##VIDEO ID:7Wm405lZZl0## a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you Mr Fagan uh hello West Orange welcome to the January 28th council meeting Madam clerk yes council president before I um do the opening this one that's okay this is this is the one to throw and this is the one to keep yes gotcha yes thank you you're welcome this is to inform the general public that this meeting is being held in compliance with Section Five of the open public meetings act chapter 231 Public Law 1975 the notice for this meeting was emailed to The Star Ledger and the West Orange Chronicle on January 7th 202 and published in the West Orange Chronicle on January 16th 2025 councilwoman castelino present councilwoman gber Michael present councilwoman Ruden is she on Joe or she's coming she's coming okay okay that's fine councilwoman Scarpa present council president kovak present so first thing we want to do uh I can see a lot of uh unhappy faces out there so the first thing we want to do is bring up our tax assessor uh and for a brief presentation to the council we've given him a bunch of questions that uh he will also answer and then at public comment we will reserve the start of public comment for also uh comment and questions if our tax assessor can answer them and if he can't answer them or if he feels that it's not appropriate to be answering them the questions in an open form like this he will after he's finished with public comment he can meet you at conference room is IT 10999 109 uh which is sort of back in that part of the uh the building along the the right side of the hallway ready to go y great thank you do I need both mics on just one I'm good okay thank you uh council president members of the council I want to thank you for having me this evening um residents of the West Orange my name is Jacob nean if you don't know me I am the tax assessor of West Orange um and I'm here to discuss the 2025 West Orange revaluation so I'd like to start just at a ground level and discuss what a revaluation is what the purpose of it is and uh why West Orange did it so a revaluation is a systematic inspection and valuation of all the real property in a community real property is all the property including land and buildings um real property is considered to be something that were it to be removed it would have permanent impact on its surroundings so for example your car which can move around with no real difficulty is personal property you can take it and leave uh something like an air conditioner or generator which is built into the ground is not something you can pick up and move and therefore is considered real property in New Jersey with the exception of a certain business perp personal property only real property is tax so for uh for property taxation so for residents you're only paying taxes on your home and the improvements within it not the furniture you have inside revaluations value all property to their fair market value and to 100 100% of their fair market value the Essex County Board of Taxation The Entity responsible for setting the level to which we value property has chosen and has always chosen 100% True Market Value as the standard to which property must be valued what that means in practice is that your home or other property Business Industrial facility should be valued to what a willing buyer and willing seller would consider the value if you were to list your home for sale tomorrow it should be sold for just about what it's assessed for revaluations are not intended to and don't inherently change the amount of money being collected by a municipality if all of West Orange were to be valued at say $5 billion which following the prior revamp is not far off if it wanted to collect $1 billion in taxes it would set a tax rate of 20% if all of a sudden the next day West Orange was worth 10 billion which following this Ral is roughly in the ballpark it could collect that same amount of money on half the tax rate 10% because of the various rules around tax levies in the state of New Jersey that that limit what municipalities schools and counties can increase that amount collected um it's very hard to make a reval bring in more money because you can't under state law collect significantly more Revenue than you have years prior through property taxation that being said that only applies tax levy wide individual Property Owners can face any size swing both up and down there's no limit to the individual property level revaluations are about reallocating the tax burden not changing the tax burden there are very few hard and fast requirements as to when a reval is necessary the state does not have a book of Standards or rules which say when a town hits X point it needs to do a revaluation that that being said they have a long list of reasons that they would be encouraged or um recommending that a town conduct a revaluation that can include out-of-date assessments significant tax appeal losses um disparate assessments amongst similar types of property and um inaccurate property information if if a revaluation has not been done in a long time and the town's changed a lot it could make a big difference to to do a revalu there are other reasons that the town uh the state and the county would encourage revaluations but um that's kind of the the general the biggest factors now then if there's no rules saying why a when a town needs to do a reevaluation why did West Orange do one so West Orange did one because it was under court order and at the direction of the Essex County Board of Taxation the assessors office is is largely independent from the municipal governing structure uh my supervisor is not the mayor it's not the Town Council and it it's not the business administrator my my supervisor is the County Board of Taxation Essex County uh has an independent Board of Taxation made up of appointed members um and it ordered West Orange to conduct a revaluation uh probably about six or seven years ago uh West Orange contested that and fought that order um to the point where um it went to court and there was a court order uh that West Orange conducted this revaluation for 2025 so this is not something West Orange Saw uh this is something we were ordered to do it was ordered by the Essex County Board of Taxation the same entity that sets the parameters of 100% Market valuation every county in the state of New Jersey sets that same 100 % market value standard what that court order means kind of at a practical level is that we do not have any more time the court order requires that this process be completed by February 10th in a circumstance where we were not under a court order it would not be uh an exceptional request to to ask for a couple weeks more time um for example I know some folks letters took a long time for the mail if folks are down in Florida with mail forwarding it can take a while to get there and it it's very frustrating to have such a tight timeline um unfortunately we are not able to get an extension because of that cord order that being said um The reval Firm is still taking phone calls and they will be until January 30th because of the tight timeline I was able to get an additional day um for folks to to be able to call them this process must be completed on the township Side by February 10th so then the question becomes how does West Orange do this um West Orange is a community with about 14,700 line items uh what a line item is is a piece of taxable property that can include uh Essex Green it can also include your house or a vacant lot sometimes it even includes the storage unit you get with your condo um it is well beyond the means of this office uh myself and a staff of two to inspect licensed by the state of New Jersey to conduct this work um we contracted with PPA to do all the inspections and to assist in taxable line items in town are um as part of these revaluations there are certain rules and requirements um for example all firms must make at least three attempts at Conta to each and every property owner that includes a letter sent out to every every property in town um or sorry every property owner in town back at the start of this process in August of 2023 it included two in-person inspection attempts that's them knocking on your door unprompted um and asking to be let into your home to conduct an inspection um when they were unable to get you at that point they would leave a card usually on the door it's like a Post-It note asking for a call back state law requires um for this revaluation to be uh considered adequate at least a 50% success rate on those interior inspections uh the rate prior to the meetings that are being held was 56% so pretty good not as good as it would have been say 15 years ago when there was perhaps a bit less uh concern about letting people into your house we worked with PPA as well as our own experts to set the value of the property Township wide um and conducted a market-wide analysis and so to just provide a little Clarity on the relationship between my office and PPA here all values for residential property are are are required to be set in a revaluation through a process known as the cost approach the cost approach says how much would it cost to rebuild this structure at the current time and its current condition so using a a manual published by the state of New Jersey called the real property appraisal manual it's available online if you want to Google it it's a a scanned in PDF it's a a fun read that we can use to determine what the Sticks and Bricks of your home are worth it gives us parameters for bathrooms and kitchens it gives us parameters for a basement whether it's finished or not and taking into account the age and condition we're able to assign a value to the structure taking a look at a market value and saying what is your home say it's a four bed two bath selling for at the present day what are homes like it's selling for we're able to get an overall market value a rough idea when we subtract out that Sticks and Bricks value that's from the state of New Jersey that tells us what that land assessment is that's a rough estimate of what your land is worth in some parts of the state where they have a lot more dirt than West Orange does and a lot more undeveloped dirt than West Orange does it's a lot easier to tell you what land is worth because there's people selling vacant Lots all the time it's a lot harder in a builtup community like West Orange accordingly those land values are extracted from the pre-existing Market data two important notes on those valuations the distinction between a land and Improvement value is strictly managerial what that means is a dollar of land value is taxed exactly the same as a dollar of improvement value Additionally the state tax court and the County Board of Taxation are not in the business of determining whether the allocation of value between land or Improvement is correct they do not care not to be uncaring but they don't what matters is is whether your home is worth what it has been assessed for in its totality the idea behind that is you can't really sell them separately I can't sell my dirt without selling my house my office put together the parameters in which PPA would come up with those values because they're conducting the inspections they're Gathering data they're using that data to create a value based on the instructions from my office I hope that provides some clarity on the relationship between um TPA and and my office when it comes to valuation now what were the takeaways and and these are all preliminary numbers um we're still having meetings with taxpayers uh and and residents there's still some fine-tuning happening on the edges and some consultation with some experts so these are not going to necessarily be exactly the same as they will be once that February 10th book is submitted but this Paints the broad Strokes so 40% of properties will see either no change in their tax bill or uh some amount of decrease increases were widespread across town it was not specific Pockets that saw growth in in values um it was all around in a a heterogeneous Community like West Orange um you can have homes right next to each other that saw very different changes in their assessments because um no two homes are really alike it's not a bunch of track subdivisions like some other places in total the value of property in West Orange increased by 84% or about5 billion dollar what that means is that the town ship on behalf of itself the schools and the county could collect the same amount of total tax revenue on a tax rate 45% lower that's why the estimated tax rate on uh the letters that were sent out was so wildly different than the tax rate on your tax bill that you received uh back in the fall the increase in residential assessments was on average 82% that can be seen as an example of the really robust real estate market both in West Orange specifically and the broader North Jersey area uh people really want to live here and they're willing to pay a very Hefty price to do so that average increase if you put it in dollar values was $343,000 the median is uh a bit different and I think it's an interesting metric to use here because it shows that that increase in value was concentrated in kind of the lower half of of uh the real estate market places that previously were not necessarily seen as desire seen as being as desirable as others have seen a lot of growth and a lot of desirability increases part of that is the very small supply of housing right there's just not a lot of homes for sale uh but part of that is also what people are looking for has changed whereas being um near Commercial businesses and multif family housing may have been seen as a a negative in the past it's now often seen as an amenity being able to walk to a restaurant or a bar um is something people really like to how those assessment changes reflect on tax bills is a different story um the average bill increase is only going to be $76 and this goes to the point about the change in assessments being an allocation change rather than a total amount change because that uh lower half of the market saw so much growth and appre ation and frankly wealth buildup um the median tax bill will be going up a bit more um about $500 and and I want to emphasize that my office is aware that that's a big scary number um and it's not something we're excited about uh but it's reflective of the gain in market value for for properties um throughout the township now the distribution value wise uh the relationship between residential values and Commercial values is actually largely unchanged um a lot of communities have seen a real cratering of their uh commercial real estate Base West Orange has thankfully not uh accordingly the split is almost the same with 17% of the tax base being commercial property 72% being residential 10% of that property is exempt and so that's going to be County property Municipal property uh certain religious and charitable organizations as well um and then a small share 1% is is vacant land so now a lot of folks have been calling my office and thank you to my staff for fielding so many of those phone calls um wondering what they can do because they feel their assessment is not accurate that this new tax bill is too big um and that's a very real concern I'm very sympathetic to them and so there's a few things that you can do the first thing I'm going to recommend is to call the Ral firm that should be your first step uh they're the ones who right now are gathering the last bits of information and incorporating that into their valuations and so as we saw only 56% of properties had interior inspections done when we're not able to get inside a property to make sure that the residents who do let us in are not being uh discriminated against we have to make assumptions about the properties we couldn't enter when we make assumptions we get things wrong we don't I call them you can provide them without a context and information that they may not have had following the completion of um that's going to go out right around February 10th when you receive that postcard it's going to tell you what your home's officially formally assessed at if you do not believe you could sell your home for that price you have the right to file an appeal to the Essex County Board of Taxation you must do so no later than May 1st 2025 an appeal to the Essex County Board of Taxation is um a pretty straightforward process it's quasi judicial but it's designed to be far more approachable um than sitting in a courtroom with a judge uh the Commissioners are very nice and it's not something you need an attorney for though all are welcome to use an attorney um and that will not change how your case is adjudicated properties that are assessed for more than a million dollars do have an alternative path they may file directly to the state tax Court the state tax court is a specialized Court focused on Tax Matters uh significantly property tax cases like appeals of Assessments um but other specialized cases as well you can find the form to file an appeal the Essex County Board of Taxation online I've included the link um I've included the link right there it must be filed in triplicate to my office the clerk's office as well as the Essex County Board of Taxation if they do not receive it by May 1 they will not be accepting the appeal additionally it has to be filed on paper um the county requires that um and uh yeah I apologize for that The reval Firm will be taking phone calls um from residents to January 30th the letter you received said January 29th but in acknowledgement of some of the delays and the fact that this meeting is happening tonight and not uh two weeks ago uh they were able to give us an additional day so they'll be taking calls until January 31st uh 30th my apologies that's at the 1800 number right here if if you have concerns after January 31st um but before February 10th and even after February 10th call the assessor's office we're right here at Town Hall we're here to help um I can't say we frequently are able to lower people's tax bills but I can say that we are very much um here to find programs that may be able to assist you on your property tax bill to ensure that your assessment is fair and accurate to talk about the process of how we arrived at your assessment and any other questions you may have in the realm uh uh my one note is we can't make prospective assessments and so if you want to put in an indoor pool I can't tell you how much that's going to change your tax bill um but just about everything else we can help with that's the the formal presentation I've got actually sorry one more note um on the appeal process should explain what exactly that is uh when you file a tax appeal the key thing you are doing is trying to illustrate to the county tax board or the state tax Court um that your home is not worth what my office has said in this that your home say it was assessed for $500,000 could not sell for that amount of money in a fair market transaction the way you do that is not by comparing your assessment to your neighbors or by talking about the the cracks in your basement wall you do that by presenting comparable sales a comparable sale is a a home that you as a buyer would consider comparable to your own and because West Orange is a old heterogeneous Community it can be very common to have a house that you feel is unique right maybe the bedrooms are all in a row and so it's railroad bedrooms uh maybe your one bathroom with it claw foot tub is right off the kitchen and that's just weird no one does that anymore what I always try to encourage folks to think about is you want it to be like a bullseye in an ideal scenario your comparable sale is your home it was listed on the open market it was marketed by a realtor you had a nice open house and you came in and you decided this house is worth $500,000 you paid that price the seller took that money all well you go to the County Board and you say look I paid 500,000 and this fair and open market sale on October 1st 2024 the date of valuation that rarely happens and so maybe maybe your neighbor's house right next door is basically identical they redid the kitchen in 1997 whereas yours was 1987 but like otherwise it's the same house and and they sold um just last week and it sold for you know 450 great that's a great comp it's very comparable because someone looking at your home would also consider their home but if you don't get so lucky you want to get as close as you can so if your home is unique say it's a one-story Ranch pretty small two beds one bath it's quite possible that the buyer looking for that home doesn't care as much about the neighborhood it's in they may care more that it's a small ranch home that they can manage as they get older or maybe it's a uh uh all about the neighborhood and you feel that your home in the valley is right at the heart of everything and where you people want to live and that the Cape Cod next door is actually a pretty good comp for your Colonial because someone's not buying it for the house they're buying it for the dirt that's what I talk about with trying to get the bullseye if you can't get perfect try to get as close as you can and use those comparable sales to explain and tell the story as to why your home should not be assessed for what my office has said it should be and I think with that I've covered everything I'd like to cover um if the council has any questions I'd be happy to to field them so so Mr nean we sent you I I can't speak for all of the council members but we did uh send you at least uh two council member questions do you want to run through those or do you have them or should we throw them at you yeah I believe I'd address those but if there's something I missed I'm happy to address it yeah okay I'll I'll go over the my questions and see if you did please councilwoman I would just like to ask if you can put please put this presentation up on the on the township website for folks who hey couldn't be here tonight or couldn't be on Zoom to hear what you said and if we can somehow post it on social media on our social media Pages that's where they have the phone number a good idea certainly thank you very much of course Council um so my question is after seeing this presentation um the past few years since the pandemic there's obviously been a bubble in the housing market and the values in West Orange has skyrocketed because basically the pandemic and a lot of folks moving in from New York and elsewhere which which is great love to have everybody but there's you know this this region especially our Township um you know there's been bidding wars and whatnot you know and people who've been here now seeing some increases as high as I'm hearing $5,000 so how does it level out and does it I mean you have to wait now for another 10 years to or or because right now prices are still high but if the bubble burst I guess they could just put in for a tax appeal down the road or yeah so um the the changes to the real estate market have been significant and I think perhaps uh unexpected but at the same time they appear to be at least in my professional opinion more structural than than a traditional bubble um the folks buying homes in West Orange and and elsewhere and raising prices are not doing so because they've been getting access to mortgages that they hadn't previously been able to it's because they have a lot of money built up and um they want to live in a place as desirable as West Orange and our neighbors in New York and Connecticut are not building housing so New Jersey is taking a lot of the brunt of the rising housing prices that would have previously gone to those places um what I mean by that is because New Jersey has uh built comparably significant amounts of housing it's still more affordable than other suburbs that may have been considered by someone looking to move from New York city so the buyers coming in have the money and so I don't anticipate any sort of collapse in values anytime soon this feels like a real structural increase in values and I believe it's sustainable that being said should the real estate market uh face some softness collapse whatever it may be um the first line of of of address redress is a County Tax Board appeal and appealing to the county to explain that your home is not worth what um it's been assessed for other than that at a a municipality wide level a sign ific change in the real estate market would be good cause to revalue property again and to conduct another revaluation and that's where the significant losses from tax appeals comes in as a basis for revaluing property right if there were to be a real estate market slowdown the township would be open to a lot of appeal losses and and those appeal losses would be because property is overvalued um conducting a revaluation in those circumstances can be the financially prudent thing to do to ensure that everyone's being taxed fairly and equitably rather than on previously accurate values that have since gone inaccurate and then just to follow up on one more question um from the presentation is so you made a statement about the commercial values they have held steady since the last reval yeah so so just explain that to the public because a lot of folks I think are feeling that the residential has increased significantly because the commercial rates have decreased sure so um what the the the Township's overall tax burden is shared amongst all Property Owners uh excepting those exempt properties so the county is not paying taxes on South Mountain reservation um and the church down the street is generally not paying taxes on their their their Church facility um in a lot of communities Rosland is a a prime example previously very valuable office property has just not lost its value it's not nearly so valuable and so the share of taxes paid by those commercial properties has gone down significantly and when a municipality schools and County need to keep paying their bills they don't have the option necessarily of just stopping to cutting all their their spending they have to reallocate the tax burden and it it shifts from that previous commercial property to the remaining valuable residential property we've not experienced that in West Orange the commercial property values have held their own and so the total share of the burden anticipated to be paid by residential homeowners rather than commercial property owners is not anticipated to change and because these are municipality wide Trends it's important to say that does not mean that individual commercial property owners will not see their taxes go down and that doesn't mean that uh home owners won't see their taxes go up it can happen it it will happen um but it's not because commercials are paying less than they used to uh they're paying the same share of the overall tax burden as they as they have since the last rebound thank you yeah of course councelor hi um if commercial share Council I'm just making a joke sorry go ahead c one um if commercial share prices have held their own how do you assess the loss in property value from the properties that West Orange has granted Pilots to so pilots and the Assessors office have an interesting relationship in that they're taken off my tax list and I kind of don't deal with them anymore um if the uh if they're they're treated much the same as other exempt property um there can be particular changes where the the land assessment is kept on the books for example um and how each pilot is structured can be individually handled but um in practice if any commercial property was taken off the tax roles as part of a pilot since 2011 um it would lower that commercial share of the tax base that being said given that the commercial tax base still holds at 177% of the overall tax base it has not significantly impacted the commercial share of um the Township's tax base since when since 2011 or I should say the 2024 values which were grounded in the 2011 revaluation um were 177% commercial uh vers this similar share residential that hope that answers your question so you would say that this is a valuable town for commercial Enterprises yeah I would say West Orange is an exceptionally valuable town for commercial and residential Enterprises thank you thank you just just to clarify when you say commercial property has held its own it has not increased sure and it has not increased to anywhere near the extent of what residential has gone up that [Music] well perhaps at the individual property level um that being said assessment is all about allocation right and so the amount of value in the town to the commercial property is the same as it has been um and so to say it hasn't grown the same way I think I don't know that that's quite a one to two because it it has stayed valuable in relation to the residential property yeah okay councilman gber Michael so why is it that and maybe the administration can answer this the town didn't do a reval in 201 21 because we wouldn't be in this position why did the town fight the county then PM you know because if we had done it in 2021 valuations would be much different than now I can't speak I feel like because the town fought the county we essentially did like this it's not right I just don't think it's fair I can't speak to the motivations of previous administrations I can't speak for anyone other than my office um I can say that revaluations are long and expensive efforts and and that you know how each Town chooses to handle their revaluations orders is a choice they make at the time they're ordered would you say that if we did this in 2021 they wouldn't be as high as they are right now in 2024 yeah I I think it's certainly true that specific assessments would not be as high but I believe the trends are largely the same and so um if anything we would be at a point where we are once again say having assessments that are at 85% of market value um at this point rather than 100% of market value because they've aged so quickly right the the the real estate market has rapidly shifted under everyone's feet in ways that I don't think anyone predicted um and so a 20 21 assessment of a property would quite possibly be just as out of date as the one um from 2011 it's one of those unknowns um but I believe the trends are largely similar um and that the allocation would not have changed substantially right and and and the share of of um the tax burden being paid by residents in specific areas of town would not be significantly thank you altered yes so it's the Administration if you could please send an email to the council and let us know um how much we spent on that litigation when we should have done the reow in 2021 because I know my understanding is that the town fought it and sued the county and that we lost and that's why we're Court mandated to do it now I'll certainly try to find that information out I don't you know I wasn't and who none of us up here had anything do with that I understand but if you can find out it's to you had to the town had to pay and who the attorneys were on that case well certainly look into and see what we can find out you I think it's if I'm not mistaken if we had the 21 assessments the rate would be higher however right yeah so so anytime it's not going to impact the tax payer any differently right so anytime assessments change the tax rate can change as I discussed with the 10 billion 1 billion thing and so um if assessments were done in 2021 and they worked at 90% of market now or 85% a market the tax rate would be higher to account for that because um the schools and the county um they don't have much patience for towns not collecting their revenue and so the township would have to adjust its tax collection and tax levy the same way thank you Mr nean councilwoman Celina are you done councilwoman yeah so just to your point with the 20201 what I remember I wasn't involved in the decision making that would have been mayor paresi but I remember remember it was the pandemic still and letting the concern letting people into homes and whatnot so um and you know we had a lot of other things going on during that year with the pandemic so that's what I recall I don't know the exact reasoning but that's what I recall uh that we were going to postpone it um so question about the pilots so to my recollection with the pilots they the amount of funding that we receive or Revenue we receive on those projects we have only two pilots anyway the two projects for the um Edison laws and now for the um ston Hill up byic screen those projects um they the tax revenue that we're receiving is much higher than we were receiving for those for those projects at that time so why aren't they calculated into the commercial base so what anytime a a pilot is done it's uh it's taken off the tax roles it's not treated as taxable property and and my office um deals strictly with taxable real property and so there's a line item within my book of um exempt properties right and it's classified there I have a record of it but it's not considered um commercial property because it's treated as exempt because it is exempt from certain Municipal Taxes it's still making a payment in lie of taxes but that payment is higher than the original amount that um was made for the property before it transferred to the pilot program that may may very well be the case so where do you calculate those dollars and put those dollars because that is revenue that's outside the responsibility of my office that may be better answered by Finance um where's that money councilwoman the the revenue for the pilots would be in our anticipated Revenue so when we're figuring out our budget and determining what is going to be raised through taxation we obviously have our appropriation side and then our revenues have to balance so we add up all of our anticipated revenues and the difference the Delta between what's left over is then what we asked our our taxpayers to fund and then that becomes the you know part of the rate part of the tax rate um so that pilot money is is going into our anticipated Revenue before we calculate what then we have to have our taxpayers fund the difference for okay so it is being accounted for then and and and rule of thumb you know you look at like a dilapidated property um you know an old warehouse and in its current condition what was it generating in property taxes and and you're right you know most pilot agreements were going to receive more in that annual service charge than we were receiving when that you know dilapidated property was just on the tax rules or vacant land or you know whatever you know was you know the old the Stonehill property whatever that was generating through regular property taxes yeah because that's anticipated to bring in $2 million this year correct correct thank you and and the classifications of commercial exempt and res IAL those are State mandated I'm not choosing what I classify as what and so the state requires that split uh it requires me to put pilots in that exempt category that's not something I chose to do it's a requirement of how the pilots are the state accounts for Pilots okay thank you thank you of course so I suspect that some of the people who are either here or listening uh have a question particularly if their assessment has gone up they don't think it's Justified sure how do they get comparables also known as comps particularly at this time when we are shifting from the old valuations to the new valuations how how do they go about trying to get a uh sufficient comps sure so uh comparable sales can be sourced from a number of different locations um when finding comparable sales it's really important if you're just Googling which is not the worst idea but it's really important to have a Discerning Eye um and and and take a look at at at sales um and and and verify their conditions so um a good comparable sale is not going to be impacted by um Market factors uh outside of the normal a home is for sale on the public market so you're not going to want to look for bankruptcy sales they're not considered really good comparable sales because there's another Market condition on that um a home that's been significantly damaged by fire for example would not be a good comparable sale uh because it's been significantly damaged and not something someone would generally look at um The reval Firm has on their website a a a a document showing all the sales that incorporated into their um analysis it's a long list and you can go and look through and see for uh sales in your street on your block in your neighborhood um we'll make sure there's a link to that on our website as well um look for that tomorrow probably um and then additionally uh the Essex County Tax Board has a a public database of basically all the data from all the assessors and all the towns um it's the Essex County tax data Hub and you can use that tool to um find comparable sales as well you're able to to narrow your search down to include uh West Orange only and uh certain sale dates ideally you're going to want to look for sales between OCT October 1st of 2023 and anytime earlier than that um if there's this perfect sale and it happened in July of 2023 throw it in there but really proximity to that October 1st 2024 data valuation is vitally important um you can also look on Zillow you can talk to your friend who's a realtor um but just make sure if you're doing something like that to ask for a few more sales so rather than just the three minimum for a tax appeal maybe ask for five or six in case some of them turn out to not be considered usable they turn out to be um bankruptcy sales or sheriff sales or something like that and for comparables is there any rule of thumb or there is there any requirement for the distance from your property that you're trying to find the comps for no so there's no hard and fast requirement and that goes to that Bullseye um analogy I was making sometimes um if it's a particular neighborhood that was all built at like about the same time right you're definitely going to want to stay really close or um if your home is right next to a school and like probably being close to that school is significant to a a buyer um then you'd probably want to stay really close by but there's no hard and fast Rule and and it's really important to think about it from the perspective of if I wasn't able to buy my house right if it wasn't on the market and I couldn't get it what's another home I would be happy to live in what's another home that I would be willing to consider um when I was looking to buy and so that's kind of how you find the comps it requires taking a step out of your own shoes and thinking about someone who has to participate in this absolutely crazy real estate market and that's a scary thing to do sometimes thank you are there any other questions from the council no so Mr nean please stand by we got a couple of uh housekeeping issues and then we're going to open up for uh for the public so please just hang hang tough it'll it'll be just a couple minutes certainly and thank you so much for having me to speak thank you very much you did great job thank you very important uh next on our agenda is Council liaison announcements and because of the incredibly large lengthy agenda that we have tonight I'm trying to push things along I would ask for you to hold on to your Liaisons unless it's a matter of life and death I'm good is everybody good yes yes okay great um great Madam clerk this is to inform the general public that this meeting is being held in compliance with Section Five of the open public meetings act chapter 231 Public Law 1975 the notice for this meeting was emailed to The Star Ledger and the West Orange Chronicle on January 7th 2025 and published in the West Orange Chronicle on January 16th 2025 councilwoman celino present councilwoman gber Michael present councilwoman Ruden here councilwoman Scarpa present council president kovak present will everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice the council is now on their public meeting the first order of business tonight is uh the regular meeting is public comment and before we get there I know that sometimes the financial implications of the revaluation can generate emotions I just want to go over for those of you who are not familiar with the rules that we have in our uh rules of council ordinance in the municipal code just so everybody is familiar uh with uh with what may be happening so uh article 38 in our Municipal Code requires the speaker to First State their name and address that's how you should start off article uh 3-1 15.2 requires conduct by public common speakers Who quote shall at no no time engage in any personally offensive or abusive remarks the chair shall call any speaker to order who violates any provision of this Rule and quote article 3162 conduct of the public quote any person who shall disturb the Peace of the township Council make offensive or abusive remarks or conduct him or herself in a boisterous manner while addressing the council shall be forth with barred by the presiding officer from further audience before the council except that if the speaker shall submit to prop for order under these rules permission for him or her to continue may be granted by a majority vote of the council so I also want to say that as I mentioned the agenda is very long and lengthy so we're trying to get through this quickly and we decided as a council that we would like to postpone any public comment that does not directly have to do with the revaluation or agenda items so if you're here for something else other than the reval or the agenda item and you want to speak in public comment I welcome you to come to the February 11th meeting and speak uh I will guarantee that it will not be nearly as long an agenda as tonight and you will have plenty of time so I apologize for that but we're trying to get through uh uh the agenda just as there's a lot of important stuff that we have to get through Mr Fagan thank you council president uh welcome everyone here in council chambers and all those uh in the zoom audience at home uh I will be brief uh tonight council president um we've been getting a lot of calls about streetlight outages and although that this is important uh and when uh in when residents call us we report it to the county but uh you can save a lot of trouble by directing your calls to the county at this phone number here provide a poll number and location and it will just speed the process along uh of course uh last week we had some snow U and uh it is winter and I want to point out the importance of those who can in their neighborhoods if you could clear away the fire hydrant 3et distance remove the snow and ice it will uh ba it will do a great service to the community and to the fire department uh in the event of a of a fire in your neighborhood uh also the other thing too uh the weather has warmed up somewhat but uh last week we had the weather uh uh severe cold weather and you uh I just want to warn everyone about the potential black ice on the road uh you cannot see that so uh as I say we still are in the throws of winter so just be aware of that uh with driving uh on our website we have posted what you need to know about the H5 A1 Aven influenza uh and there's a phone number