uh good evening West Orange and welcome to the February 25th 2025 council meeting we're going to start uh a little bit out of order because we are going to be we're anticipating we're going to be very pressed for time tonight so what we'd like to do to is to start out with
a ABC hearing Alcohol Beverage Control hearing and uh we have uh two Council people present and I think we have council member keber Michael online Mr vagan thank
you okay okay 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 annual notice was emailed to The Star Ledger and filed in the
township clerk's office on January 7th 2025 and published in the West Orange Chronicle on January 16th 2025 councilwoman Deber Michael present and I want to apologize that I can't be there in person because my son is
homesick with the flu so councilwoman scorpa present council president codak present so we indeed have a quorum Madam clerk what's next for an
ABC hearing okay so it's resolution 78-2 can I just thank you um um this is a resolution approving the renewal of license 0722
33016 for topest Tavern LLC nunk prot Tonk which is uh means now for then for the 2023 2024 license term um their license for the 20242 license term was renewed at the
meeting before last uh this was an oversight um I conted the state they guided me through and they said this is the type of resolution we need in order to bring them up to date so this is for the term of July 1st 2023 to June 30th
2024 and then they'll be cing thank you madam Clark thank you um does anybody have any questions I know councilwoman celino had some questions and concerns about this so I kind of wanted to hear her concerns okay so we
can hold off the vote yeah sorry about that but I didn't hear her concerns yeah she should be here very shortly okay uh if if we are indeed in session as the
ABC Board oh yeah guess we should have done that too oh we we didn't well actually we'll do that before we take the vote yeah then we should go back to the conference agenda right and you have Miss BR
here yes Miss BR would you like to give us the good news please and please try to be as brief as possible I please do appreciate it we'll come back to the ABC thank you hi
everybody I'm short I'm executive director with the downtown Alliance I wanted to uh talk tonight about um Restaurant Week that's coming up at the end of March and the first week of April that is uh our new graphic with the cute little chef hat over the West
Orange one of the things that um we've been analyzing and Darren our board members here who is kind of one of our Placer gurus we um looked into Play Store which is that data sourcing company and what we found is about 55 %
of the folks in town are not eating in West Orange and probably 30% of them were not eating with in downtown um we told a report and we have that there were 1,600 visits that need West Orange
to eat sowh so I thought that it would be a really great time for us to support all restaurants in town um during restaurant week April 3 I'm sorry March 3rd to April 6 one of the things that was interesting we pulled like the top
25 restaurants in town chitchat Americana Diner M TGI Friday M orange the hon Benji him Sushi and Bon CB Bay West are like tons
and tons of people they get between 16,000 visits down to like 3,000 visits in a calendar year so which is great that folks are definitely eating at those those top 10 I we put together a video that I wanted
to show you that especially downtown are some really great businesses that you should be supporting these are our coffee shops these are sit down breakfast places downtown these are quick
lunches we have sit down dinners and you can discover more at our website so it just was a brief minute to be able to talk to you about some of the stuff that the downtown Lin investigating and if everyone if one
family supported downtown once a year that would mean 1,700 cups of coffee we any B them one family one 17 cups of coffee imagine we did that once a week or once
a month if you Target yourself and say I'm going to do one thing in West Orange or one thing downtown during the week if everybody did that that would be game CH for down and then we would get all of the other larger retailers that you want
they will take a look Daren is one of our vors that is talking to tons of different companies and it's the Chicken and the Egg thing well I'll come when you get people there and I'll come when people are there and I'll get this restaurant when the folks are there and
the folks will be there when the restaurant is there and it's it's big uh you know crazy cyle so we're asking that you especially during restaurant week and we're going to watch all the cath on in place to see where everyone's going um to support the restaurants all over
town and especially the folks that are down that is it for me thank you council president thank you m BR appreciate it okay as you have previously heard council member celino has some concerns
about the ABC matter so I'm going to throw it over to Madam clerk to make sure that we are fulfilling our legal obligations to be in session as the ABC Board okay so I need a motion to enter into the ABC Board
second okay all in favor any post okay so now we are into uh the ABC Board I just reviewed the reason why we are going into ABC resolution 75824 they said that you had some questions 75825
okay 25 good it's not two o'clock in the morning and I could have a clear mind thank you uh so yeah so this license has been obviously dormant and the issue we
had with it is that the owner versus they were trying to transfer it to another name they were using another trade name and that trade name wasn't able they weren't able to switch it for whatever reason whether they didn't apply or whether they didn't qualify for
whatever reason so what my concern is is that if we approved this tonight from what I'm hearing the owner of the license is not going to be part of the establishment I have no knowledge of that okay well we've been hearing things
from you know understand there there was a an application to transfer the license to a new owner that owner that person did not qualify for the license yes they were so uh their attorney withdrew that um application so now we're back to the
original owner of the license who is um working on the premises um and you know wants to open in the next few months um so I mean I have no knowledge that
anyone else is involved if they are to now and we have absolutely no reason to not approve this as they they they're brand new they have no charges against them they transferred the license from Starlight Pizza um it's been uh in
Pocket status ever since then they tried to sell it then that guy didn't qualify they withdrew it now we're back to the original owner um but from what I'm hearing the original owner is not going to be a participant of the business that's going to sit
there and probably use the license well then they have to attach themselves because I called the state so they have to fill out certain um parts of the uh application naming themselves as basically the manager or whoever
whatever role they're going to play they have to keep separate books one for the restaurant one for the bar um and you know they have to prove that they're legitimately running this business um but I I have no knowledge of
that can we table this and get some information I'd like to second to table um well before that you already approved the fall the next year at not the last meeting the meeting prior you approved 2425 that's where we had this
information I called the state and they said that you can do this now for then because I said should I resend that resolution they said no just do it this way and I so this is the way I'm putting it on for tonight you are not going to
be able to not approve this yeah I just about to ask that actually because if you read the excuse me councilwoman gbri Michael uh Madam clerk has the floor just was done council president I was done do we
have legal council here tonight please oh sorry councilwoman gber Michael please you have the floor okay thank you so I was just actually going to ask that because I think we have to pass this in the third whereas it states it is necessary for the governing body to
adopt a resolution so this resolution so I was going to ask if we have legal legal counsel as well and it seems like Madame clerk saying we have to pass this so if we don't have any choice it doesn't make sense to table at the state saying we have to pass this let's pass this and move
on and my comment council president thank you councilwoman it would be nice if we had legal councel it would be nice if if we have legal council I would love to hear but it looks like we may not well our legal council for the council
meeting is last time I got a text from and was stuck in traffic on the parkway he promises he will be here any minute so right and he may not have the expertise Ina yeah is right that's why I wanted to T it so we could talk to the ABC attorney on this matter tell you I'd
like to table it if we could it's a waste of time it's okay at least we could do our due diligence because we've had other licenses specific ones that are have been nothing but trouble and you do not have that well
option oh go ahead I'm sorry Council finish your thought at all I just want to say if we what is the hurt the harm in tabling it so we can get advice tabling it till the next meeting two weeks is not going to put us in Jeopardy for legal because the owner is ready to open if he gets his Co within that two
weeks and I turn around and I say you can't open and he's losing business he can turn around that he's close but he's not on the co yeah the owner is not on the co this is my concern here so because I saw we saw a copy of the co
and that's what got us questioning it because we're hearing different but until you have something that you can charge this person with you have no grounds to not but if the person has a license isn't shown as the owner on the co of
the of the establishment that's a red flag so I don't understand why we can't just table it to the next me so if you find out that that is true and what you still don't have any grounds not to approve the license you just don't I would rather get table it and get a
legal opinion and then in two weeks we can it has not it hasn't they're not can I ask a question yeah Madam clerk you're saying we need to approve this the state is say saying we need to approve this is that correct yes then then we have to do
it it doesn't make sense to table it and unfortunately it's been uh properly motioned and seconded so we have to call the vote and I hope the vote fails well it was properly second and motion to table yes but we still have to vote though right yeah and I'm hoping that
will fail so then we can vote on this because and the other thing is the the police department does an extensive background check it takes months and they approved this under that owner which which I'm fine with I'm totally fine with with
that owner my my fear it's going to go to the person who is showing as the owner of the restaurant I have a question I'm just gonna leave it at that because yes yeah I don't want to I
really really wanted to to see we could talk to the ABC attorney on this um if you want to table it table it but it's a waste of time my opinion I'm just that's what I'm so we have a motion pending on the floor to table to table and I second it uh who you did it first to yes okay
thank you sorry okay so to table I'm gonna votee yes to table okay councilwoman gber Michael no councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman Scarpa yes council
president kovc no okay so the motion okay that the motion fails yeah thank you so I move to now approve uh 758-2200 I want to talk the ABC attorney
tonight um okay now can I get a motion to adjourn ABC and enter into our meeting so move second second all in favor I any
opposed okay we're back into our meeting it's close minutes you want to do Council Aon if anybody has I think that's a great idea uh does anybody have any Council the aison uh reports to make I do
councilwoman scarper please um I just wanted to um talk to everybody and I put a couple Flyers quickly our Roosevelt Middle School students have a diversity Art Gallery in the hallway of Roosevelt
they had invited me to come and take a look at it I went over and I was so impressed it really was a beautiful expression of all that is beautiful in our Township if you have a chance to go
over and look at it please take a look um Lionel hush the principal and Olivia Banis did an incredible job with the students I actually was lucky enough to meet the student who was
featured um I was so impressed her name was Kiara Barnett and her ability to Foster diversity through Visual storytelling designed to express how diversity enriches and strengthens us
was evident in each piece of her artwork she told me her personal story behind each piece what inspired her and uh it's just not surprising to me that it is our children who are going to lead us into
the place that we need to be so uh let's all follow their lead and if you get a chance go take a look at it and on another note our seniors had our older adults Advisory board meeting yesterday we have an incredible team put together
and Laura Van Dyk and all of have a wonderful presentation that they're going to be doing us for us in upcoming meetings on agism Believe It or Not There is discrimination based on age she's going to be teaching us all about that and we have wonderful programs to
promote positive interaction with our seniors and our younger people and the older adults Advisory Board is working very closely with a lot of wonderful new programs as well so stay tuned that's it thank you councilwoman anybody else
counc yeah thank you Miss BR for making the presentation for restaurant week I just want to thank uh the public relations Commissioners and um and the downtown Commissioners for working on this important um this important event
um to recognize and to support our business owners um last week was a downtown Alliance meeting and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was when I walked in the room to see such a great turnout we have a new Commissioners just a lot of energy which
is great because our catchphrase is come downtown and catch our energy so a lot of work to be done looking forward to it um this year and uh also looking forward to some exciting development projects along Main Street thank you council
president thank you last I looked up councilman councilwoman Ruden was here where did she go she walked out the door oh I don't think she had okay I'm not sure oh here she comes is this like
a uh a magic show she's talking to somebody in the back Jack bur oh Mr Burke that's funny Mr Burke our legal counsel welcome I understand you were perhaps in an accident on the parkway not you personally no I I don't even know
whether there was an accident or it was just traffic but it took me about 40 minutes to get from exit 140 to 145 so you didn't even have a chance to pick up any new business okay Council Ruden thank you very much for rescuing Mr
Berg do you have any counsil aison report no okay and neither do I C yes Mich unless she G Michael same
on I have a question for Council from Mr Burke can we start the meeting five or six minutes early or do we to public comment or do we we have to wait until 7 7 if it's notice for 7 I would recommend waiting till 7
okay I'll have some Council business sure if we want we have a minute uh well I just REM I'm looking at this notice for St Patrick's Day I'm not sure council president it's been a tradition at the council president I'm not sure if you did or not if our colleagues are
walking in the parade if you sent the paperwork into the parade committee do well not us like yeah you would have to have it do you have it I do not have it okay okay so we'll have to Madam CL can you get
him yeah yeah the tradition's been the council president usually takes care of that and so of you everybody gets back to you of if we're walking or not we are definitely walking yeah I'm walking I responded already Yes and well they have
to know by the group because I put you in the parade with with the group so you need to let them know the whole council is going to be there thank you I will take care of that as soon as the meeting's over so before the meeting starts I just want to uh perhaps uh speak to what is
obvious that there are a lot of people here so we expect significant amount of public comment we have a very lengthy agenda of ordinances and resolutions uh partly because we didn't get to them at the last meeting um
so what I've decided to do what we've decided to do is to bate the public comment allow public comment in a few minutes on agenda items only and we're
doing that so that we can get to the ordinances and the resolutions that we need to deal with to do the people's business to pay bills uh to do uh the things that we were elected to do so we're going to do that as quickly as
possible and once we get through that then we will open up public comment for non-agenda items so uh we will get to them just as quickly as we can but it's imperative
that we uh do uh the ordinances and uh the resolutions tonight before we get to uh other matters so we still can't start before 7 I just want to read those of you who are here
last meeting and I see some familiar faces you're not going to be surprised by this but I just want to lay out pretty much the ground rules of our public comment from our ordinances so in preparation I just want to confirm that we are all on the same page on how
public comment is regulated as per our ordinance uh and if you want to speed up things and I encourage everybody to speak as briefly as possible and to speed up things you can stand behind each other in front of the uh uh speakers table uh there in front so that
you can move on very quickly once you are recognized by the chair you can speak for up to five minutes please be concise to speed up the process after everyone has commented uh we and the de will respond I will note when questions are posed and determine if anyone here at the council meeting
can answer them or will in the near future and if you want to address your question before the next council meeting please provide your email address to Mr Fagan who's the uh uh young man in the blue uh shirt over here to my right our article
3-32 excuse me 3-8 public comment requires the speaker to First State their name and address therefore if the person says they can't provide this information regardless of the reason I will not allow them to continue and will'll direct Mr Fagen to
move on to the next speaker article 3152 time limits requires conduct by public common speakers Who quote shall at 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 end quote article 3-16 do2 conduct of the public any person who shall disturb the Peace of the township Council make offensive or abusive remarks or contuct himself or herself in a boisterous
manner while addressing the council shall be forth withth barred by the presiding officer from further audience before the council except that if the speaker shall submit to proper order under these rules permission for him to or her to continue uh may be granted by
a majority vote of the council I hope that's clear and we we're one minute away from starting the meeting so uh can we do the Pledge of Allegiance before 7 o'cl is that is that something else we can ask Mr
Burke 7 oh it is seven now 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 in the West
Orange Chronicle on January 7th 2025 and published in the West Orange Chronicle on January 16th 2025 councilwoman castelino present councilwoman gber Michael present councilwoman Ruden here councilwoman Scarpa present council
president kovak presid mayor McCartney will everyone please rise for the pledge of allegiance aliance to the of the United States of America and to the repic IND the council is now in their public
meeting shall I continue please do um before I begin I just want to uh thank you for referring to me as the young man uh but I would also suggest that you get you a glasses check but I certainly appreciate the
compl I will be brief because we are trying to move along uh tonight I just like to uh congratulate the West Orange High School girls of basketball believe this is the first time since 2019 that they've received that honor uh earlier this week um a
council uh congresswoman mcgyver was in uh council chambers here and welcome by mayor McCartney for her m w hours and uh her information is up there and uh it's should be on our it should be on it is on the website I'm quite confident with
that um Ramadan uh celebration second annual Crescent lighting is scheduled for Thursday the organizers uh were wise enough to schedule the rain date and it is possible that it may rain on Thursday so they have a rain date set for Friday
uh and I believe uh an announcement will be made tomorrow afternoon so please check uh Facebook and uh when uh an announcement is made if the event is postponed till Friday will be mentioned on our social media uh Council
connection office hour next office hour is February 27 from 6: to 7 no appointment is necessary um the West Orange film Festival is moving along March 2nd uh uh a fan favorite always AB
Castello who' done it uh and that is uh March 2nd as mentioned and you can purchase tickets at West Orange arts.org and of course that's at our AMC Diamond theater here in West Orange speaking of March 7th we March 2nd I'm sorry we have
the New Jersey Warriors which uh is a hockey team of cona veterans versus a combination of our West Orange and firefighters that's March 2nd at the Cod is $15 per person and uh I will be
returning uh for the third consecutive year to provide color commentary and announc during the game and I believe the next year is scheduled to do the um uh the star spangle Banner as well uh and I also want to thank Mr bisi for
arranging to get me aide on the Zamboni however um the Zamboni driver has gone missing and we certainly hope you surfaces the um annual um Chamber of Commerce breakfast is coming up March 6th uh at the Rock Spring Golf Club uh
and you can check the chamber website for information and how to beh your head there is a um breast and cervical screening mobile breast and cervical screening I might add on March 13th uh and this information is on our website
for more information in how to register and of course course um uh this is very important because early detection truly saves lives so I would urge everyone to uh to check this out we also have um a
inclusive camp and resource Fair sponsored by the uh special education parent advisory Council uh this information is on our social media this is coming up March 15 at West Orange High School at the Toof cafeteria um and of course uh mayor m
next office open Office hours will be on Thursday March 13th here in uh town hall and once again no appointment is necessary um the uh intergenerational uh reading program
will continue on March 20th at the West orang Public Library um and you need to uh contact Noelia Perez uh for additional information and this information is also on our website and a very important I mentioned this at the
last meeting but this is worth mentioning again and I also got email from bani today to remind you that the Essex Safe Streets for all uh is coming up and this is Essex County is developing A stfe A Safe Streets
initiative and there's a meeting you can go on our website register for this meeting and take uh part in a meeting and the survey to uh help advise them as what you would like to see for safe Street stand of course uh I'd like to remind our West orang residents if you
see something say something if something doesn't Mo exactly right P call the non-emergency uh police number and of course all fire police and medical emergency style 911 um Springtime is right around the corner Daniel Cunningham you may have
seen him in the past he's on Main Street practically every day uh please don't Litter please help him keep uh West St clean he was fly committed to do doing so and he would appreciate your support uh we also have a safe exchange Zone um and have had it for actually quite some
time in the lobby of West Orange Police Headquarters this is good if you're selling anything online if you need to meet someone in public a great public place it's open 247 and under surveillance video surveillance is the lobby of police headquarters and that's of course here at 60 Main Street in West
Orange and of course with Springtime right around the corner many uh spring projects might be planned I just want to remind the public that a tree removal permit is required in West Orange there's a lot of details and they're all available on the website West orange.org
any senior meeting a ride to the library uh this information is also on our website uh you can call a day before the reserve a shuttle seat but there is um transportation available to the library and to all our veterans thank you for
your service uh there is a Veterans Crisis Line dial 988 and press one and uh confidential support is available 247 and this is from the US Department of Affairs and uh finally we're almost there spring time in West orang it's
just around the corner and here are some sobering facts to welcome that in we are 23 days to Spring and 15 days daylight SS okay that's not going to make me feel warmer but it's going to help me cope until we get there
so you can contact all Township council members via email Council weststar.org thank you council president at this time I normally would turn the floor over to our um County representative Mr bisi but he has informed me that I have done such
a great job tonight that there's nothing that he can add to the presentation actually he doesn't have anything to add presentation and but he is here if Council council president have any questions Bic be able to answer for
sounds good thank you Mr Fagan uh council members does anybody have any questions for Mr pesi no thank you thank you okay uh before we start uh public comment I just wanted to ask Mr Burke a
question sure uh it has to do with the legal opinion we got roughly an hour ago uh from the retired Town attorney and uh the key the key phrase in this communication uh says based on the
foregoing the township attorney cannot certify that the current form of the leaf blower ban ordinance is a legal Act of the township Council so uh that sounds like pretty serious language to me that would cause cause us to pause on
that and the reason I'm bringing it up now and not in the regular order of business is because I suspect some of the people uh in the audience would like to speak on this ordinance and I don't want to waste their time if it's something that we uh
are not going to deal with today uh so I wanted to just first ask you if you have any sort of thoughts on this and then I'd like to just uh throw it out to the rest of the council I don't know if you've had a chance because to read it because it's uh it
was pretty recent I we did I believe we spoke with Mr Mr Tran earlier today about it um and I I've looked at the ordinance um my understanding is his issues with the enforcement of it um and we certainly understand his position I wouldn't want to give the council
contradictory legal advice you know just off the cuff um so we're certainly happy to look at it if the council is still concerned about it um I know there was a discussion uh we had with one of the council members about possibly amending um the ordinance to remove that um so I
guess if there's a specific concern I know the ordinance is modeled after some of the other municipalities locally um so there is precedent that you know other other municipalities are are doing it this way um but I wouldn't want to give you a specific you know this is definitely a good to go on this ordinance contradictory to his written
advice uh you know just off the cuff like this in the meeting okay so you would not in any way uh contradict what he is advising us today uh but what he's advising us he did not say don't go forward with this ordinance and that's
what left me sort of uh uh up in the air about what to do if he says it's it's uh it can't be certified as legal action seems to me we need to fix that before we move forward you know how I feel yeah you're uh council president I
understand his concern is about um you know the evidence Gathering and the photograph portion of the enforcement um and we'd be happy to look at that but I wouldn't want to give you you know legal advice to definitely that he's incorrect and you can definitely go forward um you know just based off of
reviewing the ordinance itself and not having a chance to look at it ourselves okay so uh the thing is you couldn't contradict whether we move forward or not because he doesn't say whether we could move forward or not tonight yeah looking at it it looks like he's saying there's
going to be an issue with you know the municipal judge being able to enforce it and things like that which doesn't necessarily mean that you can't pass it and then you know leave it to the judge to address it um but yeah we would want an opportunity to do our own research and give you some thank you I understand
your position uh council members I'd like to hear what your thoughts are councilwoman Scarpa have you actually spoken to Mr Tran about this specific ordinance uh yes we had a chance to review the agenda this afternoon um spoke about a few things this was
