing up and it's a half empty lot and so um we we needed to address that. We can't have that happening. And if if we have 150
people on the wait list and we have people calling every day, there is a need there. And I think that by the fall and once people kind of um you know, pay attention to what's been happening down there, I think you're going to start to find that the lot's going to be full every day because the need is there. And that's we're trying to get as many
people parked in those spots as possible. That's really the intention. Anecdotally, someone I know would buy a pass every year the same way you did and go to the city three times a month. >> So, and so that's what the comment I was
going to say is like, look, obviously you have a purchase a pass, you want to be able to park in the lot, right? >> I I get that. That would be frustrating if I showed it. But if what you're observing is that, hey, we've sold this x number of permits and yet we're seeing
60% of the spots or 40% of the spots or 25% of the spots underutilized every day. I mean, I'm not saying do 80 more permits, but but you know, it's a little bit like an airline in this regard, right? Like you could probably sell five more, you know, and
under the understanding that not everyone is doing this every day. Frankly, you know, if I purchased a permit, like that gives me the right to park in that permit. It's, you know, I'm not I you know, if you told me beforehand, you know, if you choose to purchase this permit, keep in mind we,
you know, I can't guarantee you 100% you will have that spot. I can make that choice then, you know, and maybe I'll have to do park mobile that day. But what we have now is a situation and yes it is summer but it is like not full and it's just hard and I have been
doing yes co change was a game changer but even before co like if you looked at those single spots at the end you know like not where if it's broken into thirds. There's a sign closest to the to the train station that's stuck in the middle. And then there's the one where you can't park on both sides. Like those
are never full. like this is like there has to be I have to think there's a plan that would allow some type of permitting basis for people who that is the most whether you have permits for Tuesday Thursday or permits for like you know
where there's another opportunity because you are you losing money for people who like I've talked to a number of people who just like I can't if I can't have a permit I'm just going to I'm going to maybe there will be filled up with so many of these other people who are looking to do it. It's just an
inconvenience and like I said, you know, like I know I'm going to forget the super park mobile thing at some point. I'm gonna get it. It'll be my fault and you know, but if there is [laughter] another option like other towns have done with with a hybrid model, I think that would be beneficial and I encourage looking at it. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Patricia Hardik and I live on Harrison AB and I've seen you all before. Um I just want to clarify something. I've lived on Harrison A for 25 years and I think could be a little bit less or a little
bit more. I kind of lost track of time. Didn't plan on living here that long. But um never once have I ever seen a sign land for sale to redevelopment on any of those properties. In fact, all
four houses were lived in, rented out. And as far as cottage place, there was never a sign for sale ever. So, how could people even know that anybody was considering or builders know that anybody was considering
to sell out and let it be redeveloped? >> Because when we declared the area in need of redevelopment, that opened up the floodgates to people trying >> to signs for sale. >> You don't do that, right? So, I get mail every day, somebody trying to buy my house, >> right? That that that comes through. Well, aren't you lucky?
>> Yeah. >> But as our taxes go up and maybe the schools go down a little bit, my t my my property is not going to be worth as much. Um I want to ask I want to ask about um the new state law that looks like it's going to go into effect. 1807.
Does everybody is everybody familiar with this? >> Yeah, we just talked about 1807 that it's not even in legislative process at this point. hasn't got past um the the next level of approval yet. >> There's no assembly. >> There's no even assembly bill for it yet. >> Still in committee. >> I I bet it's not going to even
>> come close to the current status of it. There's no corresponding assembly bill that's still in the appropriations and budget committee with no hearing scheduled. >> No hearing scheduled. >> And and even if it did pass, this development project wouldn't qualify under that law for for having to abide by it. It's for residential only, not
mixed use. when are we going to give a financial thing so I would know as a homeowner how I'm going to be affected because a lot of us are seniors. We live on fixed incomes. We plan our money around taxes. We just had a around a 4%
increase. Is that right? 10% whatever it was. It was a lot. And now you're talking about this piloting this. I I you know that's going to be another increase on >> Well, the pilot in in the the theory of the pilot is to offset future increases
to your taxes. >> When when are we going to see the financial papers? >> So, we talked about that, right? So, once the >> How long? Cuz I hope we were hoping today, right? We're not there yet. >> Holding them up. >> We're not there yet, but there's there's still details that have to go through.