here uh to report dead wild birds this information is on our website uh and it is important information there's a lot of useful information there if you check it out uh the other thing we started collecting Christmas trees on January 6th this will continue through the end of the month which is almost here uh after February 1st they will be picked up by the trash disposal company uh and this information as they say is on the website I think all our residents are now aware of the new change in the Jitney schedule this information is on our website uh mayor McCartney's open Office hours will be February 6 68 p.m. uh in mayor's office at 66 Main Street no appointment is necessary and the Town Council will also have a council Connection open Office hour is scheduled on Thursday January 30th from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. once again no appointment is necessary and it happens right here at council chambers no action will be taken by the council there are other dates scheduled and they are listed on the website uh moving along with the West Orange film classic um February 2nd um in the name of the father we'll be playing at the uh AMC dinin Theater uh the film classic goes through uh will take a break when Super Bowl Sunday comes but we'll resume on the other side of Super Bowl Sunday and um as uh our tax assessor had spoken about this is the phone number for PPA firm Representatives they are at the library um and this is the phone number this information is on our website uh so uh if you if you didn't jot it down don't worry it will be there um also um one of these events is already taken place on January 26 February 27th is a next one and it's the intergenerational reading program at the uh at the West Orange public library and I'd like to point out that one of our residents uh sang balani was featured with the governor governor Murphy uh and was she was very instrumental in getting the bill passed certainly very deserving and this this report ran on the news 12 uh news cycle and uh this past January 15th uh I want to thank the uh human relations commission for presenting me with the uh 2025 uh human relation award thank you to the mayor and Town Council for the support but I must confess that the award was really supposed to go to Joseph haen but a mistake was made at the engraver so they had no choice but to give it to me um and of course I was surprised to see that update New Jersey on MTV had ran a little uh piece on it and you know if you make it to MTV you've really made something but I should also point out that there were other recipients but I that was the award that I received and um in closing just like to uh if you want to contact the Town Council you can do that at Council west.org and um council president do you know how many days there are till spring don't worry I have it posted on the E sign I'm sure that we're all looking to put winter in the rearview mirror and this information is uh it's not up to date because it took a screenshot from yesterday but the information is uh on the uh on the East sign and spring is sure to be here um so with that I'd like to call up my colleague Mr pesi to give his report thank you hi Anthony pesi representing County Executive Joe de fenzo usually Joe and I agree on things but I'm going to rely on Essex adua to determine when spring is going to arri d uh February 2nd is Groundhog Day and uh at 10:00 at turtleback zoo we will have our annual program uh the public is invited and it it the uh program is included in regular Zoo admission I just want to clarify one thing Joe had on the when he mentioned on his slid show uh street lights are not the County's responsibility those are PS and's responsibility and you kept saying call the county call the county you call PS and G so those numbers that Joe posted are to PS G not to the county uh and then finally uh there was um some concerns aired by some West Orange council members and the mayor and some residents about the curve on Mount Pleasant Avenue and uh today we came up with a solution to that problem hopefully uh we're going to be installing guard rails in front of the homes there uh and reinstalling the um rumble strips uh and then adding some additional signage uh so once all the paperwork and supplies come in you'll see some work in that area thank you thank you very much appreciated okay what I'd like to do now is have public comment related to revaluation so if you have a comment or question please uh raise your hand be recognized uh come up to the podium you've got five minutes I'd suggest you spend less than five minutes uh but uh for just the sake of getting through the agenda uh and you can have at least limited dialogue with Mr nean so if you come up and comment you hate it okay we get that if you have a question for Mr Neeman he will try to answer it for you right here if he feels like it's not appropriate for him for him to do that uh after he's finished he can meet with you in the conference room and have further discussion so is there anybody who'd like to come up I see please is there anybody else who wants to come up you can essentially stand behind uh just to speed things up if if you'd like please uh Christa senic 26 Wedgewood Drive um I have been a resident for 23 years and a realtor for 22 um and I was very disturbed by the lack of communication that we received regarding the explanation of the evaluation the re the reassessment as a realtor I of course know how this works but most of our community had absolutely no idea what they were getting and when they got that letter in the mail I my emails my phone going off because people are just like oh my God it doubled it it tripled what do I do this is ridiculous and and I said okay calm down I'm not disagreeing with the assessment my assessment went up but I'm I'm in agreement with it I don't love it but it's it's the reality because it's the fair market value I've been seeing this since Co these people who are not moving who have no interest in moving never saw this coming and it was poorly explained it was just like hey let these people in a lot of people didn't let them in because they're afraid um because they don't know who the people are um having had them come to the house they weren't they weren't necess they weren't poorly dressed right but they weren't really clearly identified and now people are regretting that because they're saying oh well I don't know what this means and now what do I do right so now they're now they're going backwards so in the next time that we do an assessment whenever that is keep that in mind because there are many people who just don't understand I've been able to calm people down um that doesn't stop that there are many other people of course and I have a lot of other realtor friends that are experiencing the same thing um I have an issue with how a two-bedroom two bath Ranch on a main road can go up 40% in their taxes and how that house is now going to be able to sell at nearly $114,000 in taxes that to me is absolutely insane that's just one of the many examples and should you want to appeal that good luck on that because that's going to take some time and that's going to impact the sale of that home um the other thing uh respectfully to the tax assessor when you're doing when you're looking at comparable sales you do need to be aware of the neighborhoods West Orange is a very diverse Community with d very diverse areas and to compare the Englishtown section to the Upper St Cloud section cannot be done one is way more desirable than the other and the values are going to be significantly higher and the last thing I wanted to say or more of a question since we are culturally diverse was there any other communication sent out with Spanish or Haitian or whatever languages they could be in um I'm curious about that because when you take a letter like that it's significant and if there's a lot of language in there that people already don't understand I'm just curious if that was uh sent out as well thank you thank you Mr Nan sure uh thank you for your comment um with regards to to outreach um in addition to the letter that was sent at the start of the program um the two attempted Home Inspections uh if you hadn't been inspected following those two attempts additional letters were sent out seeking communication um with regards to the individuals doing the inspections um I am fully understanding of the concern about letting these folks into your house um they were all carrying identification as well as an introductory letter um and their information including their ID badges were publicly posted on our website on the Township's uh reval page and additionally their names and information was provided to police dispatch so that should any Resident have a concern and we had many of them call us and I'm sure dispatch had many uh calls too they could verify the identity of the individual um coming to their door and we always always always um recommend residents verify the identity of any individual they're letting into their house um with regards to the comparisons throughout town I I fully understand that and and I want to clarify that for the purposes of Assessments I am not looking in different parts of town for different values um the entire town of West Orange is broken up for assessment Purp into uh areas known as vcs's value control sectors what it actually means is neighborhoods and so when I'm doing an assessment I'm only looking at homes within that neighborhood what I'm trying to communicate by saying look for the home that you think is the best comp is that someone buying may consider two different neighborhoods um and so may consider the valley and the area around Our Lady of Lords right and so when you are filing an appeal you shouldn't have to feel Bound by choosing a property within a block or two of your own um if you don't feel that's the most comparable sale but I am bound to look at properties in in in your neighborhood um for the purposes of making that assessment um with regards to uh additional Communication in other languages unfortunately these Endeavors are resource constrained and we did not have the resources to do Spanish language or other language um language Outreach um should this process happening again sometime in the near future that's certainly something I would seek to include in in in the bid specs um but you know I was not here and I don't know who was here when those bid specs went out uh the prior time but yeah thank you good evening Bill Rutherford 8 hunt Place W star I want to thank you for your presentation Mr nean um have a few questions the first is on the impact of Pilots uh if commercial properties uh and the property taxes that they pay um have remained steady as a percentage of the overall property taxes paid into the township um and the pilot payments themselves are not included in that calculation at least as far as I understood it from you I was a little less clear I know it's included on the in the budget concern uh presentations and the calculus you do but from the tax assessor standpoint if those uh values are not included in your assessment are you able to tell us what the impact of those Pilots are on our overall property tax uh picture meaning tax collection rates uh and whether or not the revenue is um you know going up going down remaining the same from those particular Pilots that's that's the first question I have a few okay let me yeah I mean we can go one at a time or I can give you give them all to yeah we'll do one at a time I think that'll that'll work best sure um so to answer that so I think I may be able to provide some clarity so the the revenue from Pilots is still counted in the budget um as Revenue but it's not part of that tax levy um the tax levy is specifically the amount of money collected via property Taxation and a pilot not being property taxation is not part of that Levy um so I hope that answers that particular query so are you able to do you keep data on the U either Rising falling or steady nature of those pilot payments no so my office as I talked about it's kind of insulated from the rest of the municipal structure um my work is overseen by the county Etc um what that means in practice is I have very thick walls that limit what information I deal with my office is very narrowly focused on tax assessment okay it doesn't touch on the the billing of taxes it doesn't touch on the collection of taxes um it strictly focuses on valuing the property that obviously has tax implications but that is not those are not questions my office can answer so then um without so you would not be in a position to State whether or not Pilots uh are needed or broadly speaking not on an individual property basis um when it comes to doing development in town no I would not be in a position to to say so and that's a policy Choice that's not okay yeah um and Pilots are included in that 10% uh portion that you said is are exempt right yeah so um the the one kind of javat with some Pilots is in some cases the land assessment right a value of of of the land itself is is not part of that pilot and so that's treated a little differently but that's a small share of any of these properties values um but the vast majority of the the value right because even if a property is exempt we're obligated to Value it we're obligated to assign a number to it because at any point a property can enter the tax rols and at that point it goes on at its value uh we still need to have it ready to go we can't put that off so um the value of the non- taxable portion the majority of it in the pilot is going to be on the tax list in that exempt ship yeah so when Pilots expire they then go on the tax role and then are captured in your data and they're fully taxed at that point it obviously different Pilots have different structures but yeah once a property is no longer paying a payment in Le of taxes and they're just paying traditional property taxes they're going to transition from the pilot side of things to the tax roles and I'm going to have a land assessment and an improvement assessment for that property same as I do for Town Hall here same as I do for all the schools in town and uh once it becomes taxable the town starts collecting revenue on it um either through the regular tax list or the added assessment process that happens in the fall so so there is a new assessment done at the end of that pilot to determine what those taxes should be no the assessment that is in place as of January uh generally it's January 10th in a non- reval year when you're submitting everything on time um the value is submitted as of January 10th and the value on that January 10th list becomes the accessible value the minute it's no longer exempt and so if the property is assessed for $50 million and on June 3D the pilot expires they're going to be assessed as though that property is worth $50 million starting on the first of the month following um June 3 got it all right and then just U following up on that 10% portion do we know what portion of that 10% of exempt properties uh is comprised by properties that have a pilot versus nonprofits or other I don't have that exact information in front of me um it's something um that Pilots are not treated special in the type of exemption they are so the exempt properties are are known as what class 15s um there's specific categories for um schools government property um churches uh private schools sorry Public Schools private schools um and uh cemeteries and graveyards and then there's a kind of catch-all category of other uh what's found in the other is things like the common elements of condo units those common elements their value is captured in the the the market value of the condos themselves for example additionally um disabled veterans if you're 100% permanently and totally disabled um resident in a state of New Jersey Etc you're eligible to be exempt from property Taxation and and so those are captured there uh the pilots would be captured in that 15f component and so it's in there but I wouldn't be able to tell you the exact the exact amount got it and then I don't know if this this is probably not the right question for you you know so but I'm gonna ask it and then if uh Mr dinc is the one to answer then that's that's fine I'm assuming the council president allows it um so do we have any way of understanding the cost of providing the services for these properties that have a pilot versus the payment that they're making in lie of the property tax I would not be able to answer that question do do we have a way to assess that uh Mr tenac I don't think it's going to be an easy easy thing to assess you would probably have to come up with like a per unit whether you use the population and figure out like this is the per person cost of you know fire and police services or this is the per person cost for you know health services and sort of you know get your data to that that data point and then you know say this is what it costs uh the average taxpayer um for all these services and then you look at the pilot whether that's Edison Lofts or you know the Stonehill and figure out all right well they're paying this much in annual service charge what's the Delta between what they would pay per taxpayer so you have to you have to get down to like a base unit cost of what everything is and then you can you can make those comparisons getting getting getting back to the what we were talking about of the sort of taxation versus pilot billing in the user friendly budget for this year for 2025 there is a a sheet on there ufb before that we will have a recap of 2024's pilot billing and then those assessments that Jacob was talking about because we do have to assess because eventually they will go on to the tax roles uh and we have a comparison of what would the taxes be um if they were build fully using the 2024 rate versus what we build them for Pilots so that that is part of the userfriendly budget for 25 it's a it's a look back to the previous year so you can see that information for all of our long-term tax exemptions like you know uh Woodland Valley and St Barnabas and Stone Hill all those properties will be listed on the ufb um with that comparison uh thank you very much that concludes it for me at least for right now unless someone else has a question thank you anybody else I'm Christine Bosco Mason place um I have a few questions I just want to clarify with you with what you went through and your name is again I'm sorry I couldn't hear what Joe had said Jacob Neiman your last name Neiman n i m an okay nice to meet you thank presentation um okay so through the presentation I understand is only a little over half 56% actually had interior inspections and that is acceptable for townwide thing okay um because just talking to various different people I let you know I was there no problem didn't come and see my house nothing's changed since uh 30 35 years uh you know I had assessment done last time it came in I have no problem yet there was a big percentage that didn't and I'm seeing a substantial increase okay in my market value and of course in the taxes which is really upsetting me yeah um so I'm kind of figuring well how are they doing this because if they can't get into see those they're making assessments based upon an outside View and just coming up with assumptions which isn't good compared to somebody who's making it available to them and they know what they're working with but that's where I come into another situation with because what happened is I did call the appraisal company I did speak with them U very hard to get in contact with them by the way and very hard to set up appointment with them but I did and I went to see them and I had comps you know within my area location not some other location in West Orange I'm in the St Cloud area and um it's hard because my house is the smallest house in the neighborhood on the smallest lot in the neighborhood and my property backs up to Northfield Avenue and below me is the Essex House which is pretty much what I understand right now uh not open and it's uh the town has kind of I don't know if it's condemned I don't know what's going on there but they're not allowed to go inside the building they're requiring to do certain things there there's some problem and the fire department had been there so I don't know what's going on but it's hasn't been open the restaurant since 2020 um and then I'm dealing with also since Co and I'm also dealing with a neighbor who does not live in that house and it's vacant and has been for 18 years okay and so therefore house needs major improvements I mean it's in bad condition and um I can imagine you know on the inside I don't know I haven't been inside it but it's you know so when they did mine I asked them and I had asked this before I had made the appointment will you have comps for me to talk about will you tell me how what you use to come up with from my house well when I got there that's not what happened the individual refused to give me anything told me I needed just to trust them when I asked him okay let's go through what you have okay most of the stuff was okay you know I mean basically you know uh like I said I haven't done any improvements since 35 4 whatever years 35 years and so therefore what they had I guess was pretty much the same the only thing that bothered me was the lot size was bigger and the interior the building the living space was bigger and I asked him where are you getting your information because I pulled mine off of the New Jersey property records m and I I'm assuming I have the correct information I'm going to come to your office just to make sure but I said to him how did you come up with that and then he tells me well they did they measured out the square footage now I was there they didn't measure out any square footage on any room in my house you've ever spent like maybe five minutes in the house and then most of the time he's outside in the yard or outside so no he did not okay that's one of my objections and I said that I said no you know and then I when I said to him about the lot and I was like well you know this is what it was when we bought the house now you're telling me it's this we haven't I haven't done any improve I haven't done any extensions on the house I haven't built out I haven't done anything how are you coming up with this number and then he pulls up the thing and he said first he says he gets it from you and then secondly and they said that also about the interior they got it from you and then secondly uh he pulls up this and the person I T I was with and I'm not going to say this true all the whole company but he was horrible he was unprofessional he was rude he was very argumented with me when I your time is up over comps and so forth and so on um so these this is the issue I'm I'm having um I I I don't you know I granted uh I did give them the comps I have I hope that that's considered they were more recent probably one of of them was just in December so you know um but like I said my house is unique in that neighborhood and uh that's where I'm having the problem and I had the same problem a few years go back years 2015 and I was going to put the house on the market I did and the realtor couldn't had a hard time finding any house in St Cloud area that was even close to mine so just to let you know and like I said the appraiser the person that IAL with the representative was extremely rude and I didn't expect that after being a taxpayer and paying for this appraiser company and having to deal with somebody like that that wasn't correct and it shouldn't have happened Miss Miss Bosco let me let Mr nean respond please so I'm sorry you had a poor experience I'll be sure to to relate to the company that that's unacceptable because it's not um and you should have been treated with more respect than you evidently were and I'm sorry for that um with regards to a few of your specific questions um the square footage is measured for the purpose of assessment on the exterior we're not going in and measuring each room um we're not going in and and hling them up uh that's because we need to be consistent and so the only way to be consistent is to measure the exterior square footage now that does mean if you decided to put very thick walls on your house we would have more square footage counted for than um perhaps perhaps you have available to you but it's the only way we can fairly and equitably um consider every property additionally um the individuals hired by The Firm were not appraisers they were uh property inspectors and so their job was not to assign value it was to gather information um that may explain their limited ability to um provide guidance on those things because that's simply not their responsibility and their job um if I could if I could interrupt here I is this something Mr nean that that maybe after this is uh this portion that the meeting is over you could go back and talk to her in the conference room is that acceptable to both of you sure would that be acceptable Miss Bosco okay great thank you is there anybody else who'd like to speak please raise your hand or come on up please oh come on Jal Jerome 36 Columbia Street in Westar my question is on my block everyone's I want to know how was this done practically every one on my block property tax was raised between 4,000 and 4,500 there's two family homes on one side and one family hom is on the other how is it possible that the same increase that can be given to a two family property can be given to a one family property it doesn't make sense how is it if you walk and you look around and then you go outside and you do things none of what was done was made sense I want to know exactly how and to send us a tax bill for $4,500 is unacceptable to increase our for what we don't get any Services we get absolutely nothing for what you're increasing our taxes by it's ridiculous thank you Mr n please in the thank you for your comment um in the state of New Jersey unlike in other states all property is obligated to be treated equally what that means is that every property in town um that's on the tax roles is paying the same percentage of value of their same percentage of their value in taxes and that all properties must be assessed to the same standard of value that's that 100% of market value number that I referred to so regardless of whether a property is a condominium a single family home or a commercial property if its fair market value is say $500,000 it will be paying taxes equal to every other property assessed for $500,000 and so a two family home that um May primarily be uh an investment for an individual may still be worth the same as a single family home um across the street that's a place someone calls home uh like the owner calls home that doesn't mean their value is different and and we as a municipality cannot treat or tax them differently we're obligated to assess to the same standard of value um and obligated to tax at the exact same rate and to be clear that is not the same in every state um other states have different setups and so New Jersey is somewhat unique in that uh with regards to the change in the tax bill the reallocation of of the tax burden uh means that properties that have seen the greatest depreciation the greatest growth in their value are paying a larger share than they were under the prior uh values so in layman's terms the the part of town you're in on Columbia Street um has seen a greater appreciation than average municipality wide and I understand that has significant financial implications for you and your neighbors um but but that's that's the the result of the fair and Equitable assessment of of property across the town because I'm happy that you realiz we're on the other side of to that's great so when you Excuse excuse me I apologize for interrupting you but this sounds like something that you probably could better uh uh deal with uh at in the conference room after we're finished with this is is that acceptable is that okay instead of yelling great thank you so wi letter 17 how drive so a question on that letter that we received on the bottom it said what our new taxes overall tax bill was going to be that was based on the rates that we're paying now correct so the the letter was just to to be clear was an estimate that's not an official notice of your tax an estimate based on what numberers and so that's based on the new assessments and an estimated tax rate which basically takes the amount of money that was collected in 2024 so the total tax levy from 2024 and distributes it amongst the new assessed values and so it basically says the town the school and the county are going to collect the same amount of money if they were to collect the same amount of money what would the tax bill be in 2025 so it's saying what the so to me it would say what my tax bill would be based on that but in actuality when so how are we supposed to budget it's and I get it that's one formula but if if the tax is for next year is that what I'm going to be paying next year or that depends on what the county the school board and the town does a as always your final tax bill um is made up of the the is made up of the bill from or sorry made up of the tax levy from the schools the county and the township um and they'll finalize that in their normal budget cycles and so you'll get that same regular tax bill um come summer or fall uh the number on that letter is an estimate it's it's our best guess that we can provide you guess best guess on the rates the taxable rates today not the tax rates because the assessments have increased substantially and so if we were using the same rate on the new assessments there that would be very illegal um so we uh we we lower the rates to match the same amount of money coming in for the town the schools and the county um to try to give you a sense of what the new bill would be so the bill could potentially be I mean if we're budgeting and we're all worried about that number on today it could be a little higher come the fall or summer correct it it's possible okay but that's a that all dependent on the county and the schools and the Township's budgets that they'll work on over the spring so for for West Orange I mean just for I think public knowledge and education if that's okay what can you break down those percentages of what's coming what how much goes to the school board how much goes the town and the county just for education purposes so I don't have that number off the top of my head um I believe the split is on the tax bill um that's sent out but um I'm not sure already goes to school it it is and and I don't have the exact percentages but the majority of your taxes do go to the Board of Education about 6 something it's by far the the largest Levy and then we'd have the county and and Municipal So speaking for municipal you know what sort of the conversation is what is you what do you get for municipal that includes you know your garbage pickup um you know you dial 911 and you need a police officer or EMS or fire you know that's included in your Municipal Services you know our our spectors that we have for our building department uh our health department you know all of those departments are covered under that minicipal share but the majority of your tax bill does go to the board of education for um you know the support for our elementary schools middle schools and high school very you thanks thank you anybody else councilman you know you're out of order I neglected to ask are there resources available for residents that want to appeal um but don't have the financial resources to hire an attorney on their own or will there be some guidance from the town on where they can go to get some help those phone numbers that'll be on the um so no attorney is required to file a tax appeal um individuals are are more than capable of um filing prosay um the township and the county do not have a separate resources um specifically regarding tax appeals um in that sense but if you have any questions or concerns call the assessor's office and we'll try to help you best we can anybody else so just uh like to respond yeah so I would I would like to just close this portion of the meeting in terms of public comment and open it up to uh either comments responses or or questions from uh Council people uh councilwoman de Michael thank you council president wait um I have a question about the pilot so Pilots should negotiate it is the money collected via a pilot equal to what the property would pay if it was taxed like other properties if I could just interrupt this Pilots are a deep dark black hole to talk about and what I'd like to do is perhaps uh change this to a reschedule this to another council meeting where we can get people speaking where we have more time and if you really want to delve into the weeds and even the philosophical underpinnings of of Pilots we can do that but I I would prefer if we did not do that tonight if that's okay with everyone that's fine thank you does does anybody here on the council want to respond to anything that was uh said during this portion of public comment bounce woman yeah I I just appreciate the residents for for coming in for those of you who spoke and who ha haven't spoke um I I just can't believe talking to a lot of residents and how painful these increases are um tunell I we corresponded I know where you you know the issues you've had this P past year and especially in your area and what's actually been happening is a lot flippers are coming in they buy these properties as llc's they're Ren renovating them they're selling them raising the values Sky High and you're seeing that in your area what's frustrating for you especially and your neighbors is that you're putting up with all their garbage that they're leaving around while they're flipping these properties and that Administration needs to to handle and be on top of and and and for that I really feel for you and now you got to get hit uh with with a higher tax assessment like this so I I just my my heart feels for you um but this is what our community is out of Crossroads because we um because of geographically where we live after the pandemic I'm myself um is in the real estate business so I um I work for had worked for a title insurance company or kind of still almost semi-retired um but just seeing it the past few years and seeing you know the change in the pandemic and and all the new residents and the bidding wars out there I mean we have few Reals in the audience and so a lot of folks who lived here forever cashing out and and moving out of town and uh and these are the repercussions and the Fallout from that and I don't know what we could do as a community or how we overcome this because there's going to be folks really strapped and so I don't know what the what what what what kind of resources do they have so um the New Jersey property tax as I was talking about is is pretty simple right it's a a standard rate on a standard value and and that Simplicity is is is helpful in many circumstances it makes it really easy for the town to know it's going to get the money it needs to pay the schools and pay the county um and pay for its operations but it's very uncaring it's an ax where perhaps a scalpel would be better um this state has a number of programs that assist uh seniors um and certain people with disabilities um as well as uh deductions for veterans and um veterans and those with disabilities uh those programs you can find out more information about them by calling our office there's also State programs such as the anchor program which uh covers a broader swath of uh the population that provides a a rebate um for some amount of property taxes um so at the municipal level we're Bound by state law and and extremely Limited in the the things we can do to benefit or help taxpayers um it would be illegal for us to uh assess someone or tax someone for less than what their fair market value property um requires us to that being said the state is able to get around those restrictions and so has some programs accordingly but that would be where I would Point individuals and I have one last comment and because I I how many companies are out there that um that do these evaluations I I know of they're also all over the state are there a few vendors out there were there multiple vendors how many actually do this type of work uh and and are out there within our state if if if my most recent examination of it is correct there are um six from firms Statewide are licensed to do this work um but most of those are are primarily focused on Commercial valuation and so in in this part of New Jersey the firms that kind of do big revaluations of whole municipalities it's really two firms wow yeah and and and I think it's important to note that these are very laborious intense efforts right it's a hard job um for these reval firms because 14,700 properties is a heck of a lot of properties to visit and so you know they've been working over over years and and um they're also doing other other towns and that doesn't exempt them from providing us quality service right that's not at all what I'm trying to do uh we demand and and have received on the whole um good service but it's a hard job and so that kind of explains the The Limited number of firms it's also a changing uh sector municipalities are sometimes doing this in house more so than they have in the past um and doing things annually as opposed to irregular so is that an option that we want to look into for the future that's something to explore um there's different models whether that be um Monmouth County which is part of something called the assessment demonstration program which is in-house reassessments done on a a modified calendar um or there's uh towns in Bergen County that do it kind of working under traditional structures and towns in Somerset County I'd say about 20% of municipalities reassess annually thank you council president if I could add just for the benefit of those in the audience and and to the council um the township does employ professional Council um to perform what I think is locally called the reverse tax appeal um so where we look at somewhat undervalued or they look at undervalued commercial properties and we look to increase that value and you know essentially reducing that that impact or that uh allocation um on the residents now we're not moving the needle too much but um you know we are able to generate uh increased assessed value on Commercial properties and getting additional tax dollars from them which really brings that burden down I don't know if you want to talk about that Jacob at all or um with blow and blow you know yeah so I have kind of a a twoth side relationship to that because my office is is setting assessments and so that's not something I I participate in yeah thank you but but I think it's worth worth bringing up that you know we are trying to sort of you know I don't want to say move the the balance between residential and commercial but you know we do look at our commercial properties and if they are undervalued we can go after this reverse tax appeal yeah I thinkk you need to look at that Council woman um for the sake of the general public and I know I've had residents reach out to me um upset can you and I'm not sure if you mentioned this in the presentation but could you please let us know how many properties increased how many properties stayed the same and how many were reduced so uh approximately 60% of properties um went up in well so sorry I can't tell you uh the specific values because almost every property went up like a large share of them from an assessment perspective um from a tax bill qu uh perspective an estimated tax bill perspective 60% saw some amount of increase 40% either saw Zero change or went down okay and um I believe it was 40% of the total so like the vast majority of that 60% that went up was under around a 15% change like it was primarily modest increases um with some outliers thank you that was one can you post that that was in one of the slides had the the 6040 yeah that's gonna be on the website yeah thank you of course anyone else uh want to comment to public comment well I'll I'll just say I really appreciate you coming up here everybody and um again I I join with the other council members here we we we feel badly for uh the people whose taxes have gone up and that it's a burden uh but you know who to talk to Mr nean now uh thank you Mr nean if you wanted to go with the folks that wanted to talk to you further that would be this would be a great time now certainly thank thank you you did I thought you did a very informative job thank you very much thank you thank you Council and I'll be going to the conference room you don't have to have come up to public comment to stop by and talk um I'm happy to try to provide any perspective or or context that I can thank you are you going to open public comments for other issues today I'm just about to oh but I would appreciate ladies and gentlemen that you not speak from the audience all right we have pretty strict rules about that sort of behavior okay so please refrain from that uh we're going to now go to public comment and I want to make sure that everybody understands before we start what the ground rules are tonight we're trying to get through a very large lengthy agenda and so to help push that along the council has decided that for tonight's meeting only that if you wanted to talk about anything other than what is on the agenda then we want to postpone your ability to that to the next council meeting which is February 11th when I will guarantee that we will have a much briefer agenda and much more time to allow anyone who wants to speak in public comment to do so so when you come up it's important that you specify what agenda item you're talking about because if you're not talking about a specific agenda item I'm going to call you to order and ask you to sit down because we are trying to move this meeting along while still providing an outlet for public comment everybody get it okay I want to open it up to public comment if you would like to speak about an agenda item please raise your hand be recognized and come up here and let us hear you please excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me please you are out of order please stop talking no what you have to do is play by the rules ma'am okay my name is hel Valley you are not running the meeting ma'am you are quiet until you are recognized until you are recognized by the chair I am trying to speak no you are not being quiet I want you to listen to what the rules are okay before you say anything else I'm listening our ordinance requires uhhuh to say your name and address 72 Valley Road Monclair name and address Hal ganam 72 Valley Road Monclair did it really need all this banging and I'm going to speak now so last week you voided you're not going to last week you voided see that's your way of silencing me you are trying to silence me last week you voided I'm calling you to order last week the discrimination against am speaking I am speak Council people vote on whether you can be allowed to speak no why is it this what's bothering you I just IA scor her out beginning I said I'm hell again I'm 72 valair