something that you discussed in detail uh yeah we we spoke about the ordinance and I I understand his concern about the enforcement and that we we did speak about that when we reviewed the agenda so does that mean you're in agreement with him no I I learned about this ordinance same 12 hours ago so I really
would advice on you know whether it's correct or not without having a chance to you know really prep and uh do some research so I I apologize for you know kind of dodging it but we're in a weird position you know I completely understand we can move forward okay um can I speak uh
councilman kle you know has the floor uh just a quick question because if we're going to debate this later on I'm not even gonna get into everything but um in regards to the other public entities and I had
called the chief uh earlier today um actually um yeah we had Mr Tran on it um I'm not sure did he ask you about the school district the school board in regards to um getting Clarity
like I'm a former School Board member I we went through this last time the ordinance was on the table last year and there was a lot of conversation but the wording has been changed this time around does the school board have to comply to our ordinance I was always
under the impression they did did not have to um I [Music] believe and and I don't think the county has to no yeah the count it's out of their jurisdiction the board of education has always been a separate
entity in my eyes so yeah no it's absolutely a separate entity um is that have to do with the square footage the acreage requirement or no just in general do they have to go out and buy does our school district also have to go out and buy leaf blowers is was the
question okay I I'm happy to look at that and let you know I I wouldn't know off off because I didn't I I'm the liaison to the board of education and I didn't bring this to their attention because I was under the pression it it wouldn't affect them but I we need to know that answer because it definitely
does affect them as they're trying to budget yeah okay no I absolutely understand the concern and we'd be happy to take a look at that Council yeah I don't think I yeah I would I would like to address yes please address address Mr concerns Mr Tran is
opining that photographic EV evidence cannot be um submitted to court um unless the person who took the photograph actually is there to claim that this is their evidence and that it is authentic that it's their original
photograph that there's some sort of chain of custody and that there is no Prejudice with the photo in other words that the photo has not been doctored um that is all accurate that is all accurate so the way that this works it
would not violate the issue with um photographic evidence because if somebody reports or takes a photo and let me let me just explain to you what in in the words of um Township May um
Township mayor um mayor um Adams from Maplewood this is this is her words this is what she said to me I took him down verbatim in Maplewood our prosecutor has said that photographic and video evidence submitted by a resident can and
has successfully been used in court of course even though it has been accepted the judge can require the person who took the photo to appear in court as well generally when a person is bothering to take a picture and submitting a complaint they're often
willing to go to court if need be if they don't go to court then the case could be dismissed but that has not happened in Maplewood yet um also the companies using the blowers uh illegally know that they can
be reported by Neighbors which often entices them to follow the law instead of being caught so I think that his point is valid but it is also a red herring because if somebody takes a
photograph and they do not want add and and the summons is contested by whoever is being charged with violating does not want to um appear in court then the case is over done deal
but we have communicated our message and we have done enforcement so I strongly think that this should not be held up tonight we're coming upon the spring season we're just delaying delaying delaying and this ordinance has been
looked at long and hard especially by U my Council colleague and um I believe that you know that this ordinance applies to every entity in town you cannot have one entity and not another entity because that's grounds for a law
suit so this is this applies to every parcel of land in West Orange again this is a a transition this is not happening immediately for those who are concerned we will be having a lot of Education
about the benefits of blowers and um and and how neighbors can um comply with this and how landscapers can comply council president may I say something yes please I was just about to ask thank you so I just want to correct the
councilman Ruden this doesn't apply to every parcel of Landon West Orange state federal and County properties are exempt they don't uh have to follow the laws of min of you know Municipal laws and ordinances so um and it was also my
understanding like councilwoman castelino that in 2023 the Board of Ed is a separate governing body they're also elected officials they pass their own laws so it would not apply to them but it would apply to to um West Orange
Township Government properties and excluding The Bard ofed and uh residents and other businesses including golf courses well no this includes the golf courses this of course it does but it doesn't include the county the we've
talked about I was just correcting councilwoman Ruden who said it applied to every parcel of land in West Orange it does not apply to State she is correct she's correct I know the law we've been through this councilman castelino I told you last time we got in a heated debate and I remember I was
like you have to educate yourself on this the county does not apply the state and federal government properties do not apply the other golf courses like cresmont and Montclair and still have to yes golf wait let me finish we are going to make
amendments to this I said in the last meeting I cannot approve this the way this is we had a very fair ordinance that we passed in 2023 there was compromise on dates there was compromise we allow turbine blowers so that golf
courses could use them and other large properties can use them and I plan to make those very same amendments we have to compromise okay thank you councilman gber Michael uh given what I've heard in the last 10 or 15 minutes and the fact
that the uh the communication from uh the town attorney did not say not move forward and the fact that as this moves forward it won't even be become uh uh an ordinance without at least a second reading and if uh
councilwoman gber Michael is correct that there will be changes made it might be even longer so I am going to allow people to come up and speak about this ordinance if that's what you would like to do um it's an ordinance on first reading so there isn't the same
treatment as an ordinance on second reading which requires a public hearing so if you would like to speak about an agenda item please come up and as soon as you after you identify yourself with your name and address please speak to
the ordinance or resolution number that you want to speak about yes uh mayor mcartney this evening because I did come to talk about I'm sorry mayor I cannot hear you you sound very
muffled I just saying good evening to everyone thank you and I would saying that I was here spring Segway for the Le ordinance because not only did we just receive a letter from the legal department we also have a letter that was received late this afternoon and I
know that copies were made for the council from the New Jersey Nursery and Landscaping Association the executive director Thanking us for moving in this direction which is what the environmental commission was asking to do last year just that we were
overstepping our reach we came to the same ition and yesterday I received a letter also from New Jersey green Industry Council saying the same thing that yes we do want to move in this direction however we are one stepping
our reach right now and I'm just going to say I feel there's a lot of dissension in this room right now even between the council and what I really dislike about the orins is the fact that
yes a resident take a photo of another mil or your neighbor submit that the person get a summon to appear in court yes the photo does have to be authenticated in the P person is testifying this is from the
municipal cour just yesterday spoke to them so you do have to authenticate your photo testify your neighor and I just don't believe that we need any additional sension until we look at the executive director of the New Jersey
landscaping Association has agreed to meet with us which is what we did last year I did have to be this ordinance last year um they're agreed to meet with us and work out even with what the stud is planning on do so I'm suggesting that you hold off you're talking about
already making amendments why don't we just have a clean ents presented for our residents and for the livelihood of so many landscapers that are here today plus that provision about air quality I don't really think that landscapers are
going to go check the air quality on their livelihood going out to work or not on any particular so and it's not in your budget right so I would suggest that you take a better look at
this or thank you mayor McCartney is there anyone else who wishes to speak on an agenda item uh please rise and if you want to get in line it might speed things up wow everybody's lining up thank you
Mr Bon please start us off good evening good evening everyone can I be can I yeah we hear you I can't hear myself we can hear you okay can you start over then because I can't hear myself so I guess the audio is good
evening everyone John Blandon fars Road in West Orange um coming before you in regards to the popup party ordinance uh I'm not going to comment I've already sent you guys my uh challenges and concerns about uh invasion of privacy as
well as overreach and I want to thank first and foremost council president kovat thank you for responding and having conversations with me about this councilwoman castelino thank you for responding to me as well councilwoman
scarper thank you for responding to me as well uh councilwoman G Michael I think I heard you that you're on Zoom somewhere thank you for responding to me as well and councilwoman Ruden it would have been nice to have heard from you as
well in terms of the responses uh from as well that I received from your colleagues because um you guys have been elected to represent this entire Township not just a component of it in terms of responding on just certain things and so I wanted to say that to
you and last I know it's not on agenda but I got to say it I'm a senior and all of you have been components for having public comments on Zoom I was in the hospital for eight weeks I could have dialing off my phone my computer um and I'm leaving I can't stand too long Mr
Bon I apologize for interrupting you but if you want to stick around and talk about non-agenda items on that part because in the last meeting you guys allowed a gentleman who sat somewhere in this area to come up and make public comments at the end of the meeting after
the public comments was closed so I expect to have the same respect that you gave him okay I don't care if he was an attorney or whatever you let him speak after public comments Mr Blendon I will
let you speak later on in the evening if you want to speak about a non I just like to ask chairperson to give me two minutes to speak on behalf of the seniors of this town that aren't able to come here and speak from Zoom that's all
I'm asking just to allow the open the call again for the seniors in this town who can't come and so they can speak thank you thank you good evening uh council president and members of the council I'm Brent
Scott nestro Road in West Orange I'm here to speak on the leaf floors and uh 2894 special Council and uh my comments on special Council will involve the zoning board but you'll see how they connect uh regarding the um the leaf
blowers uh quote noise from leaf blowers is more than just an annoyance it can create negative longterm health impacts including hearing loss ttis and cardiovascular issues these are the findings from the Centers for Disease
Control I encourage this Council to pass a law strictly regulating the use of leaf blowers allowable decb length of time and include a clear legal enforcement mechanism quality of life is more than a
campaign slogan it is a definable tangible and quantifiable quantifiable set of conditions and those conditions must be enforced whether this means that the Township Police must respond when called
or someone from the Department of Health comes and tests the desal level and issues a ticket the law must be enforced neighbors should not have to confront each other as I've have had to do because it can create hard feelings or
Worse violations of quality of life laws must be enforced now I want to talk about I want to draw your attention to the zoning board and This falls under uh 2894 I want to talk to about that uh number one
the chair biller excuse me just just a second Mr Scott could you halt the uh the the timer yeah uh Mr Scott that has been removed uh from the agenda 28 2894 has been removed from the agenda 2891
I'm sorry 28 did you say 2891 or 28944 the special Council okay okay I apologize I'm glad we clarified please start the clock sorry about that that's quite all right thank you okay I want to draw your attention uh to the zoning board uh
first the chair Philip noer is serving illegally this Council passed and upheld an ordinance barring consecutive terms for the chair and the vice chair a simple majority of the zoning boards has chosen to ignore the law as you
considering hiring councel private Council for the township um I encourage you to bring this matter to the four uh with that new hire and address this matter forthrightly two Mr Beni and Mr Mr Beni
and tdd deobi were appointed as zoning board alternates by this Council in January of this year the illegally serving chair Philip Neuer has stacked the deck of the zoning board by holding open alternate designations one and two for appointees who were confirmed after
Mr benv and Mr dboi norer has stacked the deck to ensure that your appointees Council appointees serve in the three and four alternate slots all but ensuring that they will never get to
vote third the current zoning board attorney Steve Warner is paid $195 per hour by the taxpayers he has opined with the backing of the illegally serving chair that the
law this Council passed and upheld term leine the count the chair and vice chair is null and void Bank about that the voters elected each of you to write the laws but an unelected unaccountable by the hour
attorney Steve Warner has thrown your law out of the proverbial window what are you going to do about it finally in 2024 the aforementioned Miss the Warner was paid tens of thousands of
taxpayer dollars to serve as attorney for the zoning board yet he failed to realized that the zoning board did not have jurisdiction over application number ZB 242 located at 691 Eagle Rock Avenue the
board held several lengthy hearings on this application in which the applicant was treated like dirt and ultimately denied that applicant's right to build on their property last week at the February meeting of the zoning board we had to undo that vote
because the the property owners attorney wrote To Us submitting uh a letter stating and I quote the applicant submitted information that under the township Land Development ordinance section 25 blah blah blah a land owner May develop a conforming single family
home on a property in existence prior to January 1978 without zoning board approval so Mr warning should have Mr Warner should have prevented the zoning vo from holding several unrequired lengthy meetings on this matter on this
matter will he give back his pay because he was there your time is up and he was paid and I just want to point this out I appreciate that Mr Scott your time is over thank you very much thank you please give away thank you I understand I
understand please uh good evening Mark Rosenberg fir Wood Circle talking about leaf blowers so the subject of limiting or restricting gas uh Power blowers is is is a very strong visceral reaction from everyone in the community after living with the issue
I'm proposing we alter the message in one unique way firstly landscapers have always done the same routine and homeowners have expected the same result leaves are blown from the rear of a yard to the street resulting in time spent for before the grass cutting even begins
removing every single leaf and blade of grass from the property on a weekly basis from Spring to Fall six days a week 8:00 am to 5:00 P PM I have witnessed in our town in our neighborhood alone up in Rock
Spring one landscaper on one home for four hours straight that continued on the street for the remainder of the day personally I live on a Halfacre lot with 12 large Oak trees I do my own cutting I basically cut and mulch my grass with
the leaves together on a weekly basis I keep up with it and I'm able to actually eliminate the need to pull all the leaves at the street as most people do by landscapers so I'm proposing a financial incenter to the landscapers and to the town one landscapers can
reduce the amount of time spent on each home by eliminating the gas by eliminating blowing leaves think about it you could probably pick up one or two homes per day per route by eliminating the half hour to an hour you use your
blowers I would assume you probably charge on average $100 per house if it's more the numbers only make it better by Weeks end year end you could possibly pay for the Improvement I've done my own
pricing on this six blowers 16 battery chargers um about $1,000 and you could uh deduct the costs as a business mulching leaves benefits the yards and eliminates the needs of
fertilizers again saving money for all I've been doing this myself for the past eight years and prior to that a landscaper took care of my home for the past 20 years my lawn my soil everything on my property is actually better now that it was by reducing townwide leaf
collection that financial burden on the town and town resources can be diminished if not eliminated from us having to pick up everybody's leaves in the spring and the fall we constantly see flooding in the streets due to Clogg sewer drains we eliminate scarce parking
on the streets because we give our spaces up to the leaves and not the people and the cars so in closing I would say it's a win-win for all the residents the landscapers West Orange and importantly we have a very large budget meeting coming up this year and I think it could
be a possibility where we could save money I will say it was sad to see this evening that we are I would say that the administration is siding again with PR Landscaping organizations rather than listening to
the residents and this issue although it has been on the agenda for years continues to be kicked down the can kicked down the proverbial road so I look forward to this Town Council passing this ordinance and protecting us
all thank you thank you hi there Jason Thompson um 28 after go Avenue in Verona but I am currently the golf course Superintendent at Essex County Country Club in West Orange New Jersey um I have been the golf course
superintendent since 2002 I have a Bachelor of Science degree from Penn State University in the field of turf grass science um and I'm here tonight to speak against the complete van of gas powerered
blowers well I believe there is good use for electric blowers and some small scale situations they are not adequate for large scale properties such as golf courses that rely heavily on these machines they are not used for only leaf removal but also clipping removal debris
from geese and blowing divots off te's and Fairways all of this occurs as a daily maintenance practice on over 130 Acres of turf our gas powered Bowers are used every day all day and provide detail work that the public and private golfers
have both come to expect at the six course courses located in West Orange compared to a gas blower the electric blower is 60% less efficient costs five times more commercial GR
which I would need cost five times more and they weigh actually 7 pound more than a regular gas powered Backpack Blower these attributes make an electric blower far less efficient also what is
the town going to do for the mosquito and tick control without the means of gas powerered Foggers to treat homes and Parks currently there are no electric Foggers on the market safety regarding safety there are no
proven documented cases of health issues I have personally raised three healthy beautiful girls and two healthy dogs that grew up with me on the golf course during my tenure at ECC take for example common household items sunscreen deemed devastating to marine
life and coral life hand sand are load loaded with tricarbon and trazan which is absorbed into the skin and is proven to have cause liver issues and thid issues so this is just two examples of products that are proven to cause health
issues but we continue to use them emissions gas power blowers meet all emission standards set forth by the EPA I have updated all my equipment to meet those current standards electric blowers do very little to reduce emissions overall not
to mention the environmental concerns it creates for worsens related to battery production and the lack of recycling options for those batteries noise gas powered blowers meet the requirements of the state of New Jersey which is 65 DB I understand West Orange Is 40
DB uh again these decb are set forth by the D at 65 Debs if we are 150 ft away from a property line we are meeting the deciel levels of West Orange and if we are 300 ft pertaining to golf courses
from a property line we are under the 40 d level reading that the town of West Orange requires um and on a property of 172 Acres that's very easy to do to stay away 300 feet from a property
line an old vacuum cleaner for example your washing machine and a busy restaurant all have deciel levels 60 to 80 cost to Essex County Country Club gas powerered blowers industrial strength a good battery uh lasts four hours so I
would need two per back pack I currently have 25 gas power blowers a unit is 400 the batteries cost 1,500 a piece I would need two batteries so each unit cost $3,500 for me it's going to cost the club uh with two batteries two charging
stations and and upgrade to my electrical system in my cart Barn in order to be able to charge that many batteries approximately $110,000 okay that does not include string trimmers hedge trimmers chainsaws cussing us additional 50 um and we have
75 potentially lithium batteries that will be charging uh which have been proven to explode or catch fire wire charging in conclusion I'm not against the movement to Electric uh it's just not efficient for the means in which we use them to
maintain and detail our country clubs members pay our members pay 600,000 in property taxes we host two West Orange outings we're very good neighbors one of um an outright band just doesn't make sense I propose making an exemption to golf courses not just the one that I
neighbor s the county course should not be allowed to use if it's harmful to the environment harmful to employees they should not be allowed to use it while I look down and watch them using all the gas powered equipment and I got to purchase electric FL your time is up
thank you thank you Mr Thompson good evening council members Madame mayor my name is Richard fredman I live at sorry I live 11 kovak Court West Orange um I need some clarity on ordinance number
2898 uh if not tonight perhaps someone can get back to me uh it establishes a school zone at Liberty Middle School located on Kelly Drive and Route 10 would anyone be able to tell me what effects there will be on Kelly Drive as
far as changes of how the road is used uh anything to slow down drivers uh any kind of speed bumps humps calming tables uh which uh my community would be in favor of over there and when the uh town
plans to begin the uh instruction in recognizing that this is a school zone yes I'm I'm sorry what we typically do is we wait for everybody to speak and then we respond accordingly so we don't engage in an interaction with you now but I just want to make
sure that I understood your question because we will we will get you the answer either tonight or uh very soon afterwards oh apologies then no no problem uh my question basically is that Liberty Middle School which has been there for about 18 years has never been
declared a school zone uh it's long overdue uh but it has been now and I appreciate that it's finally being done uh as a homeowner in that area who uh happen to be president of the board of belaired West Orange and I'd I know I'm going to get questions
for my homeowners as to what will be going on over there and when it'll take place so I'd appreciate it not now but if somebody can get back to me to give me that information it would be most appreciated yes would you send your email address to council at westorange.org when you get a chance and
we will get back to you thank you sir we may also have somebody here who can answer uh after we finish public comment the portion of public comment okay have a good night thank you thank you Dr ifer hello uh my name is Robert ifer
hello to my friends on Council um I am the vice president of the Board of Education in West Orange and I'm also the liaison to town counil which brings me here tonight uh regarding the leaf blowing issue um
you know Council celino said something which I thought was correct but that's why I'm here we have no idea whether this uh relates to the schools or not and there's a problem here because we're all you know here together um we all pay
the same very high taxes and we want to be on the same team but we're just hearing about this so um I'm not here to weigh in on whether it's a good idea or not I'm here to tell that one of three things is going to happen either so we
can't do this it is in the words of the uh the board it is prohibitively expensive we don't have it last night we had a meeting a public meeting and I said that this year's budget process was the best in the past three years um and
it's being taken very seriously we don't vote on the budget until June but we're talking about it now of course so what now we see this so one of three things is going to happen either we're going to have to go to our lawyer and either see if it really does apply
to us and then decide whether to fight it which costs us all of us money or it is the law and then we have one of two options the first option is to raise our uh budget so we raise taxes I've already
said I won't vote for that I'm not doing that the second option would be let's start cutting so we have all these things what are we going to cut are we going to cut bus routes are we going to cut uh student services are we going to cut positions in the school we don't
want to do that this for us this does not work uh if you can give I I waited I thought there would be some clarity here but there there isn't so um it was important for us to let you know where
we stand on this and in the future like the immediate future we should talk to each other we're all paying the same ridiculous taxes right six I you can correct me uh you know better than I council president but about over 60% of our taxes come from the Schoolboard
budget is that correct that's correct so 62% right so we should be at the table we want to be at the table but you have to let us know what's going on and I you know we we will be as receptive as we can be given the budget constraints that we're under
that's it thank you thank you drer my name is Richard lean arst I'm at 1073 Pleasant valleyway in West Orange like to start with really like to thank uh Miss Scarpa and Miss Gaber Michael for coming and meeting with me on uh
Saturday morning when I was last here I put out a request for you guys to meet with me my company is Jersey Power Equipment in Clifton New Jersey I went to James Lor and I spoke to him who's the um your superintendent for your DPW
we all met I brought some battery powered equipment the two best products on the market we did a comparison battery versus his gas um obviously the gas was much more powerful um the challenges he faces is he have to you
now have parking on both sides of the street in many on many blocks he has to move the leaves from this side of the street to the middle of the street which is a challenge would be very hard to do that with a battery powered blower when he has six weeks to clear his street and he
has to do this using Machinery the battery power blowers are going to slow him down because he won't be able to keep up his machines are quick the truck is quick the blowers are going to slow him down he he was commenting that would need twice the
staff um I just sold Glenn Ridge $65,500 worth of blowers to start because they put this ban in place and that's a start um you guys would probably need about the same not to mention you need much more manpower the gentleman from the
golf course just spoke and I visited five golf courses I don't know what they're going to do this gentleman just talked about noise so if the backpack's noisy then you better ban all the motorcycles coming through town and you and you better stop using the chainsaw