There's still negotiations that have to go through as soon as we can. If it's the next council meeting, we'll have the financial adviserss here to give a full presentation and release it like we told the other gentlemen. Um, and then there's weeks of time in between that
and when the public hearing is so people can go back, study the numbers, ask questions, and uh at that point when there's a public hearing is when the council would have to vote yes or no. >> So, uh, let me let me just clarify the procedure so that everybody understands.
There's an intro, it has to be approved, the financial agreement gets approved by an ordinance. Okay? So, just like you have the ordinances tonight, there will be an introduction at a meeting, right? >> Where the financial uh advisor will present everything >> at the introduction. Then you'll have
the public will have a month or whatever to absorb everything. It'll all be posted and a public hearing on the ordinance at the next meeting, >> right? >> Where all your questions can be answered. I hope we all can because you know there are quite a few of us who are very I felt like this was a you were
just shoving this down my throat tonight. Um that you all are in for this and I'm personally not in for this. >> I have I'm not going to live another 30 years to see this pilot paid off. Will I ever benefit from it? No. Will the town
really benefit in the end? I want to see the financial school getting and >> right that's the decision that we all have to make nobody has made a decision yes or no >> make it because it seems like some people have already made >> so tonight all all we did all I did
>> was give you facts of what the pilot agreement could do I haven't given you any number >> any good like what's the good from it >> the good that's what I talked about >> we benefit as Waldwick residents >> so we get a redevelopment project that hopefully spurs on future economic
growth and other development in the area, bringing additional tax revenue to the town. Hopefully increasing your tax base, your tax um value in your home, putting money in your pocket when you finally do sell and and and move or or whatnot or when I sell and move.
Hopefully that brings that hopefully that spurs economic development where other retail businesses can be filled and uh and bring a revitalized look to down in that area. That's the goal. That's the good for the town.
A pilot program incentivizes developer to do something where uh in otherwise he may not be able to do. The gentleman that came up here sounds very informed >> very >> very informed on the process >> in this whole process here. >> So but we're not the financial adviserss, right? We're hearing from
financial adviserss who do what he does, right? And we're getting information from them that we can't give to you right now. I'm not a financial adviser. He's not a financial adviser. I don't think I think he works for >> He does. He's a smart guy, right? Maybe
he should run for council one day and and be up here doing that. I >> I'll I'll stand there just like he did for a year. Yeah, exactly. Yes. I look forward to that one. >> Um we're testing kindergarten this year. >> I run on sharers. >> I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you. >> You know, they pre-est kids for
kindergarten to see. Well, you should know it because that's going to affect how many kids are coming into our school by how many kindergarteners. >> Well, I I've just given you a trend of what's happening over the last 10 years of declining enrollment. >> But we have a lot of new families move into town.
>> Sure. We have a lot of families. We had such a big turn, >> right? I get it. And we have families that graduate out. My older son's grade was one of the biggest that came through Waldwick. They graduated out um four years ago. My son's grade now who's a who's a junior in Waldwick High School,
his grade is smaller than than that grade was. So, um you know, it could go up. There could be more kids. I could sell my house tomorrow and six kids could move in. You could sell your house and six more. >> What we have in concrete um evidence how many kids are going into kindergarten
this year? >> Let's take a look. >> Let's prepare ourselves. We have to keep our school strong and I don't think this is the way to go to keep it strong. >> Thank you. I want to hear what percentage is going to our schools to the burough. Are we going to lose
workers? Who >> the idea is not to lose workers? That's why we're doing this. >> Uh I don't know. Did by the way I'd like to ask did did they have um they started development on it and they >> they did not excuse me. They remove they took down
all the houses and they removed all the soil and they're doing something underground. >> The capping punch. Yeah. that is not they've they have received a permit for demoing which is what they've done but construction >> soil right >> but construction permits have not been
issued um you may be see a movement of of uh soil uh that has to a lot of movement >> that has to do with um a road opening permit that they took out with the burough um but but construction permits and foundation digging that has not been >> whatever they're doing
>> that has not been approved foundation um permits have not been issued >> they are digging in the ground I'm putting something I don't know that kind of stuff, whatever it is, but I want to make sure permits are in order and somebody's inspecting the work. >> Of course, we have all hands on deck.