order and you're not listening to the presiding officer to put it through because Arab and I'm Muslim to do with it really scary just like I am right now I am going to walk out but this is exactly how you silence us and I'm going to be back here February 11 and you know what we're going to be a bigger crowd because the way this is going in this country we are being we are being discriminated against you know what no no no no just just let her go okay ladies and gentlemen I'm sorry for that experience that is something that should not happen and I appreciate everybody's patience if anybody else would like to speak on an agenda item and if you'd like to come back on February 11th and hear what uh the person wanted to say I will be here and we will listen to her for five minutes that's what public comment is is there anybody else who would like to speak tonight on an agenda item or come back on February 11 please come up Bill ruford hunt Place West Orange um so um wanted to speak there are multiple resolutions on with regard to Legal I noticed we don't have an attorney uh in council chambers tonight um oh okay well it would be nice if there was an attorney present uh uh that the council could actually ask questions of in real time and get feedback from um but I understand even whether the attorney is present on Zoom or uh not um there's a lot of confusion with regard to who uh and how uh the legal department will conduct itself going forward um I think it is uh imprudent uh to move forward with any of this stuff until there's more clarity with regard to how this legal department will conduct itself and make sure that the legal department conducts itself in a way that is consistent with both the Faulkner act and our local code thank you good evening Sally manga Ridge Road on behalf of our green Westar and members I just want to thank the voters of West Orange for putting their faith in our 2025 Council team members it's going to make a world of difference for West Orange and specifically I wanted to talk about the $300,000 bill that we have for Street tree removal we have a depleted tree canopy it's affecting our property value it's affecting our storm water control it's affecting our ability to deal with climate change it's very important that we stop cutting those trees unless they are dead and that we replant them so 300 trees have come down for a cost of over a quarter of a million dollars and with the shock to the system that everyone is just experiencing with their taxes I feel like we have to maximize how we spend our money and that seems like a propagate waste I see our Forester is here tonight maybe he's going to speak about that but I'm going to request that we have more people evaluate these trees and we have more sensitivity to the money being spent to take them down every street tree that is in front of somebody's house increases that property value by 15% that could be $100,000 for someone's home it also Shades their home it lowers their air conditioning it provides habitat it provides Beauty every person I've ever spoke to said they came to West Orange because they loved the trees and here we are facing a depleted canopy and a $300,000 bill for taking down street trees and not replanting them so I'm going to request that we have a street tree commission that works with our Forester so we can understand what's going on get more trees in the ground get better prices for the trees have more Community participation in this and let's just get this off the ground going forward I think it's important to our morale our spirit our storm water and our ability to fight this climate crisis so thank you very much for listening thank you uh anyone else would like to speak please i' like to Lawrence Cohen of Lincoln Avenue West AR I'd like I would like to um second Sally manga about the trees I mean uh she did a great job um 300,000 just to cut the trees is is crazy especially with the budget crisis I mean I feel so badly for people whose houses were revalued so high and um I think the council the way they could help is have actually to have zero budget increase this year or maybe a decrease I mean the the budget could decrease and the people's tax assessments uh would be minus that decrease that could be a goal um maybe there should be a moratorium on tree cutting I think there was um you know I don't know I think there was majority of the trees were cut down uh were were healthy and fine um there are some geese that have tried to have families on uh Vincent Pond they go to the island in the middle um their eggs are poisoned by the the the goose the geese uh you know killing whatever uh company that West Orange hires and let's not hire them anymore uh let the let the geese the few families that that try to uh that try to um start their lives here in West Orange let them have goslings let them have babies um I think there might be something up um in in other ponds that you know some other geese may try to uh to start families and it would be exciting for the people in West Orange for the kids I mean I always grew up watching geese and the little goslings swimming along I mean it would just be wonderful for the community itself it's unnatural to not see baby baby geese you know for for just the children growing up in West Orange so that would be about a $113,000 saving if we just cut out this geese control program just cut it out completely um the New York the New Jersey municipal Services act um I saw something in the agenda on in the tap tap that said something about going back to 19 I maybe I misread it 1993 for um lighting reimbursement here in the agenda didn't seem to be going back but anyhow retroactive reimbursement I don't think should be allowed so if if the private communities are trying to get reimbursement for lighting that it was this year or something current you know that's okay that's that's what New Jersey does New Jersey is the only state in the whole country that has a a municipal Services act that that has private communities uh get paid by the township money which is hurting us I mean that could be another consideration the town could fight back a little more stringently if they want on certain Services they argue about snow plowing for example a lot of towns say that uh uh private communities have winding roads and they have more stringent snow plowing uh uh demands of of driveways and this and that so the townships give less money whatever so anyhow if it is retroactive don't do it don't do retroactive reimbursements and uh last thing I guess the legal legal fees you see all these different legal this and that I think we try to cut down on legal fees I mean the hourly rates are too high some it seems and hopefully the legal profession is a little more competitive that the town can find better rates and maybe cut down just on Legal Services needed and and it is sad that there's so much litigation going on with the town maybe if they could somehow both sides of an argument could be less argumentative uh and less uh you know less whatever this is a big big big part of our budget legal we we have to try to cut it down thank you so much thank you anybody else I'm seeing nobody else would like to speak so at this point I'm going to close public comment and ask my colleagues if anyone would like to uh respond uh councilwoman gber mik thank you to those of you here uh tonight in person and on Zoom um and for addressing your concerns uh in an effort to keep my remarks brief because I know we're going to be here till midnight we have a very long agenda I just want to thank everyone for sitting here and for speaking up thank you anyone else no I'm good I just want to say something very very quickly um thank you to Lawrence and Sally who spoke about the environment and um I think that the people of West Orange have spoken very clearly by um enabling me to be on this on this stus and I'm really happy to be here and to represent a more environmental approach we will very carefully look at tree contracts at the issue of the the geese to try and um deal with the population in a far more humane way um as to Legal costs um stay tuned tonight I mean we're going to we're going to carefully go over the contracts we can we definitely should be consolidating a lot of the services and and saving money for our taxpayers there's way too many legal costs scar I'll just very quickly too I want to thank everyone who came down um of course Sally uh for advocating reasonable tree policy and uh Lawrence as well you really hit on some of the main points we need uh more Community participation and awareness and we need to Ure that our trees that are viable are not cut down and when we do our work we do everything we can to save trees particularly when we're doing the street work uh Lawrence you also um I appreciate your interest in the budget and uh the legal fees we are going to look at very closely you're right on the money I think there are some savings there we're going to scrutinize all parts of the budget as we move forward thank you to everybody for paying attention thank you councilwoman councilwoman celino I'm sorry I don't mean to put you on spot no no that's okay uh I spoke earlier just and thanking everyone again for coming down this evening uh just to close uh response to public comment uh I appreciate uh the three voices uh there were all good questions all good comments and I can assure you that that we up here on the de are all focused on uh making improvements in all the areas that were mentioned in public comments so thank you very much uh if it's uh okay with the rest of you I'd like to take a fem minute break does that sound good we will be back we'll be back in five minutes I'm sorry I can't get the clock there we go uh 8:41 we will restart at 8:41 thank you thank you Mr Fagan uh uh we are back and I just wanted to ask my Council colleagues if now would be an appropriate time to have the downtown West Orange Alliance uh presentation they have several of their board members here so uh we could send them home yeah uh if we want to is that does that work for everybody fine I'm fine goad well I'm going to get I'm going to do the presentation everybody's here if we still need information we will requested and we'll get it at a later time there's nothing else to do what information been so so please we have uh Megan Brill Miss Megan Brill who's the executive director of The Downtown West Orange C uh coming here she's speaking essentially about the 2025 budget and plans and also uh the 2024 2024 performance please miss Grill wow there's a lot of microphones here so I'm Megan BR executive director with the downtown Alliance I want to thank a bunch of our board members are here and some Property Owners I appreciate your time tonight um our 2025 budget is uh the same as last Year's budget we have um 135 in assessment like Jake explained the assessment is still ongoing and we should get our final numbers we usually don't get our numbers until February or March anyway um but we think that that number is pretty close we get 6589 as a cash contribution from the township we get 28,000 in inine Services which is uh the office in the basement and uh some extra services that town Town Hall provides we carried forward uh $5,000 from last year's budget we were planning a winter fundraiser a winter event and a Fall fundraiser we had planned um a Harvest Festival that got cancelled last year because of the weather so on then built into this budget is an additional 30,000 in fundraising that primarily comes from the street fair holiday open house a little bit from restaurant week and a couple of the downtown Thursday events and then lastly we rounded out with $20,000 that is shared between uh downtown Alliance and Pleasant Valley Productions it was community support money that I believe is on the recck line so that's built into this budget and then we have about $100 in uh interest income so our expenses coming into this year and I I used the graph and I added the colors to kind to show where the increases and decreases are so in total office operations we are raising that line by $12,500 the uh net the net amount is 1145 that includes a $5,000 raise for Amy mccampbell who's our social media coordinator I requested that the board uh provide AR raise to her and they agreed and the other $10,000 is split between a $5,000 r is for me and $5,000 towards my health benefits so um how that'll work out in the future is if a raise gets made um a percent of my salary it's on 65 not 70 so the 5,000 will stay as a as a share towards my health insurance every year um okay in kind Services is the same that it was we're going to spend Economic Development we have two new board members that are on economic development we have Darren nurse who's a realator with Jordan bars and our Rich grow is coming back uh on our board which we're excited about so they collectively are really um working the property owners really giving um some attention to the landlords that need a little help in finding better tenants uh insurance and Professional Services 5,000 it's pretty much been that for the last several years marketing and promotion we reduce that item by 60 by by uh by 7500 and that primarily was the marketing firm that we had hired traditionally we started paying them like 30 grand a year and uh after the first two years we really kind of whittel away at that number and then with the impact of Amy being around she does our our newsletter our social media and she keeps up with all of the promotions that all of our businesses are doing so that means that there's less money that's coming into um that we need suasion or a marketing firm to do so that's a 7,500 less organization is 6600 that pays for the operation of of uh of what we do um within the board visional Improvement is also a reduction of $5,000 that specifically is going to get made up in Grants that we received and um and it'll be for buying uh planters and flowers and new banners and uh and different things that we uh were pre-approved from by the state of New Jersey in a grant um I'm going to keep going okay unless you guys have questions um okay so some of our highlights that uh that happened this year we had some really great downtown Thursday events we had our street fair um which that is actually a picture from the top of Edison loss um which is pretty crazy how big it is makes me nervous saying all of that um but we had you know record attendance record soldout vendors you know really fun day lots of you know 5 6,000 people came to West Orange that day the other the was oops Washington Street wait Joe it's going the wrong way y I'm sorry ah okay Washington Street Improvement I have to get the little thing there okay so that's the project that we um we've been involved in with um engineering and the State Transportation Authority it's going to absolutely redefine Washington Street it'll stretch almost the whole the whole street by the time phase one and phase two were done there's going to be rain Gardens in there there's going to be um a whole new streetscape a whole new um bump outs for pedestrian safety which is going to make that Washington Street is not very walkable so that entire project which is about $8 or $900,000 in improvements just phase one um is really going to impact and we're excited we saw plans we had a meeting there's going to be another meeting so folks can see more of the plans but we um we're we're excited the the only down part of that is it's not going to kick in until like 2026 but we are excited about what that Improvement is really going to do and it talks about how long it takes to get fed money into your Township um and uh this is one of our new businesses on Washington Street hia she has um fabulous clothing accessories jewelry um all all kinds of stuff we did a ribbon cutting and we are especially excited because she's one of the new five retailers downtown one of our uh weaknesses within our business inventory is we don't have a lot of retail um and this is one of three right in Tory Corner that is a new retail store um so we're excited gorgeous pacao right gorgeous pocketbook that Michelle bought for uh for Christmas time all right so this is that other development project we um there's not a lot of vacant uh there's not a lot of land available within downtown our vacancy rate hovered around 4% all year long Walgreens went out and one of the other hair salons went out and uh and that jumped our vacancy rate up to 6.5 which made me nervous because I don't like it being over four but what I wanted to talk about about is this project this is Northfield Avenue it's like right when you come off at 280 it's already set to be redeveloped into 11 Apartments they um they hopefully will be breaking ground anytime now but it's going to definitely change um the entrance way to Main Street so that's one of the projects that's going the other project that is also pre-approved is um the well in hotel it's picking up this is the hotel property and then there's the two stores that are right next door to it all of that again went through planning and has design plans ready to go to put like 12 Apartments there um and they're going to build up over they're not changing the height of the wellon hotel but they are changing they're going to build all this up to meet that top peak um and uh the plans the plans look really great the uh the owner is one of the uh property owners that owns more than one property downtown which is pretty exciting that we have a few folks that own a bunch of bunch of different places the third property is the Right Aid building so now the uh the family that owns this building also owns the Benji strip so it goes this way and they um they want to redevelop the whole thing they would buy everything in St Mark square if they could and they have uh great plans but I wanted to throw an in our budget presentation because having people that live downtown support downtown and that's definitely the future of you know having a a really efficient and effective uh Main Street Corridor the other new property that just came in is Walgreens sadly corporate closed the store not sure why um and we did hear that uh they're looking to buy the rest of that block and if they buy the rest of that block there's going to be re real big development happening on a good uh like six acres right there so it butts up it's from Main Street all the way back to almost the pfield like halfway up um Irwin so it's again an investment folks are looking to invest in in our downtown and that makes us excited and it's definitely something that you know we want to support more of and when you look at our vacancy rate Haring around five that's not game-changing amount of land you know if somebody's not going to be able to come in and transform the way the way Main Street looks the transformation really happens at Barton press when we build the movie studio so that is uh that is all that okay I think it's important that you know that the downtown Alliance participates in all of these committees and we sit on their their boards we're at meetings all the time a bunch of us attend anything that we get to uh that we get invited to and we regularly attend these meetings weekly and monthly so pedestrian safety Economic Development public relations Senior Services is we meet monthly with Laura van Noella and Olivia and Olive sorry and talk about any way that Senior Services can be incorporated into everything that we do downtown anytime that there's a a a an event they can come and get a table we want them to we push out their newsletter we do anything that that we can do to collaborate with them the West Arm chamber we've had longstanding relationship with the chamber uh the mayor's office we're excited have Melanie on board um we're working on helping that helping the town with a newsletter that they are nailing they're nailing social media they're nailing you know being able to push out information over Facebook and Instagram but we're missing population by not doing a newsletter um and the mayor has really said that she really wants to make that happen so we're collaborating with the mayor's office uh we work with the Department of on you know key events throughout the year and the public library they are big players in our Street Fair uh always okay initiatives I'm not going to talk about all the initiatives that that we have the budget presentation will be online so you can look at it later um but some of the key areas we're continuing the bra ideas Academy this is our quarterly business uh Meetup where I think this year we're going to change it up we've been meeting at lunch we did a nighttime um maybe hit a breakfast meeting but we're pulling in the folks that have best practices and uh njeda NJB Sustainable New Jersey all of those uh organizations have great programs and provide great benefits who our business owners we also have and this is one of the um the areas of focus for us property owner Outreach and engagement we we know the five or six stores that are vacant now what what we don't know is who's planning to sell or somebody coming in to buy something that isn't on our list of vacancies when we have great relationship with our property owners we we get that Intel and if they're looking to sell or they're wanting to rent to somebody new we have that Intel and we can meet Folks up and uh and we're hoping that we can expand that we need to get tons more email addresses for all of our property owners and um a really neat stat about that is uh we have 45 property owners that own their building and have their store there like John maoy who is in Florida he apologizes for not being here uh he's had he's been in that building for 44 years and uh and he has had a store there in 44 years ohar electric wiman's auto body you know all those stores there's lots of really great buyin and I think the number is like 25 other people live in West Orange and then own property downtown so they they're not empty you know not empty landlords there are people that care about the township so we're hoping to expand that outreach program and then the other thing that we're excited about is the parking study we should be hearing from Dynamic traffic about um they studied downtown and then all the way into the valley and uh we really need some help with identifying better parking uh figuring out what fees should be charged you know all of that from Capital expense to meters to you know where where we can pick up parking where we can make one ways take away one ways I know Z Beth loves one ways um but we're excited about that it's going to have direct impact on the corridor so we've been involved thank you to engineering for including us from day one in those meetings and um and we're looking forward to hearing that report uh very soon um and then there's a bunch of other uh stuff that we have four committees that constantly are working together to to do all these things me and Amy kind of you know are the the heads things but it really does Branch out and uh and a lot of other people help us get stuff done okay grants there's been a lot of talk about about grants and uh Michelle reminded me excuse me that this is like a phenomenon that's happened since covid we used to never get any grants um Main Street New Jersey now gives money to the the to their townships you have to fill out a crazy application and you have to do it a ton of work in order to document that you um deserve the money but we were able to get um you know two grants that we we actually did with the tourism division that the township got so the the welcome to us orange video and um and our uh mini selfie campaign that's uh still ongoing are two initiatives that uh the township received all of the money and then the two that downtown got were a $333,000 um grant that was funded in 23 and 24 and it was the butterfly and I actually have another slide that I'll show you before um before I'm done about uh what imagination alley really looks like and how excited we are about that um Ashley let me go to that right now um okay so this is Imagination alley this was uh Patrick southernland took this picture probably should have given him photo credit sorry um Patrick took this picture at night and it's gorgeous so through the alleyway uh between uh Hansen laot Main Street right by Supreme Bakery and um we wrote this quote because it really is like a fantastic thing that the state of New Jersey did by giving us this money so the impact of this project had a had on Joe uh I want that slide thank you sir okay so this grant allowed us to inject $33,000 directly into our local economy we were able to hire eight different contractors that were local to create this beautifully well-lit entrance from Main Street to our parking lot people like to stay away from that area and it really does hurt the businesses that are in Tory Corner that are in St Marks so I was excited that we were able to really put $33,000 in the hands of folks that actually live and work here um so I'm excited about that and um and that was imagination alley so I'm going to go back to the uh the other Grant we did get um $150,000 transformational strategy Grant I did send in information to um all of you with uh what specific projects were in associated with that 150 we did receive 75,000 um last year and if I do everything we say we're going to do we'll get another 75 in June or July um but the uh the key parts of that is we uh bot Placer which is that crazy software that tells us like where everybody's moving and what they're doing when they're here and where they're coming from and then uh it's going to fund some capital projects it's going to fund a public art mural the uh the wall that's in that Alleyway at Supreme Bakery is painted freshly but we want to put a mural on it so we have a big a an RFP out for people's ideas we wanted everyone to see what the decorations look like over it to get a real really meaningful mural that's going to go on that wall so we have um we're adding to our fsad grant program which is which is really helpful because our businesses tend to um when they go to try to get their sign it's the last bit of money that they have and they're underfunded to get it done and we can say if you make a little bit nicer sign we can help pay for it um so that is definitely a program that we've done what we work really well with and then after meeting with Council woman and Rudin she was talking about blade signs these are sideways signs and um definitely the strip mall by uh Castle Rock you come around that corner and you can't really see all the signs sideways signs would be perfect there so we are talking to um to Castle and the new West Orange Diner about sideway signs but we thought Wow Let's up our game instead of giving 50% let's give 75% of a sign for a sideways sign so we're going to roll out that program and hopefully the the added benefit is the new the new folks get to participate but folks older businesses that don't have a sideway sign they can they can do that too so it'll give them a chance to spruce up their store and it give us an opportunity to talk about their storefronts say we have this new product come play with us um okay these are budgets in um in the downtown these are downtown New Jersey uh townships and um I always think it's it's crazy the numbers that uh that are participating in there and how much staff everybody has um the downtown West Orange is twice as long as South Orange Avenue and our budget is like half of theirs um and that's the struggle that we have we have a lot of houses and parks and schools in our downtown Corridor and that picks up our ability to um to create a a property tax value so those are the numbers there I thought that that was uh that was kind of cool we talk about matachin a lot we saw oh God we talk about matachin a lot and um when we saw that they won the great great American main cheat award our friend Isaac who's the the man who was the manager there uh gave us so much information about how they really did it they they have the benefit of a train line so it definitely is harder for us to you know to to be able to uh capitalize on on our Jitney but we're trying um and so those are the stats about where everybody is in uh in within the Main Street New Jersey Community okay that's it for me unless you have questions and I'm sure that you do um yes thank you so much for your your presentation there was one thing that when we met and we discussed you you you informed me about what place her is and I just really want to make sure that West Orange residents really understand what this is how much it costs what and what it's doing okay um all right so uh Placer is um it's called Placer Ai and it's a it's a databasing uh software that tracks people's IP addresses on your phones and it is able to create um an understanding of where you go and what you do with with your money we looked at um chitchat Diner and um we I was surprisingly uh surprised to know that 85% of the people that go to chitchat are really from M orange I really thought it would be a broader you know broader pull but it's 85% mus orange and then Livingston and then a bunch other after that so um it's funny that a lot of folks go from home to chitchat dur in the morning and then from chitchat to home at night and they there's like 600 individual um visits a year and CH and and just chitchat so we're able to pull up information about them how that's beneficial to to downtown and actually because it is $155,000 and it started out at 25,000 and I chewed them down to 15 and we wouldn't have bought it if we didn't get that big Grant the 150,000 and I think everybody that got the 150 in the state bought Placer because it's just out of the out of the ballpark but how we really want to use it is we looked at um I don't want to say the businesses because that's not fair but we looked at who's got the best cheeseburger in town and we looked at the folks that were um the psychographics associated with the the people that eat that cheeseburger at that store and then we shared it with some of our businesses and explained to them this is who you need to go after this is the kind of advertising you need to do this is the kind of menu you need to do so that's how we were able to you know hopefully help our businesses you saw um we shared it with economic development and um and we shared it with the economic development commission that the town has I think it would be hugely beneficial for Z best's office to use it it can tell you actually we just looked up today The Lofts is um trying to rent the one uh the one restaurant on the corner and uh and John Hoff called and he said how many people travel on Main Street during the day so we went into plac and it's like 10,000 people you know travel down Main Street on Mondays and Tuesdays is the busiest day and then uh it kind of Wiles off and then Saturday there's like 8,000 people that are on me on in front of the lws so he's using that in his media Camp campaign to say hey there's 10,000 people that are going to drive past the store come and rent my building um so that that's kind of you know how we do it that's what Placer is okay so there's I really wanted West Orange residents to be aware of this this because there's sort of a little bit of a cre creepy element to place her because we are all being geot tracked and I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows this is that right right so they don't know that it's Joyce Ruden they know that this lady goes to this place and this is the kind of things that she buys and this is how many times she frequents it and this is the route that you take we actually looked at because I really wanted the town to pay for it so I looked at uh Rock BR golf club and the thing that I saw about spring that was really interesting and it was during covid or like right right after covid and the the club was like rocking people were going two three times a week there but what we saw in play story tells you that the people that frequent Rock Spring also go to this golf course and they also go to this top golf so if we or keer wanted to advertise to people they would go to Springfield and the route that they take put a billboard there to say come to Rock Spring Golf course you know we we got it all going on so it's that kind of stuff it doesn't know exactly it's you but it knows your characteristics um it's really neat dtic what characteristics does it know about me um I probably would have to look up I mean it knows um it knows where you infrequent so we looked at Walter bman um we went oh yes all right come on is that okay D is one of my board members and he knows Placer really well sure maybe you should come up here with Meg yeah yeah now you want to come here yeah it doesn't matter it's probably easier to just stay there if that thats do it's getting crowded this is this is what you need to understand about Placer it's it's it's not anything to freak out anybody if you use a credit card you have what is called a digital footprint you having a digital footprint is going to tell you where you spend money how you spend money how much money you spend what place it does in place of that is is tell you where people are going and how they spending any money so for instance if you live in West Orange and you go to chitchat you use that c there if you go to Short Hills mall is going to attract you using that car in short more so it's just your digital footprint following you wherever you go and you use e your credit card or your debit card so with that it also tells you as traffic flows where the traffic is coming off right where most of the traffic is coming off is it following your phone or is your your license plate it's it's not your phone it's your digital footprint it's it's the IP address right it's your your digital footprint is your credit card your debit card right if your phone is connect connected to your debit or your credit card then it we happen to follow your phone so wherever you have that connected to that's how it follows it's not anything to make anyone feel like they being creeped out or they being tracked or traced or anything like that it's more or less to track how people are spending and where they're spending their money what we're trying to do is we're trying to get people in West Orange to spend money in West Orange how do you know that the people live in West Orange I understand tracking the digital footprint but how do you know that that person also lives in West Orange Credit Card your debit card but how do you know where they live your credit card your debit card where you get yourell address I think that what we asked that question because when we first looked at looked at place where Ron Raymond was really creeped out about the security side of things and it wasn't until like the second or third salesman Ashley sales lady uh really explained that to me so what what she was trying to to say is that by the amount of time you're spending in one place so eight hours at one time um that's how they know where you're living and where you're coming from the times of day it's difficult for us to get stats on the lofs building because of the residence there so you need to spend a certain amount of time in the footprint so what we really want to do is say who's at dose but we can't really dose of the pharmacy that's in there we can't really say who's there because it's getting mirrored with other res the folks that are upstairs so the data isn't perfect you definitely need to you know look at it and analyze it but but we could pull up and say there's 5,000 people in St Cloud uh and the sidewalks over there you know see 5,000 people but in Gregory there's 8,000 people that see those sidewalks so if we have to choose between St Cloud and Gregory we're going to get a better bank for our buck in Gregory because there's 8,000 people that use that sidewalk so it just gives us good Matrix for making better decisions about everything that we do I think it's important understand you just identify yourself again zth just I'm Seth we I'm also on the board the downtown West Orange Alliance we we subscribe to this service who collects data there's several other companies out there that do the same thing as Placer for multiple towns companies things like that to know where people go what they shop the profiles and all these things so we just subscribe to it to better understand what's actually happening in our town giving a resource to be used by different entities to be able to have a factual basis to say okay this is kind of what we need this is where we want to go if you went to if we all went to a store in Short Hills mall and you walk in that store and oh on your phone pops up an ad that's your digital footprint being tracked by that store they're using an outside third party service so we didn't engage engage a service to track Red West Orange residents we engage a service who's tracking this people in general across the country not just in West orang I I just really want to understand so you're tracking our shopping but you also are but you also know where we live based because our our credit cards came home with us so that those are companies out there that track digital Footprints and create data and there are people who can subscribe to that and buy those service to do that so when you say we it's we're not tracking West Orange is not tracking it's Placer and other companies like Placer that tracks people's digital Footprints right and the information that you're getting from placer do they sell that information about no okay no yeah they no they don't they don't sell it what a company and actually um uh Essex Green is uh that they U ilze yeah they they have player so how they use it is they'll say and actually we looked at this when we were trying to rent the wine store that um there's certain businesses that go next to um Macy's certain businesses that are always whenever you see you know a Five Guys you see the buckaroos so they use Placer to be able to find like we got five guys we need buckaroos so they're able to you know search all over the country and get data and then it puts them on the level playing field with the franchise and that's how our understanding is that that's how um the folks at ESS scen I think that the American Freight that um that's vacant now it's a huge building where Sears used to be like what that's going to end up being like they they should be looking everywhere in place or to try to find a great tenant for uh for that so it's a it's a side geeky kind of thing um but it definitely is uh is something that we have a team of folks that know understand it way more than me um and if we don't get a grant for next year I don't think we'll be able to afford it um so we're going to try to get all the data we can out of it I I think it's important to show that West Orange is using the latest technology to drive decision making and those kinds of things that we actually have factual data not just guessing so it's it's easy to guess and say oh yeah we want people to come from Bergen County into West Orange to shop or to here and that now we have data to show us what would that take to actually get Bergen County residents to shop in West Orange on a Sunday if we wanted them to shop here and not somewhere else so it's it's a state-of-the-art technology that is being used by many companies many municipalities etc etc yeah I think that was the number one thing that did that towns bought with with the grants councilwoman Ruden are you finished okay thank you so I just want want to thank the team for being here tonight and Miss BR and Miss mccampbell um they have just done an outstanding job um the newsletter the new website the uh well update the website for the restaurant Week restaurant week March 30th through April 6th this year um and just working townwide you know we've we started with swasan they taught us um utilizing um their they won multiple awards from for the from the New Jersey Division of Tourism know we have the zoo we have the museum we have the golf course we have tens of thousands not 100 thousand people coming here each and every year but had to keep them here dine and Shop here and now we have this data system that we could track exactly where they're coming from uh we have some great success stories Nicholas Anthony they uh received a Yelp review uh that was Nationwide and um we're teaching also our business owners to track where your clientele is coming from so you know so you could tap into that you know so they know that they have people coming out of the region um our our our big uh our big challenge at the downtown is getting support and getting the Redevelopment projects done you saw there's some opportunities here um we had earlier as Mr Man still here 80 Main Street has a new owner um he's been very engaged in and renovating that building that site and um has been in contact with us and so you know we we need to we need the support because we get people to come they've done an outstanding job of getting people to Main Street all summer long with downtown Thursdays um people come down but then they they they come visit and you know it's this is what's here is there anything else and and getting people excited to let them know there's more to come so that's going to have to be our job I hope we could help pass their budget this evening I hope we could help um focus on the areas that we need to focus um so they could be self- sustaining that only happens if there's uh major Redevelopment and uh up the Assessments in that area to help them to support themselves but I want to thank them they've done an outstanding job they work really hard and uh our group is growing and there's more and more volunteers I want to thank also the the high school our Mountaineers have been coming down to help us at all our events and we had 6,000 people to the street fair in June that's it's a big event we were never before in New Jersey uh a tourism magazine and we are now we we are featured in multi multiple uh magazines and I you know also want to thank Mr F too for his promotion when he helps us out but uh a lot of work has gone into this and and I appreciate Miss Burl making herself available I hope everybody's questions and and documents you know that you received um you know if you have anything else she needs she's available so thank you for for being available thank you if I could just follow up councilwoman you were talking about the people who come to downtown that you guys can attract and get downtown and yeah and then some places they say in some spots what else is like more yes more um stores retail um restaurants so and we know all this these are our challenges and that's what we strive to plug in those holes right that's what I was going to ask you what is the data that you have that tells you that you're attracting people downtown and what else does that data say I'm thinking about displacer give you that uh does um definitely we pulled a Streeter data um off the Placer so we knew um you the peak hours and how many people were uh um were there so I think that was like two and a half hours from like 12 to 3 something so we were able to get that kind of that kind of numbers we could pull data on downtown Thursdays the um Hispanic night which was like a