because that's twice as loud and and and that chainsaw pollutes more than the backpack so we're over here talking about this product and and the really we don't have a solution just yet the gas blower it cannot be replaced with a
battery powered product and I sell them I've been doing this since the 70s so I I just think it's very unfair to do this there was a woman got up last week and she talked about she's she has a blower and uh the all the batteries last forever I can tell you I recycle 30
batteries a week and this this is brand new product that that has failed so I take the batteries I give the landscape or another battery and I take that old battery and I bring it down to Loser Home Depot where I put it in their recycling bin and they tell me I can do
that batteries come two ways they come Cobalt and they come phosphate you can recycle a Cobalt battery they can't recycle a phosphate battery and these batteries are phosphate so so forget about the mining of the batteries and getting rid of the batteries and the
cost of the batteries it's just we're not there and we keep pushing this through the people in lellan park are now being told this is going through they're up in arms they have no idea that this is happening uh what I'm going to suggest if partial ban is fine you
got six weeks you're giving the landscaper you should give them eight weeks you should give them if he starts March 1st and we get a snowstorm in March he may not be able to start to March 15 if you tie his hands to March 15th now now now you have him starting
later than he wants to start so I think if you give him 60 days in the spring at least 60 days in the fall I don't think you should go ahead with technology for next year and having this baned for next year totally I think you need to put it on the ballot make it a referendum and
let the people vote and let them decide because this is such a hot topic I think it's very and I said this a year and a half ago I think it's very unfair for you guys to to jam this thing through next year when the technology isn't there all you're doing is you're putting
another tax on me because like like Monclair if my cleanup bill was $1,000 the the average price is three times the amount so now my my price is $3,000 to do this cleanup right because they're going to charge me by the hour
and they're going to be a lot slower because the back doesn't work so on top of paying huge taxes that I just had a a huge tax increase now you're going to have my landscaper hit me with with a bigger tax so I just I don't think this is fair and I'm telling you from somebody that's in the business I would
it financially if you went all battery I'd make a lot more more money and it would be a lot better for me but it's not better for the landscaper the people in the golf course the people in your town it just it doesn't work we're not there yet I don't know why you keep trying to jam this through um it it's if
you look at the other towns Monclair is a mess in the winter they're they are using gas if they tell you they're not they're lying and and now you're you're saying they can't use a generator they're all using generators because they they can't plug into the customer's house your time is up need to take a
good look at it thank you thank you Mr Le hi I'm Doug Adams I in West orang I West over Terrace um a friend of mine he's really a mentor and he probably was telling me this to correct my uh correct me in the moment and he said dou you
know novice always make mistakes with power because they're not used to dealing with power and that Rings true to me in a really unique way because I hate coconut it's not theologically true but if I had my way I would have made
coconut the fruit that eveve at in the garden I can't do that because I don't have the power if I had the power I would tell every restaurant that I go to you have to make coconut free carrot cake and
coconut carrot cake or just make coconut free carrot cake because I really like carrot cake one of the challenges that we have is there is the balance between moving moving towards what is good in a good
way or moving for the sake of certain passionate people around a particular perspective so I don't know there's a bunch of experts who have talked about the um the gas blowers I've listened to
a lot of residents and other people come in and talk about it in the course of my life I've uh as a pastor I've done other things besides it and working for motorol and fdu and one of those things was working with Pest Control I sold
Pest Control I served as a service manager for Terminex for several years and one of the things that I would tell my sales folk or my service people when we were trying to expand uh the sales is go to a house and look and see if they
have leaves around their home and after you do your inspection walk around the side of their house house particularly if there's moisture and flip the leaves over and you will sell them a pest control contract
because there are spiders and everything else around you now some people have larger yards some people are comfortable with those things all I'm saying is there is two sides to every coin the school district has come and talked about how it would impact them the
Department of Public Health or the Department of Public Works talked about how it would impact them economically we couldn't even come together to buy suitable um garbage dispensers throughout town so that we wouldn't have stuff blowing all over and everything
else like that because one we didn't take the time to have a full scope conversation about it but the other side of it we couldn't afford to spend the money and put the money out first to buy the containers so what is the economic impact what what are the numbers that go
along with how this is going to affect our residents our seniors our lower income families because there are some of those folk who live here what's going to be the total townwide impact but even beyond
that with all the tension we have in town why are we trying to weaponize our neighbors why are we trying to turn our neighbors into gapo it's already a tough Dynamic and you got people driving driving around they taking pictures of your house they
watching you do this are you doing that are you over there I'm going to report you I'm sending pictures in what kind of Community are we going to be where we got folk who are reporting all this kind of stuff now I could just I I'm just going
to say I could go way in on some stuff around that but don't we want to be a nice Community don't we want to be neighbor neb who respect each other we've got people in
town that are right now struggling because we just went through a real difficult time where we've had people groups in our town that have experienced great degrees of
hostility and we're still trying to work through how we honor that how about the council spend some time trying to bring some healing to us as neighbors and lead us into the
conversations to do the rigor of making the right decision let's not be novice with power and just make decisions because we have the power to make it let's lead in a way that all of us can be thankful that
you're our leaders thank you how are you doing my name is Jim Lor I live in at two Crossing Drive in Flanders but I'm here as your Acting Superintendent of parks recreation and grounds I'm here to speak on the the
blower issue um I'm I'm a Towny I've i' I've been here almost all my life just with the except for the last five 5 years my father was a cop my mother and father
ran the palal from the 60s through the 70s West Orange is my heart I want to provide the best Services I can for your constituents and the other people that live here this year we did 25,000 cubic yards
of Leaves we moved now to put that into some kind of perspective everybody knows what a garbage truck looks like a garbage truck holds 25 cubic yards that's a th000 full garbage trucks we did it with two
Crews of no more than five to seven people per crew we started November first week of November so the contractors are allowed to put their leaves out the last two weeks of October if they can't put their leaves out we
can't start if we can't start it may snow somebody who has a Christmas celebration can't park on their street because when we take over a street when we're doing our job we're like a an imposing Army I
have two garbage trucks I have a loader I have a pusher the other crew has three tandems that take 10 yards a piece so they're making more trips than than my crew the most important thing to me is to get those leaves out of the street
and keep on marching forward I tested two of these units these battery operated units alongside one of my co-workers who was using a a 8500 uh Max red
Max he left me in the dirt and like I said I wanted I everything I do here I want to do a thorough job whether it's the baseball fields the soccer fields the kitty parks whatever I got to do it's I'm all the pool
everything he left me in the dirt I'm trying to get the leaves out from the curb so they're not going to blow up onto somebody's lawn and then somebody gets a phone call they they left a mess in front of my house I didn't want to do that but we got to move we need to be
done in six weeks and this year we were we were done quite possibly more than two weeks away from Christmas which is is a big plus for us and everybody that's wants to enjoy Christmas I have two two quotes for two
different kinds of machines that certainly don't have the power of the red Max can't get the leaves out from under the cars like Richard mentioned because I have to be down in the Heights and I have to be down in the valley I get four hours
twice a week to be down there and clean up every street in the Heights and every street in the valley most of the time I try to do both sides but by getting the leaves out from under the cars so I don't have to leave a mess or come back
again because that's not good use of time and money but back to the battery operated blowers the two I tested were pan and Crest the palan I need six units with three batteries per because
the batteries expire in two hours and I need to have at least a six hour day you know minus long and you know break time or whatever I would like to have four but it takes six hours for them to charge and that's at
$29,000 for those six units and enough batteries to last through today the Crest is more powerful not as powerful as the red Max their batteries die out in 30 minutes their plus side is they charge
in eight minutes so now I have to carry a char charging unit around that every time somebody blows a battery after 30 minutes of working takes one out puts another one in the sleeve and then hopefully in in 30 minutes there'll be another fresh
battery this is counterproductive to everything we stand for Public Works does two things very very well here we remove leaves and we remove snow that is a team effort from the littlest guy on
up to the top guy in the in the place we all work together this is going to severely impair our our ability your time is up know thank you good evening councel my name is Michael jvini I live at 68 mango Road
here in West Orange I am a second generation lifetime resident and business owner here in time and Jimmy I can contest to you I work in a lot of other municipalities with leaves and snow and uh West Orange is by far
superior than all of the neighboring townships and that comes firsthand because I work in all of them I'm here to respectfully speak on the issue of banning gas powerered leaf blowers it is without a doubt this purpose this proposed ban will not only
adversely affect the way we conduct our business but also the quality of care and service my clients are accustomed to our spring and fall services are extremely time consuming and attempting to complete these very labor intense
early and late season tasks in any similar quality with only the use of rakes tarps and no electric equivalent will be unachievable within any reasonable cost time frame or my biggest concern possibly at
all with that without the use of any gas powerered blower we will no longer have the ability to manage our current volume thus resulting in the high probability of incomplete properties unsatisfied clients loss of business and a poor look
for our community I can't understand how someone can seem to be so concerned about the environment and yet promote and mandate the purchase and use of a product that is unproven and quite environmentally
unfriendly we all clearly know the terms of health and environment are being used in place of the true reason of noise alone let's look at the battery powered blowers themselves are you aware of the impact lithium
iani uh practices itself has on the environment in part it requires tremendous volume of energy and water a natural resource mind you to extract from the earth which in turn leads to air and water pollution of chemicals and
heavy metals it is also known to be a major contributor to the disruption of wildlife habitat soil erosion and significant long-term ecological damage even though some may falsely claim that the lithium ion batteries are recyclable the true fact is that they
are not and result in thousands upon thousands of these batteries tossed in our trash and landfills they have almost been factually they have been factually proven to spontaneously combust potentially leading to the loss of one's home
business property or Worse the loss of one's life I would like to address some of the talking points you've heard from them from some that support the ban I saw a 2011 study sourced that show
leaf blower emits nearly 300 times the amount of air pollutants as a pickup truck this is almost a 14-year-old study these products have come a a long way over the past dozen plus years the US
has some of the most stringent emission laws in the world which all of these products and manufacturers need to adhere if all the glass gas blowers were such a harm to humanity how does the EPA and the DPE uh the EP allow them to
exist it is said that leaf litter should be left in beds and decomposed as mulch naturally feed and create a habitat for beneficial insects in fact Leaf litter is not as fine as mulch which will smother Mo
plant plant material generate fungal spores mold and yes may create a habitat for beneficial insects as well as many non-beneficial insects mice rats and snakes is this what you want surrounding
the foundation of your home or your neighboring properties it is said that leaf Bowers stir up harmful dust and Ash contribute to soil erosion and that the leaf matter should be mulched and left in place do you have any idea how much fine particle
dust is created by a mower constantly running over the lawn covered with leaves to chop them finely enough especially when they are dry the is far more than what is
produced by a blower I assure you one of the greatest combatants of soil erosion is good healthy Turf excessive Leaf litter whether it is mulched will lead to thinning of the turf compromise its integrity and ultimately lead to soil
erosion it is also said that business owners do not care about the safety of their employees your time is up thank you thank you hi my name is Daria Paxton I'm the owner of Gia Gardens I can you I'm sorry can you repeat your name Daria Paxton oh
thank you um I am the owner of Gaia Gardens I am also on the New Jersey um New Jersey nursy and Landscape Association board I'm certified Nursery landscape professional and a professional um certified AIT member so um the
American green zone Alliance actually it's entire ire mission is to help different organizations and people um and businesses move you know move away from from gas powerered tools and it was founded in California they have um
groups all over the country and they recognize that the problem in the Northeast is that we have so much Leaf fall that we cannot clear densely populated areas well enough with Electric Tools at this time um even
though that is their entire mission is to help people um use more more electricity um I have a question because I understand that um first of all it's a very complicated issue because we there's a lot of people living in what
would otherwise be Forest so we make a lot of compromises to live together and manage our spaces together where whether it's a golf course or a home with no lawn or an apartment building or a uh a shopping mall
and all of which we have in this town um I understand that not only are a lot of people in the way including myself by by the um the leaf backpack blow gas blowers especially the lower noise frequencies um but I don't understand
why the the for cycle push blower which is really crucial for landscapers and especially in commercial spaces is included in the band along with the two cycle backpack blowers it doesn't have the emiss problems that uh the two cycle blowers
have um as I've been driving electric vehicles and using electric tools for eight years in my own business um you know I've learned a lot about them and um including their their limits and probably most people in this room
understand the idea of range anxiety of cars and battery powered cars because there aren't very many battery powered cars out in the parking lot um but if you do drive a b batter powered car you understand the temperature has an enormous effect on the function of the batteries and this definitely is true
with Electric Tools so um last year I replaced all my Greenworks tools which I've been using uh for for years with crust because they're much more efficient for all the reasons that have been mentioned and as we all know it was a pretty cold fall and there were times there were many days in November and
December where the tools just didn't work the batteries were like in off mode like your cell phone battery dies and it wouldn't charge um and that was entirely related to temperature um we we do we have been charging the batteries at our
client's homes because we need to charge throughout the day while we're using the tools and I haven't had a problem but I do know some contractors who have Tri breakers on people's houses and were not aware of it um unfortunately one of them was a sump pump line and was found out
when the basement flooded I contacted my insurance company about this being a li you know how how this would be handled as a liability and they said that there is no way to avoid the liability um not even in wording um you
know and you can always try to the homeowner could always try to subate against the policy which puts anybody who is dealing with battery operated equipment especially on a residential area in a lot of potential trouble um I
know that the the Buffalo blower B is basically allowed to be used maybe on golf courses but there's a huge gap between backpack blowers and a buffalo blower so a 15 acre property in this town I think is almost exclusively golf courses but if you look at asex green or
the I I apologize I don't know the specific name of it the um the whole food sh part you know shopping center the whole food shopping center is under 10 acres which means that if you pass this span the way it's written only a Backpack Blower of electric Backpack
Blower would be able to clean that parking lot and it's downhill and across the street from Eagle Rock reservation where all the leaves are going to blow into the parking lot um I it's just not even conceivable so um I really I really
hope that everybody is at least like listening to each other even if you don't agree and thinking about this a little more with a little more complexity I I really encourage more people to take care of their own yards and take care of their own soil by trying to keep their leaves if they can
but it's not always possible there's just too many different types of situations thank you thank you good evening Carman duto Pleasant Valley way uh they basically touched on everything I'm just going to touch on Mr Adams point I can't believe the council
would even consider it I've been a lifelong resident of this town how could you actually put in an ordinance that you want your neighbor to take a picture and you're smiling and you made the whole point councilwoman Ruden that you know it'll work in court is that what we
want West Orange to be yeah is that what we want them to be you want them to be you know you got your signs that say coexist and you got your signs that said hate have no place here and it's a stigma free town is it really is it really when you come to cour
come and I gotta find out I gotta find out that my neighbor Joe kak took a picture of me or I took a picture of you and you're sitting there in your bbds and you're blowing out your your your deck and there you are with with a thing and I come to court and I say hey count attorney this is what I
want you to do I want you to slap him with a fine how far do we go before we get road rage in this town and neighbor rage in this town I thought we wanted people to live together the council has never come to the landscapers and said
what can we do to avoid this noise can we get together and say hey let's call Red Max let's call Steel and say make a better muffler or we're gonna we're gonna sue you or we're going to do this this
started in Co because people were home from covid basically a lot of people uh in certain parts of the town now they're not back at work apparently and they're hearing all the blowers so now you see oh there's a guy here he came on my block and a guy here came on my block
one guy said we should have all the landscaper show up on a Monday and Tuesday you wouldn't be able to move in this town you want your Lawns done you want them looking good that's the right of that American flag that flies out in front of town hall that's your right your right it's not banned by the the
Environmental Protection Agency the blowers are allowed but how come these people that are so much for this band if you have a landscaper how come you're not telling your landscaper hey Mike jvini I need you just to use battery operated stuff on my property you'd probably cut down a lot of noise in town
but how could you guys allow this this is our town you're gonna have neighbors take pictures of neighbors we're GNA drive by and I'm G to snap a picture of jvini with his with his you know because he needs his batteries are dead and he's just going to hit him real quick with the blower I got him he gets a $200 fine
utterly ridiculous that's all I have to say is there anyone else who would like to speak on an agenda item Riley 56 lenx terce I'm sitting here feeling very concerned about some of the conversation that I've heard this evening because I
think we're talking about a problem that really doesn't exist another speaker spoke about the fact that he he does not put his leaves out on the street I don't put my leaves out on the street I don't expect the town to come and clean up my
leaves I leave my leaves in my beds I have been told by the former um our former Forester that I have one of the most beautiful gardens in town of which he counted 10 and I was one of those I
do not have rats I do not have Critters I have insects what a joy those insects feed the birds in the spring I have so many birds in my backyard this is all about nature and Beauty no one is blowing leaves in the
Woodlands or the forests the leaves fall from the trees they turn into soil we need good soil in West Orange because we have bad soil we have clay soil it is not good for absorbing moisture when we
have terrible storms if you watch the news this week you know what's happened in Kentucky with horrendous flooding or Los Angeles we have had the same situation here in West Orange we need to get better soil we need to leave the
leaves Let Them Fall where they are if you don't want them on your lawn yes they can be raped off or they can be left where they are leaves are not bad leaves are good insects are good birds are good this is all about nature this
is not a problem for our town we're not against each other we need to understand that this Leaf putting out on the street is a new phenomena it's a new business for landscapers and I understand that they want to earn a living but we don't
need to put our leaves on the street the leaves need to be where they are underneath trees and they make soil and this is not a it's not a problem and it concerns me to hear neighbors talking about such scary things they're leaves
when leaves dry up they turn into soil that's it they're not scary they don't come into your house and steal your wine they're just leaves can I ask a question about another issue on our agenda
8125 there are seven bids that were are asked to be rescinded is it possible to share with us what the uh department is expecting for the cost of the Minish community
garden so I understand that the seven bids that went out were too high the people came back with too high of costs I would like to know what the expectation is or an estimation of what the new Minish Garden community garden
is going to cost and or expected and that's it save our leaves there is a national campaign from coast to coast from California to New Jersey called save our leaves we need to think about that I'm I'm the only person on my
street that doesn't put leaves out on the street in fact some of the landscapers put other people's leaves in front of my house because the mountains are so high if we did it one house at a time one street at a time one neighborhood at a time there's another
neighbor here I'm going to hopefully link up with him and let's start a movement where we save our leaves that's what we should be doing and not fighting with each other about gas blowers or or electric blowers or anything just let's
F about focus on nature and about Pro protecting our soil that's going to protect us from flooding it's going to bring us a more natural community and a healthy Community I'm done thanks thank
you I'll keep it very brief my name is Mike Campbell uh I am the director of golf course operations at the Montclair Golf Club um graduate of the Ruckers University turf grass program I also hold a certification status with the gcsaa one of 1,000
worldwide I'm not going to spend my time talking about whether or not we should have gasoline or or electric um I would like to point out that that landscapers have their issues golf courses have totally separate issues our issues really aren't leaves uh we we we Harvest
our leaves we compost them on property uh we do a lot of positive things for the environment we we are preparing playing surfaces we there's I believe six golf courses in West Orange four of them are Equity owned we're we are community
members we're not we're we're not coming in to work in this community um I've worked in West Orange for a little over 20 years we are preparing planing surfaces we simply cannot have leaves on the planing surfaces our members pay a lot of dues our members a lot of them
are West Orange residents so not only is the club paying property taxes but many of our members are paying property taxes and this is our operation they have to be able to put on greens we have to be able to prepare those playing surfaces
in time for our members to play golf my other concern with the ordinance besides the fuel source for the blowers is the times um you know golf is an early game uh 10: a. on the weekends that puts us out of business people are not waiting
uh whether or not they're playing Rock Spring in West Orange or Montclair Golf Club in West Orange or any other golf course they are not waiting till 10:00 a.m. our greens are cut below a tenth of an inch if I leave sticks uh Samaras
leaves I cannot cut the green so if I cannot cut the green or blow the green prior to cutting the green my members cannot play golf and that's not a Montclair specific issue that's a rock spring issue that is a Essex County issue that is a cresmont issue an
essexfells issue and a Montclair Golf Club issue so our issue is really not clearing leaves it is it is surface preparation um so you know that that I don't believe that the electric
technology is there for us to be able to do it in time we do use some electric blowers when we were in proximity of our neighbors and the property lines uh to stay within noise ordinance issues especially in Verona where some of our greens are right up against other people's property and I take great pride
in being a good neighbor uh in my 10 years at Montclair golf club we have not responded to one noise ordinance issue not one so um I think that we do the right thing by our neighbors I think that we are good neighbors I would appreciate it if you know the golf
course is a very complex operation we're big we are 300 acres Jason mentioned $100,000 of expense um we're we're we're double that um so it would be helpful as taxpayers as
community members um I I I would personally welcome the opportunity to work with Council to find a solution uh and and to be able to operate our operation um and and and find solutions that the that the council is looking for but right now I don't believe that
technology is there but I would be more than happy to discuss that at further length and try to help the uh the council find the solution that they need to find thank you hi everyone my name is Jessica stalsberg I live at 31 Fairfield in Montclair um I
was here a couple weeks ago um just offering support and any guidance that you may all need we certainly have learned a great deal and we learned a great deal before we passed this legislation um it's now been in effect
for two Falls one spring we're doing quite well we're doing better than ever because our children are safer our seniors are safer people walking down our streets are safer and as important