>> We have a pilot like committee to watch over this whole process if it happens to go through. Are we going to hire more people to look out that everything's being up? >> Well, the pilot's only a financial agreement. So, the the project that
they've proposed is already approved. >> Um, right. But I just want to be watching that closely. >> We've been watching everything in our school at Ramsey High School. Um they did a parking lot, right? I was here at a meeting and um it turns out they never
got permit for all that soil remover and removal and stuff right at our high school where the kids go to school. I was at the meeting when this occurred and I just don't want this happening in my neighborhood or in Waldwick >> and I want to make sure all permits are
valid and dated. >> Yes, of course. That that's our number one priority in in all projects and all construction in town. >> Happened in the school system when you were they were making a larger parking lot at the high school >> that Ramsey. >> Yes. >> They actually >> the Ramsay council just is not on top.
Oh, in >> Wald. Yeah. Don't look so shocked. It happened. >> It happened in the Wald school. >> Yeah. >> Yep. It did. >> Right in the high school. Look in the look back through the, you know, town meetings. I was here when it was discussed. Mr. Maro, >> it was like, oops.
>> I don't want any oops in this. You know what I mean? >> I agree. And I think you need to research how many kindergarters have come in. You guys are get more research than and make sure this is the right thing for our town. >> I don't believe it. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Hi Bob going uh West Prospect. We can see we've had some spirited debates. I just want to take this time because it's been a long meeting. I I'd like to thank everyone on the council for putting this together. You can see there's a
>> speaking to the mic. >> I just want to thank the council also for putting this together. Uh you can see there's a spirit of debate. Everyone has pros and cons. So, I'm sure you're going to listen to it. I think the only thing we can should all agree on is that
we need to revitalize the downtown area, whether that's the pilot, which I think as Joe, you you did a great job explaining it. It sounds like it's a step in the right direction. Uh I'm sure you you're still going to pursue it. You got more questions on it, which is
great. the people have some questions and it's going to be directed for them. But we don't want empty lots. Uh I think you bring more people in. Whichever way you do, they share in the tax burden. So again, I'm just thanking you for having
this meeting. It's been a long meeting. Like I said, we all stuck it out. But again, thank you. And just listen to the people. Uh you are going to make the decision. I'm sure you make the right decision and it's just going to be best for the town. So again, just thank you for your time. That's all I wanted to
say. Thanks, guys. >> Good night. >> I'll just I'll just add uh that a pilot is not a slam dunk decision, right? There's a lot of people for and against the pilot, and [clears throat] I bet you if I took a survey at at different places and people talking to me or
whatnot, I'll get different opinions. Some people will be for it, some people will be against it. We have to make a decision at some point. >> Yes, sir. >> Yes. My name is Pat Stevens and uh one of the things I came up here for was to
find out can you turn the volume up cuz we can't hear anything back there. We have a problem in the past and Al has corrected us at almost every meeting that we don't speak into the microphone enough. So he he hasn't come up to correct us in in in a year. So thank
you. >> I hope we do better. Yeah, we will do better. >> You we can hear. >> Thank you. went out. >> What's that? The feed went out. >> Yep. >> Aware teams is on. >> Someone cut the cord.
>> Uh the reason I came up here for is uh this uh pilot program is how many years? >> Can't share those details. They're still in negotiations the burough with the redeveloper >> in terms of the pilot camp. >> How long do they normally run? 20 years,
30 years, 40 years, >> 50 years. >> They can run up to 30 years. >> Okay. My question is is in that 30-year uh period. Okay. Their payments in lie
of taxes are fixed >> at at year one or they escalate. >> They there's a percentage of revenue. So, it's not fixed. All right. And it it depending on the negotiation that percentage can change over the life of the agreement.
>> Okay. The uh other comment I have is that um the board of ed makes up 65% of the burough budget. >> Not borrow budget. >> I'm sorry. The >> your tax the taxes, >> right?
>> Okay. And they have no control. The board of ed in this town is absolutely ridiculous. And there's nothing anybody can do about it because they ra they raise the uh taxes. You guys vote it down and they go to Trenton and Trenton
says, "Oh, no, that's okay. This is what you're going to be paying." >> How is that going to be? >> I don't think uh that our board has ever gone over the cap percentage of what they're allowed to to increase. And our board, our council has never told the
board of education no on that. Uh to in fact our school has always been 100% funded to my knowledge on every budget that has come to us and the board of education has never gone over the cap. And if they did, there's a process that they have to go to go over their cap
taxation, >> right? >> And the council the council doesn't vote on the school budget anymore. that we did that the state got rid of that years ago. >> The state government or the federal
government used to be where you're from. It used to be the board of ed would present their budget to the mayor and council and the mayor council have to vote on. That's no longer the case. That hasn't been the case for many years. >> They just go to the state. >> That's a really good program.