really big hit we could uh pull that but I think what we're really finding is and um I tend to attract a lot of realators there's like they're all realators that set not real um but what what we find is that the people that they're selling houses to are coming from you know Brooklyn and New York and they're buying in you know in a town that they have a walkable downtown so our social media we're getting tons of likes and hooks and all kinds of uh response folks come down and then they're like this is the event so you know we have a really great you know food Chuck and games and cool bands and all that stuff and from 528 it's great and then what do they do you know if we're in Eagle Rock they can walk over to all the restaurants that are there but there isn't a great restaurant assortment in Tory corner you know if they were shopping you could do a little bit that in Tor but you know when we do St Marks folks want to hang out at Benji's and they pick up cupcakes at Supreme so it's that kind of stuff so really what we're saying is um meeting the the people that come there and I love when there people that don't know I lived here all my life so I know everybody and because of their friends and the people that we're attracting on our social media and newsletters we're getting new folks that actually care about and are supporting downtown and that's exciting for us parking's an issue and that's where the Lando lot uh hopefully will be on the capital budget next week and that lot you know the basketball court needs to be removed so we've had because we've had businesses that um have not survived because of the lack of parking in that area and so I hope you know that that we could get information for you early enough um so you can understand what's going on there the Federal grant that's coming in unfortunately it's taking three years to get here uh but when you know we have great potential for Washington Street in Tory corner and to spread but again it's all about planning it's all about uh Consulting you know the downtown has their role and they do a great job on what they need to do but that's only so much there's a lot of work that we're going to need to help assist them and I know you spent some time with Mr BR I thank you for that and um and for all your support for my colleagues so I just want to say that I think that all of your work would benefit if we had an in-house Town planner I would agree who you could work with and help you know give a strategic plan that you can help carry out understand I just wanted to make a plug for the planner thanks so some of you remember when I was here on the council the first time and so you pretty much are used to what questions I ask and I I just want to hone in on the the comment that we're drawing people downtown with all of your events but I'm I'm what I'm really asking for is what does the data and what does the uh data analysis show you about all of these different events how many people do you seem to bring down compared to uh a similar day where there isn't an event so you can get a Delta on on what might be that's what I'm saying because it would be very helpful to me for you to put up your 10 biggest events and then see the actual data of of what's of what's there and what the Delta is and so we can we can get a better feel for the progress the actual achievement you you have a a lot of great uh marketing and uh uh PDFs and that sort of thing and it all looks good but how is it moving the the needle and that's why I was asking about the the data so I we absolutely need to get you on player right so Amy tomorrow we're going to send a note we just got a new rep and uh we meet like every two weeks and uh they teach us all about Placer so that'll give you a log on and then you can go and mess around and you know figure out your own stuff but the one stat that jumps out at me about what you said is that we um we book we doubled our downtown Thursdays and there was one Thursday that we didn't have an event and uh we pulled up you know what was going on on that Thursday and there was a 25% drop in the people that were downtown because we did not have that event um and I was like crap we have to do like eight more next year now because it brings people downtown they um you know they need something to go to and um and so that was one thing that jumped out at us but there's tons of different like numbers in there that you're you would love it but but to his point and the point that we and our challenges and we get frustrated with is yes they they're coming to the events but are they coming back the next day and no that's not always the case and that's because of the inventory of businesses that are there and that's why the the downtown and has been uh wanting us to pass certain ordinances so we just don't have the same kind of businesses and um there's various you know I don't want to take the whole meeting know we have a lot of lot of meeting tonight um but yeah that will be in the Strategic strategic plan that what we need but we we need obviously we know we need to get the downtown develop we're they're only going so far it's they're hitting a wall we need to help that we've had great retail that has come and gone uh some because of the you know pandemic and times change and and some because we we need to change things and we're not getting the development buil BU as fast as we should be getting it built and uh we need to work on that one other thing about the the retail mix is that we're all excited that Target is coming and that the you know that uh kmar Plaza or whatever it's going to be called is actually going to be like a thriving you know area but people that go there we need to figure out how we're going to get them to go to the restaurants that are downtown um and that is something that we need we need a strategic plan about we were just talking about it when we were like formulating um you know all of the the the budget notes and while I was really excited about having Target in our town and it's really going to benefit us the the negative effect is that there's going to be a bunch of restaurants up there and they're not going to come down to Nicholas Anthony and I need to make sure that they come downtown so we need a plan and we need to execute that way before that that building gets up there um so that's all the stuff that we're thinking about so so just a followup I I I want to keep on this um I appreciate your offer for me to come play with placers I don't think that's my role you've got multiple people here who know what the Hecker is but but what it would what would be nice is if you gave us a chart that or a table that showed you know your top 10 events how how many people you could track and what the Delta is for an a time period when you don't have that event so we can see the traffic because I have always thought that our challenge that the that the alliance's challenge is chicken or the egg right you need to get people down there who will spend the money and you gotta get places down there that people want to spend the money spend the money to and and so you've got chicken or the egg which is going to come first and it's a difficult nut to crack I mean you know we're sitting here uh I I don't know how long the alliance has been there but it's been there it since before my time so at least 15 years and so I'm just trying to to get uh a harder data so we could see we meeing the people up here on the Das that that uh influence part of your budget we just want to see Pro progress for the money that we're spending so that's why I was asking it'd be great if you could just give me that table give us the table and chart so we get a it's it's great and actually Seth Seth wants to say something but what really is helpful is having great great appointments to our board um councilwoman Scarpa has a set I'm an not for talent yes we really could use two more appointments um to round out our board we have a tremendous amount of work to do that's really hard for us to do with this limited Team without speaking on on be on speaking on behalf but as a board member and from what I've seen the last couple months is the downtown Alliance is doing their part and that's getting people downtown sustaining it is everyone else's part so yes we can show you numbers this is how many year year over year we've gotten downtown I mean just look at when we do the the street fair how many more people have come that's your answer and I'm not trying to I'm trying just to simplify it we really don't need a computer to tell us that but what we need to do is sustain that and without the appointments without being the economic development board moving forward without certain ordinances we cannot sustain it we can get people downtown but the question is we're just the beginning of the thread not the end and we need everybody's collaboration to bring it to the end and to keepy people downtown that's really I think we're doing our part this budget is a small budget compared to other towns we can say oh they're doing this or doing this but they have stronger and better collaboration and less bottlenecks and that's what we're hearing from our professionals to yeah I have a question for the um Realtors uh on the board what would it take to get um more retailers small retailers with maybe more interesting shops that people would want to shop in in our downtown so this is the issue right and it's not really the issue so speaking because I reach out to because I do reach out to retailers day by day um I reached out to one realtor realy and this was a Big Brand and to their word specific West Orange is not on their radar as far as business-wise because it doesn't serve an interest to them right even though they do know about the population they do know about the income demographics all those different things but because we're not built up a certain way it's not an attraction for them now what happened is what you have to look at is this you want to attract retailers and you may want to attract individual small businesses and I spoke about this before one of the ways to attract individual small businesses you need to have either a medium brand or a big brand that could bring the people down there and those Brands itself is what ke people there to look at those other businesses unless we're able to develop and do that right this is our difficulty and that's one of the things in which Seth just spoke about to help answer your question about it's not about getting the people there it's about keeping the people there because if they not they're not continuously coming back then it goes back to being what it was so those are the things that has to be done so when it comes to retailers you have to have something in place where it looks attractive enough for the retailers one of the things that I'm just saying this is on myself is lighting lighting is a very big issue when you go downtown so if lighting going downtown and you go downtown at night and the lighting doesn't look a certain way guess what a woman alone retailer don't want to be there and the individual that shop doesn't want to be there so those things make a difference so if you're going to speak about that speak about it in a hole where we as a town we have to decide those things as well do we improve the lighting do we improve the street do we improve the safety all those different things come into play so it's just a matter like you said place is just a small part of the piece but there's a whole puzzle to put together so it sounds like we're missing the commercial draw that's interesting enough to get people to come downtown you have some of the commercial draw you don't have enough of it what we have now that we the museum yeah you have you have some of it you don't have enough of it you know you you you think about you think about all the stores that are downtown now right none of those stores are a medium or Big Brand store none of them and you can talk to any medium or Big Brand store right now you tell them about downtown west orang they look at you and be like no not right now and that's the thing that we need to do and one of those things that's going to help us do that is if you redevelop uh some of those places into apartment complex because that's going to change the whole look at things and it change the look it Chang the feel so that's the whole thing and those are the things that we need to begin to start thinking about thank you down and then we got to wrap it up okay guys and and please just identify yourself before you speak sure Christa senic I'm a trustee um my sole reason for being on the board initially um when asked was I saw a huge issue with the lack of inventory available as far as um diversity as far as like the number of places that were available so you'd have restaurant nail salon hair salon nail salon liquor store restaurant hair salon na Salon liquor store it just keeps going right and and so for every restaurant or every business that's not a hair salon nail salon or liquor store um you people go there they see it they see the other things around there and they move on because they don't they don't feel the need to stay oh that that was a good meal but I don't want to I don't want to be next to this you know walking by these liquor stores or I don't want to do you know and so my whole thing was we need an ordinance to eliminate or control these other stores and these other businesses we're not saying we want to eliminate these people from having their their livelihood but we need to find a way where if people are coming if if a business is leaving so if a hair salon is leaving it potentially should not be replaced with a hair salon because we're running into that same problem over and over again so the real issue for for me and for what I'm hearing from my clients and from other people is is just that they don't want to go down they don't want to walk by those places well that sounds like an easy thing to fix I think we could put that ordinance together and get that going right away well if we have support for we haven't had supp we'll have to get we'll have to Rally the support for that because I think it sounds like that's something that is urgent it's something where the council can have a serious effect and can get to work sounds good yeah we didn't take that ordinance lately I I did not was not excited about telling people who they can rent their property to but we really hope that organically landlords would find somebody other than a hair nail and beauty salon and uh it's easy it's a oneman band you got scissors and shampoo and you're in it's an easy business to start and uh landlords uh want the rent so they just come and uh I really think we need to cap it whether there's two different ordinances that we looked at one with capping the entire inventory at the number that we're at or 500 feet between uh hair swans um and I did talk to all the hair swans and they're excited about it they they you you can't walk into our hair salons and get and just just get your haircut which is definitely a good thing but the competition isn't great the ones that don't have a following don't last um anyway that's my draft bit sign it yeah it's taking me coule we have drafts to put to put an ordinance together so just get it over to us and we'll make sure we Ram it through it it wouldn't be a Downtown West Orange Alliance presentation if I didn't ask some a number of questions if we could just go back to uh the proposed 25 budget with the uh budget for 24 and the actuals just you may have already answered them uh the first time around on the screen but I just oh which category I'm just looking at the spreadsheet with the uh items on the left and the three columns on the right you mean Budget the spreadsheet yes I'm okay yeah that's what that's what I have so like Economic Development Revenue which which part yeah on the second line it says Township contribution cash uh was budgeted last year for 65,8 n and the actual was 6,894 from our old CFO that the numbers that came to downtown weren't clear and maybe uh John can maybe explain it better but I think it wasn't clear that we were to get 6589 and at the ends of the year he cut 60809 there we go it was budgeted but it wasn't given so I paid is what was budgeted what was uh adopted by the former Council back in 2024 so if there was a discussion in in the budget process earlier on in 2024 about what it should have been that's one thing but I can only pay over what was what was adopted by this governing body right and the governing body adopted 65809 why the QuickBook file or whatever happened within that office it was $5,000 left you're using QuickBooks Mr no we do not use books good thank you so strike that from the record thank you for clarifying that just want to ask you you mentioned that the fall event uh had to be canceled because of weather and you also it seem to indicate a further decline in fundraising of $4,900 and I'm just wondering if it really is reasonable to budget that you're going to bring in all of that missing money this year well yeah I mean the within fundraising and the fall event all that 35 is that what you're looking at uh I'm looking at uh fundraising income fall event which okay was budgeted 5,000. zero and then Fund Raising efforts all others it was budgeted for 30 uh thousand last year and brought in 25,100 yeah so we have we have work plans around the different events and our fundraising effort and our best guess is that we'll be able to hit those numbers we've definitely increased our fundraising it was funny when I was putting the budget presentation together and looking at our numbers you know in like November it it's very clear that either we spent a lot of time on fundraising or we spend a lot of time on grants and I'm bummed that I didn't get three grants that we worked really hard on and um and it's difficult to do both things so we need that team to be able to like hit the ground running and help us plan the events and then I can you know write grants all day long um but I can't write grants and and fundraise why isn't our grant writer helping you more they do but we have to feed them a ton of information like they're great they'll find the grant but I got to do pages and pages and then if we actually get the award it's pages and pages and pages to document that we spent the money the way we said we were gonna the state grants is on the sage program the St Mark Grant which was awesome that's Z Beth put us on I was so excited about that and we spent a lot of time on that in the middle of the summer um and we didn't get it so that's kind of the the the way the way the organization works we need more people to be able to help us execute those events and then me and Amy can spend time you know on the grants and documenting and getting that stuff done you needed a person on your board who understands Grant right yeah that's who we're going to look for they need to just understand what happens is you know they find the grant but then we have to back fill you know we have to we have to provide all that information about you know what what what we see so it's the same thing like with u with marketing we we hired a great firm they were awesome we paid them a lot of money but it was me telling them n million things every single day Amy shows up and she knows all this stuff she's in the office she gets it I don't have to tell her we need to talk about hiar the new store down count or that there's pizza night at uh you know at Johnny's tonight she gets it she does it people that are around us on our board they know what what we need they know what is um what's capable of our board so that we say we're going to do it we're going to do it or we're going to come really close or we're going to kill ourselves trying yeah now we just utilize them for larger Regional exposure that they have contacts with all the local stuff done through so under business retention you had uh budgeted $399 last year and you end up spending $175 and you've now had the same budget item for $399 this year what what happened last year and why do you think you're gonna well in part we um we didn't have a a real economic team that uh that was you know like that Division and we've been working with uh you know the Nang group and the bigger Economic Development commission so we're really excited to have Darren and um and Rich Groves that have at least a retention plan we need a marketing piece which we were really hoping that um that Nish Wayne would be further along on so that we can say hey LS you don't even have to make up anything here's the stats about what's happening on Main Street so that is built into uh actually attracting new businesses and retaining the folks that are here we lost mountain society and we lost city Workshop over the years those are two big hits for for us and retention is just as important as attracting the new bu when we get somebody really great that's down town and they close it's heartbreaking to us you know we invest a lot in those kinds of businesses and there needs to be a plan and that's that line item Economic Development what has Nishu done to help you they they've done a lot they've they've been able to participate in um in and actually we're getting a a written report from them um but they spent all summer looking at uh meeting with our businesses and um and finding out all about them so we're uh we actually need we need three ordinances out of Nish way out of planning out of legal we need a vacancy ordinance we need the blocking of um or tapping of Hair beauty salons and we need a parking variance ordinance you know everything that goes through Planning and Zoning gets a variance everything and we're killing development by making sure that 1.8 cars is in every apartment that is never going to have a car in it um so those are three things that with the help of n way or Economic Development or planning and legal that um that we can I'd like to see that on our agenda for the next meeting well I don't we can get it done there but how about this quarter no I think this I think we need to give no more than 30 you got your Capital hopefully what happened with the mayor's 5K run uh so all right so that that came by um so we had the original Al it was the ovarian cancer ladies that um that we ran with and the Run C us about Kon was like one of the big uh big Runners there the Run cost us about eight or $9,000 to pull off between blocking Main Street everything that needs to support a run like that and then they got rid of their National chair so we tried to pick up another charity we did ALS around Jack around a bunch of folks that are suffering from ALS but it they didn't pull in the numbers for us we need 6 700 people running downtown and fundraising around a really great cause in order to spend eight or $9,000 so we tried two years in a row and until I get a great organization although Karen did hook us up with st barnabus a 360 program I did just have a call with them again um hopefully the balls in their Court we'll take them on um so we need a better charity and then we'd execute that and BL a a run that cost the town more money than we bring in because that's not wise um we're not going to do that so that's where our Fall fundraiser comes in whether it's a fun party downtown or Music Festival something like that and and and just not so much better charity but as far as the charity doing some of the work that that that's the hard part that's true because the downtown allian cannot be tasked with this run especially with all their other we need an organization that's going to have a national uh approach and have sponsors and you know want to build 25 different teams then then we have a run and then it's worth it to spend the money downtown and I I hate not doing the Run um and mcken hates not doing the Run um but it's it's stupid for us to spend that kind of money not not reasonable and time lot of time so in in the area of marketing and promotions uh you budgeted $74,200 last year but you spent $30,000 less than that last year can you explain what H yeah I'm just looking at the bottom line went to yeah okay so part of that was with our new CFO and us not getting funding till the very end of the year so I was concerned about where the numbers were coming and whether we whether we were getting that money or not so we slowed down a lot with uh with our planning and um and cut cut off the uh the Harvest Festival and cut back on on some of the things the stuff that's now in here is stuff that we absolutely do and and spend money on the uh the big the big change is in um the holiday open house I put more money in because we have a we're going back to the bizaar as like a fundraiser user um the marketing the marketing team we're really hoping that the movie studio will be uh something that we can really talk about to everyone in the planet and we're going to need their help to do that um so that'll be a more release that but that that's pretty much it Joe we uh I just slowed down because I was wasn't sure where the assessment was less than what we had projected the we didn't get the 20,000 that that was Community House money so that wasn't there so when you compare this to really what we brought in our actual that that we got is a lot less than what we projected it's almost like a like a wash Mr DAC so you know I started in the middle of September um I'm sorry I don't I don't negative I'm just kidding you know regarding I'm so happy you're here so I just want to make sure you understand that I'm just kidding just kidding regarding the Sid assessment and and contributions from the township um the Sid Levy is certified just like the municipal Levy and the school levy and the county Levy by the County Board of Taxation um so the amount that was certified by the County Board of Taxation honor around October whatever it was thir fourth of this year um was paid over when it was requested from uh the downtown Alli s and then the contributions were paid over uh in a series of two checks I think um prior to the end of the year so uh prior to that my predecessor did pay over amounts requested by uh Miss bro um I don't know when well it's part of their sit assessment so you know we basically Tred it up so that what was paid over was the certified sit assessment and what was uh was adopted by the previous Council um for the 2024 budget um again timing wise you know I can only pay over when I'm here and my predecessor paid over uh amounts that I'm assuming were requested amounts so that's my spal oh okay I if if that if this lag time can be avoided this year I think it would be very helpful I mean uh is is there some leeway in determining how we might treat the downtown west orang Alliance to get them more of the revenue earlier in the year I certainly understand certification so sure you know we can do that assuming that their budget is passed and you know their sit assessment is what it is um you know we can start paying that over on a quarterly basis or you know as uh as the downtown alliances cash flow needs uh necessitate our contribution and our pay over of the s you know we we can do that okay could you just keep the council uh up to date with however you guys work out uh so we'll we'll include it on the bill list um so that you you're approving the payment of that sit assessment end or any of the contributions you know we'll pay over the sit assessments first uh and really try not to touch the contributions until it's decided by this Council um what those contributions are going to be in the 2025 budget okay thank you um and then it looks like you you cut the total marketing and promotions budget for this year by about roughly 10% is there uh some what were the reasons behind that I mentioned that in the budget presentation it really was our shifting from away from the marketing firm and doing more work in house and now they do the newsletter the marketing firm used to do newsletter and in social media now they're doing that in house by we mean Amy right so I I guess you have to have make a decision about whether you want to continue the promotions at a higher level as opposed to the reduction in in 10% and I'm just curious why you wouldn't try to bump that up in some other area if you got the money you could get more bang for that well so all of the events aren't all about about fundraising um really they are about and actually I think uh so we like to make this point that um it's really about bringing people downtown and uh not every event needs to make a ton of money um we can break even we can even lose money as long as people are coming down and buying something at Benji you know that that's a win for us so the um the real change is in the amount of money and things that we send to uh the marketing firm and you've it appears you've xed out the expenditures for the shop West Orange Card what's up with that yeah so it it's been it's been zero and actually with the um for the last like few years and um it's I think that is that is one of the best programs that that West Orange does and I have zero time to dedicate to it and um I'm really hopeful that with the new mayor secretary it's really like a try group downtown ends up being the on that does all the work but it's really supposed to be Township the mayor's office um and the Chamber of Commerce and us and I'm excited that Melanie has the mayor's assistant has huge aptitude for all this kind of stuff so p and Har on board and the Chamber has a new executive director so I did talk to um the rep at shoper Orange because there's a bunch of new businesses that really could benefit from it and uh it really doesn't cost them a lot of money when you think what the valap coupon cost like7 800 and nobody uses it shoer orange is way better than that so if we do get a plan there is money that the chamber has and the amount of advertisement around that is all going to be social media so it's going to be high number dollars but I need I need them to get on board it can't just be downtown well also council president we have to understand with a lot of our small business owners with the impact of covid I mean we we we talked to them uh so many time like even to get $25 from them to participate in Restaurant Week just to get the Buy in um you know they just don't want to participate because they're you know they're on hard they having hard times well it's the it's the merchants that pay for all of this benefit so yeah it's taking money right out of their pockets I left it there because it's a great program and it needs to be in the Forefront of things that we care about um but I zero out it but I didn't I didn't get rid of it so hopefully she bring it back someday uh just one more question I wanted to ask about the Township's contribution there's three line items for this one is the uh the Township's regular I guess regular six uh cash contribution 65,8 n and then there's the inine contribution I guess for the office and office supplies for another 28,000 and then there's this line item down here about additional support Township of West Orange can you tell me a little bit about the history of that because you know I was gone for a while want to take that councilwoman yeah I I can um well you could talk about the the first piece is going back to when the sit originated uh was it mayor mck all right I'm fine with the first because they've been there forever but I'm just asking about this additional support so I had advocated so we had an issue um we had a line item from the r budget for 40,000 that uh went to I believe it was the community house and they did not uh comply with uh handing in their uh financial documents to Mr Kio which is part of his uh program and I also think they started other Ventures with with now for example they're taking on which is I think a great benefit for the downtown the preschool program down at the community house that we'll be having now parents from all over town uh come down to The Community House for preschool which will help the immediate area um bringing people there so at the time in that budget year I believe we it was 40,000 and the council decided to uh fund downtown additional 20,000 and aspa additional 20,000 and since moving forward all the councils have been uh supportive of that initiative because obviously ospac needs funding they really need funding um they've been having great programming up there and the downtown's trying to do more for and it's about Community Support so so these events yes they're to help our business owners but they're also to be there to support the community especially in this areas and that's why I always encourage if you get to any of our downtown New Jersey seminars and learn a lot about the whole uh organization and the reason why we go to these seminars is also it's a little uh a gold star for us why she's getting the grant Awards because and she drags me there because they like to see elective officials come so but it's great learning it's you you learn a lot you really do and um and you know one day we hope to get the um the neighborhood pres uh preservation program Grant which is a tough one to get we applied once it was a lot of work um and we're waiting for that to come available again but it's $150,000 Grant so so just one more question I I'll we'll move on sure uh how long is this $20,000 extra not extra additional support we approve it every year so if you feel I think it was two two other years and we didn't get it this year we didn't put in for it this year no we did approve it I don't know why we didn't get it I think it's a resolution was resolution that's why you didn't get it I know you guys you guys approved that that whole budget and it was money that was coming I believe that aspac who greatly needs that um that it's coming for there and it's going to get hits here but it's for last year um we didn't put the resolution forth uh this year but you weren't supposed to put the resolution the supposed to come from the administration the administration so um is the community house not getting any money no because they did not comply with the requirements all the organizations that get that get wasn't that several years ago that they didn't comply yeah but are they still yeah don't they need funding as well no they're they're with they're getting funding through the school district okay yeah a lot of funding through the school district any more questions from the councils I simple one yes pleas please place um all the documents you gave us in this presentation on the website for folks I Haven said that yet okay thank you I've very much appreciate answering so many questions and I love that my board was actually able to thank you for great talking and they great team absolutely so no more questions right think okay okay so we have two more items and I'd like to throw this out to the council because we are scheduled to have a public Hearing in which the public will be able to speak but I also understand that maybe there's some there's still some documents or data that Council wants is that still going on or do we have everything we need to move forward with the public hearing and then a potential vote on the budget I sent everything that I that I was requested to sent okay well it's it's not a matter of of I mean I don't know if there's anything that's not the matter the matter is if the council feels like they need more information or more data which I thought we did uh then we should probably postpone till they get the data because I'm sure they' want to make a more informed vote if that's the case but I'm just throwing this out I don't want to put anybody on the spot but are we waiting for any additional information she needs yeah she needs her budget approv yeah and council president the hearing was um advertised for tonight so regardless you have to have the hearing okay you yeah so right because it's noticed yeah you've advertised it for tonight so so one of my concerns is I know you noticed it and I noticed I know that you told the the public through um snail mail but nobody's here from H they were here were there were and they they took the Pres the presentation and they left oh they were here and I do get um half of our board members are business owners downtown and so they saw the the presentation um I think that there's a level of a level of confidence with them and I work really hard not to raise that budget and I work really hard not to raise that assessment and we anybody that that we know um sometimes we get an LLC and it takes us a lot of effort to find out who they are but we're working really hard to make sure that we build those relationships and that they see Great Value in the the work that we do so Madame clerk let's have the public uh hearing please okay all right so now's time for a public hearing um the downtown Westar and July in budget if anybody has any public comment please come to the microphone and the same rules apply as previously but not all at once one at a time and don't run anyone no close it then we have to close the public hearing yeah I just want to note that the the board members had to vote on their budget so this wasn't just miss bro presenting it's all those board members voted on this budget so let's discuss the budget and let's then move to a vote does anybody want to discuss I I have to say this I I'm trying to keep in mind what a serious budget issue we fa issues we face this year and I'm not going to go into it but I'm very concerned about where we're spending the money and where we may not have to spend the money uh we just sat through the uh the Rev valuation uh discussion and you could see there's real hurt out there so that adds even more to my concern about trying as hard as we can to not uh increase the budget so question why don't we do this as part of the regular budget why are we doing it now before we look at the budget as a whole yes ma' because it's set up by ordinance the ordinances that there's a meeting at the end of the year and that you pass your budget going into this year I it needs to be tax levied so it's got to hit you know now but I can tell you that the 6589 is stuff that you all are going to have to pay for if we weren't here that's garbage cans Christmas decorations Planters um litter removal any extra stuff that we spend on the maintenance of Main Street and that beautification side that comes out of that 6589 our Christmas decorations I locked in on a contract with them because they were going up every year like a couple hundred our Christmas decorations our holiday decorations are $1 16,7 like $51 for snowflakes you know I I actually just to clarify I wasn't talking about the big numbers the big numbers that have been there for many years I'm talking about this extra $20,000 that I wanted to get a feel from the rest of the council whether you thought that that was uh that was uh appropriate given our own budget uh issues and you know uh some of the challenges that that the alliance had last year I um I I have one comment about that council president that downtown can live within those numbers we get our budget now we pivot and and move if you don't approve 20,000 to aspac I sit on that board is a direct impact on the programming that they're going to be able to do we'll have no senior anything the any of the senior shows that we did are happening our mainstage music scho which is going to be Jesus Christ Superstar um can't happen I saw those budget numbers they need that 20,000 um but if you want to uh you know downtown will pivot and we'll eliminate something or do something different um with our 20,000 but defending OAC I think is really important um and they do a great job and that's huge Community you know support that um I think that they need yes Miss BR you're a tremendous Advocate not only for the alliance but also for ospac but I I think at this point uh I'm gonna sit down yes please yes counc if I remember correctly previous budgets there's a separate line item for OAC so why is it also included in here it's not she Wasing the discussion okay because I was confused that's she was talking about if I understood correctly it started out as the $40,000 that we annually gave to The Community House that stopped uh it split between the two it didn't stop we reallocated so it the budget did not change so it's not like we took it out and then we added back in wait councilwoman the council president was speaking you cut him off I'm sorry yeah the point I was trying to make is that that was that was a one-year thing that has now uh taken on a life of its own and uh uh now I can finish so please if I apologize I'll let you finish off no no no that's I I I just want you think that like it stopped and then we like added it back in so and I I get what you're saying but I always say these organizations the 20,000 that we put into them goes a long way it goes a long way to the seniors to our our downtown Corridor that needs a lot of pention um you could send them there's a slide here other towns get a lot more funding than we do and um and that's for a reason because they want people to come to their downtown we need you know like I said earlier we need Redevelopment we need that to happen so they could be more self sustaining so maybe in a couple years moving forward if you want to take away the 20,000 like she said she'll pivot she'll try to get another Grant but you know we have the that discussion at the at the budget hearing I just think to take it away this year I I mean it's that there she's not adding uh any anything else to our budget and that money goes a long way in her B in their budget so I G to advocate for you to keep it in there for this year you want to take it away when we get a movie studio and uh other needed uh development down there and assessments go up that's fine but now they need what they all the money they could get well just to follow up on that it looks like to me from looking at the budget and maybe I'm not looking at it correctly but we're talking about two $5,000 raises salary raises for the two people plus another $5,000 uh to miss Brill for uh healthc care so uh it it seems to me that that uh they are spending money that that uh is adding to the budget so I'm I'm just trying to assimilate all of that uh sure and she doesn't advocate for herself when she hasn't taken a raise in like five years and I've been seven years I've been telling her and her board wanted her to take that that race which she didn't want to take so here here's here's the issue councilman and my colleagues she's I wish she would have taken a race over the years and that's why my recommendation uh her uh cost of living race should be included within the you know Shamir the township side of it so whatever the 3% we gave to all the other staff should should should mirror her as well her staff um but again I'm advocating because I see the hard work I see what they've been trying to provide the community and and again I just I I'll stop there because obviously I'm closer to the situation so I'll just take a step back just watching them all these years close up i' give you the floor yes uh Council thank you council president so we're anticipating revenue from our cannabis dispensaries and isn't West Orange Wellness supposed to open instead of impacting our budget we can