the workers who wear these very dangerous machines on their backs are safer so I applaud your passage of this because it shows a true commitment to Public Health and I don't think tonight there has been quite
enough airspace on public health every single City and town that has been passing this across the country is doing it for public health they are not doing it to harm business they are not doing it to uh hurt the
fossil fuel industry they're doing it to protect people of all ages including workers so thank you so much for joining these communities who have done this um we have had more time on
golf courses tonight which it's it's almost offensive on some level that we will talk about the needs of golfers above the needs of children and then we you have a representative from your own Board of Ed or a liaison who says he's
not sure how he could do it and yet those machines outside your school's windows are dangerous to those children your parks in wreck person was here those machines outside alongside playgrounds are dangerous to your Town's
children so thank you for caring about those children thank you for caring about those workers your own town employees will be safer because of this thank you for that and one of the golf Representatives tonight mentioned
something I was noticing he mentioned something about um the use of sunscreen we certainly I am constantly researching and feeling overwhelmed by what ingredients are in all the products we use I think everybody struggles with this but you know what's interesting is that when somebody makes a choice to use
sunscreen that maybe is harmful to their body it doesn't harm my body it doesn't harm your body it doesn't harm a woman with asthma's body or children inside classroom's bodies but when that gas leaf blower which emits 30% % 30%
unburned fuel out of a machine on the backs of men who are not protected properly it harms them it harms everybody and this can be done and it is being done it's being done across the country why not in West Orange so thank
you for doing this in West Orange and the last thing I'd like to leave you with is West Orange along with most communities in New Jersey and across the country has a idling limit of 3 minutes
3 minutes those idling limits were put in place passed locally came down from on high why to protect emissions output in our communities don't idle your car because it's dangerous what comes out of
that tailpipe when it just sits idling for too long the gas powerered leaf blower will never pass an emissions test at the DMV and at any community that allows it off it goes for hours and hours at a time as people said in here
what is it six days a week for eight hours a day why is that allowed but we can't idle a car here for three minutes so thank you for passing this and being joining others who've done it ahead of you who are successful ahead of you who
have resources to share with you you're doing good work here thank you is there anyone else who'd like to speak you're more than welcome to stand in [Music] line could do that now Mr V Mr Vina I
don't know if you were here when we started this if we're bifurcating the public comment if you have a question or a comment about a an agenda item now is the time for you to make please please come
on okay I'm here to again speak to you about the popup ordinance I know there's some opposition to it from people in the community uh but Mr Vina can you just state your name and address for record Joseph venth 34 Stone Drive thank you
despite what some of you might have heard and what I've heard about the popup ordinance which you might have received from various residents in town who were opposed to the ordinance it is not discriminatory it is not a racial or
cultural issue it protects the quality of life of all of the residents in our town notwithstanding not without considering their race their religion or their culture so any argument that it's
detrimental to someone's race religion or culture is baloney it's not a quote based biased enforcement okay I've been watching could you stop the clock please so we can get this make
sure it's not quote based a biased enforcement against minority populations close quote which I've heard various residents of town have mentioned is quality of life ordinance
and to counts it as being anti the minority population in our town and to counts it as selective enforcement in our town is disgraceful in the municipality as diverse as West
Orange the exemptions requested by various people who are opposed to this ordinance for homeowners or tenants or political or charitable events in private residences cultural or
religious events in private residences uh these exemptions would make it almost impossible for our Police Department to enforce the ordinance the police and West Orange will enforce this ordinance equally and
uniformly and the municipal judge will determine if someone is guilty or innocent and will exact the appropriate penalty the opposition to this ordinance has the concern that the ordinance should
outline specific penalties in the ordinance for non-compliance the current penalty is $100 the ordinance provides for the penalty based upon section one of our
Municipal ordinance and that's a very small cost for doing business after raking in thousands of dollars with a lot of people coming to a residence paying to go into the party
paying for the alcoholic beverages and food that served uh you know if you had a $100 fine many of us would say you know what I'll have a popup every week and I'll pay a hundred buck fine and I'll make three four
$5,000 because the amount of vehicles alone that come to these residences exceed 100 therefore consistent with one of the objectors concerns that you have clear guidelines
in the ordinance to avoid arbitrary enforcement claims of discrimination or unfair treatment the minimal minimum fine in this ordin should be $1500 a fine for noise in this town is
$500 if you have to make too much movies if you park your car in a handicap spot for five minutes and run into get your prescription you're going to get a $250 ticket we have to deter this kind of operation in town a
$1,500 fine with multiples based upon each subsequent violation should be implemented into your ordinance so let me end just by saying eliminate the exemptions and put a fine of
$1,500 to be increased with every subsequent violation thank you thank you good evening my name is Jacob Stevens I'm a resident at seven Greenwood AV West Orange so I'm here to talk again about
the leaf flower B I'm sure everyone here is pretty sick of hearing about it um I spoke a month ago as well and I have a few responses to a few comments made uh before me so in the uh interest of
Public Health and the health of the operators of backpack blowers as was previously mentioned the electric versions of these pieces of equipment are significantly heavier um I wrote an email to our absentee
councilwoman tonight and I wrote down specifically I believe it was the equivalent Crest Backpack Blower is about 7 lbs heavier than the equivalent gasoline blower equalent red Max um and that is a piece of equipment that weighs
less than 30 pounds 7 pounds is a lot more weight to be carrying on your back for several hours a day talking about the respiratory and hearing risks to The Operators of this equipment yes there are risks to The Operators of course
we're dealing with hydrocarbon emissions that's inescapable to a certain degree when dealing with modern society internal combustion however most of that risk is currently mitigated by the ooser required PPE you may not be familiar
with seeing your landscapers wear said PPE but trust me it is a requirement and it does do a lot of work mitigating the harm a lot of the respiratory risks posed by gas blowers are also posed by
electric blowers as people have mentioned they kick up a lot of the same particulates and with the mulching idea going over your leaves to try and render them down into usable mulch that will compost faster that does as also
previously mentioned produce significantly more particulates than even a gas flower would and as you mentioned last council meeting um our wonderful Council woman celano Cal has an allergic reaction to certain
types of leaves when they're piled and I can guarantee you a mulching program will only intensify this now to the health of the children so we have all heard about or experienc in some way ticks I'm
assuming they carry around here a particularly annoying disease called lines disease anyone who's had this I'm sorry I don't hear anything yeah someone fix the audio is this better yes hello
okay leaving the leaves on the ground is effective in some ways for improving the habitat of insects birds rodents things of that nature however it does also invite certain insects and animals that
we would rather not have Chief among them ticks and snakes and other forms of spiders and biting insects anyone who's been outside in the woods can tell you you have to watch out for ticks now we don't want to have to wear
bug spray every time we leave our houses or make our children do the same as someone mentioned with sunscreen you think the health risks of sunscreen are bad wait until you hear about deep I guarantee you it is a lot worse and
while leaving the leaves may work for one property per Street I guarantee you if that were implemented on a wide scale we would see higher rates of limes disease and other insect born diseases
as a result talking about drainage now so leaves do trap moisture they can cause serious fungal and mold old issues particularly for the trees that drop them if they are not managed properly
this can result in a whole host of respiratory illnesses and a cycle of disease for the trees themselves we want shade trees in our town I don't think we have enough I live next to Pleasant Valley way there's hardly any shade trees on my section of that street and
I've been complaining about it add nauseum but being able to manage their leaves is a part of having them Montclair has already seen among clients for people I know in the industry residents are choosing to remove their
mature shade trees 50 to 60 year old life forms rather than try and either pay the higher rate to manage them spring and fall please or please please please please up he has the floor you are not
speaking my my time is up anyway thank you very much is there anyone else who'd like to speak no he can't come again if I'm not mistaken your statement was excuse me Mr Adams we do not allow people to speak twice uh at a council
meeting so please you've had the opportunity to speak please don't speak over me you didn't you've had the opportunity to speak whatever you said was fine but please sit down you've spoken once Mr Adams please
please my name is Alia tweeton and I came here tonight to be able to hear the mic as close as you can please the council speak and hear the concerns of the residents I pay a lot of taxes is in this town I can hardly hear you I don't
need hearing AG yet but I think if you spoken to the mic the council is well I could hardly hear Mar m speak McCartney speak and the rest of you I'm have to strain please speak into the mic or
don't stand up because we can't hear you thank you does anyone else wish to speak about an agenda item who has not spoken yet sure sure would you like to speak over the agenda
item please come up to the mic uh my name is Jeff Rogers and uh I live on Harper Street and about the uh leaf blowers I don't know why this is taking up so much time for the Town Council we have state law and we have federal law I don't think that the town
should be getting into things that are covered by state and federal law we're going to force the the um landscapers to buy extra equipment so they can service us here and then service places that allow gas and did you guys talk about the stop signs earlier I got in late the traffic no the 19 stop signs okay then
that was all I wanted to say thank you is there anyone else who wishes to speak on an agenda item okay I'm going to close public comment for agenda items thank you
everybody for who came and spoke uh I just in my notes I have two questions that I want to just uh ask uh Chief Abbott uh if we have a resource to answer them now the first one was from uh
uh Mr thin if I pronounce that right if I didn't I apologize he wanted to ask questions about the Liberty uh School ordinance and what impact that would be essentially on the residents uh around Kelly school if I did I get that right
folks yeah I think that that's what I heard okay um our our engineer is here I'm sure she would speak with Mr Freeman if if you wanted to address the entire public that's fine that's up to you yes that would be great I suspect he's not the only person who's interested in
that excuse me I'm so sorry it's really difficult to hear is that mic off thank you move on the side it brought to my attention one of our meetings with residents that you know they needed to be more signage Etc when I went back
into the office I actually check the uh ordinance and of fortunately I noticed that it was missing so we drafted this ordinance basically to create and establish the uh the school zone as well as to be able to put up the signs so how would you say the situation
in that area is going to be improved by passing this ordinance not only establishes the school zone but it also will be able to put up a school zone signs that are currently missing within the district aside of from signs will it
impact the traffic in the area at all I don't see any impact because of the traffic really it's just basically to establish something that it should have been in the ordinance to begin with okay thank you and I think Mr thin is going to send an email to the
council so if he has any additional questions we can put you in touch all right thank you thank you Chief there was another question from Miss Riley um who was asking about the uh uh the seven bids that were rescinded but I don't
have on my Note she said what is going to be the cost of the community garden have we gotten that far uh Mr dinac maybe you know so just just to speak on the rejection of the bids um so the township did receive seven bids the
lowest being $725,000 the highest uh mil 91,000 um the available funds that we have for the project that it's really cobbled together from a few different ordinances is a little over $600,000 so that's why we're rejecting these bids uh
you know the bit far seeds are available funding thank you just so add that can everybody hear me okay just to add to that the project wasn't just the uh the garden it also included the fields uh drainage
improvements um and also the uh the planting so we're GNA have to go back to the drawing board and basically face outy the project or put it out to bit all together but maybe do an alternate so that we could only award what we can
afford okay yes thank you you will so now that we've answered the two questions uh The Next Step would be to have uh any of the council members or anybody from the administration who wants to respond I'll I'll start over here with uh councilwoman Scarpa uh you
want me to respond the whole response to public comment yes sure okay uh thank everyone for coming um I continue to appreciate all of your comments on all of this uh both John Blandon on your
comments about the popup parties I understand your advocacy um but uh Mr Vina has been here many many times and his neighbors have talked to us over and over again about the um destruction of his neighborhood
not only the quality of life but also the physical destruction and garbage and cars and if if you go back and look at the videos there's you know quite a thorough discussion about it and we really have to protect you know the
quality of life for all of our residents so uh I am in favor of um this ordinance and I am in favor of removing the exemptions which I believe is a loophole I said it at the last meeting and I think the F should be increased as well
so um I I am in favor of the pop-up parties uh for all of those uh Brent Scott first of all let me go back to Brent thank you for um your advocacy over and over again I
appreciate your uh thorough assessment of some of the Affairs of the zoning board um I haven't been aware of that level of detail and um I appreciate you're bringing them to our attention it sounds like you know we really need to
take a closer look um and I I agree with your assessment um of of most of the issues um and I think we really do need to look at it
um for all those who came in reference to the gas powerered blower um I want you to know that this is something that we've given a lot of thought too this is a very thoughtful decision probably one of the most
difficult decisions that you know I've had to make we've been thinking about it and talking about it for a couple of years now um it's very difficult to weigh the
needs of all of our residents you know our children and our seniors with asthma um those who are working at home those who simply want to be able to sleep in on a Saturday or a Sunday morning
and this is really a quality of life issue that is destroying some neighborhoods and really affecting the health and the welfare of many uh thank you to Beverly
again for clarifying the value of leaves and clarifying that there are other ways to deal with the leaves and it may not be necessary to put so many leaves out on the street all
of the time I use a rake myself um Mark Rosenberg you have thank you for bringing uh to light some of the your financial assessment and some of the economic advantages that we will see yes
we do have to put out some money and there are going to be some difficulties for many people but in the end I think when we look at the overall health wellness and the economic advantages I think most of our residents are going to
see that clean air and no noise when they need to work and the health of their families will take priority um it's a decision that I take
really seriously in fact my son said you know Mom that was like the only bad decision you made and I had to think through and justify to him that it is going to be a hardship for some people but for the major for many people and there were far more
people who want this and I have to look at the needs of everyone not just the people who agree with me but the needs of all of the residents and so I believe we have to do this now we have to move forward I think
as we move forward in the next year we will assess the needs of all of the residents and I'm sure that I will hear from any if there are and there will be some but if there are that many
residents a vast majority who are really not in favor of this we can always have a referendum I I think this is a matter of fundamental fairness and I don't think that once
residents realize the benefit we're going to have a majority who are not in favor of it and in terms of the neighbors and the the nastiness and the and the taking pictures I think the
people who really are bothered by this are going to go to their neighbors and they're going to say I can't do my work I I my children can't breathe they have asthma could you please make make sure that you're not blowing and those people
most of us are good neighbors and most of us are going to accommodate each other I'm sure you're going to get a bunch of people that are out there a few that are taking the photos but I think that's the minority I think most of us are good neighbors so I am going to be
voting for this I think it's important but we will continue to look at look at how it's affecting everyone and it is a matter of fundamental fairness um let's see I think I I pretty much covered most of that yeah I think
that's about all I have to say thank you councilwoman just just as a reminder that we have a whole another session of public comments so again I just want to reiterate if you can be as brief as possible I would appreciate it councilwoman Ruden well I'm going to be really brief I want to thank everybody
for coming out and speaking and hello to the zoom audience and thank you for being there um I think I think my Council colleague pretty much said it all and so I I I will pass I I appreciate all of your comments and I
support everything you said um thank you for coming from far and wide to express your views um it's not a surprise that I'm a strong supporter of the transition and I think it's going to be great for our community and I think as Leaders this is the way that we should go thank
you thank you councilwoman councilwoman gber Michael um good evening everyone one thank you council president um welcome to tonight's meeting thank you all for taking time to be here and stay informed and engaged I'm sorry that I'm
unable to attend in person this evening my son is sick with the flu and I'm wearing two hats tonight you know I'm on mommy duty as well so thank you for your understanding um so regarding the ban on gas leaf blowers I want to start by recognizing the collaborative efforts uh
of the previous Council the 2023 Council um we have we passed this and worked really hard to craft a you know Fair compromise and unfortunately it was vetoed by the mayor and despite her public support for a seasonal ban on gas leaf blowers she didn't take the
opportunity to amend the ordinance and bring it back for a council vote had she honored her commitment to pass the seasonal ban we wouldn't be revisiting this issue tonight or these last couple of months um I also want to express my thanks to miss Academy Mr Lan artist our
DPW iror Lou Reynolds and DPW superintendent Jim Lor um I discussed the revisions I plan to make tonight and they agreed that the proposed changes represent a fair compromise and additionally I believe that we should pass a referendum on this
matter to ensure that the the decision reflects the will uh you know of the community finally I want to extend my sincere gratitude to the landscapers and others who have voiced their concerns your input isn't invaluable and I appreciate your advocacy I understand the challenges
that this issue presents and your continued engagement is crucial as we work toward a solution that serves the best interest of our entire community and thank you uh council president I conclude my response to public comment and agenda items only thank you Council woman castelino
please thank you council president um thank you everyone for coming down if I have not got gotten back to you with an email uh this past week we been inundated with lots of emails and uh I think I I know I accidentally uh deleted too we've been really getting hit hit
with a lot of emails so appreciate all the uh everyone reaching out to us uh I'm going to start off uh real quick uh with Mr Fagan's report and thank you Dan Cunningham as we talk about uh leaes and
and and debris and garbage I I got to commend Dan Cunningham he is out there we call him Dan the man in downtown orange and he is out there uh just with litter cleanup and he is a such a great committed individual and uh we hope as
spring is coming and everyone is talking about spring cleanups that we're mindful of the litter that is all over our community that we uh get out there and do our due diligence to get it picked up uh so thank you uh Mr conningham for
your efforts uh popup party so um it lots of comments about that um I just want the folks to know that these parties have been all over town just not in Mr Vina
thank you for coming to Advocate few few people I've talked to could can't get here they have kids at night um but they they've been in multiple areas they've been up Eagle Rock Avenue um down in the valley on Valley Road uh watchong Avenue
we had a shutdown two years ago there was soccer parties someone paved their entire backyard and was having tournaments that people were coming from New York and at a state and vans would pull up and people jump out like it was
you know uh the stadium down in uh down in Harrison it is just Cra Crazy just what sometimes goes on in the town so we needed to to have an ordinance here I agree with Mr Vina we're going to talk about amendments later problem with this ordinance I wish was in better shape for
tonight uh we get done and we start working on things after midnight and you know I go back to the clerk you know what what got amended at the last meeting what didn't and uh there's not Clarity so we we need to clean that up
tonight and I hope we're able to pass this if not I hope I have the support for those amendments um because I agree there has to be a strong penalty um for these parties thousand thousands of dollars I'm hearing bottle service uh with thousand tables and
people's backyards I mean that's a business folks so it's it's it's utilizing our our properties we put in a mertile license for home businesses people don't you know um you know we have to be mindful residential Zone
you're in a residential zone for to be a resident you know not to be a business owner so um that's what this is about and this is something that many many residents are e static about because they're they've been terrorized in the
summer times I mean we're talking to 3: a um it's just the stories I hear are just in insane of of what residents had to live with right here in our own Township and it's folks of all you know I'm getting complaints from folks of all
Races so it's not one particular you know neighbor on neighbor or any kind of prejudice it's everyone I think is in agreement you can't like this you know especially when you have small children uh or just for anyone to sleep at night so uh that that has to stop so hopefully
we'll start stopping it this evening and I appreciate my colleagues for their support um we have anything else oh yes Miss so up on Kelly um Mr Freeman I I appreciate because I was in a meeting
with him about um in regards to to speeding over um on Kelly Drive and everybody has be mindful um I don't know why you know I appreciate our engineer she is really cleaning up a lot of
antiquated ordinances and really really working hard trying to get signage up all over town and and trying to do whatever she can uh to make her roadway safe and I really appreciate that uh Liberty Middle School even before I was on the school board um you remember
Jerry tarof requesting this the state because Mount Pleasant Avenue is um is is a state road and I don't know why that school zone wasn't officially done uh but now it now it will be and
thank thank our uh engineer for that and our Police Department um for meeting with the residents and trying to address but folks if you're if you're cutting through from Mount Pleasant over to Northfield and you're going through Kelly Drive please please please slow
down because there is a middle SCH School up on that hill and there are folks that live in the neighborhood and one resident he almost lost his wife but and then but did lose his his pet and um it's very very scary for a family so
very please be mindful when you're driving in that area so I thank Mr Freeman everyone in the association for all their hard work and hopefully we're able to uh make some modifications fortunately we can't make modifications yet because we do not have a capital
budget um we're spending a lot of time on all these other ordinances and I hope between um you know Administration and with us with Council we're able to get a a capital budget out because my question for administration is how are we even buying these leaf blowers we didn't even
pass our 2024 capital budget so where's the money coming from uh if if this passes this evening that's question number one where's the money coming from to buy to buy these Leaf Books so you're you're
you're right we would have to uh do a bond ordinance and include it in in a capital plan okay so because we're still waiting on uh Road repair for uh Hillside Terrace Cornell Street and all that would be all in that Bond okay just
curious when we're going to get to that okay so um next I appreciate again all the comments Mr Rosenberg you had you had a great comment um you know fol can do this differently well in other towns they do do it differently and I talking
to a lot of residents the past couple years I know one thing majority residents I talk to do not want to bag their leaves and that may be coming our way um if we can't get this done the problem with these ordinances I know I've given the council a really hard time and debating this and yes council
president I am going to take a few minutes because folks need to understand what this means for them we get up here appreciate all the P people that come for comments but when this gets people aren't paying attention and they're they are not of the understanding what this
means for them yes do we have to do something but I asked in years past that the environmental commission work on a townwide campaign to educate folks on on going towards using the leaf blow the
electric leaf blowers like let's start there but instead we're going to say you know what they got to get used to it we got to rip the Band-Aid off and and and and let's just you know make it difficult well for a lot of people businesses and for residents they have
to go out and buy a a electric ble leaf blower and yes because people utilize them on their properties during the summer months I've talked to multiple people that utilize them for various reasons and you can't blame folks if
they want a clean yard you can't blame f folks if they feel the need to keep their property pristine they shouldn't be penalized for that and so you know we don't we don't take away snow blowers
like especially last meeting we all went home in the snow we don't take away law mowers it just doesn't make sense um I understand the concern but the the environmental the state these things