>> Who wrote that one? Triton, >> Titan. >> Who would have thought? >> Yeah. [laughter] >> And as far as the projections of the town saying, you know, you're going to put in we're going to put in 40 units
and there's going to be five new students. The board of ed has absolutely no idea what the projection rates of the student population is in Waldwick. And I've been living here for 50 years. And I've
watched them where they closed down the middle school, remember? Because we had too many. We didn't have enough kids to support the middle school. I don't And then they ended up then they
ended up uh going down the trap wagon and putting in four trailers for additional classrooms because Whoops. Oh, that means it means over. [laughter] >> That might have been before our time, but we >> it was a long time.
>> No, they just got they just got rid of the trailers. Uh the sparkly ball. They knew you were going to come and talk about them. It's because I remember >> That's right. That's right. Unfortunately, but my own question is that just uh how
the this pilot program protects the taxpayers that are giving up a percentage of their taxes for this program that how are you protecting us? I think that it um we could we could
continue to give you abstract uh information on that. My my uh I hate to do this um but but I I'd urge you to come back uh at the meeting when we provide the actual financial details. Um, and then I think we actually have
concrete numbers to discuss >> only because I remember back in the 70s when the uh >> that was before my time >> when the uh [laughter] >> wasn't before mine. >> I know when when the uh mortgage rates were
going through the roof, 8 n 10% mortgages. And the trick the banks came up with to get people to come in to take mortgages was yeah they would offer a 5% uh mortgage rate for 5 years and then
the payment would balloon. >> Yeah. >> And I was just wondering if you're if you're looking at who's ever doing the negotiation from the town side if you're looking at protective policies like that.
I think we're looking at all angles. >> Yeah, we're looking at everything, >> you know. And as far as financial advisors, Lehman Brothers was a big financial advisor. >> We're not using the bank. Yeah, we're not using banks. >> Although we had enough banks in Waldick,
we really could use the bank. Yeah. >> And another pizza parlor. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Hi, Stacy Karacio. Um, and I know it's very late and I apologize, but I have a burning question that I'm really
concerned about. So, yes, the pilot was the motivating factor, but now I'm more concerned about the financial stability of the developer. So, the fact that he we didn't attract them by saying, "Hey, we'll offer a pilot, right, to redevelop as part of this initiative." And now all
of a sudden, we're sitting with empty lots that potentially can't be developed. Are we actually in a situation where this project might not go through cuz now he's coming and asking that there's >> financial it's not about the financial stability of the company why they ask for a pilot. What you ask for a pilot
for is the financing of the project. >> Right? So he's unable to get financing. So when we took >> because of the revenue that's coming in of the project, right? So you have revenue that comes in. You have to generate a cash flow. how many unit how many cash flow could we generate from 44
units versus how much the cost of their financing is. So if that forget how much money he has if if that developer has more money that doesn't take into account of what the cash flow for that propert he's not willing to put more up front right I'm in I'm in finance very
common practice right in >> I understand he wants to he wants to arbitrage I get it he's trying to do but but that's not how redevelopment works um with it being an area need of redevelopment the pilot then becomes a tool to allow um properties to be
redeveloped when there isn't enough funding. So, because the project has affordable housing units that are costly to build, but you wouldn't recoup that money in revenue, that's why there are these incentives. So, the pilot is an incentive for
someone to come in and build a project that he proposed and purchased it prior to us talking about the pilot, right? I mean, the pilot was an afterthought, right? They proposed a um they proposed a project that was uh originally uh uh
higher density with uh no town homes, no retail and uh prior councils pushed back um on that and really and requested lower density uh requested uh uh retail and requested town homes in lie of all
of the apartments. Um, so really it was kind of us pushing back on the developer and saying we don't want something big and dense and that doesn't kind of fit within the idea that we're we're placing here. Um, you know, and you know, so
whether he expected to submit a a pilot, I I don't know. Uh whether anyone anticipated one, I also don't know. But I but I think that >> but he's having trouble getting funding now based off of the projected revenues on an economy that's strong it's a very small project in an
expensive area. Uh it's tough to finance that. Right. So um I think that that is not I as far as I know that's not a um that that is not a uh that's not something about them. That's just banks
are not unless banks are absolutely secure that they're going to get their money back from their investment, they're just not going to finance something, >> right? So, doesn't that create concern for us that we're basing a revenue stream off of a revenue modeled project
that's our tax stream. So if that if the if if we have a economy that goes weak and rentals go down or we end up overdeveloping in that and we end up not having full occupancy we now are based off of the revenue model as opposed to a tax model all of us are
>> that is the risk that is the risk and the risk we're looking to put safeguards in place. Oh, but on the tax model, if it's apartments and the and the market does go down and those apartments go vacant, the revenue comes down. Properties that are commercial like that that are revenue income or income