still give them that 20,000 but why not allocate those funds from the money we get in cannabis instead of on the taxpayers awes because it's it's going to be a tough year we're going to have to make Cuts you know and and and this is a great creative way of doing it you know you still get the 20,000 but it won't come from the budget maybe it comes from the money we get from Cannabis because we're supposed to get 2% of proceeds and when is West Orange Wellness opening they were supposed to open in January right looks like then it looks like it they're ready they said they look like they're ready okay anyway that's my that's my recommendation great idea well that revenues coming to our budget anyway how we label it but I appreciate that thank you I mean it's not in there I mean I don't know if it's going to be in there this year because we don't know what they're going to make this year in Revenue but I know they made some money last year so I think that we should allocate some of that money if we can Mr so we can anticipate some of the Cannabis Revenue that we received from from the dispensary that's open right now we've been receiving their quarterly uh St 50s along with their checks um and and we can anticipate up to what we've received in 2024 or if we want to anticipate more based on you know the quarterly data that we've been getting you know we can make uh that request to the state during our budget uh examination so yes you know we we do plan on anticipating cannabis Revenue um for 2025 so that that will be part of that that calculation like I talked about what feels many hours ago when Jacob was up here 1020 the it young um so that that calculation of you know coming up with our Appropriations and and all of our miscellaneous revenues and cannabis will be one of our anticipated miscellaneous revenues and so obviously the more anticipated miscellaneous revenues we have uh the less we ask from our taxpayers could you give us an idea of what we're getting quarterly from the Cannabis that's open your I have I I have a terrible memory honestly I I don't know what has happened to my memory so I have to look at the actual Revenue I don't have midex on in front of me but uh um I can send that email tomorrow morning with quarters that we've received but we we do that's why I said we request the st50 because uh the dispensaries have to pay state income tax on their gross sales so I say let me pigy back off of what you're you're uh filing with the state of New Jersey and that's how then we calculate our 2% so yeah I'd like num what's a better Source than you know a state tax form that they have to fill out as as the basis for what we calculate on our 2% are we ready to take a vote that's that's what I'm supposed to say yeah if I was a decent council president try and roll this salong are are we finished discussing this these issues this is my recommendation something the council is open to if that's the case we should make a motion to to remove the 20,000 if if if if I heard you correctly this is her budget not ours yeah we need to vote on her budget the alliance budget tonight so my my question to you all would be how comfortable would you be make the decision take the extra $20,000 out with the prospect put back in later that we could put it back in later if we decide to because we will have a much better yeah idea of what the challenges we're facing and by the way uh Mr zc said we will getting the budget sometime in February maybe perhaps I'll give it to the mayor in the M middle of February and then I'm sure that then we'll start setting up our our dates or date uh for the the hearings so uh that would be my motion if it's even legal and of course we don't have uh any legal representation is here tonight okay I would second that motion is on I'm here I'm here good evening Mr Tran I I I don't know whether you heard my uh my suggestion it's not yet in the form of a motion but would there be anything uh improper or inappropriate if we took out the $20,000 extra that that uh uh the budget requires from the township now and then if once we get deeper into our own budget uh decide whether we could put some or or all of that uh back in at some point down the line no other than obviously they cannot spend it they can't allocate it and spend it until it's approved okay so we could we could take out this 20,000 now and then uh decide on whether to put back in later on in the year yes again as I understood it this is the increases on certain line items or this is not the ASAC money yeah we're not talking about ASAC I know everybody else wants to talk about ASAC and I'm sure that will come up yet but we're not there yet yes so the question is in the budget and it was in the budget last year but was was not um was not delivered is if that's the proper word so it's back again in the budget this year for $20,000 can't do your fall events yeah and and that's what we're that's what we're focused on in 2025 yeah no I understand and you can remove it just I think that vote would go first to amend it you're you would make a motion and if there's a second you'd make a motion to amend to remove that item and then approve the budget as amended okay thank you Mr TR so I move that we take out the uh 20 ,000 it's called the additional I think it's called additional support Community Support F community support from West Orange Township and I second it Madam clerk yeah um councilwoman Celina I'm gonna vote Yes with the full confidence that we're going to be giving it back so I'll vote Yes because I will councilwoman G Michael yes and thank you all for compromising with this wonderful idea councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay the motion carries we have another motion now to actually vote to approve so I move that we approve the amended budget for the alliance second okay councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman council president cobak yes the motion carries okay thank you think outside the box thank you thank you all all your work BRING Recycling to the downtown all the businesses okay got it I can see a lot of size of relief in the uh audience but uh we are far from finished there's some of you can leave now if you'd like we'd love for you to stay all right I'm leaving you going to go through the you say the whole thing thank you everyone for your time yeah but and I need two worker bees from you guys to point to the lines people that want to work yeah oh that's right I'm sorry wait who we miss I don't know we set B any friends we need toan oh thank you I did oh good great sent an email yeah good good good good oh good she work yeah now yeah please do Madam Madam clerk I think the next item is the consent agenda okay uh okay consent agenda approval of minutes of previous meeting special meeting December 20th 2024 and the public meeting of January 6 2025 was there a consent consent thank you report of Township officers none reading of petitions and Communications and bids none Bill list there is no bill list resolutions or any resolutions being pulled this evening um council president I do have one for uh 5225 which is the resolution authorizing execution of Professional Services agreement with Joseph wizel as municip M municipal prosecutor um this should be pulled um because there is also resolutions on a resolution on Mr wiel uh to serve as Township attorney so until that decision is made we should pull this one great are we going to are we going into closed for 67 uh yes but not right now no we can put that on the yeah we don't have to pull it we would oh I I saying the late addition no the resolution itself the you don't pull it because you have oh I see what you're saying yeah it'll just be% agenda unless somebody wants to pull it right now I want to pull it okay so25 no 6725 she's pulling for the affordable housing oh yeah we want to there's the the list is so long uh of the resolutions do we want to uh try going through them each individual yes council person no to to whichever ones you want to pull yeah just just go what we'll do is we will we will pull them and then the rest of them will be on the consent agenda so we have to go we have to I don't think need to go through how many are there 50 60 67 67 seven so I'd rather if do do people know which ones they want to pull yes yes okay so let's just go down the line if you wouldn't mind uh councilwoman Scara I'm gonna let them go first okay because I think we have a lot of the same ones okay uh councilwoman Ruden okay um I'd like to pull 1625 1725 please just slow down just a little bit I'm sorry okay so 16 uh you're pulling 17 you're pulling um yes okay 2625 um uh 27 25 30 25 some of these I might have had answers to but um 2425 wait you're going back to 25 I'm sorry 3425 3525 3625 3725 if I could just uh just ask just to clarify you want to pull all these or do you want to ask question about some of them some of them I no most of these I want to ask questions on okay so you don't pull them for that yes you pull them if you want to vote separately other than what's being pulled off the consent agenda needs to be voted on separately so if you have questions they don't need to be pulled okay so okay then hold on one second go back um wait I want to make changes also I want to make you have to pull it yeah yeah pull it okay so we'll start again 1625 1725 2625 is all things all things I have questions on I can pull no what you should do is not if you just want to ask a question don't pull it because that adds time but if you're not sure go ahead and pull it and then you can uh okay if you're not sure whether after the questioning you'd want to pull it yes go ahead and pull it okay so I I guess saw the same numbers 2725 um 3025 okay I just have a question on 34 25 is that I have a question on 3525 yes um I have a question on 3625 um I want to pull 3925 um what about 37 you had mentioned that earlier are you pulling it or do you just have a question 37 37 um no I don't have any any more questions on that perfect but you still want to pull 37 no 3725 yes no yeah I think you might have questions on that okay so somebody else will pull one of the ones that I have left okay um uh okay so now we have all the legal ones did I want to pull um 4625 4725 4925 I'm sorry 46 47 and 49 and and 49 right um 5325 55 25 6325 60 4 25 53 55 what's next 63 25 55 you're jumping 163 yes okay um I'm sorry I forgot um 5925 uh 6325 you you want to pull yes 6425 6525 UMES okay done it's okay done all right councilwoman G Michael let's see what's left go first I gotta compare my papers okay so you pulled 27 okay have a question on that one I have a question on 37 okay that one 37 what oh that was pulled no it was not pulled so I have a question um I'm not going to name all the ones you already pulled I'll just ask questions after the um right next page I have a questions on 45 no not oh yeah I have a question on 51 53 that was pulled okay thank you 55 was pulled uh we can president councilwoman castelino well I wanted 67 I think yeah 47 I have a question on 44 okay I heard three numbers 67 is that a question or a pull we pulled it already 67 okay I had asked for that go working backwards 67 um so I have a question on 44 and the other one was FSE so I'm good yeah and just just to uh uh just to clarify on 67 we have to go into executive session yeah and then and then uh come back and decide whether we want to vote on that yes okay yeah now I realize that okay well I I was actually clarifying for myself yeah just making okay I would like to uh pull seven I'm sorry I've got I've got my notes on a screen uh has a question on it 47 has been pulled ped oh no you do okay 49 has been pulled 53 has been [Music] pulled 58 has been pulled and 59 has been pulled so ah I hardly pulled anything Madam clerk yes he seems very happy with me tonight um okay so all right so just so everyone knows that we have to take a there has to be a motion in a second and then if you want to debate it if you don't want to debate it if you don't want to vote for it you don't have to make a motion on it you can let it die you know whatever or you can make the motion do a second debate it and then vote um so it's up to you but it doesn't always have to have a motion to approve um when can you if you just ask ask ask a question do you have to make a motion first no no no for the ones that are just questions I I have a little I have it different yeah you got to do the questions before consent obviously yeah um so did we want to do the questions first and then yes please okay so let's go to uh 37257 no they all took off they they should took them all off oh they're both yeah they no they no question she said they were all answered yeah 3725 resolution not P resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation 34 35 and 36 you need to clarify that no she and then she said she didn't have any questions questions on 34 3 she said she did and then we went back and said no have question oh you said on the obsolete mail yeah okay so question for the obsolete mail was and I apologize if if you responded to me on this Chief um through uh your email chain but I did not catch it I I know that we are we are um getting rid of an obsolete mail machine I just wanted to know how we're disposing of it don't Paul I answered that but I could left my email remember was yesterday she in today and I know she yes oh sorry sorry I yeah okay a question 35 and what about 36 no I pulled it you pulled 35 yeah she no no I'm confused because first it was pulled and then it wasn't pulled and then I was told there were no questions and now we're saying it's pulled again so we need 34 is a question 35 is question 36 the question 30 36 is a poll is a poll is p okay all right so 36 is a poll yeah and okay and councilwoman gber Michael 35 question okay gotcha okay I don't want to waste a lot of time on this I just want to put it on the record for um however you know if this is big great if it's not going to be bid I just would like to put it on the record that these type of machines should be recycled I just would like it not to end up in the trash that's all I would expect nothing left from you because they don't find up the trash we have we have to dispose things proper way especially if there's hazards material that we just don't throw things to the curve okay that's why we're going that's why we're going to this process so that we can dispos of this officially with your blessing so that we take care of it great and Staples will give you $10 we can follow up how going to be disposed okay I would that's it okay that we move into the consent got it I found any answer it will be disposed during one of the recycling events the county we will not be selling as it has no value okay thank you very much no problem okay what your next question okay so 3525 uh resolution authorizing the 2024 leaf collection cost to lell and park um councilwoman gabber Michael yes so I noticed the amount and was wondering because the township is reimbursing them would we wouldn't it make more sense for us to put bid out for the landscaper and to do that work that's why I'm just asking I don't know think it's a straight pass through seems we do it they we have to pay for bailing wage okay yeah government is the most expensive way to do things so I I would doubt it I don't really know the answer to that until we bid it but um you know W Park does it it's part of Municipal service agreement there was litigation settlement from the years ago Mr Cohen he still here mentioned tonight that he was settlement litigation and um you know we're required to reimburse they don't have to show costs for um snow or leaves for their lighting they pay the uh we pay the lesser amount of electric or gas whatever it would be okay why is it that they don't have to show bill that we're reimbursing this because we base it on our street mile what it costs us so as as I think was Mr con was saying about the the cost with some of these complexes with windy roads and things like that we don't absorb that extra cost we base it on what we've what it cost us to plow and remove leav for Street monear am so you're saying that if we were to B it out it would cost a lot more than what we're reimbursing them I would suspect that it would cost a lot more than reimbursing them because again we if anybody worked for us they have the public work certificate that to be a registered business that they have to pay we have to pay them prevailing union scale wages which they're probably not paying their workers the landscapers that are looking in the B okay thank you for answering my question you okay next is 3725 resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation in an amount not to exceed $ 53,8 7054 cents to American Asphalt and trucking for emergency purchase and delivery of 4 45653 tons of road salt uh councilwoman gber Michael so it seems like a enormous amount of money for that amount of salt I understand that it's an emergency but we had an emergency last year and had to pay a lot for salt as well so is there a way that we can monitor the reserves and when it goes low we go out to bid because we cost significantly less than waiting till last minute and then going buying it on an emergency basis so so we do what you're suggesting we do however I believe this was over the Christmas Louis Reynolds put an answer out it kind of got you know one of the things you really don't know is you get freeze ups you get people calling 9 911 and say Hey you know it's frozen I just went through Mount pleas well it's a bad it's a c you know my street is frozen you know they go out and salt so it it's hard to really track when you're going to and how much salt you're going to use I think they do you know pretty good job on it but there's always going to be those occasions where we have get solved and sometimes it's an emergency are our coffers full now yes yeah yeah Louis answer D now so when you say answer that what do you mean because I don't know if if an email was sent today or there there so this is one of the things I've I've asked the council presidents and been kind up to indulgent we're going to in the future we're going to put all questions from Council through the council president so that there's one answer because you know it's just like we're just like you have questions and and your colleagues have questions on one of these resolutions you're asking it multiple questions and it's just getting confusing so we're going to have like one bu questions one sheet of answers but um Lou did answer I think it was Council Len's question about the same question you have yesterday okay I also asked him a question too that must have been triggered yeah there was a few I mean you know you can you can see the overlap when when you want to pull things you have the same questions I LED that way thank you for answering could I follow up on that because I I I'm not sure I understood Mr reynolds's explanation but I'm concerned if you said that the same emergency happened the year before councilman can you talk to your microphone I did yes ma'am thank you sorry about that uh I'm just wondering if this has happened two years in a row and this is not an insignificant marginal increase and when we have to buy this salt at the last minute but I just wondered if maybe you could take a look at the formula because it seems to me that we should be restocking not before we're running out but maybe when we're half capacity or something like that because if if we don't have to if we don't have to buy it an emergency we save a lot of money much expensive I can I can definitely discuss it with Mr Reynolds um yeah you know again I I know that there's just occasions like this was a holiday over Christmas you know so was an emergency delivery okay maybe just report back to the council yeah we can we can near future thank you can I just ask a question on that I know um this was a transition year for for uh Mr Reynolds with losing Mr Pelos um is should we be budgeting more money in this line item so he has the funding there that he doesn't to make an emergency with I mean with that I don't think it was a budgetary issue um you know the budget manag the budget will be presented in a matter of weeks and you know if if Louie feels he needs more money for salt he's going to make that known and we're put budget I think it was just a uh you know it's just an anamal with the holidays and it it's it happens I mean you just you know you use you use it in a period of time you don't expect to and then you have to replenish it and it's a weekend it's a holiday and yeah know it happens the resolution is really because of the emergency purchase it's not so much the it's not like the emergencies that I talked about where we didn't have the funding it's just for local public contract law purposes they had to go out to the vendor um because this was the only vendor that had the deicing materials available and and so that's that's why we're doing this resolution it's more the local public contracts law piece of it got it thank you is it under the emergency procurement provision correct okay okay next one is 4425 a resolution approving proposal from Matrix new world for environmental services at the property located at 25 Lakeside Avenue for long-term monitoring for Vapor intrusion investigation and njde submission in an amount not to exceed $2,960 councilwoman celino so yeah so I I wanted to just ask and just to bring to the administration attention so this is one of the first uh items for I guess the um the environmental cleanup that's going on the site that's where the proposed Film Studio is supposed to go and we where are we at with the Grant from the state is this is with this is this getting covered by grant money here and got to look in the back now capital budget so it's coming from the capital budget so how are we itemizing and keeping track of everything because I know um we're hoping to get five million from the from the state but until then I thought the Matrix was putting out the funding for any not not the Matrix developers was going to put out the funding for an environmental cleanup up front so Matrix Developers ERS essentially offer us like sort of a bridge loan um so you know where we wouldn't have the cash available from the grant they will give us that cash and then when we would get the money reimbursed from the grant we would pay them back so they're they're acting more as like a financing mechanism um we do have money actually from the escrow that was returned from the prism sale oh that's right that we can apply um you know for these particular costs doing the the the remediation or or the testing can go against that grant money um but ultimately the true cleanup is is is coming that's going to be the big you know four and a half five million Grant um so for the start while we figure out sort of what we need to do you know we can access our existing Capital um we can access that escrow that we we got back from Prism the end of last year um but when we talk about Matrix and the and the financing that was part of the agreement again it's it's more of just providing us financing it's not direct Grant um Monies to do the cleanup so you want to add to that sure um so that you know we apply for a BDA for a brown Development Area application as a matter of fact I got the letter today um it was approved so after this we will have a kickoff meeting with the NDP representative and from there from that point on then we're going to be able to apply for Grants okay the cleanup but the cleanup has been going on for years no that that I I know but I was just under the new agreement that we had since we passed the the agreement with Matrix uh developers I wanted to make sure we were itemizing that and tracking it so we know what they paid for and what we're paying for sure we we'll use them as as a financing mechanism so you know our our short-term financing right now we do Bond anticipation notes and and the permanent would be um you know a bond so if we need cash to do cleanup moving forward you know we'll access that whatever $500,000 first but it has to be paid back to them that's part of the agreement um so when we would get that money from the grant reimbursed from the grant we would have to pay back that 500,000 the good thing is though is that it's 500,000 at 0% interest so you know better than we would get in in the bond anticipation note market so it's just important to recognize for what it is it's it's short-term financing um but it's not Grand it's not like a direct contribution of like we will give you $500,000 to clean this up and no they they'd get it back from us no that that I remember and then my second request is I hope council president doesn't mind this but i' like to go back to what we did years ago with our we should be getting monthly progress reports on our Redevelopment project so we we know from Administration exactly where we're at so for example you know how far sometimes there isn't something to report um this was going back when we had Edison lofs project and um even Central Avenue just to give us some kind of update on the township projects because you know time escapes and all a sudden you know it's a couple months later and then you see something develop on an agenda I I I'd like to see a little bit of a heads up in conference agenda if we could get those updates if every no one's opposed to that no lik to see it actually I before I joined the council I read the contracts and that's it's required monthly reports are required right yeah for the contract I asked about it before I got on the council and I was I recall the answer was nothing's happening so there's no reports to disclose yeah I was going to say there really hasn't been anything to report I don't disagree with you that they should probably do that anyway send us an email saying nothing to report but it was you know to fulfill the status of their contract but I don't believe there's really been anything what about a mie Studio partner yeah that's concerning if nothing's happening and it's not that I won't tell you because I don't know who those potential partners are but they feel they've got you know a couple of potential partners and we'll see what happens you know but a time frame for us you know we need to get a little more detail from them I don't think we can they're get they can tell you that until all this other stuff is done in you know concrete okay un intended and I'd like to follow up because I was here on the council when prism was flagrantly repeatedly violating the terms of their contracts and I thought that that was part of the problem that eventually made another Council kick them out but I really want I don't know whether I can demand this or not but I really want somebody here at the township to make sure that the contract is being follow followed to the letter of the law so far Matrix has been a great partner um also just point of Interest the settlement agreement with Gan Diaz and prism says we won't say anything unored so we we will just refrain from saying they got kicked out or anything like that we had an amicable settle agreement in court with judge Moore nobody's buying [Laughter] that even the public knows I understand okay but the point is that I would like if if there's an uh that we want to do the leather of the law on this contract understand okay we want the report we want to know what's going on I understand thank you um the next one was pulled I mean not pulled the next two are questions that councilwoman gabber Michael had mad Madame clerk if I could just one more followup I know Mr tinc uh raised this issue about the four and a half or5 million I have still yet to see a single written word in any sort of official uh communication that tells us that we're going to get this four and a half or5 million and I was wondering what's the status of that when when are we going to get that it seems like a pretty big number to just be floating around out there without any anything on pap sure so so we don't have a grand agreement yet um I think the the downfield uh designation is is the start um but no we don't we don't have anything concrete yet thank you she's she say she's gonna get that back soon are we ready to go yes I'm sorry I appreciate that I'm sorry that's okay 4525 resolution authorizing an emergency appropriation in an amount not to exceed $645 7442 to Grabowski construction for emergency sanitary sewer construction to the township sanit sanitary sewer mean located in front of 546 Valley Road councilwoman gber Michael thank you you just pull up the reservations aala so just just as an FYI Miss carbal sent me the most amazing detailed logical well-written response to all of this it was just amazing so thank you I failed to share it with uh Council G Michael and uh I probably should have so we had the same questions basically it's with the it's in here oh it is okay so if you can come up and basically answer the questions I'm not going to repeat them again we had the same questions in effort save time and like a cliff note version of it because I can go back and read what if you can send it to me then I can read it okay yes I I think going forward when someone asks a question of any you know Township employee or whatever it should go to all the counil so that way everyone's on board and knows what's going on that's what Chief said he's going to funnel it through you'll come through G we the copy of it is attached to the resolution perfect the second page of the attachment okay so miss carbal is waiting for a question actually he's gonna send it to me and I'll just wait it it's fine okay yeah thank you yeah it's there you can go on to the next one k okay I'm just looking at the agenda because I think that was the only questions that we had for Miss carbal if we wanted to let her go I had a question on 51 did someone address that already no no but that's a that's not her no it's not yeah I'm just we're gonna get to that one next but if we're all done with Miss carbal can we let her yeah go thank you thank you director uh okay well there are second reading ordinances now that I'm look or first reading ordinances that she's involved in one of them for The Pedestrian safety board I don't know if anybody has a question about that oh and then the the others too I'm sorry I didn't mean to get your hopes up okay 5125 resolution authorizing execution of Professional Service Services agreement with Fernando Mar as public defender 2025 at a rate of $350 per session councilwoman G Michael so we voted on this one in the past at 350 P per session um and Mr Morin is the only one who uh bit on this but my question is um what are we doing to solicit other attorneys my understanding is that that 350 per session is a rather high for a Township of our size I reached out to neighboring towns where was anywhere from 200 to 250 per session no I understand that but are we doing anything sent out request proposals and these are the responses we get okay you advertise on social media website we adverti wherever Reynold always advertises in newspapers and whatever advertises everything else the same respons to govern for 1725 2625 2725 uh 3025 3625 4925 4625 4725 4925 5225 5325 5525 5825 5925 6325 6425 6525 and 6725 did you just double check um 49 was pulled yes it was okay and 53 you guys pulled that was pulled yes 55 okay thank you all right okay so is there a motion to approve the consent agenda second okay all in favor any opposed the consent agenda is implemented Okay resolution I'm sorry uh resolutions oh yeah yeah I know I know already said I I would like to go out of order to consider the ordinance that requires the Town engineer oh well there's a is that possible to do is that and you got body have a problem so she can go home that's first reading you don't want to hang out with us till 1 am I don't want to hang out I'm saying 230 what what number is that ordinance 2889 d25 and 2891 speed limit on Kelly Drive Great an ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 7 traffic subsection 7- 29.1 speed limits general of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange make a motion to approve second okay now you can debate or ask your questions or whatever the case may be is there any questions this is 28899 we're going out of order we're going to the orinan ordinances on first reading yes 2889 under ordinances in case there's any questions for Miss corbal oh no I don't have any questions no yeah I don't have any questions thank no questions huh no no questions for okay and this is on first reading so don't you know Panic public discussion on second but this is a no-brainer okay so councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gab Michael councilwoman Ruden yes counc Bara council president Cobia yes okay the motion carries okay oh sorry uh and 2891 one yeah 2891 in ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 2 subsection 61 pedestrian safety Advisory Board of the revised General ordinances of West Orange establishing a complete and green streets advisory committee and creating a complete and green streets policy uh is there a motion to approve on first reading make a motion to approve is there a second second no second so fails wait one second 2891 91 I I would question like to discuss it I'm sorry disc well we have to you have to make a motion in a second if you want to discuss it I'm missing it in here oh okay here it is okay so um is there a second we have to make a second want for us to discuss it is there a second yeah we have to have we have to have a motion in a second correct to continue and you're not approving it tonight you're only approving it on first reading to be heard on second reading at the next meting if you're not entertaining it at all then don't move it right exactly if you don't plan on entertaining it don't we that's how we have shorter meetings yeah exactly well I I would like to entertain this I think that overall the the the notion of a complete and green streets policy is excellent however I am can we so you have to have a second a second before we can you can still vote no you have to you have to We're Not Gonna vote you're gonna second okay that's fine now now now second meeting no I know I know it's fine I'll get the hang of it we need a taser okay um I I think this is a great plan to have complete and GRE green streets um however I have a lot of concerns about this and I would like to know who was consulted to draft this I drafted the ordinance and for this um complete streets okay I was given the sample ordinance or from other townships that have been done as well the material came from The Pedestrian safety Advisory Board and this is basically require for the township to adopt it um no later than the next council meeting in order for the township to be able to continue applying for Grants and also to be you know be part of the various awards that are given Statewide for the complete streets so I understand it's part of the Easy Pass Grant award to get this through first reading tonight and um I understand the compelling need for for being able to apply for Grants however um I think we got to do things right because if we don't do things right in this ordinance we're going to be setting up a a fundamental um system of this just ending up in in a filing drawer so what I'd like to ask you is was there any input from any other professionals or any other municipalities when this was was actually from the members of The Pedestrian safety Advisory Board I drafted this and I gave it to them to review okay they said it was okay and the different checklist that you see in here are provided from the state which are also adopted from other municipalities I actually looked at the one from from eent town which was provided to me as a sample and I also looked at the one for redb because those were the two I would say townships in which have taken the lead I will say withing a lot of the municipalities in the state to do the complete streets that is required H have you spoken with um any any municipality closer to us like Monclair which is heavily involved in this green green and clean streets I have not and and the truth of the matter is is like I don't have much time to be I'm sorry for what I'm going to say picking up the call and calling the the town CH next door who actually has a consultant on board it's not even a regular Municipal engineer like me who's on there 2 247 to pick up the phone when you call and they're not going to answer my question exactly well you kind of led me right into my key point which is that another mun municipality that is going to be carrying this type of plan out has somebody who has been hired to enact this which is really important this now is set up first of all it is it is lacking any Vision zero action plan we have already commissioned a huge Vision zero um plan and it is not in this at all so we seem to be having some redundancies we have a pedestrian we have a vision zero task which is now like kind of on we have complete in green streets we have three different three different entities basically doing the same thing which are striving for our streets to be safe and for this to be done and a zero accidents and and for this to be done in a sustainable way so I just see a complete overlap in in this um and I'm concerned about the way this is drafted so what I would suggest um is that we really do need to pull back from this draft and not go forward with this this at this point this has the mayor in charge of of organizing this whole plan actually is the one who appoints the uh pedestrian safety Advisory board and the differ between The Pedestrian safety Advisory board and the complete streets that will be in here it would be a difference because we will need more professionals to be involved in the complete streets like zoning planning engineering exactly you don't have that representation I don't think 100% in The Pedestrian safety advisory obviously you're going to have representation from the pest Advisory Board to be part of this committee as well as the council well I don't think we need three entities doing this um doing the same doing the same Mission so what I'd like to sorry say but the vision zero plan is completely different for the complete streets plan it should be integrated into this um but this is not what is as being asked from us in the state level for us to be able to participate I understand but it it doesn't make any sense to me to have this Vision zero action plan not be integrated into this in Monclair they are integrating this in other municipalities they are integrating and we've already done already done the work so it would be nice to have one document and one blueprint that we can then hire somebody maybe a direct Maybe planner to oversee this massive project because it can't simply fall on you and it can't simply fall on the mayor May the ordinance is basically so that it can be taken and taken to account every time that somebody submits an application to any of the land use boards so in that way they follow it and follow the different checklist that are provided by the state this is all taken from the estate plan right this is not a made of uh checklist nor it is the resolution the resolution is actually follows the sample ordinance that they have right but I I and tailor basically to West Orange yeah I would like it well the the vision zero was tailored specifically to West Orange so and that was through a grant yes yes but that should be there should be one one document that com that that Inc incorporates all of that um and I think that that the membership in this also needs to be re redesigned um and I'd like to just take a step back from this and if you if if the council will permit me to say that we should pass this on first reading but this is nowhere ready to go into a second reading the changes are substantive to come back to First reading anyway if we have substantive changes on it's going to come all the way back again so can I make this suggestion it's 11:15 I think that we should table this I think that councilman Ruden should work with Z zabeth to incorporate the changes and then get them to the council to see if we approve of them and get them on the next council meeting if the deadline is before the next council meeting then we should schedule a special meeting maybe during lunch at 12:00 specifically for this and it gives the councilman time to work with the the director to get because she's got a lot there's a lot on writing on here instead of us going through it now they can work together offline we can come back so that you know after first reading it has to go to the planning board and after the planning board it comes back to the council for second and last reading so right right now I don't think we're GNA have enough time to be doing all of that I'm being honest right and it is a schedule to be if it's pass here on first reading to go to the planning board on a special meeting tomorrow well this is not ready in my in my opinion however I do understand that there is a deadline in terms of the Easy Pass grants so what is the deadine is the Easy Ride Easy Ride amend amended after it passes time please just one time I was under the impression that we needed to pass it on first reading but then come just to just to be sure that we're in place with with any Easy Rise ride grants numerous emails back and forth with Miss Lee who is part of The Pedestrian safety advisory yes and also Jerry Gino who is the chairman of the board and it needs to be we need to provide a sign wrestle ordinance to them in order to be able to be part of the grants so we can't do anything until the is passed on second reading so I thought I thought Miss Lee communicated that this only has to be passed at first reading and that no it doesn't it has to be passed on second reading that's why um Miss Gary Adams who is the director of planning is scheduled us for the special meeting on the planning board and requested that this be in introduced for discussion that's tomorrow that's tomor the meeting's tomorrow well I mean I I I'm not I'm not even near making these amendments so I mean do you want me to give you all the Amendments that I have thus far um this I feel that this needs a task group to put this together because this is being put together with absolutely nobody in charge of carrying this out you need to have a hired professional in order to do this and and we simply don't we can't checklist are to be part of the applications for the land use board at that moment in time when it's submitted to the land use board that's what the land use board professionals are for you have a land use planner and a land use Engineer Consultants to do so and to carry this on and make sure that the checklists that are in here are actually how would I say this introduced into the different proposals that they might have for redevelopment or new development I understand that this needs to go to our land new sports and you want to be able to say to a developer that we have a complete streets um code and we would like to do it in a green way that I do understand but this is a massive plan that needs to be looked at in its entirety and how it affects West Orange and how it affects pedestrian vehicular everything all safety in West Orange so this