aren't banned so for us to ban them we have to have a balance we're not going to be able to enforce this I appreciate Jessica you're coming from on clir I really do but a couple things our golf courses weren't included in the last
ordinance so that's why you're seeing the uh golf courses come this evening because now they're going to be affected when we went to pass this last time they were not included in the ban now they're going to be included so that's why you're seeing and hearing from and I'm sorry I have to disagree with
you I drive I live on that side of town by Montclair and when I this fall I was seeing your gas leaf blowers so I guess I have to take a picture and go to court because you know but I'm not going to take a picture and go to court like because I it this is just I find insane
that we have a whole another round of public comic coming this evening we have a lot of angst in our community that is breaking my heart and now we're going to tell people to take pictures of each other and and go at it folks just go at it because you
use your LEF lower and yes Council folks members colleagues they are going to be doing it I I know they are they're going to be taking pictures certain people in the community and that's going to be terrible it's just like just not right and growing up here I'm I'm just
disgusted with this whole ordinance another thing with the golf courses too a couple years ago we had a we helped well we helped ourselves and we helped cresmont Country Club out with preserving and I voted to preserve because I care about the environment 96
Acres of cresmont country club for our community and why did we do that it was in danger of being developed and it was in danger of being developed because of tough Economic Times for the golf courses and we know there's eban flow we have five golf courses in our town we
have five and we know that's why we had a buy Rock Spring another purchase I agreed with because when we those those golf courses they could go to development and as we know we're already over development another you
know fight we try to fight here and carry on and so we need to be mindful my biggest reason for not going to support this this evening is we can't enforce this this is just so hard to enforce you talk about
the three minutes of iding time and so correct but we can't even force that so I I I think we really need a townwide campaign on W for saving the environment and my biggest P peeve are the batteries
we're not saving the planet with these with this substitute these batteries where their mind just blows my mind and I appreciate all the environmentalists and I try to be environmental friendly but again when I do my research and we
talk about the science the batteries it's horrifying when you when you really dig deep and read up on these batteries and the danger to our planet and the cost is just astronomical so I'll rest here now anything I miss I'll catch
later because for those folks who did not ask the question I think Mr Adams asked um you'll get to speak again on an ordinance on on the second on the ones on second reading so again um I appreciate all that um Minish Park I
hope that does get done um and that's it you know thank you folks so much for coming out and hopefully we could work this out together thank you thank you
Council I'll try to be brief as well I have gotten a lot of questions from people on both sides of the aisle and they all make very good points and it's hard for me to argue with them and it just comes down to uh if you want to make some progress you're going to have
to figure out what works and what doesn't I don't know about you guys but I I am very encouraged that there is continued discussion uh on the wording of this ordinance and we'll have to see uh where that goes but it does show that
people are are that we're listening and uh like I said we'll see where it goes uh on the popup uh on the popup ordinance I just want to say thank you to Mr Blandon to come uh for coming here and this isn't the first time that he and I have spoke and it's important that
people who are concerned about uh any sort of uh uh nonuniform enforcement uh also have their voices and also raise the issues to make sure that uh we uh think these ordinances
through and make sure that they're uh fair to everyone and I'm sure Mr Blandon is going to be watching how this is implemented and enforced um and I want to say thank you to everybody coming you've got some
great comments and uh I I I think we're going to be uh uh moving uh to a more if not a totally acceptable a more acceptable uh ordinance uh down the road so I want to say thank you to everyone we need to uh now move to the rest of
our meeting Madame clerk okay uh the review of the consent agenda approval of minutes of previous meeting public meeting January 28th 2025 ABC hearing including public and executive session minutes February 5th 2025 consent
consent I'm consent except for the uh executive session minutes that I was not that I was not there for okay so okay that's fine wait a minute yeah
okay report of Township officers none reading of petitions and Communications and bids none Bill list are there any questions on the bills yes tonight yes okay um my first question is for
please speak in the mic I'm it's hard for me to hear you okay thank you um my my first question is for for our attorney um can we pull certain bills out to question and put them aside and then pass the rest of the bill list you
should be able to yes if you'd like to uh ask to remove something from it you could you should be able to do that okay so some of them I are just a question um so should I go ahead now yeah okay all right
so I'd like to um I guess I have three M three three kind of um categories in here um according to our our ordinance um we do not allow any holdover um
personnel and on this contract we have we have um budgeting for our Township planner and our Township um uh Township planning attorney and our Township um zoning
officer zoning attorney and neither of them have contracts so I'd like to to pull both of them and get get legal clarification on that until next week another another woman um when
you're done can you you I need to know specifically so I can put it in the minutes so I I'm going to need that information from you you will you need the number yeah I would prefer that you like highlight it and give it to me yeah that would be helpful thank you all right um
I would also like to um pull all of the all of the bills for Mr tren's firm um for November and December for further discussion I have looked through all of those bills and um I am concerned
because according to our Township ordinance to 2 d.9 uh the township attorney should be providing legal advice and opinions whether orally and informally or in formal written form um to those Township
officials who are elected or appointed including but not limited to the mayor councel business administrator Chief Financial Officer and or any Department director and I see on the invoices many many many instances
of of billing to department heads to council members um and furthermore in his contract in his contract um his older contract it says that he's in charge of Oprah um in in in in terms of compliance
with local um public contract laws the open public meeting the uh act um open public records act and there are numerous numerous um charges here for Oprah so I'd like to have a legal review
on that um I'd also like to just question um the uh cost for a uh social media person um named da Stokes and um Mr daak
is kind enough to get me all of the invoices and I see that um that she is providing two um two um social media uh posts a day I would like to
just ask some questions about that where are those social media postings um uh according to the invoice that we got there's there's a bill for just pull this out
there's a bill for six 6, um $492 for January and December if if I'm reading this correctly Council Moon Ruden I I'm very interested to hear what you want to say I apologize for
interrupting do you think that there is anybody who is present here now today this evening at our meeting is going to be able to answer your questions because if not I think the process we should use is that you get this uh material to
someone or some people within the administration who can answer these questions okay as opposed to doing it now all right so I'm I'm just asking so I don't know how else to ask the question that there are some bills in here that I am questioning and those are
the they these are the ones that I'm questioning so I don't know how else to to ask for the meeting yes but I have I have I have the bills I have them in front of me I'm just asking what they are for yes Mr daac you're the one that
provides the bill list is there any unique identification uh process that you use so that uh councilwoman Ruden could say okay uh uh item 101.5 I'm I don't want to approve I want to ask questions and we'll get back to
them that sort of thing is there anything she can do so if you want to identify either the purchase order number which is a a six-digit number for instance like 186 969 or if you want to identify the check
number because this bill list is essentially a check register um then we can you know provide further information um for those particular POS and checks okay okay so I have just one more that I'd like to bring up if that's
okay sure sure um it is number 186 286 um it is an invoice for Mr fanino for um his hotel stay during the league of municipalities and I just wanted an
answer on um why his his hotel stay was um is or is on here to be reimbursed when the um members of of the Town Council are not allowed to stay at hotels and get that reimbursed so I'm
just would like to understand why that bill is in here and why it's coming out of the clean communities program so is this information as Mr DAC suggested to you is that something that you can provide right now it would be it would be uh the identification number so
then we can withhold that from the approval of the bill list and uh get to it at at the next bill list does that work for everybody and I'm I'm including you madam clerk it does as long the councilwoman can provide the information to right she can just give you the
numbers now so for the purposes of us approving the rest of the bills uh we can identify these as the ones to pull out and get to and we don't have to go into a lot of the detail and and um uh justification for the charges I'm
looking I didn't realize I'd have to provide the numbers I I you have number for Mr fos Bill I'm sorry who are you directing that question to council president if I if I can just jump in thank you we would
need a the the councilwoman should make a motion to remove those bills from the list and then get a second and pass the motion that way sounds good and then she'll let us know what they are yeah I I would do that as part of the motion you know numbers and then pass that that
way thank you Mr Burke um excuse me do need to make it with the numbers or can I name the the um vendor Mr Dinia just suggested maybe the vendors instead okay unless unless and
pardon my Interruption unless you know there are certain bills that you want to to approve for a particular vendor and then there's other ones that you don't but if it's just all the bills for a particular vendor I think we'd be okay with naming the vendor on that bill list
and uh and okay so that that I have I would like like to make a motion to remove the bills for Diana McGovern for um The Firm um Sabo slack porini and
Warner um I'd like to remove uh Tran Isabelle sadiki I'd like to remove the invoice for um Mr fanino and the invo all of the invoices for um da Stokes until we have more information
on what what her role is I second that councilwoman celino no councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council
president kovak yes the motion carries so now we need a separate motion for the remainder of the bills in the bill list correct yes make a motion to approve the bill list a second as amended as amended hold on hold on as amended yes a
second hold on one second I'm sorry I was rudely interrupted councilwoman castelino as amended yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman scar council
president kovak yes the motion carries okay and now we are on to resolutions um are any resolutions being pulled this evening uh yes I'm going to pull
7825 okay I'm sorry was that 7825 thank you the playground equipment I'd like to pull 80 um 8025 okay any others have we already discussed the Minish Park improvements we've discussed
the Minish Park improvements a little bit uh uh Miss carabal came up and uh okay so so that's it with the resolutions just two resolutions we want to pull not anyone want to question anything nope I
hope emails and time 848 the buses to do with the budget no I'm I'm not pulling that oh okay I'm not pulling that we need the buses yeah otherwise people are going to be walk into the train stations we've got to we've got to rationalize that process
but we can't do it tonight in my opinion if someone else would like to pull it that's fine yeah I think the the people right in the Jitney would appreciate they need to get to work tomorrow we just give them all skateboards Madam clerk I think we're done okay is there a motion to approve
the consent agenda um sorry did I already no I didn't I'll make a motion to approve second okay all in favor I any opposed the consent agenda is implemented okay the first resolution
pulled was 7825 resolution to authorize the purchase of playground equipment flooring and installation through the Education Services Commission of New Jersey Cooperative contracts councilwoman Scarpa you pulled that council president if I can interrupt um director Kio is wants to speak about
this he is in route um I don't know if you you can extend them the courtesy and maybe go to 80 first and then come back to it um he's he he just text me said he's going to be coming down he want speak he needs to your fa I
just it's it's fine with me we want to put that off sure we can just he should be here momentarily okay okay so we'll go to 8025 resolution authorizing the rejection of the two bids received for solar consultant uh councilwoman rud and
you P back yes hi um I would like to know what what is this bid for because it seems very vague what is the solar consultant um providing ask directoral to speak about that Jo Joe I got it all thank you she's an
engineer she knows how these things work so for the solar um that was actually let me see the solar consultant RFP was actually put together taking into account that
the five schools and Town Hall were going to put together that being said it was expected that the project was going to be over five million which is exactly what I believe my answer was on one of the questions that being said it no longer applied the design
build process basically a design build process is in which the contractor will have to actually obtain the consultant or the engineering firm that will be doing the design for the project so instead of what we typically
do we do what is called a design build project which basically the design is already done and then put out to vid but like in this case because if it's over the threshold we're GNA have to go back out and prepare an RFP that actually allows
the township to hire the consultant to do the actual design as the way we want it and then go out to bid and can you be more specific what is it that you want and are these carports I wouldn't be able to answer
you right now on that because the truth be told I was not involved in the first in the RFB that went out I was not I was involved in the review of the RFB after the fact that it was bid and to tell you the truth that will be
something that we will have to discuss with the consultant once a survey has been done on the property to actually be able to utilize or maximize the parking to ensure that the footings or anything that needs to be put in place does not affect the number of parking spots okay
so this sounds like this is a solar Port uh solar uh carport with solar panels yes is that what that's what this bit is that now excludes the schools it's not it's not a bit it was actually just an RFP a request for proposals from
Consultants to be able to do this but like I said when the project was or originally I guess the R was prepared it was for five schools including Town Hall this time it was only Town Hall so we need to I understand back to the drawing
board and like I said in my email we will be working with the purchasing department to put something out that makes sense is someone speaking right now because I don't hear anything at all I speaking councilwoman okay thank you if you could please start from the beginning I didn't
hear anything okay um so I was in involved with this process in the beginning and this is for uh EV stations um charging stations as well as a solar carport the schools were supposed to get involved but then they decided not to get involved with us so there was a lot
put into this um this particular bid package that we looked at originally um and it it doesn't meet our needs that we what we realized after doing our research and looking for it so we realized that in order to provide a better service and a better product we we was better for us to reject this and
go out and get um a a better plan and and and Consulting with our engineer who w at the time I don't believe was involved with us so we're we're refocusing re re reexamining the process okay okay and that would be for solar
carp work and charging stations here at township okay and I will tell you this that the the after that initial meeting the the Renta house is actually in contract now to put in solar panels on the on the building to help save with
energy and uh they they did to get that approved through HUD so they're working on that as we speak now this been actually HUD has approved it and now it's they're in the process of looking to move forward to hopefully get some install to get the installation of this product hopefully within the next year or
so okay I'm thrilled to hear that that Rena house is going to be putting up solar panels I am not in favor of this um proposal and I was wondering can can I have it pulled from this is it is to reject this
yes I understand but I'm I would like this not to go out for another bid that's not something we can address tonight yes you don't address that tonight yeah okay this is just to cancel this part this particular bid that's that's all we're doing here tonight okay will staff time
be spent on revising this uh we'll be examining it from probably different angles in the costum consultant okay so is are you done I have a question oh I have a question if this is a resolution authorizing to
reject two bids received do we do this with all bids that we reject for an example the forensic audit 13 people I think applied are we going to have resolution to reject it's been
past 60 days I'm just trying to have understanding a HUD no well HUD was with the the Renta house but no but if we reject a bid it's because we reject the bid itself not not the individuals on the bid so we're rejecting this
because as as our engineering director stated when the project was contemplated the value of the construction was thought to be over 5 million which allowed us to do this design build proposal where the vendor that we
eventually would uh award a contract would go out and do the blueprints and and all the you know the the engineering documents because it's now a small smaller scale it cannot be a design
build project it is a design bid build project so our The Proposal that we put out on the street and solicited bids you know really doesn't work for the scale of the project you have to so you have to reject it just based off of that
because it was an improper RFP considering this the scope of the project um if we're talking about the forensic audit um you know we're not rejecting anything based on um exceeding
a budget they're they're sort of just sitting um and you know we could revisit that in the future I'm sorry it's p 60 days so wouldn't we have to reject them and all
bids or specs that we get and rfqs if they're over 60 days and the administration doesn't reach out to them to extend when don't we have to reject all these bids so we will go back to our our qualified purchasing agent and we certainly will ask that question and
share that with the councel thank you if I may speak typically into the microone please thank you typically if you put a project out to bid you do have 60 days either to do your review deny it or award it if
within those 60 days you cannot make a decision then you're going to have to issue a letter from the purchasing agent to every single one of the vendors or contractors who put in the bid to get permission from them to extend the review process and it could be to X number of days it could be 30 could be
45 it could be 60 if they all agree to give you the extension then we have the extension can it be done Post 6 days please don't interrupter go ahead in this case the one with the solar that we're rejecting that is not a vid that is an RFB it's a request for proposal so
we don't really have to go through that entire process it's no different when when I do an RFP for consultants if I get a response from them and I review it and I figure okay I made a mistake I need to go back and
review the revise the scope I do so I don't necessarily have to let them know that I'm rejecting them or you know if I want to change it I could change it and that's basically what we're doing here we're going to go back to the drawing board we're going to make sure
that the scope of the work and the scope of the project the RFP actually matches what it needs to be does that answer your question I I just want to ask one question if I may um so if they if the
vendor has not been reached again within that 60 60-day period is the is the bid um dead I guess does it need to be rebid at that point you have to make a decision within 60 days by public contract law you're
either going to deny it or you're going to award a contract so typically you do a review you start off with the lowest bidder if the lowest bidder is not is missing paperwork whatever the reason is the most competent bidder you're GNA
have to re put that out and go to the second one and then the third one and if the price gets going up right and we don't have the funds we most likely going to have to reject the bid or if we need more time to review for X
Y and Z reason then you will reach out to each one of them with a letter from the purchasing agent requesting the period of time additional that you need for that review and every single one of them must agree to give you that time okay
interesting my Professional Services are sort of different than if you were say building a project if you were building a municipal garage and you were be the 60 days the price of Labor the price of materials goes up that's kind of where it's important to give a formal
rejection with Professional Services like engineering and attorneys and so on it's it can sometimes sit and I'm not sure by the letter of the law that's permitted Paul would be better better person Miss Reynolds to answer that but in my experience when it's been things
like that sometimes they sit and then we just go back to them and say are you still comfortable with this price and normally with Professional Services they are so I just have a quick question you you indicated that the you were bidding on a project that was going to cost more than $5 million because the school was
involved the school was involved now they're not do you know what the what the town's contribution was to that $5 million just roughly I don't recall but we were um we were looking at our our carport here and um they were looking at
their I think they were looking at multiple schools so I believe we were I I honestly I don't remember it was 20 30% possibly you know but they were looking at a lot of their schools but I just don't remember what the exact am okay and the project that we're looking at now what's the approximate cost and
how are we going to finance it and are we paying for a consultant right the consultant and maybe you want to chime in on this the consultant's going to help us understand what this project is going to cost and they're going to do you know the leg work
outside to figure out the size and the the power uh constraints and basically going to have to put an RFP that we're going to have to do a concept we GNA have to basically face it out which is what I had recommended during the review process when I was
brought in we're gonna have to do a concept phase in which the consultant will be able to give us ideas and also sort of like prepare like a preliminary estimate of how much this is going to cost and also we also got to look at what we have in terms of like you know
electricity do we need any additional for any of like the EV charging station it's just not about snapping as EV charging station and just saying okay it's work we need to see where the power source is going to be and how things are going to work out as well as permits and
also we got to make sure that you know whatever design we go with that it doesn't reduce the number of parking spaces that we have we're we're not going to solve this issue tonight I just was hoping that there was a dollar figure that we're talking about just because of
our lack of capacity for for for borrowing so we will be uh we will be in touch on this because uh we'd like to not waste any any time and money on this so thank you is there any other questions or can we move to a vote I just want one quick question for her
sorry just real quick so this none of the funds none of these funds were coming from a grant there there isn't a gr floating out there for this project in the okay beginning or in the actual process of preparing R Fe um as far as I know there
is no Grand no I I don't believe these funds were coming from a grant wanted to make sure okay good I just was wondering where the money was coming from for this and what we're paying a consultant and given the budget situation that we're going to be in that we're going to be
looking at in the next couple months I don't think we should be spending any money on something like this we talk about half to and want to this is a nice thing to have but I really don't think this is where our resources should be spent right now I agree we that's fine but this is we're not going to solve
this tonight could we just move on it's only an RFP we can't we can't do anything without council's vote I understand the concern we will deal with it at a time not at a council meeting please I have the answer on Mr vonino if you want it now or you want me to just yeah that's that's fine this is on well
let's Okay vote on this first take a yes is there a motion to approve 80-2 and make a motion to approve 80-2 thank you I'll second thank you councilwoman
celino yes councilwoman gber Michael yes yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes the motion carries and we will reject those bids thank you uh back to
78-2 resolution to authorize the purchase of playground equipment flooring and installation through the Educational Services Commission of NJ uh Mr Kio our head of parks and wreck is here to Advocate or an answer questions all
of the above great please go ahead so uh a number of years ago we started with our Five-Year Plan to um upgrade all the kitty parks in town um we're probably two-thirds through that project now and this project is reflective of that uh
that move these are um all playgrounds that have uh inclusivity built in and also have the POR surface which is permeable built in I know those were some of the questions that were raised um the money for Lafayette is the best
of my knowledge according to Mr DAC that it is bonded already and um all we need to do is simply award Ward the bid the bid is through a co-op which means that it is the best price and the best product as cleared through the Clearing
House the same as the state contract would be so we feel pretty confident that this is the best bag for our buck uh this company we're familiar with they're excellent uh they follow up on their work they make minor repairs when necessary they are very very reputable
and they're Statewide and and we think it's a great project and I hope that you uh decide to go ahead with it thank you Mr K any questions yeah I had a couple questions it just seems like the price seems very high to me and I noticed in reading it it says note the assembly
installation is not provided so um I want to know if this is the true cost of the project and what the total cost really is also the The Proposal was dated 8 8824 so I'm wondering if the numbers are still
good well numbers are still good um everything is included from the uh delivery to the assembly to the pouring of the floor curb lines ADA Compliant
Pathways every everything in any any new park we do by law has to be ABA compliant uh this park that we're speaking of is 20 years old it's not a ADA Compliant
now it's not safety compliant as per the uh laws governing Kitty equipment because those laws change every three years to bring it into being more inclusive and more useful everything we
do is Ada so as far as that's concerned we're all good every the only thing that's not included in that bill is the work I do that would be the demolition of the old