producing, they get taxed as income producing property. They're not taxed as like your normal house. >> Understand? So if the if the market would tank and the rental market would go down, you would also lose a lot more in conventional taxes in that >> because we're not taxing the property as
a correct >> as a because it's >> how is it taxed then? >> Because it's it's an incomeroucing property. So the way it's taxed, it's not on comparable sales like what it would sell for. It's how much revenue is being generated and what are the expenses. So we always on our on our
rental properties, our multi- developed properties tax on a revenue model. Um for that >> it's an income expense. Yes. >> So then what's the difference then with the income of this to that? Like what? Don't give me the real stuff, but like
why why why is this then a difference if it's always revenue based? >> Because the probably the percentages are different, >> right? The percentage of revenue based um >> and they'll go through that. I don't want to push because I know you can't disclose. I'm not looking for, you know,
but okay. So they'll go through that. And then my other last um well two points is when they run the numbers they're going to like run a Monte Carlo like to show like if the markets were to go down the revenues were to go down what the impact would be to us right in all of that as part of their
projections. will see those >> they're I think >> the financial advisors >> you'll see our financial advisors projections. Yeah. Which uh they they put together well >> they'll also run it against different markets types right to show us what would happen if the market if we were to have I right now we're in a strong
market like they should be running it in a hypothetical if it were 2008 2009 right they run multiple scenarios to show that are they going to prod produce that to us? No, they typically don't do it that way. They just look at the
project as it is proposed and they look at um if there is a real need for a pilot, but they don't project it. I mean, they project >> for the term of the of the pilot and
they have different um line items for vacancies, but not for market conditions, right? There's there's a general there's a general vacancy control and everything that that's all based in the calculations because look
>> you you can't you could run a hundred different simulations based on market conditions. That's just impossible to run, you know. So they they base it off general market conditions as to what the the average rentals would be, what the costs are and give you a very good
projection as to what you can expect. Nobody can plan for what >> I mean that's usually why they run like would shut down >> like I mean if again like this is individual like but we would run a 500 scenario calculation to see if you're successful to retire right based on what you have and like that's what you do
with financial planning so I would imagine that they would have the capability to run with the projection especially if it's a long-term plan that we're going into but all right I'll wait for the financials on that and then my last point um before I fall asleep over here what everybody else leave with me
is that um paying out 100% of the the school budget, but they're maxed at giving us a 2% increase. Right? So, if that pro if any of these properties in the redevelopment end up putting us stress, that puts a 4% increase on that
budget, trying to get that extra difference. And that's probably where we're feeling the pressure right now and why everybody's so concerned because 2% a year is not enough. it's not keeping up with the cost of all the things that are happening, right? Everything that's going on. So I do think that um to try
to put some ease putting something in place and I I don't know if that's state regulated or how that becomes the 2% is there but there should be some way for us to make sure that if there is something that is causing stress we have an ability to pull more money into the
school system based on the fact that this is not getting taxed regular if the pilot program goes through. >> So if there's any way to do that I don't know how that's regulated. And and a lot of it has to do with the amount of money that we're talking about. We're not talking about a 100 unit complex where there's a lot of revenue coming in.
We're talking about 40 units. So you can do math. You could think about how much is coming in and how much would potentially come to us. I wish I could share more with you right now, but I I I can't. So, um, when the financial advisors are come, as Council
Mitchie said, I think you'll be able to see a fuller picture of what we're talking about, >> you know, and I appreciate all the work that you guys are doing. I know it's not easy. So, thank you for taking the time tonight. >> Sure. >> Schultz, I just have a couple comments and one question. Oh, sorry.
uh since they started knocking those houses down, they did a nice job of fencing it. The only problem now is they put up black plastic. So if you're going west on Frederick Street and you need to stop, I'm going to guess by the end of next week somebody's going to get waffled cuz you can't see. You got to stick your nose halfway out into
Harrison. So if they can maybe move the fence back, they'll do something because someone's going to get hit. Hopefully not me when I'm walking and running, but maybe some people hope that. >> I I'll make sure I don't walk over there. No one knows that. I would I wouldn't have that J. That might be a good point. Uh, one question I have is
that ordinance that we passed for the police tonight, is that for body cam? >> It is for tasers. It's body cam. It's a uh combination package of uh of the system that the police department will be using. >> And the is the body cam stored on site or does the vendor keep those videos?