is kind of I mean the point of this is not just to get a a a checklist the point is to enact it and that's the point of passing an orance you got pass the ordinance first and then it will be an act on put into place every time that somebody submits an application when they submit an application to the boards they're going to have to look at the checklist and see how they gota like comply with it and if they don't why and if they're going to ask for waivers then explain also why you're you're both right here if I can make a suggestion interest of time both tonight and the the grant deadlines is pass it nwing groups here we'll get a proposal from them to take the three The Pedestrian safety Advisory Board the vision zero this and combine it into one big task force then you have you have your professionals to put that together for you but we could still meet all our deadlines but if the changes are substantive we're not going to be able to pass no you're you're gonna eventually no matter what you're gonna eventually have to have a new ordinance and like they would repeal all three and create one oh we do at least you get this done so that thing with no minor development and we're gonna have to go back and we're goingon to have to change it right so that's what I'm saying we get it doing everything on the last minute with a deadline again this I I ho okay one at a time please okay I feel like we're that this Council and I know I'm new new to the game but that this council is getting this up against a deadline that we should not be having a huge project that needs to be thoughtfully developed and created so that we can really take care of our residents and this is this is giving us like no choice our backs are up against the wall we're going to lose grant money if we don't pass it tonight and yet there's a huge amount of work that really needs to go into this to make it right for our community but that can still be done if we do what I've suggested correct you can provide your comments and see if any of those agree with what the planning board will say since they have to also review tomorrow but this is for tomorrow I have to now get my comments to the planning board by tomorrow to get this enacted I have I have some of them I have some of them written out but it's it's substantial and I frankly would like to get a task force to to help review this and not just have gotten this the other day I'm sorry I know it's not your fault yeah we just we can't okay okay so it's established that this is totally unreasonable to be asking the council to move on this as far as I know nobody has talked to us about it nobody has briefed us right first I'm hearing okay this has got to stop this this can't be happen so I don't know safety excuse me coun I am yeah could I just finish talking please so I would like to know as we go forward why it is that we got this on such a short timeline if you could just find out why it is that we didn't get this three months ago so we could have worked on it but meanwhile meanwhile we have to make a decision uh the business administrator says that we can pass this now and then the planning board gets it and then we pass it on second reading unless the planning board says something elsewise and now he's saying that we can change all of this once it's passed on second reading when we do have the time but meanwhile that will safeguard whatever potential we have for uh grants now groups here I mean ask them for a proposal to to put together you know to fully digest and understand this they have a very limited glimpse of what's going on here but right I can meet with them explain it to them and tell them that you want to be a liaison you can meet with them and explain how you want all three of these combined into winners okay councilwoman my concern with doing it that way is that the planning board will reject the changes that we want made versus them going in with them receiving whatever revisions that com when R red in life that make sense to have so that's my biggest fear is if it passes now we come back and we do all this work and they say no well they they don't say no they they are purely advisory they look at it and they say yay nay or we have no opinion right so we always have the power to revise the ordinances exactly so if I if there's that many if you want to get the ordinance passed as the chief said then you go forward with it basically as is and then afterwards you can put together the ordinance you want and resend the other and then you know and then you have time right because you'll put that on the agenda when you're ready to put it on the agenda planning board just because I said on the planning board we make recommendations these are their only recommendations you can take them and say no we totally disagree or maybe they got a point or something in the middle it doesn't you know it doesn't matter it it it it if it's something that you feel strongly against the planning board says hey we want you to do it so I move for a vote now and uh to vote to pass this on first reading Madam clerk okay councilwoman celo yes councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman scar council president kovak yes okay the motion carries so that will be sent to um Miss Adams tomorrow morning can you go home now miss carbal oh yeah yeah 26 25 no 266 and 30 and 30 okay uh if if with the council's leave I would like now to address and 35 uh 26 and 25 have we passed the consent agenda yes okay so let's take up 2625 no it's yeah 26 25 30 25 oh sorry go on right I I I want to get Miss carbal home as quickly as we can so so so uh councilwoman next councilwoman Ruden you pulled this 2625 resolution authorizing professional land surveying and Engineering Services for the ltpf uh fiscal year 2024 NJ uh do Local transportation project funds Valley Road Union Street Nassau Street and Wheatland Road improvements to Greenman Peterson and the amount not to exceed $7,495 is there a motion to some of thank you second thank concerned about this resolution because it has no special protections for the trees that are on the street I know that there are not that many but I've counted every single one of them and I would like to see that every single one of those trees be saved and that they be designated in this contract not only do I want all of those trees that are there to be saved um but I would also like to request that um that additional trees be planted in this area and that that there be specific language in here that says that you will reroot the sidewalks come out do whatever you can to save the trees we've lost so much canopy and um and I know that in in previous times we did this kind of road work and trees were removed and just simply not replaced and frankly after after being party to what happened on Lincoln Avenue to our residents I really don't want to see that again and I want to make sure that there's very specific language in here I'm also um there there was something else that we discussed tonight about an emergency that took place on Valley is part of Valley now fixed and repaved yes that would make some of this uh that would affect part of this resolution to make it two different streets this one is for South Valley Road the one that you're speaking about about emergency repairs Valley Road so it's not on the same no different all right it's a different that's fine so so my concern is that there' be very specific language in here that designates protection for the trees okay just like I answered to your email I will rorate none of the trees are on this sou Valley Road Project or nasau or Union Street or Woodland Avenue will be disturbed first of all there's like I said literally no trees two the curb or the few trees that are on the road are far away from the curb therefore they're not going to be disturbed I don't know if you been in the area but there is literally no tree I I counted to may I please finish to award a professional Contract Services I cannot tell in here anything about the removal of the trees that's been taken care of in the specifications so in the specifications we will put language in there based on the assessment that the Forester will do as to which streets are viable and which ones are not also we keep atomized items for RO barriers and also for any tree planting the two projects that are under construction last year and will hopefully be finished this year which are the 2024 Phase 1 and phase two both of those contracts has over 200 trees on each contract so we're going to be planting 400 trees as per the contract and the same thing will be for the next contracts to come every single one of the contracts that I've been working on I started working for West Orange I've been putting in there replanting and even uh some trimmings as per the recommendations of the Forester and I do give him a set of plants and he goes out in the field and he does his field work and he comes back to the office and he gives me the list of the trees that need to be removed and going back to the Lincoln Avenue trees I was provided an assessment from the Forester of which trees needed to come down because they had some sort of disease I am not an expert when it comes to trees and I do the best I can to protect them during construction and like I said on this one there's literally no trees that are on the way or anything that will be damaged and if you notice if you go to South Valley Road the lot are very small there's literally no front yards on these properties the area between the face of the curb and the face of the sidewalk is less than three feet that's the reason why there's not that many trees planted in this for we will plant some trees and I will speak to the forest on to which trees can be allocated in that small area Okay Okay so yeah I I don't I don't want to relitigate what happened on Lincoln but we do have a resident who was deeply affected by that but we had promises from the Forester that trees would be saved and then and then the and and we had the number we had the count we had the residents and then on the day of the of the excavation something something changed and and I understand why he changed his mind I don't understand why he says something else to you all I could say to you is this I was provided with a list and the plants were marked up by him and that's exactly what it was put on the plants and on the tables for the removal of the trees and in the specifications like I said I am not a tree expert I've never called myself to be one I could I can differentiate between a red oak or a regular Oak to me their old trees so you're you're you're saying that all of the trees on Lincoln came down because the forest are design ated that all of those trees should come down what did he call the uh root Rod that was the uh that was the dis well he's here and we can we can we can ask questions but what I would like to do is I I did see the trees I marked each one down I can can we put in in this report specifically these are the trees that we would like to save we would like to have any any work around that is possible to save the small number of trees and I do do believe that there are two three four finish please six seven eight eight trees that that are there right now and I know that's not a lot but it's not nice to to you know decimate a downtown area we're not going to be removing the trees like I mentioned to you they're far enough from the curb line in order for the contractor to excavate and for the curry then would it be possible just to put this in the language to make sure that this doesn't happen I just like I said it will be putting these specifications at the time the project will be going out to bid which will be probably next year because we got to the sign a year in advance when it's put in the specific I mean what we're seeing right here seems like the specifications because you're talking about um no these are not specifications I'm sorry to interrupt all right you're talking about roadway curb sidewalk there's not one sentence in this that says that this contract is intend is mandating to protect our trees in accordance with our tree ordinance and to you know and to make workarounds for our sidewalks is that request for proposals it's not a set of a specifications first of all second of all that is done throughout the design process throughout the design process I might say physically go walk the roadways okay with the de to see what improvements needs to be done the infrastructure meaning the catch basins the inlets are the heads in compliance are they actually block inside this basins that need to be reconstructed and I made the decisions as to whether or not some sections of curb need to be replaced or not also at that time Mr pip is given a set of plans of which he will go on his own and walk the streets up and down and see which streets are viable or not he tells me that X number of trees needs to come down because they have some sort of disease it is his expertise not mine so the Tre will be Mar coming down since it's not viable and it will become actually a hazard to somebody else and it could fall and cause damage but I am not going to put it on a request for proposal because that's part of the design process in the engineering project but aren't these the aren't they going to be designing based on this yes but like I said Mr K will mark it up on a plan for them I don't need to put it on a request for proposal I don't need to give them the ordinance well my concern is that you know there are companies that are more Adept at some of the newer techniques in terms of road construction and there are some that are going to do it very old school and that's why I specifically want to attract companies that know about some of the newer techniques every single one of our engineering firms and they're all like big firms they all have professionals within their team that know about trees there are like Architects planners Engineers if there need to be an specific or recommendation from the Forester it is put into the plants I I I want to make sure not that they know about trees but they know how to preserve the trees and how they know how not to cut the roots when you're when you're doing road construction we had so many trees that were Mr K goes out there and he has actually worked with our contractors okay lifting up the slap of the sidewalk putting it aside okay to evaluate the roots of the tree and to see whether or not it can be slightly grinded and then put it back so that we don't have to damage any of the RO root of the trees we've been doing that my job is not to be taking down trees that is not what I'm aiming for my job is to make sure that our infrastructure is safe for everyone to be able to live within the township and if I need to plant trees I do it I've been doing it since I started working for West Orange every single one of the projects that have from last year every single one of them no lie 200 trees on each to be planting and you could ask the Forester it is in those specifications and all the other projects that are coming out are the same way thank you Miss carbal I just want to interject here it sounds like from what you're saying is it doesn't matter to the ultimate objective that of council councilwoman Ruden to protect the trees so that if we can trust your word what we vote on tonight is not going to impact what eventually happens with the trees unless and let me be clear unless our Forester goes out there and tells me that they're all diseased right but he won't be doing that now no he won't be doing that tomorrow after we vote on this no he will be doing probably this probably I would say six months from now because once this is awarded then we'll provide the PO to the uh consultant then they start doing the surveying work which will take I would say probably a month at least and then after that they will like start working on the concept plans on the existing conditions and then after that I will meet with them in the field to go over the different improvements then it comes back to me and then I give it to the Forester for him to do his own assessment at his own time and evaluation I I think I speak for the council we have a great deal of concern about protecting trees I think we've made that clear to you and so if uh we trust that you will keep that in mind as we move forward when it gets to the spec uh uh the spec stage that's when we're going to need I think the details of the trees and and whatever and to ensure specific language that you would like to see on the specifications feel free to email us yes yes seriously just email it to me and we could introduc it into these specifications I do it all the time even with our purchasing agent there's some stuff that come out and she sends me some of the language obviously sometimes I revise it a little bit here and there but we put it into the specifications because the specification has a section within that set of specifications called instructions to bids so we could put it in there that would be tce just to just to follow up Chief fait sir it seems to me the the key issue the key relationship here is for the council or at least Miss Ruden to review Mr Kip's work before trees get taken down is that something that we could ask the administration for access to Mr Kip's uh evaluation before any steps are taken to uh to take down the trees is that something that's acceptable to the administration or to miss Ruden hold on a second I listen all that's a public record if somebody want to file an OP request for they could have it so that's to start off there's no reason you can't have that I can't convey to the power to the council or any individual member of council to say to our forest or no I don't agree with you that tree can't come down if he says it comes down then it's gonna come down I don't know if that answers you fully or gives you everything you want but yeah that does not that does not fit what I think I I legislative body Miss kle okay we're legislative we we're we know we don't oversee dayto day of of the staff I mean they get your what you want what you support but at the end of the day you know he he makes the call not not us okay I'm I'm going to leave this fight to the specification stage and uh I think the council's all aware of miss ruden's leadership in in this stage I'm G to move to a vote and we'll see where we go Madam pler okay please uh councilwoman celino to approve yes councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes and to be to be addressed the motion is carried um okay and then the next one is 3525 resolution authorizing the oh no I'm sorry I keep 3025 3025 resolution authorizing the rejection of five bids received for Lake Vincent walkway improvements Council mman Ruden oh I'm sorry is there a motion to approve on first um motion to what number 30 30 five bids oh um 3025 a p not a l but councilwoman you pulled this yes I I know I pulled it I I wanted I wanted to understand why all five were were rejected sure all five were rejected because the township decided to apply for a grant which I believe is a stewardship Grant which is one of the Green Acres Grant we're actually applying for three Green Acres grants um I would say within a week or so we're going to be submitting the application so before we could go out to bid we're going to need to go to Green Acres Program and ask for their bid approval that is common when you get a grand for example anytime that I have to go out to bid with an NJ do Grant I need to submit the plans and specifications to do for approval the same thing goes with the cdbg grants so Green Acres is no different so in order to be able to take advantage of the grant if we are indeed awarded then we're going to need to reject the bids and rebid the project and this project is actually going to be in two phases the first phase will be the Vincent's walkway which is going to be done with permit by rule and then phase two of this project for Vincent Pond is going to be the dredging of the pond okay so is there any flexibility since this was approved before I came on is there any flexibility in changing what will will be happening in that plan in at at degman uh at degman Park are you still going for creating impermeable um walk around the the lake because that I am concerned about that creates more flooding that um is it's you know I don't I don't see that as a great project for for degman Park and I also think it it it directly conflicts with what we're trying to do in terms of um moving into a discussion that we haven't gotten there yet in terms of helping helping resolve our um geese population so would you consider a different project other than putting in Hardscape around the lake I am going to give you my professional opinion as an engineer the township is going for this as a permit by rule by njd what does that mean that means it's permit by rle I think is either 40 or 42 I can't remember exactly vers one of those two it basically says you don't have to submit an application to njd for approvals nor pay any fees for the application as long as you basically change in kind what is there already what is there already is an HMA walkway asold right now the conditions of the asold is pretty much in this repair very B very much we have received numerous emails regarding this issue which is the reason why this went out to bid now if we could do it with grants great we will save that money or if we go over with the dredging then we could utilize the funds that are already allocated for this project so that's the reason why it is not up to me to change it if you want to use prvious pavement you we going to have to pay now for the design of it for the fees to ngd which I will say yes no I'm just saying if there is another plan that we could present to create a different look around the lake that would not create more impervious coverage can we use this this money to do something else to beautify that area and to make make it lovely for the residents without creating impervious um pavement or fixing it I know it's there right now but but do we need to continue that it's not going to be creating any impervious surface or it's not going to be creating any more runup that is exist already I personally think this is the best way to like go with the township wants to fix this as soon as possible that he can because the truth of the matter is anything around a lake anything around a river has a repairing zone so you we want to minimize the amount of time with the permitting also with the fees to the to the agency as well as with the professionals understand that making this project with prvious material will basically trigger us going to njd and asking for permission no I'm not asking for per uh for you're saying for changing this and making it perious has to go to it is not up to me just to if it was for me sure let's make it a pervious material it doesn't make a difference I could even tell you like let's make it like you know like the track that we put like on on on the high school and everything around it because it's soft it's nice it might last a little bit longer but unfortunately it's not up to me you got to look at also like the different like NDP rules and regulations that are out there this will be I would say the path of less resistance to get the walkway around the pond fixed so that the residents won't be how say this tripping tripping yeah because the roots of the trees have actually done that in some areas others is just it's been too long so it's basically as theep calls it a replacement in kind the same thing can be done when you have a pipe that let's say it's a metal pipe right and it discharges to the river when itch charges to the river it starts to erode when it erods then you could change it to a concrete pipe or a plastic pite as long as it's the same size and elevations wise you don't have to get really a permit you could just apply what it's a permit by rule and put it on the specifications uh Ruden you're finished yes C and I appreciate that your creative thought process but that part of the pond and you know if you've been to the Toby cats house which I'm sure you have been you park in the back you don't realize a lot of times when there's a larger event you're parking at the high school and you're walking across that path which you know I'm we've been very fortunate that someone hasn't broken their ankle or and whatnot um so and I don't believe in all these years we had any flooding issues from the pth that Pet's been there 40 years 40 get 50 years since I was a kid I haven't heard of any issues of the actual path around or this area in Vincent spawn really like flooding yeah yeah but I do know for a fact that the residents at carteris Street do flood which is one of the reasons why as face to of this project is the Charing it's more the charging and that will help the flooding situation so miss carbal just to summarize what you said the grant the the way we want to move forward from here with the grants require us to basically replace what is already there yes so we can't if it's if it's impermeable we can't put in permeable you could put it in it's just a matter of having to have the understanding that you're going to be spending a lot more money a lot M more time and more time and more money and more time exactly is going to definitely delay the execution of this project okay all right any other questions all I have a simple question why is it titled Lake Vincent instead of Vincent Pond walk away this Brer was already I would I say in existence by the time I came aboard so I I really can't answer this okay Lake Vincent that's the real name the real name is Lake Vincent name at the Vincent family that was used to own property up there thank you so much for clarifying people be that guy should be answering the question Mr Fagan he's after your job but we can't take a 10 minute yeah we don't have that kind of time is always correct okay are clear are there any other questions no please call the vot okay councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay the motion carries okay now you can go home thank you so council president I do want to point out we do have another employee in the audience and he only has one item that he was requested to be here so maybe in consideration for Mr Kip we can get him up please please gonna suggest that next he's sitting there bright orange all night all day workout before midnight we get him out of here have mrdo what is the uh 1725 is one yes thank you so is there a motion to approve on first reading some second wait it's not first reading it's it's the resolution sorry I second it resolution okay okay councilwoman Ruden pulled both 17 and 16 I don't know whether you want to yes I did um okay okay voted on 17 well we didn't vote yet just made a motion motion for 17 I thought it was 16 so yeah okay can I ask okay councilwoman Ruden are you starting with 1625 yes okay I just want to read the title so people in the public know what we're discussing resolution authorizing I'm sorry resolution awarding and extension of contract in 2020 for an additional one-year period to Rich Tree Service Inc and downs Tree Service uh for emergency and Non-Emergency tree services right so you know I I kind of have to look at this as as a grouping because between the two of these contracts um 16 and 17 we have spent almost $280,000 on trees and I know that 90 of them were large large trees that were removed and the rest was done for pruning so um actually we pruned 7 6673 trees and we removed 9 stre right I can't hear you say that number again 673 trees were pruned 90 trees were removed and the 90 trees that were removed were all hazardous trees okay so some of the some of the trees were in the woods behind somebody's house like four trees were in the woods behind somebody's house do we typically do that uh if it's a hazard's tree to their house yes we do it's our Woods it's our land okay so could we save money if we had employees in the township doing this instead of Outsourcing this I don't know not close one at a time please one at a time have this expense every single year and this is a lot of money going out so I'd like your opinion on that my opinion a town tree crew needs to we need to have a down tree crew uh right now we have one tree gut we should have like two maybe three total um and they do they do go out and do they like a resin call and says hey this tree needs to be pruned years ago they do it or this tree hey this tree just fell down on my property and clean it up yeah they do it uh the contractors are designed to for us is hey go out and do a woodland gold the prune the all the trees on Woodland or prune all the trees on pritz Randol or0 or wherever they like they prune streets like they'll do 80 90 trees on a street they do about 20 or 30 a day and we can't get close to that we can get 5 10 you know do it a day proving so the contractors do it a lot faster and they're a lot more efficient at it because they do it all the time and they have the equipment we have a very limited amount of equipment uh that's why we need the contractors uh we and we have a tree inventory now it's not complete we've got about 10,000 trees inventory um about 1,600 trees need to be pruned in that inventory that they found the outside vender inventory the tree and about 400 trees need to be removed because they're hazardous I'm just telling you the numbers from the what they've given us to so far in the inventory uh we have about 5 to 7,000 more trees to inventory we're going to get a grant for that uh we also need a program to manage this large um tree population we have here in town also the tree inventory did not cover any property that town owns Parks buildings Lots uh along the streams uh which we don't we haven't got any inventory on that we're not going to get the inventory on that we're just going to get the inventory with the tree Street trees uh and also to for my to me my job be a little more efficient uh and a little more scientific in the way the trees are deemed hazardous we should have a tool that actually looks on the inside of the tree so I can tell if the tree is hollow how much it's Hollow how much the strength loss is there's a whole calculation you go through and that's how you determine really that's really how we can determine what's I'm inside of the tree as we get as we go to the doctor they don't just look at our skin and say your skin looks good you're fine they look on the inside where right now we can't there's no mechanism for looking at so that's one thing and then we have to get a program which is the other thing to manage our inventory so we can create work orders and reports and all that do you think it would be helpful to have a larger crew inhouse and you do have some of the equipment and you're waiting on getting a chipper I understand we ordered it just hasn't arrived I'm not sure when it's so I mean we used to have a very large we used to have yes and and we have very small right now and we are Outsourcing all of this and you could probably be more responsive to some of the problems that we have in our tributaries if you had an in-house in-house staff doing this yes so we' have to have equipment we'd have to get more equip a little bit more equipment what could could you manage with when the when the chipper comes if you chipper truck we would have a chipper truck and a chipper which we we have the chipper but we have a chipper truck we have a bucket basically we can do pruning some small removals not big gigantic removals right now we don't have a stump grinder it blew up but it's 30 years old yet had expect do you need to have a Tripper if you can bring it over to the recycling center every tree company has chipper it's just more efficient you just chip the brush you don't have to stack it on the back of a truck and then drive over drive 10 loads over where you get five loads chipping into the most people chip the chip the brush because it's more efficient there therefore you get more work done okay well I mean we get these kind of this kind of a bill we're probably going to get the same bill next year if we had if we had workers doing this would it save us money had lot we've uh we actually rever we used to take lot trees down when I first uh was taking care of the trees we took many more trees down than we did pruning now I flipped the schedule uh last year about even the two year I mean 2023 were about even as far as removals and we had a catch up on our list and prunings now we've gone the other way it's like a six to one so we're pruning six trees to every one tree we're taking down that's good are you are you um notifying neighbor when trees are coming down in their neighborhood I notify the resident at the trees in front of so they have anytime they're just anytime they do anything like pruning or removal the neighbor always gets notified to have I mean the resident always gets notified to not have the car in the driveway not Park not park in front of this house you know be out of the driveway basically because trees are right usually right next to the driveway are so big but we do not notify each neighbor um unless it's like right on the property line that I'll notify both residents uh no I don't need notify but but I can that's not a big deal I can notify with people around the tree not a problem um but I do that right now uh as far as planting goes we do mean more money for planting we don't plant enough trees the Decades of us taking down trees we've never replaced and spend you go to some streets they don't have one tree in maybe one or maybe two some of the streets they don't have any trees on we've never never got money for planting not enough money because if you did the the 90 trees we took down just that just last year we should plant about 90 times for 360 trees that's how many trees we should have planted back to replace those 90 trees that we took in if you did by the town tree or what we're making the residents do we would have had to plant about 33 360 trees and they also all the other thing is with the trees we're we the reason why it's a little bit more than it should be you know on the on the on the planting you know how the planting is a little bit higher it seems because we let do smaller trees this year because I'm putting in root barriers so it doesn't affect a sidewalk the root don't affect side it costs a little bit more money we put the dot specs also in to uh the do specs of the tree plantings we put them in and so made it a prevailing wage job that's why it's a little more expensive the trees uh that's we had to do that because we had to put these specs in for because we're doing by the road I have a question yeah um once we take down these trees and we're turning them into chips where is where are those chips going chips always go to our Recycling yard okay and they recycle well there must be a lot of chips because we've been taking down a lot of trees are can we sell that those chips maybe and makes money to buy morees the Recycling yard uses the chips to make mulch and they sell the mulch are we they're selling the mulch why can't we sell the mulch there are trees we can't make mulch we don't have we don't make can we get a cut cut how much yeah would again not a lot probably not enough I'm just thinking we get a percentage in the last contract we awarded we made sure we got a percentage and residents get free mulch and resents get free mulch to get whatever I just would have lik to make that little profit Center if we could oh okay one at a time uh councilwoman celino so thank you um very knowledgeable um but you mentioned a lot of money money money is this all getting configured is there plan are we going to get presented some of this in our budget uh I've talked to the chief about the risograph we talked about it already about the the treat yeah I believe the money in the tree fund can be used and before anybody gets upset about not planting trees with money from the tree fund we put money back in that could be replenished okay so this will be a good budget conversation and then also the arbor Pro System that's meant to manage the trees like if I wanted to pull up every tree on I could do it I can take pictures all the pictures will be in there all the tree pictures will be in there what what what is recommended by the contractor that inventory the tree that's how need a tree inventory system it just doesn't you can't manage it any other way because there's so much yeah so many so the program would be put into I know who he put it together or yeah guess you're you're you're superv whoever no got a bit I got a price for it it's like three grand but you get it and all the trees will be downloaded in it and then you'll know what happened 10 years ago you'll know what happened to your tree or it got replaced or got pruned or if it got removed it got removed repl it with another tree so it's it's a management tool that a lot of other all the other townships are using and also the one thing I wanted to leave you with I skip my questions of course but there's another thing I like to tell you about we have to write a community forestry plan which I know you guys have heard of I'm sure I did write one but it's not the only reason why it couldn't didn't get approved is because we did not finish our town tree inventory we have to finish that first in order to get community Forest PL and then it also opens up grants for plantings tree removals tree prunings tree care like treating the trees if they need to be fertilized or something and planting so it opens up some up for more grants we had the community Force plan in place we can't get that in place until we finish our tree inventory okay thank you Mr Kip this is very eye openening one final question can we do without the services of these outsourcers what we're putting together the plan for the town to do more of this for we've got all these we we've got these two resolutions to basically extend the contract I'm just wondering if we don't extend the contract and we don't have these guys we would have to the there's another the when the most important thing is the emergencies okay can you do emergency unless we extend these plans no thank you and also also the other thing is say if a a resident called up and said this limb fell down and hit my car and we want it pruned the town we we're opening up for liability because we we know about it and if something else bad happens another thing happens we've had a lot of accents over the past years I've been here Tre by cars we've denied every claim just about because we weren't notified but we just the tree inventory now we're notified so that's that's the problem it's opening up to lawsuits sounds good I move to a vote Madam clerk okay this is on 1625 I'm sorry excuse me just a second change this amount wasn't it okay uh use it I did I thought Miss Ruden was finished but she's not could you I would I would like I would like to um know in the interest of of of tree preservation I would like to cut this budget and have you come back to us when you need more and to reserve this money mostly for emergency care and if the township can start taking care of more of the the pruning and again if if if it will help to have Manpower please let us know because I'm more in favor of rebuilding your department rather than continuing to Outsource this uh the other thing is just so you know trees are on about a fiveyear maintenance plan so every five years you have to put them again so if we have 15,000 trees that's 3,000 trees have to year council president if I can interject to the council please you know we we're putting the car before the POR if if we don't have the money in the budget already we we haven't done the budget to to say that we're going to cut this in half we don't even know what we expect this year because we have had some trees what if we want to go in that direction we can build a plan and present it to you and then you can say you could Sport and stuff like that but just to say that we're not going to do this we may have emergencies we don't know about we have had some claims with trees coming down and things of that nature and to point out too the last year the the previous Council approved to expand the the DPW by six members the director actually asked for more but it was agreed upon to go to six um and we're still filling those positions to get qualified people so it's not as if we can hire somebody overnight that's especially in a in a specialty as trees we're H we're requiring CDL Drivers to get to drive the the equipment around but that's a specialty we have one one we've hired one person that and Mr Kip helped helped U helped us find this individual who was a tree climber so I would just caution you that if you cut this in half we're either going to come back and we're going to ask you for more we're guaranteed I can guarantee we're going to give you more I believe that this is the resolution is more of it's we're using them we pay them as we go so and we we can we're crafting a budget for you so I'm just giving you not going out and chopping trees just for the sake of chopping trees we're we're we're we're maintaining and we're pruning out responsibly and I and I believe Mr Kip is was organizing that so I'm just giving you my two cents of what I know from what we've been doing that's why thank you I'm sorry I don't have the resolution in front of me does it have a not to exceed these two do they have not to exceed Clauses no there's a a a contingency in there it's not to exceed the budgeted amount so whatever this Council sets is the budgeted amount for 25 that is not to exceed um this these two resolutions are designating uh vendors to be used for these services and accepting their rates as laid out in the bid specs um so if we don't use them the entire year we pay them nothing um but this is just making sure that we have these vendors available that we have assigned contract with these vendors for the year and then we can utilize them as the tree expert the Department of Public Works director uh c fit how long have we been using these vendors and how are they selected these I can answer that question uh buer has been here at the town since 2009 they've been doing tree trimming tree Mo stum ring uh uh riches also been here since uh 2014 I believe and down SP since 2009 so are you happy with the quality of the work they've been [Music] cutting our top guy as far as getting treees done e you the amount of money for these guys when we get into the budget process correct so so we could do it there so that's where we can do it that's where we can do it Madame clerk I move for a vot on uh 16 and 17 okay all right we'll do 16 first e got three people we got three people who want to go to Executive session now because it's either we make the public weight or we make vendors waight session was on the consent agenda so we don't have to vote on it that's not a that's not urging I'm sorry come back Friday do this you made a wait all night I think you're right no two people waiting One on Second so we are now I'm making an executive decision we're going to go into executive session and we will try to be out just as quickly as possible resolution 67 with you okay is there a motion to go into executive session so second all in favor