part and uh and that's it everything that that is in that bill from purchase delivery plus we we get a refund of maybe I think close to 5% if you look at
it and we have the the kitty equipment company we have a certified contractor that works with the kitty Equipment Company knows all the bells and whistles to put it together take it apart fix it but the everything is included everything is all
inclusive in that okay I was that's not what it said so I just wanted to make sure yeah the the knee-jerk response with the cost from my very first Park just before covid the poured in place rubber was
1650 a square foot now it's 3250 a square foot because bad weather in Texas the B everything else it continues to go up so a 4,000 square foot Kitty park today
probably twice as much as the 4,000 square foot Kitty Park I did in 2023 it's it's just it's just the nature of the Beast yeah just so people understand the total cost of this project is it's roughly $275,000 doeses that includes your
demolition costs my demolition costs are in house you're already paying for my service okay yeah okay any anything I can do to to to get everything under budget I
do boun woman yeah thank thank you Mr Lor Mr KO so with the my memory serves me correct this is for the playground portion of the park and did this free up the way you're
reconfiguring it with the other work that that is going to happen reconfiguring the fields are we picking up the parking spots there as well um right now all we're trying to do is replace the kitty Park and to going
back to your question when we decided based on public demand that all of our kitty parks have the port surface that basically doubled the cost of what it would have cost to Simply replace the equipment and put you know uh some type
of soft surface there like wood chips or yeah and that's not compliant anymore either um the the the things that you speak to councilwoman are part of a larger plan at Lafayette and has really aside from the location has nothing to
do with this with particular bid right here but do we have a grandiose plan and something we'd like to do to improve the park in general yes we do and when the time's right you know we'll all sit down and hash that one out and council president if I may I just wanna you know
going back you know because I've been on the council longest in 2020 we uh we renovated degam Park 2021 Liberty 2021 bowling 2022 Club 2022 uh which is currently in
process uh we did stag um and now stag in design yeah Stags underway please let her finish so this was Capital money from 2023 stack and Lafayette we're talking about Lafayette
today um you know in that area and the kids you know go to your school councilwoman um I mean it's it's it's needed down there so I appreciate you coming in to make a plea for it because it means a lot to that
Community thank you any other questions no that's it I I just want to say and Mr Kio you and I have spoke about this I think it's a wonderful project I think it's needed I think it's important but I'm I'm not just looking at the benefits I'm looking at the costs and we at the
end of last year we we as a Township owed $170 million which is taken up 12% of our budget and it's it's we're 2third of the way to the state's limit to where we can't borrow any more money so I'll just
throw this out on this particular issuance that was done to uh fund this the other parks and a lot of other stuff so it was a$ 5.8 million borrowing last
year included a little over $700,000 for outdoor improvements we initially issued that at 5% interest which is some of the highest interest rates any of us have ever seen this year we got it down to 4%
interest we still haven't spent nearly two-thirds of the $5.8 million but we are going to pay $2.4 million this year in interest on this borrowing two-thirds of which we haven't even used it's just
sitting in a bank account earning next to nothing and it's not not Mr dak's fault looks like you want to say something yeah council president um just for clarification this particular ordinance is one of many ordinances that is is
wrapped up in the what I will call the November 4th 2024 uh Bond inp Noe issuance which is a $54 million ISS issuance I didn't get that from your notes I apologize if if I
if I left off at zero I apologize um yes it's it's a $54 million uh issuance and and you're correct on the the coupon rate of the note and and the amount that we have to pay for that particular note is 2,416
th000 but it is part of a $54 million total B anticipation note issuance which includes ordinances from from you know the last five six years so uh as some of you may know we had an authorization
resolution tonight to borrow money to support a project by uh done by The Joint meeting which handles our sewage and that's a borrowing that we can't avoid I'm looking very hard at what I consider to be discretionary borrowing
because there are many ways to for us to try to fix this Debt Service none of them are going to be pleasant none of them them are going to be easy but we have got to do something about this before it consumes even more of our of our budget so uh I'm just I'm voting
against this only because I consider it to be discretionary not because it isn't a great project that it's not going to be beneficial but but I don't want to uh spend any more money on discretionary projects uh until we get a handle on how we're going to pay down this debt so
exactly just my said yeah I want to say I was almost I was going recommend hold on just a second councilwoman gab Michael uh councilwoman uh Scarpa has the floor I'll get you in just a second I was going to end by saying we really need to look at our total budget in the next couple weeks when it comes out
before we authorize any kind of spending like this you know there are the have toos and the want toos and this is a want to this is a really nice project but we have $170 Million worth of debt and that situation has to be rectified
or all of your taxes are going to Skyrocket so I really don't think I can vote for this correct me if I'm wrong if I may Council council president Mr dinc indicated to me that the money for this project is already in the bond to which
he yeah alluded to a moment ago there Argo you're not increasing debt on the part of the township by approving this project because the money is already in the bond it's that part of it is already done
yes all you're simply doing is allowing us to spend money that you're paying interest on already to get the equipment that was meant to before so I understand completely what you're saying I'm a taxpayer in town too and and and if you said to me we don't want to increase our
debt with this debt with this project I'd be 100% behind your thinking but would it with it not being part of that I I don't understand the the blowback I I don't I don't get it the the blowback is what you would do when you got overextended on your credit card you pay
it down instead of spending more which is what this would do we would take that money and pay it down according to Mr daac we can start repaying this as early as did you say 2025 2026 so this is I just want to be careful with the
terminology I use for the type of debt issuance that we're talking about this is a bond anticipation note it is a short-term financing of no greater than one year this matures this note matures and we will have to pay $54 million in
principal along with that whatever 2 million I said in interest on November 5th 2025 um so in order to do that you go out and you get a new note for a similar
amount so that you can pay back uh the old debt um so you know if you were contemplating paying down principle you typically would then cancel those particular ordinances and use the the money that we already have from this
issuance to then reduce the amount that you roll over on November uh November 5th of 2025 it's complicated but this is a oneye a one-year note so it's not a like
20-year Bond at this no I I understand uh I think I answered the question councilwoman gber Michael has been waiting patiently are you still there yes I am please go ahead thank you council president so I just want to Echo your sentiments and also councilwoman
Scarpas our debt is astronomical and we have to pay it down when I ran I ran on the promise of upgrading our Parks I believe in Parks and Recreation and unfortunately I believe
in this project but we this is a want it's not a need we cannot afford to do this right now and for the record in November I voted no to bond this money and so did councilman Scarpa we
were the only two Council people to vote no because we realized how bad the debt isk it's very very high in comparison to other towns similar size of ours about $100 million more 5075
million more it's a lot of money so for that I'm also a no thank you councilwoman councilwoman Celina yes so just so the public doesn't think on this spend thrip up here so we have debt which unfortunately that's the
way we operate here in the township the debt is high because we made a couple of purchases rock rock spring Country Club which we have Green Acres uh funding that we're working on uh to pay down uh that debt and we also bought properties
for incoming proposed film studio um that we need to finalize that project so there are plans out there to pay down the debt I think taking away these two projects is I don't I don't I don't agree Council
colleagues because you're talking 20- year old park for very needy one neighborhood that really won't come out here and advocate for themselves and a dealing with old very old playground equipment so we talk about like the
wants and the need it is a need to have safe space for our most vulnerable children we just talked about them inhaling uh gas from leaf blowers and now we can't give them uh adequate uh swings to play on um so stack Fields um
that won't get done I'm going to presume because if we're not doing Lafayette Park we're not going to be able to do stag um on the 2024 list in order for Mr Kio and I've seen the emails through the years parents will will Advocate to get
these porks done especially when they're not in great shape uh Jenkins uh Park is supposed to get done in 2024 Colgate OK Conor and Hagerty and like I said earlier we never did a 2024 capital
budget doesn't sound like we're doing a capital budget but again we could Advocate to buy all new uh equipment um but yet we're not going to at you know advocate for our our children uh so that is a disappointment
for me I just needed wanted to make that statement thank you councilwoman celino but I will point out that the previous Council the previous four-year Council increased our outstanding debt by 50%
borrowed over $56 million in four years we're going to buy we got a film studio that's some of the highest interest rates any of us have ever seen we have to have priorities we have to make hard decisions we don't run our households
like this we we wouldn't be able to pay our taxes we'd be out of here in a year we've got to do something about this debt I hope you guys understand because you're the ones paying for it thank you council president okay let's just stop arguing about this we're
not going to solve this problem tonight is is is are we ready to move for a vote yes yes okay is there a motion to approve 7825 I make a motion to approve the Lafayette playground is there a second I'll second it for the
vote okay councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michel no councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman Scarpa no council president kovc no motion fails okay we're on to ordinances on second
and final reading oops uh ordinance 2889 d25 and 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 is there a motion to introduce on second and final reading so moved is there second second councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes
councilwoman Scara council president kovak yes okay now is the time for our public hearing on all SEC all ordinances on second reading uh if you would like to speak on this ordinance ask a question
make a comment please come to the uh Podium and give your name and address and you'll have five minutes to uh make your comments is there anyone who'd like to do that please raise your hand or stand up 28892 last chance to
speak that's Kelly Drive Mr Benton are you speaking no okay you're just trying to make me look bad I'm sorry uh I'm closing uh the public hearing and we can now open the floor to uh uh for any of the council people who
want to speak on this if not I move to vote y thank you okay a second is there hold on councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman
Scarpa yes council president kovia yes the motion carries okay 2890 d25 an ordinance amending and implementing chapter 25 of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange Banning popup
parties is there a motion to introduce on second and final reading I'd like to make a motion to introduce that a second councilwoman Celina yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak
yes now it's the time for the public hearing on ordinance 2890 d25 if you'd like to speak uh please uh come up after you identify yourself or when you identify yourself as by your name and address you'll have five minutes to ask your questions or comment
or both dou West over um first off I would like to apologize to uh the council president to the council and to everyone here it is never my intent to be out of order um unfortunately just in
observation sitting in the council chambers which is happened twice tonight um people have called out and asked questions from the seats and those questions were entertained I felt like that would be disrespectful for me to
just call out from the seat so I came to the podium to ask the question and actually I appreciate the gentleman back there because he actually asked the question that I was going to ask because you were saying you only get to speak once in a council meeting and he actually asked the question uh would we
be able to speak to these or so I do want to apologize um for being out of order but I also want to point out that um we probably want to be balanced on you know what we allow other people to do um and then also I would ask the
council um there's a gentleman behind me I won't mention his name I think we all know um but it's very intimidating for some people not for me when you come up to make comment and people are hollering behind your back um to sit down or other people are calling you liars and I
appreciate you dealing with that issue earlier with that person um but I just would ask the councel for people who may not feel as comfortable in this setting as I do for the council to be mindful particularly of the people that you know support you that you have conversations
outside of council sessions with about doing things that could be considered intimidating to other people who want to uh speak my comment about the popup parties is simply this I appreciate the council going back looking at the popup
parties and reconsidering things that could be problematic going forward over the almost 30 years 28 years I've pastored Joy Church and West Orange uh we have constantly tried to come down and talk to the administration or
council members or other people around things that we were thinking about doing to make sure that it would not be a problem um with the town we absolutely would never want to do anything that would be harmful or disruptive to our neighbors but when you take the
exemption for nonprofits and particularly churches out um or religious organizations you do create a potential problem because the Supreme Court has already upheld rulings that say that um people can express their
religious expressions in their homes so if one of our church members decided to have a small small small group in their home and invited other church members to come over and in that they took up an offering would that fall into a popup
party and I understand that there's a legitimate issue if people are charging using the internet running a business they got they got VIP sections and they're doing bottle service I mean that's just that's just out of order we
got to deal with it and you have to deal with it and I appreciate you trying to deal with it and I appreciate you working with our chief of police and our Police Department to give them the freedom to go and do that I just think it's important to be careful that um you
know we don't kill a mosquito with a shotgun I mean I I think we just got to figure out a way to do it but not to restrict West Orange for years has had uh events where a family had a family tragedy you know their neighbors would throw some type of an event to help
raise funds and re resources to help them out and so where I think there is some balance that has to be in there you know I agree you got to do something I appreciate you for trying to do something but just from the standpoint nonprofits from those legitimate
Community Based activities that people do for the benefit of their residents I think there has to be some consideration for that um I appreciate uh Chief Abbott for uh taking the time to have a conversation with me about this uh
councilwoman celino I am in full support of you doing whatever is necessary uh the least respect restrictive way uh to protect our residents from undo disruption um because people are using their homes for different reasons so
thank you for this moment and again uh I hope you accept my apology for my attempt to get some understanding earlier thank you Pastor Mr Bon good evening again John Blandon for Road and um I wanted to get I was going to leave but I I want to make sure I'm clear and
so I don't take up much time I want to e Echo what Pastor Adam said because I wrote you guys some correspondence and I outlin a wide variety of things of what my concerns were so I don't want anyone out there in Wonderland or Internet land thinking that I'm supporting disrupting
our community um I don't want my neighborhood disrupted or anyone else's in this Township disrupted but I did point out some similar points to you in my letter that I wrote uh from uh from me that Pastor Adams Echo so no need of
reiterating those things again uh my second concern is um and I said this before and this is very troubling to me that I wrote a letter to you guys it says Council West orange.org
and somebody on that on your Council or somebody in the administration shared my letter with a private citizen and I have a real concern about that and I'm really hurt I'm I'm hurt because I'm being challenged by someone
outside in terms of what I wrote you guys and I'm being charged of it being racial I'm not trying to start for those of you that know me and know my heart over the years I am not trying to start anything racial what I do want everybody to understand that I am a black man and
I will always be black and that won't change and when I tell people when all of you in here have had some type of cut right and it heals but depending like I had major surgery right I'm Healed I can
walk now for those of you who knew I was in the hospital and chief thank you so much um I was in the hospital for eight weeks I'm Healed but the scars are still there and in this climate none of you I don't think probably outside M tweet and
sit in here don't know how it feels to go to a water fountain and tell you you can't drink out of it that it says something for another race none of you is sitting here have been Ned of anything because of your color and it bothers me when I share something with you and someone accused
me of raising up some racial stuff in our town because I mentioned the word NAACP I sent my letter to the NAACP because I'm a lifetime member I have a right to the services I sent it to my own attorney and other attorneys to look
at and chief Abbott thank you for your conducive understanding conversation with me councilman kov at the same thing and when I want to say to you guys sending that to you this is how disturbance and hate and animosity begin my letter should not have been shared
with anybody except for the attorneys and anyone in administration I'm fine with that but to stir up somebody to be using my name to be stirring up trouble in this community I got a problem cuz I've lived that already in this community and I'm not going to live it
again my kids grew up here that grown I playing like everybody else that want an AG in place that AG in place here without anybody accusing me of trying to start some racial nonsense it's too much of that happening and it start to appear that this stuff is starting to come down
from the national level in our town and we need to stop it and on the last note I wrote the last counsel and I'm appealing to all of you because this stuff is getting really ugly and Michelle you said it I haven't seen stuff like this that's starting in our town and it's starting to remind me when
I was four or five years old as a northern boy being taught to go south and leave with scars and they still there and I figured I'm coming to a place that we call diversity we are Westar we is also a French word does it mean I and possess certain people in
this community I pay my taxes I may not pay some as much as some of some of you to live here but I pay some D high taxes to me and my wife and I love this town and for those of you that know me you know I
have never done anything to try to disrupt this town from the time I Ste foot in this town I've done everything I could in this town to bring us together white men black men Jews Gentiles Protestant and Catholic like Martin
Luther King said bringing us together and that term that we use we are West Orange and we need to start really thinking about it because right now our Muslim brothers and sisters are hurting and we should not start isolating that this one come in is okay to do a
ordinance or resolution let's create one resolution and I'm finished for everybody that we can say there is no room for hate of anybody in this Township God bless you and if I was out of order earlier I apologize thank
you president members of the council I I rest on what I presented earlier your name address please 34 Stone Drive uh uh I understand some of the concerns that are raised I I don't I
don't agree with him however my suggestion and my recommendation the summer is coming the spring is coming those of us who have been inundated with the problem of these popup parties in several areas of town
have to be protected this ordinance will protect the residents of the town if the exemption is eliminated and if the penalty is high enough to be a deterrent
to those who want to make money in their home asking the council to do is pass the ordinance eliminate the exemption increase the penalty and then
you have an opportunity with the cooperation of the police department and anybody else in town to maybe set up something that would allow permits under certain requirements to be issued
for those want to have a religious cultural and educational event in their home you've got to provide for safety in the streets parking debris but at this point the spring is coming the summer is coming pass the
ordinance the exemption put in a a a a penalty substantial and then for the benefit of the arguments of the two gentlemen who preceded me which may be valid under certain circumstances but you got to give you got to you got to
present a a propo a permit that these other situations would have to follow thank you thank you Mr Vina is there anyone else who'd like to speak I'm going to close public hearing and we will discuss up on the day so
Council thank you council president and and thank you all all three of three of you for speaking and you know we want to make sure we get right because like I said earlier just so much aggravation from so many residents and
we don't and we don't want if there's a fundraising event you know a lot of folks have fundraising events even for us up here on the day at their homes and for other needy um you
know uh charitable events we that's not what we want to infringe upon but to the attorney the trick here is unfortunately some of these parties that have come to light in the past couple years they're
very Savvy and they you they navigate uh very well in um you know the the chief and the police department try to shut them down and then they think of another course of action and that's all we're trying to prevent here we want to make
sure this is tight we want to make sure that um you know we can continue as we usually do with you know nice fundraising events for certain groups in town so how do we accomplish that so we do eliminate Mr V is an attorney so I I
I trust his judgment if we take out section D um and then we up I do agree $100 is it's not in here it's in the where's this under achiev the code so this is a
little confusing this is statutory this is a state statute okay what it's saying is if the council elects by ordinance to have a minimum penalty the minimum cannot be more than $100 but you can also by resolution set a maximum I thought we're going to do with resolution so that's a non-issue so we
could do a separate resolution for the fee so we could up the fee that's not a problem but where do we stand tonight do we have to pass this as is an amended next time or should we just wait and what amend yeah so the the options I think at this point amend it because
it's on a second reading if you amended it you would need to do another second reading um so you could either pass it now as it is and then go back and amend it later um just so that it would be on the books now or you could edit it now and then it would have to be read again there's no sense of urgency no I just want to take out the I just want to take
out the out is it substantive if we remove D well that's it is it sub yeah believe it would be substantive to remove something like that from it okay now but in another case to make sure that fundraising can occur Is it
feasible I I can't see why it's not for anyone to because no one fundraises on you know spur of the moment and our permit is very easy to obtain uh can we set up a permit system for folks that want to have a
party and make it very easy for them so they're not inconvenienced is that doable I agree with the councilwoman because Chief and I spoke about it this weekend about a free permit process we're not charging residents but just to have an idea of what's going on what's
Happening yeah so we could set that up easily you could have a permitting process um you're probably G have to have that language to this but then at least you're not taking D out of the equation it's still permitted is that you're asking to do want that exemption
so I don't want to what I'm asking is to make sure we do it in a way where we're not challenged and we don't have any issues when these parties or they try to these parties so so if we take D out or do we have to have language in
here to say if you are an organization if you are an organization chable organization you licens in the state of New Jersey and for political contributions you can't hear me still no I'm
sorry so how can we word I'm deferring to the attorney so i' I'd be happy to look into that and see if there's a requirement that we have to have an exception or anything like that but as it stands right now you I would either pass it as it is and then go back and amend it later and make those changes or
um if you'd like to amend it now you can but it would need to be read again it wouldn't go into effect after day may I make a suggestion may I make a suggestion counc president effort save time we still have more on the agenda regular public comment you know I think we should move
to vote I don't think we should pass it I don't think it's you know I think we should do it right the first time and come back so I think we should go ahead and vote I'm voting now so councilwoman gber Michael what you're basically suggesting is that we vote this down and start all over with the changes that are being
discussed tonight correct unless we can uh yes that's what that's the only option it seems like instead of discussing it and beling why don't we the administration is leaving at 11: p.m. they said we have 40 less than 45 I have a question okay everybody please
everybody please let's just stop talking so we have we have two options we've got to pick one of them one is it to take a vote with the idea to uh uh vote this down on second reading and then come back with a brand new thing the other thing is to approve it and make the the
changes to it that we want to make either way we're going to be spending the time to fix this and the question is which which way do you want to do it I have suggest councilwoman to number three
councilwoman yeah can we strike the exemption pass it without the exemptions no and then come back and amend it you could do that subst is that a substantive change if we take out D yes so you could do that so
it would need another second reading so it would be slightly quicker than doing it the other way we could get the other stuff ironed out um but if you get then Tred to amend it with the other stuff then you would need to do it another second read so it it kind of would delay it a little bit but it's a possibility and it's an option if you wanted to do
it though i' like to do that I I like that I like that idea the best was covered keep it like in in front of the council again and it would be another second reading would come up doesn't go away okay you need first second reading would a subst of change like that I I would I we'd have to take a look at it I