>> Uh, those are on a server I believe on site. Chief, >> it's cloud >> cloud storage cloud storage. Do we pay when someone open requests that do we have to pay from to get it from the cloud back to the people or is it is it part of the contract we don't have to pay? >> Yes, we have to pay somebody submits an
oper request. >> They have to pay for that body camera. >> They have to pay. Okay. >> And so a letter goes out to them to tell them it's going to cost X. It's going to take um a person this much time to do it. It's going to cost them X. Are they willing to go forward with that and make
the payment ahead of time? And if they are, then they run the then they run it. And if they're not, they'll say, "Nope, I I don't I don't need that." Or they'll narrow their scope down so it cost them less money. >> Perfect answer. It is >> perfect answer. >> Okay. >> Uh this financial analysis, that's the
costbenefit analysis that the state specifies in their booklet. So when we're done with this financial analysis, it's going to be the cost benefit analysis, right? Are we talking about the same thing? So part of part of the analysis they do will show how much revenue how much cost we're expecting to
see at a you know a budget based number of what we think and what the net profit would be to to the bureau >> and it includes all the cost for like sewage water and all that. >> Yeah. He he took in a percentage all those >> even though we don't it's anecdotal
right it's best guess. >> Okay. And the last comment is I know I've been in a deal with this for the last 14 months. Um, last comment I'll make is I think if we would have gotten people involved, so the three people that spoke tonight, Stacy, the school
teacher I never met, and the other individual, if we would have got them involved 12 months ago with this, I feel a lot better tonight than I did the last 12 months. So maybe something we learned from this, and again, I don't want to be a pain in the ass. The last 12 months, I
said, get people in the community involved. And we did not. We did not involve people. And again, we had three people get up tonight that seemed very knowledgeable. If we would have had these people involved, and maybe we get them involved now when the financial statements come back, we need to get
people like this involved because they know what they're talking about. Thank you. >> Thank you, J. >> Thank you. >> It's getting late. Laura Lel, I have a question. Um, you stated that they didn't pull the permits to pour the foundation yet >> to dig out the foundation. Correct. No construction permits have been issued
yet. >> So, is that a them problem or they haven't been issued or have they applied for them? >> They have not applied for permits. >> So, if they haven't applied because they haven't gotten the funding if anything falls through if the company goes bankrupt, what happens to that property? They just pay their taxes on the land.
>> They will continue to pay their taxes and they're the rightful owners of that property. So, are they waiting for the pilot to be approved before they pull the permits? Does anybody know? Or is that a Cresken moment? >> Most most likely, but we can't, you know, can't say for certain. They are the rifle owners of the property. >> Okay. >> With site plan approval, which means
they could go to the building department to take out. >> And how long would it take for that uh permit to be approved? I I'm just wondering if us or if the if the council not approving the pilot is delaying the project, which is in essence going to delay the money or delay the development
and then delay the rentals and the 100% for the pilot to take effect and it's just a domino effect. And if we're in negotiations right now and it's going to take months, are they going to wait months to start developing? >> They do not start construction
in place. No, they they cannot ask for a pilot after they start construction, right? >> That would put the pilot in. >> They could start construction tomorrow, but then >> but then the table. So, you can you can assume that's why they're they're not starting. I think
>> so. We can anticipate as a town that they won't be developing for probably another month or so >> at least. >> At least. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else?