I any opposed okay the motion is carried thank hello again West Orange uh we are in executive session and we are now ready to vote on what we were in the executive session about which was the way forward uh to comply with the state's affordable housing law in the fourth round what's known as the fourth round and uh Madame clerk I forget the 67 it I I uh give me yours if you want to keep your note I want to move a vote have we have we already uh uh moved and seconded no okay do I hear a motion to introduce second to approve to approve I'm sorry sorry to approve Okay resolution 6725 is there a second yeah second thank you um councilwoman celino I'm have I know this is gonna pass so I'm gonna protest and vote now councilwoman gber Michael on the process on the state councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak I empathize with councilwoman castelino but I'm voting yes okay the motion carries okay so good night thank you yes thank you all right so going back to page one resolution 7-25 resolution appointing Janice Gary Adams zoning official as Municipal housing liaison council president you pulled this yes um do we you need to do we a motion oh sorry yes yeah is there a motion to approve I make a motion to approve okay is there a second second thank you uh this is left over from the January 6th meeting and uh I just wanted to pull this because uh councilwoman Ruden and I sat for about two hours uh several weeks ago speaking with uh M Janice Adams I mean Gary Adams sorry it's very late and uh I was just amazed at everything she has on her plate yeah and I I feel very strongly that she has very important duties uh as a zoning officer and as the head of the department and I think that this is not a good use of her time so I just wanted to pull it so that we could vote and see if anybody else agrees with me okay does anybody else have anything okay with you council president move to a motion all right I mean to vot yeah councilwoman Celina um I'm gonna abstain because I I I I I mean this is a again this isn't our we don't manage the staff the administration does so I'm gonna abstain okay you're right we don't manage but we have right to vote yeah yes I know hey guys guys we're not talking about just please councilwoman gber Michael said no oh councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman Scarpa no council president Cobia no okay the motion fails okay next is 2725 resolution authorizing the township of West Orange to apply for and obtain a grant from the new New Jersey Department of Community Affairs for approximately $100,000 to carry out a project to laf lafette park fo foot Court improvements in West Orange is there a motion to approve I I'll move that okay is there a second I'll second okay and councilwoman Ruden you pulled uh yeah you pulled this yes um in 2017 there was a Green Acres Grant um that was exactly the same project and I'm I'm curious about why are we now uh applying for a DCA grant for the exact same thing it's going to cost more than the 100,000 so is that additional Grant could be I would we should add Z or director yeah the grant maximums are $100,000 for the uh local Recreation Improvement Grants um that's all that they'll give you um so we're I guess applying for the maximum yes um can we because we need direct kho can we table this until the next meeting is it time sensitive it's time sensitive because the the uh the grant applications are due on Friday is there some way that we cannot get time sensitive Grant application so that we can ask questions yeah take a lot of work you'd be surprised because even like with the downtown grants you get sometimes like 10 days this isn't intentional that we're trying to hide things it's just unfortunately some these are time sensitive we we have we just got a report today from our our grant writers you know Grant dates that we're coming out so we just we have to get to these things as we as they yeah sure yeah I have knowledge of the project you know I haven't been recently I didn't ask about it because I'm familiar with it but there's other other items on that whole site so it's not so the grant that was approved prior to this there's a the updating of the playground um there's a a run for uh a lot of people were walking their dogs over there so there's a a mini Run for the dogs there the and and to the engineerings engineering to the recreation departments um oh God it's getting late uh to their credit they took a baseball field that hasn't been used and is now utilizing it uh for that entire neighborhood so this is what they the activities are at that Park and uh you know this is 100,000 isn't nearly covering so are we do we have to match or anything is there any matching that we have to do uh this I don't know so there's no there's no local match required um but we'll match it with you can match to show DCA uh you know that you're serious about the project so it can it work in your favor um but we're not we're not telling them that we're we're matching this grant just asking for the $100,000 no way we don't see the specifics of what this is requesting in 2017 they requested um artificial turf um there was a huge budget for soil and fertilizers 144,000 so I mean it's it's a grant but do we have any any input into what this project is yeah yes we'll have to prove it we have a whole design or deny it can deny it I think going forward when we get resolutions like these it would be very helpful to get a copy of the grant so we know yeah exactly what it is going I've asked for that before too I'd like to copy of some of these things are like this thick I mean get it all through you if it's online SC just well it it I mean it sounds like a duplication so that in unless I know what your what this is covering it literally has the same name as the 2017 Green Acres Grant so what did it what was it it's Lafayette Park futel Court Improvement you and I were on the counil then yeah yeah but I didn't even know what fil was now I could I just cut cut it short is there anything we need right now to vote on is anybody need any more information because let's vote on it if we get it the the path forward is is a lot more time a lot clearer great idea counc president okay I move a vote coun councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman carpa council president CIA yes and if I could just ask when you get these grants it's not a month or two advanced notice just send us an email and uh because we can't act on it until yeah we see it so might help Madam Clerk and can we get an update if we do get the grant yeah I I would have had the recreation director if somebody had asked but nobody asked to have them here so yeah um 3625 resolu Sol olution approving proposal from mcer Associates regarding Appraisal Services for Rock Spring Golf Club is there a motion to approve so so MO is there a second second okay councilwoman Rudin you pulled this the appraisals the this appraisal yes okay so it was $5,000 more than Henrick and um can we rebid this so that we get closer to Hendrick's proposal price it wasn't the it wasn't the result of a bid process was it I think that the uh Town engineer just there there's not a lot of people who or groups that do these types of surveys these are specific surveys for these Green Acres with these large Parcels um I my assumption is that um Mark Hendricks who does Bas he's basically our um Appraiser for the township work we needed a second one it's probably why we got a better price from him because he does you know we're a regular client um and the scheme of what this cost it's not that significant but um you know again this stuff's all time sensitive so I mean it's like you know go out and read advertise you know might be another month and I believe director Galo said to me and I I I'll can confirm with her but the reason that the one is a little bit more than the other is that U Mr Hendrick had actually did an appraisal before so he had some of the information this this company has to go out and obtain more doesn't have the same data that he Mr K Hendrick had already had on fil so for him it's a little bit more cost efficient because he's not spending more time out there doing the appraisal that was that was the difference in the price yeah I forgot that okay Council are we ready to vote Yes Yes councilwoman C yes councilwoman gber Michel councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa council president kovak yes the motion is carried okay 3925 resolution authorizing service agreement for goose control technology uh is there a motion to approve so move second okay councilwoman Ruden you pull this yes I did um I know that we've been using Goose control technology for 20 some OD years um and I realize that we do have a uh residents that are very concerned about the effects of the goose so um I've done some research into this and I would like to suggest that we pull this contract and move with a different company that uses less let me just uh less inhumane ways I think that we as we as a um what the heck is that that we are we are working out okay that we as a community have to show kindness to animals and and and reflect our values as a community um and there is another company that does the same addling in a uh way that has been approved of by the North American Humane Society and um for the same price I would like to suggest that we move to uh to use a different company I realize that you know that's changing a contract that's been in place for a very long time but we also have um been in discussion with u Mr fanino um about ways to reduce the costs of this contract um that don't include harassment and or gasing techniques which unfortunately we have been using um and I'd like to I'd like to stop those practices um so geese CH geese Chasers um as I said is is um recommended by the humane society it's endorsed by it and I'd like to just change vendors so I'd like to vote no on this contract you can vote no but you can't specify another vendor okay because it's your legislative that's the May prog so I I appreciate all your concerns I I I I was supportive of amending the language but not at this late time changing the vendor um especially not without a recommendation for Mr fono um unfortunately I mean this is also a health hazard to the community so I don't want to mess around with it especially not this is time sensitive that that this has to get done and passed um so I I'm you know I'm supportive of looking forward in the future but we we got to get moving on this so so um just may I respond yes please just just to answer your concerns I do think that we can um make the same time commitment in terms of of doing the same project um that goose control technology was doing minus the removal of geese um and um I think that we can meet meet the same deadline I just would like to withdraw this contractor and and still still um do the addling of the eggs in a more humane way well the I if I could the contract has been around a while and when I came on to the council um you guys probably remember yeah I I was uh against it questioning this and it turns out that that the uh Humane Society as you pointed out uh sees and has for years sees the addling of the eggs but I'm also very concerned that if we don't uh add all the eggs and and we're talking about moving in a different direction long term and uh but for now I don't want the uh population to get out of control yeah but we still we still will Addle the eggs I I just do not want to continue forward with this vendor the only thing I just want to add I don't know if IT director fono and I had a conversation today and I don't know the whole answer but he told me that what you're paying for now we have to apply for this permit through the US fish and wildlife um authorities back in October yes for this year don't I don't know if it's for the specific vendor and do we have to go out to the next vendor I don't know that answer but we we did apply in October to get this done now so that and I and and if the council one wants to go forward with another project we can find that answer out tomorrow but the problem is if we don't award this how there is a certain finite period of time we have to get this done or otherwise addling doesn't make sense can't get it we could we could bring this back at the next meeting with possibly a different vendor this is um um under the um required bid number I forgot how you say that it's under the thresh I don't really know why it's it doesn't need to be on a resolution it's under the threshold so I would just like to go with a different group that um is recommended by the humane society and this group is not that I don't know I don't know that I know I know they their techniques are approved by Ruckers that I do know I understand but there are I don't really want to go into the specifics of how they do it and and what I've been told but there are Kinder ways that can do they them with oil they shake them yeah and if they necessary they they puncture them they put them in a exactly and those two things that you just mentioned that I didn't want to mention are not not Humane ways of doing of doing this there are other ways to do this yeah I watched them for a few years I never saw anything else other than oiling the eggs that's pretty much it from what told me out with them it's it's they they put eggs in water and if they float yes if they float they're ination so you can't do that have leave this has obviously not worked because they have also used the removal and gasing techniques so obviously whatever they're doing is not 100% working so my suggestion is can we try something else while still accomplishing the goal of the director tell you we We remov Them gas because I don't ever recall us ever doing that I know but it but it has you Lang from push now for CU what the director told me is that he worked with you diligently he he listened to your directions he removed everything out of the contract that you requested he he he complied with what you suggested he did and he did do that and so that and he said as of yesterday everything was was a go because we have to get this going and then he said you you spoke with somebody in Montclair today or yesterday and now all of a sudden we want to pull this and he is on a timeline he he presented to this prior to last year and he did this so now at the last minute you know we're we're pulling this and and we it may not be enough time and I I can't answer that for you because he's not here but it's it's under 175 if the mayor I'll discuss it with the mayor if she wants to stay with this company really doesn't need a resolution under 175 it doesn't we're talking about only $3,000 why don't we even ever get this because I asked Mike the same question he said because that's just the way it's always been done but we have been spending more than three just so that you know because because of the the discussions we we we pulled it back and that has eliminated the the worst of the techniques but I still think that there's a better way for us to add on no and I appreciate that so so if I could uh before uh before I call on you why don't we uh why don't we just Mo motion to table and we'll bring it back at the next meeting and said he was on a timeline or not they don't even need to bring it back the point is if I'll discuss it with the mayor if she wants to go to a different company we'll do that it's still going to be under 175 if she wants to go with this company we'll do that it's under it's still under 175 right my question to councilman Ruden is you said that the amount exceeded the amount in the resolution how much was spent last year in total if it's over 175 we could put a not to exceed no they the um they have been spending uh about 72 to 77 in the past two years um which shows us that they were doing more than just the addling which is only 3,000 so they were using other techniques in addition to to deal with the goose population I don't want to make that assumption I'd rather the health director spoke to that we have we have the invoices so I can I can show you the invoices of what was built but but but does it say what they did does it say they removed they Gass them they they removed them that's their te of what they do when they remove them they're not they're not relocating them they're taking them and and you know little ducklings that are bought that are should just call the vote at the end of the day whether we vote Yes or No the Administration has a right to go ahead with this company because it's under the bid true it's under the threshold so I you know what's call the V 1 1 am yeah councilwoman castalina so I'm gonna I'm gonna vote Yes but I'm gonna also ask the mayor if if there she could switch it out she should do so okay councilwoman gber Michael no councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman Scarpa no council president kovak no okay the motion fails um okay 4625 resolution authorizing the execution of a professional service agreement with Wen Goldman and spit sir to serve as bond counsil for the township for 2025 at the rate specified in the agreement is there a motion to approve so move second okay councilwoman Ruden you pulled this yeah just I just had one question on on this one it said in in Clause number G it said that if a bond sale is held and and all bids are rejected or the sale is cancelled this agreement is terminated prior to to the sale of bonds the fee to be charged shall be a reasonable one that's too subjective who determines what is reasonable that's what they've used in the contract which is why inv typically the legal department would yeah that reasonable is well shouldn't shouldn't we specify what reasonable means absolutely know on this and if we can't get a response tonight we should table the other contract was written poorly too i' I've never never had an instance where we went out to bond and there were no bids and then wasn't rebid um it's just never happens because the bond Council usually they take it's agreed upon percentage of the total sale that they get um so for something like this to happen would be that we go out to bid we get nothing which never ever happens and then we just totally decide to never pursue going out for the bond again and and they've put a lot of work into the ratings and all that um so they would they would probably bill us for the actual hours that they work I I would say that's reasonable um you know and itemized and every every attorney you know TR their hours uh I would say that would be a reasonable um payment the bond Council the hours that they put into the ratings call and and all that goes into into that so so I I'm supportive of our bonds Council and is there any way because you know I do plan to vote Yes for this is there any way to appease the councilman that we can remove that lingo like strike it out of there or you could obviously our special Council often get a rate of $225 an hour so to Mr DC's Point they'd have to document their hours and then that is probably the reasonable rate if that was the way it was calculated how long does it usually take how many hours because it also says in point number B that for services rendered in preparation of a bond an ordinance fee is $600 so can we cap it at $600 if the if it no no Mr dinc explained this scenario um this is totally different than that that is capped you're absolutely right but this would be a bond issue where they didn't get the percentage which is what I think Mr just explain right so there there are a lot of hours that go into it like I said there's there's calls with the ratings agencies calls with the financial advisor there's a review and and preparation of the official statement which is voluminous marketing there is a lot of time that our professionals put into a bond sale um but as Mr Tran said uh this this is talking about if we did not go forward with the bond sale for you know reasons that were mentioned before um and this is a protection for wo L to receive payment for all those services and and and I agree the the special Council rate that we've set forth you know is is suitable I think for their payment okay so wait there is a special special counsel rate you're saying so can can you put that in because there is no special counsel rate in here is that a separate or uh no I think that's I think that's a fair request I think that we can add that in and say that would be the rate under this again this is never happened in in 20 years so um but but yes I do think councilwoman ruden's uh suggestion does work and accommodate this uh highly unlikely scenario so what would that rate be $22 an hour they don't have but wait special Council 16 he's 165 for special counsel in other places ask can we can we make it 165 well again we we we get we'll have to ask lens it's up to the the the firm whether they want to do it at that rate I don't know the answer I think that yeah because I don't understand why we would pay more if the let me look at the agenda sorry there's so many papers here um one moment I have to find it special counsel oh it's and there's there's another one that's 175 and and Antonelli ker is 200 uh for waer so again this is based on rfps special counsil it's 165 wait wait wait one one at a time Mr TR please finish no no again the the special counsel rates are based on the RFP submissions and so they they they vary and they varied everywhere from 175 to two and a quarter I'm looking at the agenda and you can see Antonelli canther is 200 um at special Council for the labor matters and 165 for the ABC prosecutor so those those resolutions are I think they already were adopted on the consent agenda I think the point is you can't impose on willin right if you could just hold on Council has the floor my question well really more of a comment is that if you look at Labor Council it's 200 and if you look at special councel rate for the same firm it's 165 I don't see where our special Council rate is 22 225 we have paid up to $225 again you can put any number you want in there if the W firm doesn't want to do it I guess they will make that clear to Mr JC and you'll be guided according you know they'll they'll take whatever steps they determine to take so again this is such an unusual circumstance as Mr dinc hopefully um hopefully Mr Johnson will say it doesn't matter so that the lower rate will not affect him I can't speak for him in section F of just just a second Chief was trying to talk I was just explaining that you can't impose on will like $165 so like caners charge different amounts for different Services it's all special councel it's not the term special ABC Council special councel labor Council special coun so we paid up to 225 that's what I think Mr Tren was explaining if we said 225 they probably if we say 165 they might say no we don't work that cheap I don't know thank you for explaining I think that's where the confusion was in section f um they they do talk about services rendered beyond the scope of those described above and they they do put rates out there for $135 for the pargal and Blended rate of $215 for the attorney um you know we could we could go back to that in the event something like this were to happen um and then you know they would total all the hours that they put into the bond issuance and and and they could bill us at that rate um as opposed to the sort of sliding scale of the actual Bond issuance in the 50 cents per thousand and all that sort stuff so thank you Mr detc and then on that rate it should be the 215 an hour then right and that's already in the agree I know but I think we should clarify the lingo before we vote on it because there it isn't clarifi that one section Council Ruden mentioned instead of saying a reasonal about it should be changed to 25 an hour based on Services Bas it's in the section before so I understand the issue is a reasonable amount pass it at that that amount can be anything we don't what is reasonable so either we remove line or we I think that includes the time oh hold on hold on please finish yeah so again when you read it it says reasonable rate that's not defined and if we vote on it that way that rate can come back and be anything so I think that you should be transparent and very clear and either remove that lingo or insert the 215 an hour that's all I'm let put 215 an hour Mr TR did you have something else to say no no I I think that's fine I think that's fine and don't forget no matter what all these bills come before you on the bill with so if there was an issue of the hours of the time then certainly you would have a right to review them so I think the 215 is is um is is verget we have to make a motion right or are you just gonna change it you I I think again if if Miss Carnival is okay just again read the resolution with the amendment to $215 for any of any of these uh we'll call them extraordinary Services thank you mov second oh we're doing we're taking a vote on that to amend okay uh hold on okay sorry councilwoman celino on the amendment yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman council president kovak yes okay and then on the resolution itself councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michel councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay the motion carries now wait till 4725 resolution authorizing the execution of a Professional Services agreement with Fox Roth's child to serve as labor Council for the township uh at the rate specified in the agreement is there a motion to approve Pro so second okay councilwoman rud and you pulled this no well I'd like to say something last last thank you council president you know Fox Roth child has builded a lot in the last couple of years um and last year I think the majority of the Council made it clear we did not want to retain them I understand that it's pending a decision from a judge but in the event labor is needed we have our labor Council that can jump in and fill in um so I think that we should call the vote else can I I would agree so so um you know Fox brought CH buil a lot but that was the co litigation so I mean that's kind you know they they got paid for the work they did um I have no complaint with anelli and caner with doing the contracts they've done the contra conts for for years um box Rothchild was much more expeditious at getting back that's just a fact um I had a case here in the township where uh a male employee female cohabitant children in common couldn't get an answer for three months whether they were entitled to medical coverage or not I had a case last week where um I had an immediate suspension of an suspension of an employee I needed labor advice immediately I got a call back late this afternoon this is Fox Ro child I'm getting a call back in an hour so I mean this is what I'm dealing with you know there not enough time in the day it's 1:12 in the morning now and I'm waiting three months for an answer that's why I want Fox Will child on my understanding is that litigation those fees be incurred we shouldn't incurred even half of it when the Civil Service came back and stated that they were in the right the officers and firefighters we should have stopped right there instead of continuing to appeal it continuing to Bill but that wasn't Fox Ro child's decision that was mayor pes's decision I mean they're getting anthon caner would have done any differently if mayor Pari said the an I want to appeal this I want to keep moving forward with this case they would have done it and they would have built us thank you for explanation Chief please call the vote council president is there anybody else uh have any comments well I just want to clarify last year and again Mr can jack I believe Fox Ro child got you approved the contract of $20,000 that's all fault Roy Tri got last year they did very little Services last year it was all transitional to Antonelli caner so there was that that Co is years ago um those old bills and and I I I called the senent of the chief because we we've had a relationship with Pro Russ for years my previous career here my current career here um they're very responsive and they they assist us tremendously so so I support that this also being put up can I ask a question so I thought this didn't pass last year they came back a limited contract work at $20,000 I believe Mr T can check that's what was their number but Council be interested in giving them a limit nope no okay let's move to vote please councilwoman celino uh I'm gonna vote now councilwoman gber Michael no councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman scorpa no council president rovak no motion fails okay uh 49 925 resolution authorizing retention of King mench and Collins uh as labor Council for the period of January for 2025 and at an hourly rate of $175 for partners and Council 150 for associates and 85 for paralegals not to exceed 90,000 is there a motion to approve what resolution is this 4925 so MO mov D thank you second thank you okay councilwoman uh Ruden no no no questions so this oh okay does anybody have any comments let's call the vote on 16 councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michael no councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman scarus no council president kovak no 4 to one the motion fails um okay let's see 5325 resolution authorizing execution of Professional Services agreement with bazer law uh as municipal prosecutor at a rate of oh I'm sorry I passed I skipped one okay I I think we have to pass these ones first remember we talked about because yes yes so we have to hold these two right now oh B is there too B is there because Mr wle is being put up for municipal attorney Municipal attorney no I know he is and so Mr bellaz there is after Mr W if oh oh oh okay I didn't realize okay sorry all right uh 5525 resolution authorizing execution of Professional Services agreement with Florio Kenny Ravel uh to provide services a special counsel at an hourly rate of $175 for attorneys and a retainer of we should take this one we should go right to the municipal turn say because oh okay I got you glorio is also so we should go right to we should go right to 6325 and then we can work Way backwards okay 6325 resolution authorizing the execution of a Professional Services agreement with Edward Florio to serve as Township attorney is there a motion to approve uh uh I will I will move okay is there a second I'll second okay uh councilwoman Ruden you pulled this yes I it I didn't want it to be part of the consent okay so you wanted to vote on it separately yes okay got it I think before we vote council president and I was going to I was going to suggest that I I uh have spoken to some of my colleagues and what we would like to do is uh take advantage of the mayor's offer to interview the three candidates but in this particular case Mr Florio uh at some soon soonest date maybe we could set it up as part of executive driveing I mean executive session uh and and if and and uh uh so I want to make that motion that we table it and uh then we seek to do the interview and I'm going to suggest this for all three and uh open to a discussion I'll second that well we've already seconded um want to discussion yes so I think interview all three of them right not just Mr FL that's right but we we can only talk about Florio because that's the resolution yes so I think all three should be tabled do due to my reasoning is due to pending decision from the court you know both the mayor's and council's attorney filed motions and it's imperative that we wait to hear from the judge before we vote on these resolutions so that's where I stand um with these three any other comment just on 6325 that's what we have to vote on yeah no I would like the interviews I would like to be inter anything else so what Madam president oh I I I I don't know where you got the request to interview them I'm not interested okay that's fine in interviewing any of these three candidates councilwoman scar there's a there's a court case right now okay Madam clerk this is for a motion to table correct please okay councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden um yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovia yes okay motion to table carried 6425 I assume the same thing is there a motion to table correct I make a motion to table and again for me to do a pending uh decision from the court and the filed motions from each of our attorneys and it's imperative that we wait to hear from the judge before we vote on these resolutions okay and is there a second second who's talk t e e get their names they're my hero smart okay so Mr Tran are you there I yeah so so do we need I'm here now it was the audio went out I I I texted Mr vagan all right so the Mr Tran if the resolution to approve uh Joseph wizel for municipal prosecutor is approved tonight um and then he's put up as Township attorney can he resign from the position and take that position absolutely okay okay good so I'm of that then okay I second it okay councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman SCPA council president kovia yes the motion carries 5325 resolution authorizing execution of Professional Services agreement with bazir law as municipal prosecutor at a rate of $500 per session is there a motion to approve so I'm gonna say should we table that or yeah I mean or do you it um I think we should Reid it hold on hold on Mr TR your thoughts please no no I I there's no reason to act on it you just filled the role of prosecutor so unless there becomes a vacancy there un or unless somehow the Administration has decided to have two prosecutors I don't I I think this L's moved no okay okay all right well I have to call for a motion and if there is none then so move no no a motion no we're not gonna move oh we don't have to vote it down you don't have to vot time okay so you want to resend that council president yes please thank you okay uh 5525 resolution authorizing execution of Professional Services agreement with Florio Kenny Revel to provide services a special counsel at an hourly rate of $175 for attorneys and a retainer of $225,000 is there a motion to approve same thing okay see I think what and again I deferred to the business administrator I think the business administrators idea here was to have conflicts councel so that so that I think that's what Mr abbit had in mind in in I wasn't involved in any of these interviews or discussions but that's what I was told so I'll yield to Chief abbit so yes I was actually gonna recommend Mr bellaz there for the conflict Council but he's not on resolution um something I kind of wanted to discuss with Council to see if that's something they wanted to have that gentleman here um to serve as a Township uh like sort of like an assistant uh attorney because there's been instances where you know maybe Mr Moon's had conflicts and really neither Mr moon or Mr Jenaro have any need the reason to be here they work for Mr TR Mr tr's the township attorney they're not the assistant Township attorneys that hasn't been replace since Mr gaser left so I was considering to see considering speaking to you to see if you would want Mr bazer as conflict Council um if you want to use Mr fio instead because that's on we can do that uh the the $25,000 retainer is a no-o for me so me too no for me so um we would have to negotiate something with Mr bellaz there because that's his contract is for municipal prosecutor so we would have to um come up with an hourly rate he probably gave an hourly rate in his interview and his submission but is that something you want do you want somebody like that here in the interim or we definitely need a conflicts Council I I personally would like to interview the person that I think we all shouldn't yeah we'd all like to interview we definitely need a conflict counsel for the reason that you just cited I can have Mr beler come in to speak to you about rone well probably wait wait hold on M Mr TR please go ahead again since I do not believe and and again I I'll yield to Chief Abit if he has different recollection I don't believe that was in the list of RFP services that were put out so my feeling would be the better way to do it is put it out again collect the resumés again the mayor nominates and you have viice and consent so so again when the mayor does that process and nominates uh again unless Chief Abbott you have a different recollection that we put that out and that that was one of the posts I don't believe it was I I'm not I mean I see that Mr fio um uh no applied for conflict Council so perhaps we did ask and I don't know if Mr Belair put in for that or not I'd have to probably go back and look but um maybe you can clarify do we really need to do an RFP on a um a professional service if it's you know an attorney an engineer or so on again our administration every Administration has always put an RFP out in order to call it fair and open under the local public contracts law that is the process that the last three Mayors have always filed and we filed it in November so yeah no I understand I just didn't know if it was technically legally required it's not it's not required especially if you're under the bid threshold but you never know that going in so again why don't we look at the RPS tomorrow and see talk to Miss Reynolds I think for tonight especially since it's clear the council will want to talk to whoever the mayor puts up that we should defer it for tonight but that's just that's just what I would say right now let you say it if you want I'm going to recognize thank you Mr trank uh councilwoman Gabriel Michel please thank you who who do we pick for special count just to yeah an and cancer what was in the consent agenda it is resolution number 56 so we already have special counsil at 165 an hour yeah I I think I agree which is where I got the 165 an hour earlier when Mr Tren mentioned special counsel the rate I thought he was referencing the 165 that's where the confusion was earlier so we see the only thing I I'm I'm worried about again if Miss Carnival can look at the actual resolution because as we know antonell caner is dealt with ABC matters and they've dealt with labor um so just check it to make sure that there was one generic RFP uh Mr TR for special counsel period and um that is one of the firms that put in for it so okay so then so then Antonelli ker that was adopted on on the consent agenda is it they got approved already the say h Zoom fell asleep hear us Mr TR I can hear now I can it's going the audio has gotten worse as the night's going on but I can hear you now okay um Mr Drake I don't know whether you heard this or not but just to paraphrase the chief he was suggesting that we have both a conflicts Council and and uh someone to serve at the uh at the council meetings go ahead I'm sorry again that person has always been the assistant tent attorney was for 20 plus years that role was not filled when Mr CER left so to me those decisions should abide your new town ship attorney so as soon as you choose a new Township attorney hopefully that person will then you know confer with the mayor and then present and you'll have advice and consent with regard to that role but until you have a new town attorney you're where you are yes so in the interim as the chief was suggesting could we have a special Council that serves both to uh help with uh advice related to conflict of interest and then also the same person would be serving as the uh uh the replacement or the a in the town attorney role for Council meetings it doesn't make any sense it's not that's not done according to ordinance we cannot hire our the Assistant Attorney right no excuse me for interrupting but I just Tred to clarify we're talking about not an assistant Town attorney we're talking about a special counsel who is hired to uh help with issues of conflict of interest and as someone who can attend and advise uh at Council meetings I certainly have no oppos that it's up to the mayor and the administration but I certainly have no difficulty with that process that I feel crazy asking him for that advice I'm not mean f you know and to his credit he's very professional give thank you Mr no I I have no problem with with that at all and now it's just a question of picking the person so again that that is for the mayor to submit and if for the time being that is a role that Antonelli canther can play that's certainly something I didn't want to interrupt the the council woman thank you council president and you know Chief I'm honestly confused by what you're saying and Mr Tren because you know when we wanted to hire an attorney we were told we did it the right way you know then all of a sudden the mayor filed a motion so I think that none of this makes sense I think we should wait to see what happens um and and if so are you gonna let us pick who we want from the RFQ list no no it's not the way it works that's my point that is my point so we get interview anybody it doesn't make sense we shouldn't pick an assistant attorney without having a municipal attorney I think things are being rushed right now and I don't think it's appropriate to to to do this right now it could be done tonight anyway it was only to discuss to see if you want my takea away from this is you want Mr Tren to stay as the township attorney that is not the wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait we need to step aside from the litigation and just talk about what's going on now I I uh I appreciate we put up three candidates yes you tabled them that means Mr I mean as long as every them for specific reasons I didn't say you I'm just saying that that you understand Mr Tran is your town attorney I was trying to get you somebody else in here to help everybody out but we're not going to do that that's fine I'm I'm perfectly comfortable with that all right can we move on I'm leaving okay um so we're on 55 five so I don't know how you want to handle that um do you want to not make a motion at all no motion motion well no you don't have to make a motion if you don't want it that's that's fine does anybody want to anybody want to make the motion special counsel okay 5825 resolution authorizing the execution of a professional agreement with willin Goldman and Spitzer to serve as Redevelopment Council for the township for 20205 I'll make a motion okay there a second which number I'm sorry 58 development attorney there a second really we're not goingon to the rate's too high they're in the middle of film studio this is your attorney that is working on the film studio so now you're gonna start all over again you don't tell us please please let her finish please you're gonna start all over again and you're going to pay for what you think you're saving to to get somebody up to speed so it just doesn't make sense to me but I guess we're not serious about a film studio so before we we try to move forward we need to see if we have a motion uh to approve and a second we had a we had a I had a motion so we there's a motion on the floor may I just say something uh you really are not I need a second before we can debate it yeah if you don't have a second if you'd like to if you'd like to speak motion to uh we can still vote you can still vote the way you want so just second okay um SE SE no you have to make a second if you want to have a discussion okay nothing no I