guess then and see if this would count as the first reading for amending it tonight or we would need to do another first raing yeah because we've never done it like that before okay well yeah I'll defer to the clerk then if there's a way that we've done it in the past yeah if if it was a if it was a substantial change then we would just
they would just vote it down and then start over Okay um but if if you do want to consider a permitting process for charitable event events then you could pass it tonight and it's far easier to amend it at the
next meeting or the meeting after that than it is to go all the way back and do this all over again so pass it and then at the next meeting take out D do you want you have to you need to figure out if you want to take out dat or you want to have a permitting process I I one of
the members of the community mentioned that sometimes there are charitable events held at a person's home where somebody suffered a tragedy in their family that kind of thing I really don't think the police are going to charitable events well yeah I really don't perceive that to be a problem and if it is why
don't we deal with it when it becomes a problem hold on just a second the problem is when it's a problem it's a problem you know you're in the middle of it that's kind of how we got here because there's no no nothing on the books to deal with it if if you have that exception and that allowance there would be a whole
process where somebody would have to come in provide their you know their their uh evidence of a charitable event you know what the proceeds are um easy I mean we can we can come up with something I think pretty encompassing on the side of the business administrator
where somebody has to come in and take a permit out and we'll we'll pretty much know if they're for real or not you know they're not going to be able to just advertise on the you know on social media like and you find out where the party is when you buy the ticket concern yeah my concern is anybody starts a
501c3 and they say they're charitable and they can this is a loophole no they there's a lot of restrictions yeah and it's not that you know people say oh it's easy but it's not really that easy you know you have to just IRS followed
and easy okay at the end of the day it's council's decision so yes we finished you finished okay councilwoman uh Celina so I hear you and because I I hear you I'm not going to belabor it um but I think we need the permit because if you
have to come and get a permit and fill out a form and bring your certificate I I don't I I think we'll be okay because then it's on the radar we know the part's going to be there and know I think you're opening up can I okay I'm cutting to the chase here I'm
going to make a motion to vote to approve yes say one thing because I deal with this stuff the liquor licenses and also um you know hear you liquor licenses I deal with and you
know also raffle licensing and things like that I have had people who have applied for those licenses who are running an event in their home for charitable reasons they have a 501c3 and all so you're dealing with
people who are legitimate they're trying to raise funds for a real purpose you're not dealing with people who are to have pop-up parties it's a totally different thing you know it's from what you guys
are trying to do here so I don't know if a permitting Pro if anyone wants to do it legitimately they're going to call the township and find out how to do it legitimately as opposed to someone who's doing a popup party you know with you know a thousand people charging you know
whatever they're not going to ever a permitting process I don't think is necessary because if if it's a legitimate 501c3 that are trying to raise funds want to do it out of their house they're going to get1 C are legitimate I'm saying I disagree they
it's there's a lot of in order to get a 501c3 there's a lot of things you have to there's a lot of steps to I think it's I I I like the permit you have to follow because then you're on notice so then we okay okay that I apologize for interrupting we have got to move on so
I'm making a motion to approve this on second reading you can vote it up or down if you vote it down we'll we'll go the other route I second okay councilwoman celino so if we if I vote for this we could make an amendment for the next
meeting yeah you have to put it on for first reading the amendment okay I'm GNA vote for it now and make the amendment for the next meeting so would reach out to the legal department to let them know that right away that's the best way to do it
councilwoman gber Michael yes while I'm in support of this I'm in no because we cannot have exemptions in there as we were advised so I'm going know okay thank came back in the next meeting in First Amendment first reading councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman
Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay the motion carries the next thank you we will be looking for it and so will Mr Blandon okay 2892-2 and ordinance amending chapter 2
sections 57. one 2 and six of the general ordinances of West Orange open space and Recreation committee and trust fund is there a motion to introduce on second and final reading so moved I'll second councilwoman celino yes
councilwoman ke gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman council president kovak yes now is the time for the public hearing on ordinance
2892-2 if anyone would like to speak please come up to the podium give us your name and number your name and address and you will have five minutes to ask questions or comment or both would anyone like to speak I'm taking nobody wants to speak
then I'm closing the public hearing and moving to uh discussion uh on the day us if any is needed does anybody have anything yes I have a question for legal on on this ordinance um we
were advised it was in a conversation I can't remember exactly who who sent it to us okay yeah um said that if we remove the way the the board is constituted right now um the mayor has more
positions than each of the council members so each of the council members has one position plus we are suggesting having a consensus appointee and the mayor have one appointee I believe right now she has two or more I'm not sure um
and we were advised that if we removed the appointees of the mayor that are that were appointed back when she was elected that we would be inv violation of something that her appointees who are are coterminous with her and that they
need to stay on so i' just like to know if that is correct I believe so I we'd be happy to take a look at that but I it would make sense that the way to remove those appointees would be to remove them uh from their position not to sort of eliminate their position you know on the
board like alter the composition of the board so if if they stepped down if they left their position or whatever then this would apply moving forward but then uh you know a passing this wouldn't necessarily remove people because the way to remove them would be to remove
them for cause and uh do it that way is that a definitive answer or do you need to research it get back to I would be happy to research it if the council's not happy with that you know this is the first time dealing with this so I'd be happy to do that if you'd like to look so what would be the process of removal
uh we'd be happy to take a look at that like you know if that's something you'd like us to do so should we table this and wait yeah that's not beli because it's already almost 10:30 I'll make a motion to table it I second
itang on one second okay councilwoman celino to table yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman Scarpa yes council president covia yes
the motion carries to table okay ordinance 2893-2 and ordinance repealing chapter 2 section 5.3 of the township of West Orange director of Staff operations is there a
motion to introduce on second and final reading make a motion to introduce on second and final reading second thank you councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman
council president kovak yes now is the time for the public hearing on ordinance 2893-2 anyone who'd like to uh come please come up to the podium be recognized give your name and address and you'll have uh five minutes to
comment ask questions or both is would anyone like to comment on this would anyone like to take advantage of the public hearing on this ordinance seeing none I close public hearing and open any conversation to uh
folks of us on the day I would like to make an amendment to this to this ordinance would this have to go back to um it depends on what the amendment is yeah so I would like to since this is being this is being revised so that the
governing body can have more of an input into no it's not you're confused this one is to eliminate the position of director of Staff operations sorry I'm on the wrong one sorry sorry sorry it's okay go ahead nothing is there any other
comment I move that we vote to approve we move to vote on this ordinance on second reading thank you councilwoman calino yes councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman farpa council president kovak yes motion
carries 2894-2 in ordinance amending chapter 2 Section 9.4 of the West Orange sorry of the general ordinances of the township for West Orange special councel is there a motion to introduce on second and final reading I make a motion to introduce on
second and final reading thank you is there a second second councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes
now now is the time for the public hearing on ordinance 2894-2 anyone who would like to comment or ask questions or both please come to the podium be recognized give your name and address and talk away would anyone like to speak on this ordinance keep them
seeing no interest I close the public hearing and open it up to uh my colleagues good this is the one that I would like to make an amendment on uh sorry I was asleep at the wheel um I would like to add a sentence in here
that says that the council must receive written notification from the administration detailing the reasons for engaging special counsel naming the law firm rate and not to exceed Clause where do you want to put that
in put that in under special counsel at the end shall be subject to approval by the governing body d94 yes I second that well let the attorney BKE that sounds substantive to me but I'm I
would say that substantive um I understand that that uh the clerk said that you don't normally do this this way but that you would be able to consider this the first reading into a second reading or you can do it the way you've done it in the past um however you would want to move forward with that but this was
advertised as a second and final reading you can't pass it today with the amendment so you could amend it now and then do a second reading again to pass a later date another date you wouldn't be able to pass it tonight I got do you know if this is consistent with the local public contract call us that I'd
have to take a look and and double check if that's what we need you gonna can you research that please sure what was the the full um explanation that we wanted in that that the the explanation for this is that the council is is the
governing body that can approve the the um costs for this but we should also know in advance what who is being hired for how much and if there's not to exceed clones we need to know the reasons why somebody's being hired
there's somebody on the bill list right now that was hired by for special Council that the council was unaware of so we need to be made aware when special counsel is hiring somebody absolutely so the just I just want to make sure I have all the the question um the issues that
you wanted in that notice from the administration down we wanted um an explanation of why they're being hired how much they're charging and what the not to exceed foremost want written notification that there is going to be a special counsel hiring who that is what
firm what the rate is and what the not to exceed Clauses so my question is don't we do that already when we approve their contract no sometimes special counsel is sometimes hired by the township attorney
and we don't know that special Council has been hired but but they're hired their retainers are done in the beginning of we just did some of them so there are were in the process of negotiating some of them so we know contracts one at a time yeah we know
their rates that's why they're so many of them we know their rates and who they are you yes we don't know when they're being utilized so I see your point there I think the law Department's going to
have to review this so so my my in the beginning of each year we approve all the contracts so we know who they are for special councils and what their rates are when they are being utilized uh we know that when we see them on the
bill list we know they were utilized so you're asking to know prior to the bill list of when we're going to utilize special counsel correct so again I don't know if that's a a executive branch so
there's there's times at under 175 Council has brought in that you may not have approved a uh professional service agreement for prior to um but a lot of times this stuff is on the Fly where you may not be able to wait two weeks Madam clerk needs an
attorney we going wait till we have a council meeting to do that I mean that doesn't require meeting it can just be done by written notice to all of us I don't I don't think the law this this needs to be reviewed by the Law Department we're making big changes to
this contemplated ordinance I I think it should our ordinances say that the Law Department crafts all our ordinances and resolutions I think it should go back to them these are the changes you want tell them the changes you want and you know I think You' have to take a a vote on that
to make sure you have a majority which you very well may but you have a majority tell them the changes you want and let the Law Department research it and draft the ordinance colleagues do you agree with that yeah I think we should take a vote and if this is the change that we want
to make so I propose that we make this change and I already second it okay but he's saying we have to subject to our council is telling us that it's a substantive change so we're not going to pass it tonight right unless we want and it has
to be researched okay so we're not passing anyway let it be research and then if it's okay then we put on the next meeting I I I move to that resend her her motion it's already been motioned and properly seconded that's what I was trying to say she has to resend
it who made the original motion Joyce did I did so I resend the motion thank you so you resed the motion that means we your motion to amend that means we can now make a motion to this or yeah
approve or amend it or whatever you'd like to do or vote it down why don't we just table it or table it yeah I think you need research done I I move to table the ordinance I'll second thank you
councilwoman celino to table yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes the motion carries Council can you just email
you just email us the the language thank you I have a comment I think that special counsil should look at this not our regular Council our director of the law department has claimed he's retired so I think special Council should review this um I think there's a conflict with
our current Council who says he's retired reviewing special counsel because in the past we haven't found out about his conflicts with the town so they've been able to hire attorneys um especially with the garbage contract for an example we didn't know there was
a conflict with the Garbage Contract and that he represented the the the Garbage Contract the I mean the vendor so again I think it's really important that if special council is going to be here in these meetings the special counsel in my opinion I think should be the one to
review this I would agre if if our town attorney is saying that he's retired yeah okay and I my statement done so I'm not sure where we go from here I I just heard councilwoman gber Michael
say that she wants to have more say over this whole process not more say I'm just giving you my just suggestion that I think special counsel should look at it and I don't know if they can or not they right
uh the township attorney okay who is our Township Attorney Richard trank he said he's resigned he's not said he resigned he said he retired he said he retired pending the appointment of a new he retired he retired we're in court let's
not we're already there we're already yes I'm confused I'm not gonna disagree with the judge I'm confused council president say that he's retired in the beginning of the meeting okay let's go councilman mgber
Michael I'm going to ask Chief Abbott to pass along your uh comment and sentiment thank you department and we'll figure this out at another time thank you go can we move on to ordinances on first reading 28
96-25 an ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 7 traffic subsection 7- 32.2 restricted parking zones of the revised General ordinances of West Orange is there a motion to introduce on first reading make a motion to introduce
on first reading a second thank you councilwoman calino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman GPA council president kovak yes the motion carries council president excuse me I have a request of the
administration on this real quick sorry I I have a request from the administration so um I know Miss carala is in the audience so I've been there's been some stalls questioned and I know the police do they do do some due
diligence on this or a lot of due diligence but we've been having instances where there have been some stalls are these renewals are these all new new stalls is I bet here still here yes she's
here actually engine engineer yeah yeah Lenny used to do this all the time yeah Miss carbal thanks for coming back I know on Mitchell Street there's like five six of them and you know you you know we just been well you know the issues we've been having because I've
called you in the past so these ones in particular have all been vetted out are they new are they renewals the ones that are new or are involved in the um involved in the U ordinance those are new and then the
ones in italic I believe those are the ones that we're taking out and some of the uh actually some of the are already taken down okay so basically they come the process is they come to our office they submit an application for the handicap part yeah they submit all the
information that indeed they are handicapp and you know from their doctor then we go and visit it we measure if we could actually fit a stall where they want it in front of their house which is allowed by law and then after that we draft the ordinance we try to do them
all of these simultaneously the ones that were taking there and the ones that we're adding so that way you know there only one organiz okay all right thank thank you if there's any more or anything that you know or anyone that doesn't think that you know in the handicap space or they don't need it
anymore uh just to reach out to us and make a request and we will follow up with the um typically our Police Department help us out with finding out whether or not they're still using it or not okay all right thank you I appreciate it all right that's all
councel thank you madam clerk sure 28 97-2 in ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 7 traffic subsection 7- 23.1 turn prohibitions of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange is there a motion to
introduce on first reading so moved second thank you councilwoman castelino yes councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman SCPA president kovia yes the motion
carries okay next is 2898 d25 and ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 7 traffic subsection 7-33 school zones of the revised General ordin ordinances of West Orange is there
motion to introduce on first reading I make a motion to introduce on first second thank you councilwoman cast yes councilwoman gber Michel councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman council president kovak yes the motion
carries 2899-22 stop intersection 7-21 multi-way stops and 7- 21.1 multi-way stops near schools playgrounds and youth recreational facilities of the revised General ordinances of West orang is there a
motion to introduce thank you second councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes the motion carries
29-25 ordinance amending and I'm sorry ordinance amending chapter 28 of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange transition to battery or electric leaf blowers is there a motion to introduce on first reading I make a motion to introduce on
a second first reading thank you councilwoman celino no councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman scorpa yes council president kovak yes the motion
carries are we making amendments yes yeah we are but we're not making them tonight we're moving on to 2901 no we can't we have to make them tonight or it's going to go back to First reading and first reading we can only make amendments on first
reading so if we don't make the Amendments tonight it's going to come back as is in second reading and we're going to have to start from the beginning yeah it we could do it in three readings that way and and have a second second reading if you amended it during the second reading but no we've
the quickest way to do it would the Amendments now we can't pass it this way get over and this yeah you can start councilman Ruden um okay um well most of the changes we have we have listened to the
the folks who have come before us and uh we hear you and we are trying to make this as smooth a transition as possible so in the first paragraph where it says purpose um I would like to add just a few words um do you need to take this
down or can I get this to you after you can get it to me that would be great so I'd like to add the words um the the first the first um sentence should read the purpose of this ordinance is to limit the use of gas-powered blowers we want to add the word
seasonally that's the only word change with and then goes back to what what is already there within the township of West Orange and to add these words then fully by January 2020 January 1 2026
so that those are the only two changes on that on the purpose section um we'd also like to have all of the um legislative history that is in the back on the last page be presented as it was initially proposed in the whereas
section so if that those two changes can be made that's fine I think um my councilwoman has some other changes that she would like to propose thank you uh councilman Ruden so in speaking with our DPW director
um number one I want to make an amendment gas powered leaf blowers may be used from March 1st to April 15th they said they need six weeks clean up in the spring so we're giving it to them and from November 1st to December I'm
sorry Council I couldn't hear that it was March 1 to when to April 15th only weeks were requested yes because that's what was requested I spoke to DPW councilwoman can you send these changes yes I will send them to you I appreciate I will send them to you so yes they
requested six weeks we're giving them six weeks also what was requested was two months in the fall all of November and all of December so it's going to be from November 1st to December 31st okay that's for number
one um number three we are taking out gas powered blowers shall not be used for gutter cleaning or snow clearing never agreed to this when we first discussed this I said I want to pass something similar to what we passed
in 2023 that was a fair compromise to everyone so we're completely removing number three number six the hours of operations weekdays will be 8 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. weekends we gave an extra hour from 10 a.m. to 6:
p.m. number seven completely crossed off the use of turbine blower should be restricted to lots and excess of 15 Acres that's a no in the last ordinance we passed turbine blowers shall be permitted so we're going to permit them hopefully if
there's support from everyone turbine blowers shall be permitted that's number seven I thought she said to cross it off yes we're crossing off what's there and replacing it with turbine blowers shall be permitted okay gotcha
yes and that's it I will send them to you thank you you're welcome this takes effect fully 2026 it's only seasonally when are you talking this year and you're not gonna you're not
gonna take out taking the picture no because other towns do it so we can do it and I'm hoping we'll have support for a referendum so the people of West Orange can vote in no in the November election for whether or not
they support a full ban in 2026 but in the meantime we'll have the seasonal ban that so I also like so I so my I would like for that the photo to be taken out because I think that's just asking for disaster in the township
um Z Plus the zoning official she's busy enough she doesn't need to be looking at all these pictures and Lawn Care registration so anybody to ensure compliance with this ordinance all Lawn Care businesses operating within the township must be
registered with the township a list of authorized businesses will be posted on the township website the register will be formalized by resolution so if I have my my neighbor doing the lawn you know my neighbor's kid doing the lawn
that needs to be that's not anofficial lawn care if your neighbor's son is doing it that's that's fine it's not an incorporated business who is T doing all of this work because who's please let finish well and the reason I'm saying is because I went
along with it for the tree ordinance because there's a lot fewer tree companies like you're again if we can't enforce this if we can't manage it it it you have to have a a a realistic balance like now
you're like you're just pushing all levels here and I understand what you're trying to do and I I I know I don't sound supportive enough but because I know you care I really do know you care so I feel bad with my tone but I know the township and I know how stressed all
the Departments are and you know there's some other things we need to get done that we just can't get done and and now we're giving them another job so again you got to think this stuff through I'm said my pce councilwoman celino are you making a
motion to add any of uh the points that you just made do you want to make a formal Pi a formal vote on each one of your proposed amendments uh yes so enforcement I propose that we remove the language that we're going
to uh have pictures with timestamp photos of our neighbors to the zoning officer who's busy enough on a good day so yes I'd like to make that recommendation to remove item five enforcement the first paragraph in enforcement I'm fine with the violation
fees so you want it up until this uh the zoning officer will then issue the zoning office can issue a summon to both the homeowner and the landscaper I don't I don't I don't know the P doesn't have support so it doesn't
matter I'm not I'll let them decide our de the one thing that everybody has to remember is that the zoning officer is going to have to swear under oath to the court that this person committed this violation based on a photo so I don't
know how personally don't know how the zoning officer does that okay and certainly nobody can order the zoning officer or hold her accountable as a disciplinary matter she refuses to do that she does not believe that we can't force her to sign that complaint yeah it's just right could I just ask a
question then about that because it I just assumed if someone was there witnessing it and taking a picture they would be able to be the witness that can the zoning officer would need in order to send a violation similar to a lot of
the other violations that uh she sends so I'm just wondering what what is different about this that is that makes it different from all the other enforcement areas because she goes out and corroborates what a neighbor has complained about your neighbor says your
pain is peeling on your house and they're tired of looking at she goes out and corroborates that right it's not like they just send a picture and she signs the summons she has is that what you're proposing that she do no I'm not the okay uh a picture is sent with a time stamp just as in
Maplewood it's done and um a summons is sent to the homeowner and to the landscaper who has broken the law who signs the summons the zoning officer signed based on a timestamped photo yes and you got to swear under oath that how
is that swearing under oath when you signing a summons you're swearing that you have probable cause to believe this offense occurred she does have probable cause because she has a amp B on an uncorroborated if the summons is paid then obviously there's some admittance
of guilt if the summons is contested then it goes to court it's not you're getting way ahead of yourself the point is one at a time hold on going to the court and you're signing under oath a complaint saying that you have probable ques to believe something occurred you
don't have that based on a time stamp photograph from an anonymous source you only have that if the person who took the photo shows up in court no you you can't sign it until you have that person you have to like take a statement from them or you can't just take an anonymous photo and hope that somebody shows up