>> All right. >> If not, do I have >> I was waiting till one more. >> Um, so the last the last point that I wanted to make before was I I had asked about that um or I had mentioned that
bill that was being proposed and I heard several other people bring it up and I heard your responses saying you doubt that it's going to go through. You don't think it's going to happen. Um, but I want to put another worst case scenario. I know I'm like a doom and gloom kind of person, but these are the kind of things that you think about when you're in
education. Um, you have all been very supportive of the school district since I have lived here. I All of my kids went through the public schools here. I've been very happy with public schools. Um, is Dan still here? I've had meetings with Dan about all sorts of crazy
things. I'm actually the I was the last person to keep grad ball alive in Waldo High School for those of you who didn't know. So I am a super involved person. Um but the one of the worst case scenarios that I also think of is when we are not all
here. those people who are so pro- education, so pro public education, when and if, god forbid, 20 years from now, we don't know what our town is going to look like when we have a different council that is up there and it is not
in place that a certain portion of this money goes to public education. We could be in a very different having a very different problem, a very different discussion because if we don't set that precedent saying that it is important
for us to make sure that a certain amount of this money goes to the public schools and we don't put it in writing, put it in an agreement and we just go on the faith that we've done it all for so long and
we've just always supported them. if it's not in writing that could destroy public education because if those funds let's say that this public this is the first this is this is our first pilot program right >> okay so this is our first one who's to
say in 10 years 15 years when some of us have moved away gone Florida done whatever it is we have set a precedent we've set a precedent that it's not going to happen and we continue to add these type of projects and those funds are not specifically dedicated
and put into into place what is going to protect public education. >> Yeah, Lisa, I I think there there's some points there that could be addressed when you see the financial numbers. The financial numbers have to make sense for the bureau, too. So if the number is not
big enough where we can set aside a percentage that would make any substantial impact to the board of education and benefit the bureau then the benefits of doing a pilot don't really make sense. Right? So if the finances make sense where the percentage
of revenue that we can take in makes sense for the bureau and increase the municipality ability to support services like police, fire, DPW, whatnot, we need to handle that first while still funding
the board of education at 100%. I wish I could share more numbers with you. Hopefully at the next council meeting we can share more numbers and it will become more apparent of what we can and can't do. Okay, thank you. >> Y thanks. >> Uh Pat Morty, uh Pennington Avenue. Hi.
>> Hi Pat. >> Um I wanted to just say that I think 30 years is too long and I'd just like to put that out there if we could probably maybe do 10 or 20. I'm not totally in favor of this because I haven't seen the
financials and everything. Um, but I think 30 years is is too long a period. Um, if the pilot doesn't go forward, does the council still have to approve anything that's built going forward? >> The builder has a site plan right now so
they can build what they have approved without us saying anything else. if they want to change that footprint, right, then they would have to go back before uh planning board or or council if it's over a certain whatever because if it
exceeds our uh approved site plan, then they'd have to go back for a change, but they could build what they have approved right now. >> Okay. So, what you're saying is that the pilot uh gives you more control over what's being
built in those places? >> Not necessarily. Right. So, we could if they came back with a a larger development, we could say, "No, you know, we're not going to allow you to because we have a redevelopment area that gives us control over what we want
to see there." A pilot is a financial tool that incentivizes the development. >> Okay. So, basically, the council will still have control over with and without the pilot, the council will still have control over approving what is being built there. >> It's already approved.
>> The planning board approved. They have site plan approval. So they have plans that they can start building tomorrow if they took out the proper permits with the with the town. >> Okay. So the pilot is separate from what's being built? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> Hi, I'm Sean Henry. Just want to say thank you uh Council J. That was awesome the presentation that you gave or the talk you had. >> Thank Um just my personal view on this. I live in Hackinack. I live in a pilot building. Took a long time for it to be fully occupied. Um rental units are
that's already done, but it's transient residents. They you know they come and go. Um my real concern with this is you do this one time and then what it what like incentivizes the next developer to not want this. Like we said has five.
That's good, bad, I don't know. It's Highlands. It's regional. Um, so just that's one thing I want you to consider as you go through this is what does this do to developer in the future? Is it all a pilot after this? >> Yeah, I think and even when a developer came a couple council meetings ago and we're talking about Houston, I think
council member was the one who said no pilot, you know, I think we we we >> we don't want a lot of pilots >> in in theory. In a perfect world, conventional taxes is much easier. We're not having this last 6-month discussion. We're already building. if it wasn't
necessary and we wouldn't do it or we wouldn't even consider it be done. Pilot uh provincial attack start building would be closer to being done already. >> Yeah. I just want to say I appreciate I know you have residents and you guys are all in this with us as well. So thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you.
>> Anyone else? >> Good evening. Rich Andrew Heavich. I live in Harrison A. Um I guess I'm just going to say you all remember Sandy, the storm Sandy. Uh we couldn't go anywhere in this town
because there was no place to we couldn't connect on either side of Prospect Street because of railroad tracks. I know it's a sore subject, but you know what? You're creating another problem with all these people moving in. You're going to have a minimum of a 100
cars and at 5:00 in the evening, should there be a fire, might as well let the house burn down because you know what? That truck's not going to get there. It can't get there now. And these guys do their best and he won't be able to get there at all.