want speak okay so obviously there's no second BS could be real helpful for the film studio yeah that's great 592 2 resolution authorizing the execution of a Professional Services agreement with Blau and Blau as the special tax Council for commercial properties for the township for 2025 is there a motion to approve to make a motion to approve thank you is there a second hi this he's out too yeah okay uh that's it for the resolutions ordinances on second and final reading an ordinance amending certain terms in chapter 5 Section 35 of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange uh is there a motion to introduce on second and final reading second council president Now's the Time for public hearing there's nobody in the council chambers do we have to vote first we already did that yes to V we have to vote oh yeah I'm so sorry yes councilwoman Celina yes um councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden I'm sorry I don't know what we're voting 2888 to introduce on second and final councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay now is the time for public comment there is nobody in the council chambers to comment so we open and close public comment right and then any com public hearing I have no comments nothing from anyone I I just wanted to I just wanted to describe it just in case uh anybody uh uh is uncertain it's the township of West Orange has amended has proposed to amend certain outdated terms such as sexual preference and has replaced the same with sexual orientation gender identity and gender expression right is there motion to approve on second andal to approve on second and final reading sir second second any discussion no we already have that was before that or whatever so confused councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa council president kovak yes okay the motion carries 2 ordinances on first reading 289-2259 ordinances of the township of West Orange Banning popup parties I I make a motion to introduce reading okay okay thank you councilwoman celino yes Council gber Michael councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman barpa council president kovia yes and I just want to thank my colleagues for supporting this this is something that has been an issue through throughout many neighbor neighborhoods in the township regarding parties events and other gather other Gatherings wherein attendees of the events have purchase tickets or RIS bands for entry into residential homes within the township um the purpose of the section is provide recourse for Township of such popup parties occur in the future and to put public on notice that the same or prohibited as a health and safety concern for the general welfare of the public so I know there was a lot of residents um I've been in touch with that wanted it you know they weren't going to come tonight because it's our first reading and our meetings take are very late but they're very grateful for us putting this the one of the 13 yeah yeah they could be they could be uh I I have some questions about this I I uh I submitted I submitted these questions uh as as part of what the email I sent to the the administr but I didn't get any feedback now so yet so I wanted to just throw these out because if we can amend this now then we can still pass it as amended uh I just wanted uh to raise some issues that I thought I saw in in the wording uh I I saw a type up but that's not a big deal uh the ordinance's uh uh reference person in its prohibitions and would it be a loophole if the ordinance doesn't include the potential for a corporate entity that might own the residents and or advertise or put on a okay because it could be an that owns the property okay for uh the power to authorize or is authorized to shut down the actual party you get to the the police get to the party I I just and try to shut it down this this could be overturned in court I think we just need an uh you know a a line that says says Uh there's a section of the ordinance that says who can enforce this ordinance uh and I think we just need to add a line that just says that they part of their enforcement is that they authorized to shut down the party or maybe we just give it to the police and the zoning official I I I don't know but thought there was four of them that were able to do it the police the health director the zoning director the code enforcement where is it I can't find it enforcement right here Township Police Department the health department the zone official the Township Fire Department their agents employees officers or assigned shall have the power to enforce the provisions of this ordinance but we don't say shutting down the pop-up party is is part of the enforcement I don't know I'm asking you chief chief aboc because I mean I guess Mr Tren would have to apply on the legality if it's a substant of change but I would think if you want to add you know to immediately um shut down any such party something to that effect I fine there can they can they issue a hefty fine right there or take the proceeds that have been collected so far including the alcoholic beverages you should have the fines onct me if I'm wrong Mr dinc on a resolution would the fine be in resolution form or in ordance resolution probably we all the fines and resolution weever update them it was easier but but I think I don't know that certainly the police department always has the obligation and the right to act in the public safety so I don't have any problem and I agree with the chief that it's not a major change if council president you want to add uh to take all steps necessary and appropriate to ensure the public safety including but not limited to um you know immediate cation of the event that works for me yeah good definitely I just had one more uh issue too um in the ordinance you can see the prohibitions against advertising against renting loaning a residents but do we do we also need to specifically prohibit a person entity from operating a popup party should that be one of the things you can enforce the the ordinance doesn't say that specifically it talks about advertising like three different places I don't think I think there's no downside to adding that council president so I would suggest that it's it's it's a worthwhile Amendment okay is that something that we can is that something we can amend right now so we can yes approve the amendment okay yes because it's consistent yes madame clerk yeah do you want me to read back these could you send it to me tomorrow in an oh I would be happy to that would be much easier yes but you might as well read it into the record too okay uh prohibitions okay uh the first one is uh the ordinance references persons person in its prohibition uh and we believe that it it uh should also include language for the potential that a corporate entity uh might own the residents Andor advertise Andor put up a popup party what says any person owner it's actually the issue is Corporate entity there's person about there's person the problem go ahead I think it should be both but keep in mind um council president we don't want the we'll call it the operator to use the term use or the principal to use a corporate shell to get around their liability so it should be both okay okay next Point um just clarify where we can find the minimum and maximum fines f i NES well that that's why what I would recommend is we say here the maximum fines available uh yeah but because it is it this is an important issue that's currently um before the Appel Division and uh we recently W I sent all of you a copy of 115 page opinion uh from the spe Court ESC that upheld our position but this is an important issue so uh I think thank you uh I think we also need to add um uh specific language that uh as part of the enforcement the uh Personnel authorized to enforce it also have the power to shut down the pop-up party Y and then the last one is to specifically prohibit a person or a corporate entity from operating a popup party so I think we need a vote I have two more oh for those and then I I have another amendment oh I'm finished with the my proposed amendments all right so can we do all the Amendments and then vote I think you could do all the amendments in one vote um Madam okay so so Mr Tran on um two two places uh one under prohibitions D exemptions activities Gathering and or events that may cons constitute a popup for the under this ordinance shall be Exempted where the proceeds for the same shall be used for any Bonafide charitable organizations licensing so I I guess what I'm worried about is if you're doing a charity event at your house which is fine but I don't want it just to be an escapegoat to get around the ordinance like what if somebody makes a 501 suit yeah because anybody could say their LIC their LLC in state of New Jersey would they have to be permit can we have them get a permit or if they're if if you're 501c3 as you know that's an internal revenue code section you are an approved nonprofit so you know and so I don't know how you can draw that line if if you're going to start to make people you know I'll defer to the chief but if you're going to start to make people get a permit in order to have an event differentiate somebody that is getting that status yeah that's a I don't think to go to the chief's analysis Chief has spent as much time on this as anyone um this has all been for profit you know I'm not saying that it is impossible somebody could contort a nonprofit for and we've obviously all read things in the paper but I think for now and I'll defer to the chief the issues we've been having around town have been people trying to make money doing this not trying to have a gofund me because someone you know there someone there's some Calamity they're but when we put this into into play here they're GNA a turn to any loophole they could get their hands on take the loopholes out so if if you could you know again it's late at night if you could get us a recommendation to I guess the problem we're gonna get into is you know you know as we know religious organizations also so are we going to start to say that a religious organization could not do an event I kind of think we should I'm not saying that uh I kind of think we should address the problem that Westar is currently having and if we find there is a difficulty with people trying to you know find a loophole then let's address that then after the chief the chief could come in now and bring in reams of paper and testimony to show this issue has existed uh with regard to for-profit I don't think we've had that I'm aware of yield to Chief again instances where people have been having you know a church or synagogue event uh that has created this type of um no I'm not worried about that well but that's what you can't once you start going down the road of nonprofits so Chief I Chief I don't know if you're still there but you have to I wish I weren't but I am so I see you so I I assume your eyes were open all right I'll have to do some do you agree Chief we should address yeah I mean it's I know what you're saying once you start allowing for certain exceptions then becomes a runaway that's a loophole and and kind Mr Tran are you finished yes I am thank you council president I think we thank you it's legitimate like a 5123 it's it's fine easy it is to make hold on hold on again Council woman has the floor thank you council president I hear you're coming from Chief I also agree that we have to be careful of loopholes the issue is we know I hold on let me just wait for that to pass the motorcycle I have witnessed one of these popup parties and I've had trouble navigating through neighborhoods there was garbage and filth everywhere and my issue is if we have these loopholes and and and make exceptions what happens that these very same homeowners or whoever's throwing popup parties at these homes now says oh this is a fundraiser for ex this uh nonprofit or this charity and then if we exclude them we might open ourselves up for litigation so I think we have to be very very careful people will find loopholes if we have loopholes in there yeah we got to tighten it up and and the other yeah so can we just get that out of there or yeah just take it out can we do that on second reading it's not a sub of change okay so so you're deleting the words any place where it talks about for profit I can't hear repeat that please repeat that Mr TR bifi CH so you want to delete the words anywhere where it talks about for profit and and it it's anywhere anybody charges money for anything right whether it's for profit or for nonprofit is what you're saying that's a change okay I hear you okay and then um an event Hall and the definition of pop-up parties excluding commercial establishments such as licens restaurants bars or other event halls like I know the um the thefw thefw but they have a liquor license there do they not M CL BFW oh no the the El does yeah okay you can't you can't use this ordinance to try to regulate all right we'll go from there I'm just thinking about some and well she's thinking about we've been having spaces pop up yeah that are not official event halls and and chartered event halls that are actually we had to shut the one down that just popped up on Washington Street so so what would you call that unsanctioned I think you could I think you could use this ordinance in one of those locations they're it's not it's not a permitted use you know these event spaces I know what you're talking about but they're but they're serving and selling alcohol without ABC license well that's a whole another another issue but um just the just the pop-up ordinance I don't I don't think you can do I don't think it has to be a residence doesn't say that does it I think we have to be careful with event spaces because that's their bread and butter they make money off of events um I don't think that they should be included in this I think this main thing is for residences I don't think we have any legitimate event spaces in town right we don't we don't have an ordinance for them so we we don't have event events no I thought there were several in town that opened there's been a couple but we been they're not yeah what about the C Center might shut down well that's okay okay all right we'll go from here we'll see what happens we can always amend it yes we can always amend it problem yes so I need a a motion on the Amendments I make a motion on the Amendments second second um okay councilwoman celino yes councilwoman de Michael councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa council president kovia yes thank you okay um next is an ordinance amending chapter 2 section 57.1 2 and six General um sorry open space and Recreation committee and trust fund is there a motion to introduce on first reading so move second this is ordinance 2892-2 correct uh councilwoman oh is there any discussion yes okay go ahead so um I think we need to make an amendment that the new appoint that we have to make these appoint these appointments starting this year in 2025 I think that's very important where did you want to put that wherever I'm I'm not an attorney so wherever it's appropriate in the ordinance but as it's the new year and we're still making appointments to boards we should this should take effect for this year and we should make we should appoint folks to the commission for this year are these already filled I'm just curious I what positions like these like this this is what the open space and Recreation yeah there's on it there should be no appointments now because would be for myself and Council I plan to reappoint my appointee he's I think he's doing a great job on there I just I think it should start for this year and we should set a precedence we shouldn't right but but I mean your your dis ordinance is removing two of the mayor's appointments has she filled them do you know I I don't know I can look there's no schedule for 2025 meetings and the last posted minutes were from August 2023 so there should be but she may have appointments she can always reappoint them she could you're removing you're removing two of appointments I'm saying when I'm asking the question I'm asking I'm don't talking this fight I just want to know is is does anybody know if the mayor has appointed people I I it doesn't really matter because these appointments are for a year yeah so whoever she appointed buyer is no longer everybody she anybody this month right I'm saying did she appoint anybody this I don't know would that have to go through the clerk yes yeah and I just I mean with the council and the mayor but I [Music] mean can reappoint years no just so that we have the opportunity to have the flexibility a lot of people that don't work out appointments already then she made them she's in compliance but or would be if it's amended and voted on so what how many people will be on this committee now there five each one buys the count each member of the council may all appoin and consensus appointment so how many were there um I think there were [Music] nine and these these again the these committees serve at the pleasure of the mayor so they can advise and consent and bring items to the administration and it's going to be up to the mayor to implement them I mean I I just I I don't know I just think taking stack in the deck from the mayor I think isn't cool but you guys I don't remember seeing an email on it I haven't seen anything on the open space commission other than this year other than the this ordinance to be honest I don't think so because normally when the mayor makes an appointment the clerk will email it to the council when any of us make an appointment which serves purpose we could always just deal with this at a later time and movee through the agenda get through it it and we can deal with it at a later time if it's a problem I think before the appointments are made I think we should vote on this yeah and then when it comes for second reading then it is 2 o' times I'm watching the car I I think that we should vote on it that's my advice and then when it comes second reading we should get an answer by tomorrow anyway I make a motion yeah we already have a motion call the vote call the vote call the vote councilwoman castelino um I'm gonna that's for what is the motion what to approve on first reading I thought it was the amendment that the new it would take this is on the first reading beginning 202 I made an amendment that it would take effect this year council president I thought think you want make an amendment about the minutes being no okay oh yes you're right you're right we'll do one amendment I don't want to make an amendment on this year if she already appointed people yeah I don't have the roster so and know what I'm saying is let's just do it and we can deal with it on second reading I'm sure yeah we got the votes to do we can even have a special meeting if she didn't appoint anyone we can have a special meeting let's stop having special meeting I'm it could be a lunch time meeting just for this I'm I'm not getting get membership in for the February meeting whenever that you know yeah I just want to go for the vote and do the amendment I think there's four vot this is first reading right you have to go second read you missed what I said it has to be 20 days it can't be okay okay 10 days so this is first reading it'll be on it's advertised for second reading on the 11th first me this is just silly okay so I just found some typos so I'll send you the email andum in between person I just want to make sure got the clerk's attention yeah I'm listening okay uh my battery is dying but uh the last sentence excuse me the last sentence of the of the body of the ordinance uh we need to delete the last sentence that starts the municiple clerk and add the municipal clerk shall keep and maintain such minutes in the clerk's office office availabil available for review by the public the municipal clerk will cause such minutes will also cause such minutes to be promptly and regularly posted to the township website on the website page reserved for information on the open space and Recreation committee there it is the the minutes are now posted online at least the ones that that are visible there but I just want to make sure that uh uh it's clear that we need to make this available uh for the public to through the website and you're not changing any the wording yes I'm actually adding a sentence Oh okay can you send that to me yes I can do that and then also in the legislative history just add a sentence at the end that says this ordinance also requires that the minutes be posted on the township open space and Recreation Committee website page and I also just as an aside uh ask that we get the name on the website page and the link the URL link to the page to actually say committee instead of commission because the ordinance says committee and we probably shouldn't be calling it commission okay please thank you council president and I will email to that but I'm gonna see if I can plug in first because I'm about to okay thank you we should all take a guess at uh what's going on what's going on with Mr train I think he's a he's a secret wood Woodsmith those chips it's definitely not me I can promise you that I'm just like you guys trying to stay awake so do we have a motion to amend the language a motion to amend the language I make a motion to amend the language with my Amendment and council president second okay councilwoman celino yes Council woman yes okay can I please call your names I we have we have to have some water I know we want to get out but all right councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman scorpa yes council president kovak yes okay the motion carries thank you awes okay now 28 9325 an ordinance repealing chapter 2 section 5.3 of the general ordinances of the township of West Orange director of Staff operations I make a motion to introduce on first reading a second okay is there any discussion yes so I would like to first off thank uh council president or was it a councilwoman Ruden who took this on I had to leave the last meeting it was my Orthodox Christmas so I was unable to um bring this up and they did so on my behalf um I realized that the uh director of Staff operations um role was a duplicate of the you know of the ba responsibilities and my understanding was that this was spec and you're already the assistant VA so it's similar responsibilities my understanding was this uh was enacted um due to Personnel issues right there was someone who I guess I I can't bring up what it was whatever it was with DPW and that's why this ordinance uh this ordinance uh was voted on um for director of Staff operations my understanding is there's a personel issue with the DPW and uh that person employee reporting to the director then so they had director of Staff operations created so that person could specifically report to director of Staff operations but you know I just um now that's a mute point because the director's gone so I think it makes sense to eliminate the position and and uh I'd like to thank my colleagues for for supporting this and getting this on the agenda and with that if we can call the vote 211 209 is there any other discussion okay councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman Rudin yes councilwoman SCA council president kovak yes okay thank you the motion carries okay um 28942 and ordinance amending chapter 2 Section 9.4 the uh special councel is there a motion to ince first reading thank you is there a second I I I think second okay thank you discussion yes I'm just trying to find my paper meanwhile I'll just describe it it's the it's a ordinance amendment that now requires an appointment by of Special councel by advice and consent of the township Council it just clarifies some of the language and the original ordinance and it also re re Ires that the bills for the special Council shall be subject to approval from the township Council so um again with this one I would like to thank you uh council president councilman Ruden for bringing this up in the last meeting because again I wasn't I had to leave to celebrate religious holiday um I think we have to be clear in the language I'd like to make an amendment as council president stated something I worked on subject to advice and consent of the township Council just so it is um it is similar to the other ordinances that say that it's in viice of consent of the township Council versus the governing body which is very broad um I also would like to make another amendment uh on the bottom of that paragraph where the bills of all special Council should be subject to approval of the governing body I'd like to switch uh governing body Township Council again just to be consistent with our ordinance because all bills are approved by the township Council um just to you know be very clear and transparent but thank you this is that was the legislative history but in the thing it's the resolution just to be consistent with ordinances [Music] yeah I mean it says it in the legislative history so I just want to be clear and actual okay um Okay so we can vote on it as amended uh councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michel councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes and I make a motion to introduce on first reading oh no we already did that that was this for the amend Amendment this is for the Amendments I made I approve okay that's fine I I I think it's already she included everything in in right as amended right yeah yeah it's literally thank you yeah exactly all right pending matters new matters Council discussion are we gonna do we also have yeah yeah yeah I gotta let's do it quickly quickly they're all quick okay first item rent leveling board appointments and Council the aison I didn't I don't did someone put this on here and sneak it by me this council president this is what I put on uh last meeting I mentioned to you because when you were doing the appointments to a leaz on to all the Committees and and Boards the rent leveling board has not had anybody appointed to it um for the last two years um and and as I explained last time we have two applications that are pending you just approved the saer firm to be the rent leveling board attorney um so we need to um we need to appoint a board because if we don't have a board it comes to you so we need to uh so we need to get and I believe every position is there's one appointee per Council and two uh consent from the council the mayor does not appoint anybody to this board and one of them one of the appointees is also one of the council members is the Le's un appointed to the board so this is this is something that needs to get addressed um we now have attorney in place so I'm going to contact Mr saer start discussing the the pro the board and so this is something that needs to move forward okay so thank you uh I have not been able to find anyone yet but I will keep looking does anybody want to serve as to the aison um how often does this meet it it meets on a need basis but the one application we had met for how long s month I was on it in 2022 yeah it was was very busy so very busy if if if we have an application it's very busy if we but in the in the last 20 years we've only had two applications one was in 2022 one was in 2004 and now we have two this year wow and I think with the the way things are going you may see some more yeah so I have a question why is it that we didn't do these the last two years do we not have any just out of curiosity we didn't appoint anyone that was a council decision I you know I can't I can't answer that you know I can only I can only speak and then you guys have to enact on it and I'm appointed as the board administrator just because I was doing the Section 8 he was traditionally the Section 8 officer was the was the r leveling board and when I was hired they I as my predecessor what do you do he goes don't worry about it nobody ever comes here but if I remember correctly someone in the administration said it was an inactive board then is it because we didn't have cases we were told we didn't need to appoint anyone there were no you still have to appoint in case there is a you need to have one the event like now that's not the voice we got two years ago but that's okay all right that's irrelevant now um all right I I think that you guys we have to think about this and be able can we to discuss I mean is there going to be a hearing scheduled between now and the first next council meeting well we have two we have two applications that we have to address I'm going to talk to Mr s to see so now that we have an attorney cu the last attorney we had soon as we were done with that case he quit he was done he was absolutely done and yeah and U so so I'm gon I'm gonna reach out to him to discuss what we need to do our next steps because we have and one is a repeat and one is a going to be a large application a very large application who wants to be leison I'm busy is or paper you're a veteran you don't want to do it again I I I my time commit or I'll I'll offer to does everybody agree yes thank you thank you thank you we don't have to make a motion anything right Joe is it that's it I would make a motion make a motion too Joe as Le on for the rent Ming Board second it all favor council president I'm sorry council president as the is on okay hi um okay and then as you figure out who your appointments just send them to me and I'll get the letters ready uh the older adult advisory um I gave you miss her's resume uh you don't really have to act on it at this point because sound good yeah we want to and I have almyra pakor I sent around as well and I spoke with everybody and gave her contacted oh I didn't put her we want to get both of them on right away so so we want to vote on them I make a motion to can I do them both in the same motion hold on a sec okay I just want to everybody's good yeah okay go ahead I'm sorry okay I make a motion to nominate ra Dr Dr racial hery and almyra pakura as our two consensus that motion okay and what is the how do you spell the l m i r e and then the last name p e c o r a okay thank you and you have hery yes okay um let me just do a roll call vote uh for these two consensus appointments councilwoman celino uh yes councilwoman gabber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman s council president kovak yes okay the motion carries all right next is um zoning board mayor has two consensus appointments with advice and consent of the township Council okay I make a motion to approve okay appointments all right is there a second second who were they K Ben and Todd deobi oh ours no that that's not ours it's the mayor May oh the twoing board we did that we did that so we don't know who they are I mean no you do know one more Y and who was the other Mark susman yeah I believe so okay [Music] okay um councilwoman Cino uh yes councilwoman gber Michael councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman Scarpa yes council president covia yes okay so the motion carries all right next is the citizen budget advisory committee appointments for 2025 okay um so right now I'll keep Todd toie he was m from last time it was my appointment from last year so right now we have councilwoman celino you need to make your appointment oh ken Albert oh you're I didn't send you him okay you're gonna go with him okay um councilwoman Scarpa you want Todd to councilwoman R made her appointment as did councilwoman gber Michael and councilman council president kak you need to make an appointment I I want Todd the bovie are you ready I and I I then you can't have I bet 100 and raise you 50 is there no time this is what happened at two o' I should just let me know great oh do I have to ask him or I already did okay did how much he liked me he loves you okay yes I do have great is it Mark M Rosenberg just have Mark send you an email with Mark already I I already submitted his do you remember I submitted his resume to you okay it's quite impressive okay so I I'll have all contact information all right I'll get the letters ready for that all right perfect thank you feed thank you Cil yeah you're welcome he's you got the best one that so much great feedback with has better hair stay focused 2:30 almost that's exactly what time I said 23 you might be the 23 record ordinance for phase transition to Electric only leaf blowers I guess we need a motion and a a second to get it on okay go ahead go ahead I make a motion uh to get this on for the next three for the next councel I second okay oh I heard councilwoman gabber Michael but I put the wrong initial okay um okay councilwoman castelino you know I'm gonna be a no but I'm too tired to talk about all right councilwoman coun okay councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay and um is legal preparing it or are you giving them information I will I will send it in again perfect okay all right so now sorry to interrupt I don't know if you were moving on but we have two uh two floor nominations oh you don't want to do it tonight okay okay so we'll do it next okay so I just need a motion to enter into the ABC and during the public meeting no can I I I do have a few other very quick issues that I would like to bring up okay it is 23 I know I know okay okay so um I I would like to address a the issue of emails email concerns um when a resident writes to the entire Council it gets automatically cced to um the business administrator Ator to the chief of staff um to the mayor to to our Township attorney and um I I spoke with Chief Abbot about it he said that this is the way it's always been done and I would like to change this procedure I also notice that when you email um the downtown Alliance if you email directly to downtown Alliance the same same roster is cced on every so I think it's you know for transparency I think that residents don't realize this is happening and I'd like to request that this be changed can I say something you have to ask me not her yes yes you may thank you um I hear you're coming from but I actually like that our uh in Trum is on there he is ex and whoever like you know I don't know about who rest on there but I like better in TR is on there because he responds so quickly to emails there's times where we can't get emails quick I mean work full-time jobs like you know there and check emails all day some of us check emails every few days maybe once a week whatever it is um I I appreciate that the in ba is on there whenever I email him or even our assistant ba we get a response right away and um most of the time when residents email us these concerns have to deal with the ex executive branch and the administration yeah so instead of them getting a response days later they respond like that so I I don't mind it I I appreciate it and plus everything's an open open record I hear where you're coming from I understand what you're saying but it's great to have people like that on there because again they respond to Residents right away and most like I it's a very high percentage most of the the the emails get we the legislative branch they really have to do with the administration and the executive branch I hear what you're saying um then I would like it to be I would like you to be transparent to the public because if the if a resident is writing just to the council and they have concerns about the executive branch I don't think that the executive branch should automatically be copied on that and vice versa we don't get your emails so he'd love to give them to you right I I think I think all of them for transparency for when residents write to us they are unaware that this is happening I I recently sent an email to Meg and I got a I spoke with with with Su Susan the next day and she said oh yeah I saw what you wrote and I go oh really how did you see what I wrote I no idea so you know please let her finish go ahead so I I just think that if you want to if if if um councilwoman gabri Michael feels that it's an asset to have you on there that's fine but the resident should know that that is what is happening couple couple things just so you know what one is that we did this for many years people have known it we we there's no secret about this if residents want to talk to you directly they have your Council email you can do it and your phone whatever the case is um we we want this so we can have this dialogue um and the other thing you got to remember too since you're new to this process there is no secrets in government so people find out anyway um so and for us to have a responsiveness the way we do to our Township it this is a pro a program that we've been using for years and it that's fine but it does it is not obvious to Residents and residents have been upset about it so I'm just saying if you're going to use this process then let's be really transparent and say that everything that goes to the full Council automatically goes to the following people and and just remember everything's operable too yeah yes it is except can I make um a recommendation I hear where she's coming from I hear where the residents are coming from who are unaware I personally like I said it makes our lives easier and the residents lives easier because you guys respond so quickly in a system um maybe on the website we put in parentheses under Council email you know just be aware whatever the lingo is again I don't know the proper term knowledge will be is that when you email the council email it is going to following not just the administration I think you should lay out exactly who it's going to if you prefer to email the council members directly please hear their email addresses or whatever you know yeah um in order to appease her but I don't want it's not just to appease me I'm sorry you and the res she's sucking up to you that's not a she's sucking up I said two3 midnight everybody gets whack Okay order like you guys to stay on there I'm fine with that if you want put on website nothing to me I just don't want to give anybody where you said email Council one Ruden direct because anybody can see that I don't want give anybody in the public the idea that that's not operable the maybe mentioned that every all emails to government officials are operable no matter who you are whether emails at the county I until I can see all your emails yeah that goes that goes for I hope you enjoy all of them we have and we have the legal fees for the Oprah and that goes for okay back to one person speaking at a time Madam clerk has the floor that goes also for your personal cell phones laptops all of that it's all openable if it has anything to do with government business doesn't matter that you use your first stuff can I just can can we go on to some other things for new business sure okay so I have just a few more things I'm sorry that it's this hour I would like to introduce an ordinance for first reading next time which I will get to the legal department that puts a moratorium on new artificial turf fields in West Orange absolutely not not existing on new so I think that that's something to discuss and I would like to see if there's if there's any support for that talking about spks not school board right because the schools we can't regulate that okay um parks and I think C councilwoman celino did you want the floor no um no I I'm just there's I could talk to you offline and uh it there's I understand because I've had those emails from few residents but and there's a whole long list of reasons why we do do this for the use and the wear and tear and the safety my kids were sports kids and it cuts down on the injuries and the fields that people are afraid of we don't use so those materials so I'll talk to you off the line about this yes thank you council president I would like to Echo Council casino's uh you know concerns as well um I a travel soccer mom I have an 11-year-old who's played soccer since he was like three or two since he got kicked the ball around and I have advocated with uh parents on the West Orange travel soccer team to see if we can get tur Fields um you know I am very disappointed that a Township of our size only has one soccer turfield when Verona small tiny town has three or four whatever the number is and my son when he was in fifth grade and all of his fifth grade all the kids in fifth grade had to play from 7:45 p.m. to 900 p.m that was their practice time twice a week that's way too late for fifth graders for 10-year-olds who then have to come home who are hungry have to shower who don't go back to 10 and then have to wake up early so you know I support a lot of the environmental concerns you know I I you know believe in a lot of what our Green West Orange is doing but where I draw the line and you know I have been very transparent I just want to let everyone else know where I draw the line is a tur field for sports because kids need somewhere to play and I wish that we had a soccer turfield at stag field or o Conor because then my son wouldn't have to practice now from 7:45 to 9:00 p.m. even in sixth grade which is still way too late because children at their age should not be going to bed that late anybody else shall we move to a vote do we have support for it before you oh I'm sorry did we no I don't know enough about it we need well to vote for it I'd have no no no no no this is this is a motion to put it on the agenda right but if there's no support for so we need a motion to move I make a motion to put it on and I second it okay okay hold on a minute first second I'm sorry I'm like losing it right now okay all right so this is to add an ordinance not but not to next meeting we got to get the capital budget done I mean you're trying to get it done next meeting can it be the meeting after um is are we going to packed next meeting I think Bud we cannot be packed you have Professional Services contract you have to get it done planning board zoning board why then we need to schedule a special meeting but let's just get back to this vote here please okay so wait why were the zoning board and and more there is like ton there's there's a lot basically we did all the Professional Services for legal tonight um but then there's all the other that has to be okay okay we will deal with that that later thank okay so this is to add to a future agenda please everybody please to add to a future agenda you just have to let me know if it should pass so let's take a vote if you want it added councilwoman celino no councilwoman gber Michael no no councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa no council president kovia yes okay so it's three NOS so the motion fails two yes okay um is there anything else no please come on I'm make a motion to we have to do real quick real quick really quick um we SE with the general public though yeah to oh so we can enter into we can make a motion to enter into ABC during the meeting AB hearing and adjourn the public meeting okay West night Administration council president I just want to point out before we adjourn the public meeting that this video uh from tonight's meeting will not be posted on the website till at least Thursday oh no I can't believe you're not gonna stay up on so I just wanted to point that out um well it's my job we still love you thank you okay so ABC personto person transfer of uh distribution license