So, I'm just wondering who did a traffic exam on this whole thing. >> I think we did a traffic study. I think it's a part of the whole project. Police was involved. The fire department had fire department fire department was heavily involved. Yeah. >> Well, I mean, I don't see how they can
do it. I tried to get through here at 5:00 one night and I couldn't even get out. Yet, our fire trucks have to come all the way over here. Every other town, every other town has has access railroad tracks. This is
ridiculous, you know, and you you just and it's just making it harder for everybody. Even people that live down there, it's making it even harder. You know, you have not enough room to park. I don't know where they're going to park 44 units or another 100 cars down there cuz they don't have enough parking for
100 cars there now. >> So, the the project meets the statutory parking requirements, right? >> Excuse me. I'm sorry. The this this was all done 18 months ago at the planning board when the planning board held their numerous hearings on the application. It meets the
requirements for the under the RSIS, which is the residential site improvement standards for parking. The town houses have garages. There's It was all be >> okay. I like to see that when it happens. I'll be honest with you. You know, if it doesn't happen, I'm going to
be happy. I'll be back >> and you're not going to like me when I come back. >> There's a Thank [clears throat] you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Sorry. >> Hi, Rick Rubenstein. Uh, I don't really have pilot questions. Uh, you guys have
said the same answers the whole time, so I guess I'll just wait till next month. Uh, my question is about the pool. Uh, I'm there probably 5 days a week. I got three little kids. So, >> uh, better to do that there than at my own home. Uh, my only question, uh, actually two questions. There's a big
giant pile of mulch in the parking lot there. >> Yes. >> Taking up a bunch of spots. Is that being moved anytime soon? >> So, uh we use that as a a location for drop off for all of our burrow parks and facilities for our mulch. So, uh they're working through that pile and getting it down. >> Okay. Great.
>> That's the public works. >> All right. Cuz that wasn't there in years past. So, it's been a new development there. >> We we've we've used that area before. Um the last the last question is uh the the pool's great. Uh it's one of the most
affordable things in Bergen County. Uh but there is a snack stand that is empty and has been empty for years and curious as to why it's still empty. Uh I have emailed a couple years ago about putting a vending machine in just any kind of uh
snacks for the kids. >> We hear you. Uh so that went out to bid a few years ago and um the the person who won the bid came in turned out to be um not always reliable, not always being able to be present there. >> Um but the feedback that we've continued
to receive from people who have tried to do it is just that the numbers aren't high enough and there isn't um enough in terms of revenue that they're bringing in to be able to, you know, provide services to be there all day. You know, the pool's open 10 to 7. Not that we would require them to be there during
that time. We've had conversations with people who have been um interested in it. Um but it is a lot on the person who would be running the concession stands and we just haven't found the person who, you know, feels that um and again we've got to go to bid. So we did that process last time. They came in and and they weren't able to make it through the
full season. Um became quite annoying to the patrons who were showing up and you know if he was deciding on a Tuesday the weather didn't look great, he wasn't going to, you know, waste his time coming in that he wasn't going to be there. So those are the challenges we've had. Um, but it it's it's it's it is uh we hear you guys loud and clear. Um, the
ice cream truck seems to make everybody happy when it shows up. >> Not everybody. >> No, people don't like the ice cream. I'm not loving it. But that's okay. >> Why is that? >> Well, when you have two floors concession stand be going.
[laughter] Um, any thought to like allowing it as a fundraising opportunity for the school system and letting senior class run it and allow the kids to run it? And >> I haven't talked about it before. I guess we could look into uh that as an
option. >> All right. Great. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Yeah. Do I have one? I guess you all guys know who I am. >> Nobody knows you. >> As long as you know I'm a taxpayer as
well and I have a lot of concerns and I know you guys are trying to do the best that you could do. Only thing I can say to you from all the people here, they're asking a lot of you do the right thing. Do the right thing for the people. Don't do it for the promises. The promises
never work. They're broken every single time. The people are here trying to explain to you how they feel. And I pay a lot of taxes, too. I'm not going to whine about all that stuff. We all have to pay them. But you guys got to make the right decision. Do the right thing for the people. Not the promises. They
won't work. The promises don't. And I know where this is all going to go, but I had to say what I had to say. All right. Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> If not, do I have a motion to adjourn? >> Katie, second by Mike. All those in
favor? All those opposed?