for court it doesn't work that way you have to have your you know putting the car the car before no because we're not talking about a court date we're only talking about um if somebody if somebody contests The summons then a court date is set right but how does the zoning
official sign the summons under oath squaring that this occurred based on a photo this is what is being done in in Maplewood and this is what is working I grant they I also know the prosecutor in Maplewood said yeah if anybody comes to court or contest us we got a problem so
that's not what she said to me well that's what she's saying okay well I'll call her tomorrow and and ask Richard we're still we're still at a point where uh I wanted to ask councilwoman castelino if she wanted to
offer any amendments to this okay so that and then the LA Care registry to remove that because again I just think that is just more work right that's fine we're not really talking about that we're just trying to those those are my
two deletions from the ordinance okay so the first so the fir please offer the first motion I uh so I thought I did with enforcement um to remove item number five all together all together all right is there a
second okay okay so failed right it wasn't recognized okay and then the second one is the to remove the lawn care registry Lawn Care registry okay I think it's going to be two is much work
for right is there a second okay failed okay okay so I was out of the uh room when the previous amendments were offered have these been voted on or are we going to okay no and I don't have
them written down because there were several so I asked them to send them to me tomorrow if they can just read them into the record one at a time or however so so we can make a motion without the wording Mr Burke do you have
the wording I I don't I guess Council people would be comfortable reading gonna send it making it their motion with that wording in it we already read it we read it right it's on tape you read it but if there's more than she just had to do two different separate
votes on the Amendments so if you have we have to go through each amendment to read okay okay so so the um I made a motion to change a little bit of the language at the beginning in the purpose to add a few
words um the the language change would include the word seasonally after leaf blowers seasonally within the township of West Orange and then to fully by January 1st 2020 uh 6
I second that that's a motion you're making right that's a motion so is there a second for that yes I second it oh thank you I didn't hear that okay I just I'll take a vote on that and then we'll go to the next one councilwoman celino no councilwoman gber Michael Yes
councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay the motion carries I make a motion to reinsert the whereases whereas Clause that are
currently um located in the legislative history yeah I don't know if that because we got an opinion from legal for that that normally whereas Clauses they don't do wear as Clauses and ordinances only resolutions so that that would have to be researched we could certainly take
a vote on it but I don't know if it's legally can be done I have one more comment special counsil answer that um we would do we would have comment after we make the motion okay that's
typically okay yeah yeah yeah I'm sorry special Council answer the question I apologize what was the question the question is um can we move what is currently written in the legislative history on um on the um leaf
blowers to whereases under purpose that's not normally the way we would draft an ordinance but if you wanted so then I I withdraw that if that's not if that's not typical okay if it's just for Resolutions then I withdraw that request right and Proclamation
correct okay is there another one no uh I think um councilwoman gber Michael has the rest okay thank you councilwoman gber Michael thank you council president under 20-13 limitations on leaf blowers the first amendment is on number one I I
propos to men the gas powered leaf blowers may be used from March 1st to April 15th giving the six weeks that DPW requested for spring cleanup and from November 1st to December
31st again honoring what DPW requested which is the months of November and December um effective January 1st 2026 the use of gas PL well that's already in there so those those are my only amendments are the dates March 1st to April 15th and November 1st to December
3 I just want to add one thing to to um my colleague's um statement it should read November 1st 20 uh to December 31st 2025 as well as for the fall season March 1st to April 15 2025 correct thank
you council president luden I mean council person getting late okay okay so that's my motion okay and councilwoman Ruden did you second that yes I do okay thank you can I can I make a recommendation
sure it's open for discussion thank you so I know they said six weeks I mean I think they're going to regret that because with starting March 1st and ending April 15 I think you should give them to May 1 because the
past few Springs it it's been raining like crazy and I I I know this um they're not going to be able to get their their work done and then we're you're going to be in a situation it's a first year transitioning um I would I would give
them two months I would go from March 1 to um May 1 I don't think it's a big deal give them a time to transition you get a rainy spring I mean really yeah can't let them have one year to figure this out and
give them two months like give give the staff a break anybody's response no can we call the vote please uh if I could I would like to ask the question the change in the dates that are being suggested as
the amendment are they the result of speaking with uh either landscapers or Golf Course superintendant about this is that why we're changing the dates now I spoke with
DPW met with Richard leonardis and the superintendent who also requested six weeks Richard Leon arst agreed that that six weeks is fair when I met with them on Saturday with councilwoman Scarpa then had a conversation with the DPW director because initially what was
proposed was one month April 15th to May 15th and they said we need it in March and we need at least six weeks and that's what we're doing thank you councilwoman thank you council president we don't get a lot of rain I think we're ready for a vote no
let's call the vote okay councilwoman castelino no councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay the motion carries thank you the
third amendment I'd like to propose number three strike it out that was never in the original version that we passed in 2023 someone has to Second it yeah is there a second a second thank
you that means you can use yeah we can yeah means you can use them I okay councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden no councilwoman
Scarpa yes council president kovia yes the motion carries Okay the third amendment hours of operations and make a motion to change weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 6 PM weekends 10: am to 6 PM a second
okay all right councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman scorpa yes council president cobak yes oh my last
amendment number seven if we can cross off what's there and instead add turbine blowers shall be permitted that is my Amendment turbine blowers shall be permitted so mirrors the the ordinance that we passed in 2023 I'll second it
okay councilwoman gber mik I'm sorry councilwoman celino yeah yes councilwoman gber Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president covia yes I have one
[Laughter] more councilwoman celino has a listen I'm just as passionate as you are uh item number four no gas or diesel generators may be utilized to power any
electric blowers at any time I mean they we just had testimony that's how they charge their batteries so now they're buying more batteries you know for people want to don't want to kill the environment buying a lot of batteries so
I my recommendation is that we remove item number four under section three you want to make a motion yeah I did okay okay is there a second I'll second that and I just like just like to
ask the question why would we prohibit that because if our whole point is to eliminate um fumes why would we allow them to be charged on um generators diesel generators okay the councilwoman
then you have the lawn mower you have a snowblower I I I mean you're you're really are you really understanding like we're talking about one please let her finish no no but the impact I I mean I get where you're going but again like
education education education you know like the environmental commission no one we haven't even tried educating the public to try to swap out and use and and whatnot and and now we're just gonna remove what they need
to do what you want them to do so now they're going to have to buy more batteries to do their jobs and so again it just doesn't make sense to me I I just don't understand we're not small business friendly whatsoever there needs
to be a balance I get where you want to go with the environment but you're not being kind to small business owners the woman that was here last time was in tears because she doesn't know how she's gonna manage her Landscape Company not everybody has big bucks we have a lot of
small business owner a lot of in the Hispanic community that that don't come out and advocate for themselves that are going to be crippled by this so again like let's be mindful you know if they're so horrible um then you could always change
it next time but give them a shot to even survive I mean this is just just very I think it's very very elitist I'm sorry gonna say it well I I just think uh we're making these
amendments to ease the transition and I think this could be easily considered part of the transition uh for a year or two to and then perhaps as the technology improves that we can uh ban
that as well there there is no need to to allow that these batteries can be charged um by electricity and not by diesel fuel there's no reason to do that and any any Eco landscaper will tell you how it's done so there's really no need
to build it build in a problem that we're then going to have to correct let's vote my motion is to remove out a section three item four we have a motion on the floor yeah no gas or diesel generators may be utilized to power any
electively vot so they can't use diesel generators yeah we have a motion in a second I'd like to remove that please yes the motion's on the floor we're gonna vote councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michel no councilwoman
Ruden no councilwoman Scarpa no council president kovak yes okay motion fails yeah yep anything else on this motion do I mean this uh this ordinance have we voted I don't think we've we're done we
no we're ready to vote on it as Amendment Mr B is that we we already voted on it as a first reading before but it might makes sense to do it again as an amended okay okay so so
moved second thank you councilwoman castelino no councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovia yes the motion carries thank you moving on
ordinance 29-25 ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 4-6 drug fee school zones subsection 4 -6.2 adoption of directive and schematic maps of the revised General ordinances of the township of West Orange there a motion
to introduce on first reading make a motion to introduce on first reading second okay councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman SCA council president cobak yes the motion carries all right
okay we are on to pending matters new matters Council discussion oh I'm sorry yes no we're not all most of these people have been sitting there patiently and I really appreciate it and I'm sorry to have done this to you but I think you could see we needed to get through those
so we'd like to open up the second part of public comment uh which is uh for non agenda items uh I think everybody pretty much knows how the process works please come up to the uh uh to the podium state
your name and address and you have five minutes to make a statement ask questions or both um zma Hopson tront Avenue um some of you might know me from the human relations commission but I want to make it absolutely clear that I
am not speaking for them I'm only speaking for myself independently this is my opinion um I've been a resident homeowner and taxpayer in West Orange for 50 years can you hear
me there you go okay now better better yes okay I've been a resident homeowner and taxpayer for 50 years in West Orange I usually don't come to the council meetings I watch them on TV and coming
here tonight I remember why because we need some stamina to get through to this point uh but what I'm speaking about is a very serious matter that brought me out tonight um I watched the last council
meeting 11th of February and I was extremely upset and absolutely appalled hearing what my Palestinian neighbors and Friends uh endure the abuse that they
endure from people on this particular West Orange face web page the posts on it are the most disgusting vile slurs and threats imaginable and my Palestinian neighbors and friends are
afraid for their safety and their children's safety understandably so if you have not heard heard it the uh the posts um it's there too vile and horrible for me to repeat here so I
recommend that you go back and watch that 11th of February council meeting so you can hear for yourself now there are signs all over town that say hate has no home here it's ironic that hate is flourishing on that
West Orange web page hate is very much at home there um now I'm not too excited about resolutions and proclamations I don't think that they do much um I think more needs to be done here I am understand
the police department needs a complaint before they can respond I just want to say it's very likely that the people affected are afraid of retaliation and that's why they're hesitant to contact police I also understand that there's an
issue with free speech which is why the legal department would have to weigh in on how to sort to all that um but most important I would just like to say we as a community need to make sure that everybody in our
town feels safe everybody needs to feel that they they and their family their children are welcome in our town now all this came to light two weeks ago at the last council meeting I would like to know what has been done since then to
address this problem and what will be done to put a stop to these vicious attacks on our Palestinian residents and Neighbors in our town and I hope that it's more than a resolution or a proclamation because we really need more
than that and that's what I had to say thank you evening my name is Dan Waka live at 18 under flip terce South Orange I'm sorry what was your last name WKA can you spell it
W thank you thank you I'm speaking tonight in support of an anti-islamophobia resolution and to address two statements that were made by the council in response to public comment last meeting the first statement that will address is this hate has no
home here this is a platitude that was echoed verbatim or in similar sentiment numerous times by the council presumably in an effort to persuade West Orange residents that this phrase holds as much power or as much meaning as the anti-islamophobia resolution that the
residents have repeatedly requested due to a rise and discrimination against those within their communities again I am in support of the requested resolution while I disagree that this uh five-word phrase and similar sentiments stated by the Council on February 11 are
an equal alternative or a sufficient response to a much stronger resolution that's been refused to pass I'll first go along with your premise that these five words have power and hold meaning if that is true then it should be understood that all of your words have meaning bringing me to the second
statement made by a council member that I would like to address the council member when responding to the West Orange residents who have bravely stood before all of you and their fellow residents showing vulnerability and voicing concern for themselves and those within their Community included the
following line in their statement quote there have been times through these past two years that I have felt that there were outside agitators outside influence that sometimes didn't need to be here outside agitators outside agitators
outside agitators please do remember those words because just moments earlier in their response the same council member stated the following quote so if there's something that we can do I I am always going to push for it again it is important to recognize that if some of
your words have meaning as you claim then all of your words must also carry equal weight every word we say contributes to larger conversation and we must think very carefully carefully about the impact of the language we use especially when it comes to issues of justice and equality if we are to trust
you and believe you that you will do everything in your power to protect the residents of West Orange then we must also listen intently and with great concern when you use a term that is rooted in discrimination the term outside agitator has a deeply problematic and racist history
especially when use in terms of social justice movements we've seen this time and again whenever people especially people of color stand up and demand their rights they're often labeled as agitators or troublemakers by those in power and this is no accident it's a way to delegitimize their efforts and to
dismiss the very real issues that they are fighting for going back to the Civil Rights Movement we read outside agitators as used to discredit black activists who were fighting for their basic human rights it was a way to say you don't belong here your struggle is not
legitimate this term has been weaponized to silence those fighting for justice to make them seem like they're somehow less than or like their demands are driven by outside forces rather than their own lived experiences when we use the term outside agitator today we're Echo echoing rather
the same ugly history it's used to dismiss the voices of those fighting for equality especially in communities of color it implies that their activism is unwelcome that their concerns are unimportant and that only certain voices are worthy of being heard this is about
power and who gets to speak up and be listened to in this community and in this country I urge you to think about the real impact of these words they shape the way we see the world and the way we treat others and when we use language that has historically been used to marginalize and silence people we are
perpetuating those same injustices let me be clear I'm not accusing any council member of these attitudes and I'm confident that no council member has used this term or would use this term in the same context that I've just provided actions do speak louder than words and hold much more
meaning please prove us all right and work to pass an anti-islamophobia resolution thank you hello can you hear me is this it's hard to hear if you can hear because you can't hear yourself my name is Jackie hendy uh I live on Beverly Road and I'm
sorry I have a I'm a quiet talker I'm trying this better I do um so um I am here excuse me what was your last name hendy h e n Dy and the address uh Beverly Road 6 Beverly Road thank you
you got it um so I am here to sort of echo what the two people before me said quite eloquently um you haven't seen me here before I'm not one who really likes public speaking despite being an actress but that's in character that's different um I saw something onine line that
really just shook me to my court and it was so and I'm not going to repeat it because I don't want to because it was so hateful and so vile and just mean and the whole purpose of saying it was just
to hurt somebody to poke at their wounds to provoke them into a deliberate reactionary response so that they could say aha I gotcha there you are there's the monster I'm trying to lab you as you're showing it now because I made you
show it CU I poked at you I hurt you deliberately and this is happening all across our our community and I'm hearing from a lot of people that they've been reaching out to you via email and in person here this is all news to me
asking for you to give them equal chance an equal voice equal representation and to feel seen and heard and that they matter to you because we're all neighbors here trying our best sloppily sometimes not perfect I'm not
perfect you can hear it in how I'm speaking to you I'm speaking completely from my heart this there's something festering in here and if we don't address it and I don't even know how you do it because I'm not an expert in this field I admit my I'm a novice here I'm not an expert I just know that these are
my neighbors and they're telling me that they feel scared and they feel threatened and they feel silent and as you said not everybody has the ability to come and publicly advocate for themselves so just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not there they
might be scared they might be intimidated I'm not scared I'm not int the people who know me know my heart I don't hate anybody I do believe in equal treatment for everybody I am a marginalized person I've went to school in Staten Island New York and let me tell you I was one of the only people of
color I was constantly picked at and provoked so they could say aha there you are angry black woman I did it to prove who you are and that's not who I am and I got tired of dusting off my soap box I got tired of constantly having to be the representation for all my people because
nobody else around me looked like me and I did it and I did it over and over again and I'm doing it here I'm not a Muslim but I know when I see evil when I know when I see hateful speech that should not be tolerated and needs to be
called out and I saw saw something and I was just coming here like I'm going to do my civic duty and show up at Town Hall and learn and I am learning I'm learning a lot and I'm open and I suggest that you all remain open and when nobody here is our we're not
enemies we're your neighbors and this is difficult hard work but you were elected to do a job and I do believe that this falls under the umbrella of your job as our leaders we're looking to you please please let these people have have a
voice let them know that you care about them it's important it's vitally important and you can't speak up for one person without and leaving other people in the shadows that furthers the divide that festers and rots and we have to
call it out we have to address it I don't know how you do it I wish I had a solution I don't I just know that there's something happening here in this town and it's rotten and if we don't address it it's going to continue to fester and stink until that's all we can
all smell is the disgust thank you guys thank you Miss Anders before we start hold on hold on just a second I I know it's a late night folks but if you want to talk to
somebody around you please go outside so that everybody else who might be having trouble hearing can hear as well as possible so please go ahead Carla Martin Bel tier Road something funny oh thought I heard someone please
just on January 6 the mayor forwarded a resolution addressing islamophobia anti-arab and anti-muslim racism under pending matters in the Town Council agenda all of you single-handedly dismissed it and labeled it as null and void Arabs and Muslims no they don't
matter to you um Arabs and Muslims know they don't matter to most of you up there but good God to dismiss it like you did is utterly disgusting to clarify cancel woman celino the resolution was not a oneperson thing it was a group of
Muslims and Arabs in West Orange that have been working on it councilman kovak your tonee Universal everyone matter speech made it clear that you failed to grasp the lived experience of people who do not look like you your words glossed over the blatant racism and
discrimination that Arabs and Muslims endure daily in West Orange claiming that laws and so-called protections ensure equality and safety reveals a profound lack of understanding on your part councilwoman Ruden Ruden you stated as someone who ran to improve our
day-to-day lives garbage sewer taxes and transparency I believe we should focus on issues that truly affect our bottom line not those that don't please explain how racism discrimination and hate towards a marginalized group is not a crucial issue your comment was
dismissive and in itself biased on February 11th the town council meeting several Muslim and out residents along with their allies expressed the urgent need for the resolution councilman kovak your response was appalling you had the audacity to say we do hear you we do
suffer with you if if you are suffering no you don't you will never understand what it is like to be an Arab or a Muslim and face the discrimination and the hate that they experience on a daily your lack of insight and awareness of real world issues impacting marginalized
groups is truly astounding councilwoman gabber Michael change never happens when people remain neutral neutrality in the face of justice is complicity Malcolm X said that Martin Luther King said that should I go on councilwoman Scarpa would
you as a white woman tell a black Citizen how to draft an anti-black racism resolution no you wouldn't so why would you believe it's accept to write a resolution addressing islamophobia anti-arab and anti anti-muslim hate your action is offensive tonee and filled
with entitlement a West Orange Resident was charged with aggravated assault weapons possession and bias and in intimidation for brutally attacking an Arab Muslim here in West Orange where was your outrage
then nowhere right an HRC commissioner has made an anti-arab and anti-black remarks where's your outrage I haven't heard anything councilwoman Ruden I recall seeing you in this in in seeing you in November photographing photographing and
filming protesters who were peacefully Gathering against illegal land theft in Palestine what was your intent at the candidate Forum you stated that saying free Palestine is hate speech you even told someone that there is no such thing as a state call Palestine outright
denying the existence of Palestinians who are Arabs and most mostly Muslims who are you to erase an entire people who do you think you are to tell people who talk about another who who are you to Who Do You Think You Are to
talk about another person's existence your bias is clear and your continued dehumanization of Arabs is unacceptable Your solution to anti-arab and anti-muslim racism is to involve law enforcement yet you fail to acknowledge that West Orange Police simply don't
care I have experience with that are you aware that marginalized people often hesitate to call police out of fear retaliation likely not because you've probably never had to ask yourself will I be safe if I call police it is painfully obviously where
you stand you should recuse yourself from making any decision regarding this resolution a recent Oprah request reveals a depth of hatred in this town emails filled with islamophobic rhetoric anti-muslim and anti-racism and hate exchange between Westar and residents
and town officials perhaps in the next town council meeting I'll bring those emails and read them out loud to everybody hate is thriving in West Orange fued by local extremists in the summer of 2024 I placed a lawn sign opposing a genocidal political ideology
of a foreign government in response a West Orange extremist stalked my house and when I confronted him he wanted he told me he wanted to see who lived there a direct threat to me and my children I followed to I was followed to work your time is
up please finish your statement so we can move on I'm sorry I was followed to work by another local extrem man who made a failed attempt to get me fired I appreciate you allowing me to talk president my 10-year-old son was
doxed by some people sitting here right now my 10-year-old son another extremist rented a U-Haul Van covered with Trump's flags and parked it in front of my house insinuating that once Trump was
reelected Arabs and Muslims would disappear be deported whatever you want despite these cleared threats West Orange Police Department did nothing tangible that's why I'm working with an attorney let's call it what it is you don't care about Arabs and Muslims in
town and the biases are on full display if it mattered you wouldn't think twice to pass a resolution just like you didn't think twice to pass other resolutions stop ignoring the impact this is having on the Arab and Muslim Community in west staring and pass this resolution we'll continue to show up
until you do thank you for extending my time president thank you Miss Martin my name is maish kesi and I'm on five M Pleasant Avenue can you guys hear me properly yeah West Orange has a problem a problem
that this Council refuses to acknowledge despite its clear presence and devastating impact islamophobia and anti-arab racism are not isolated incidents they are Dee rooted and pers persistent in this town and they continue to thrive because of
the silence in action and excuses from those in positions positions of power like all of you sitting here today A West Orange Resident was recently charged with assault weapons possession and bias intimidation after violently attacking an anti-genocide
protester and while this act of hate was celebrated by extremists in our town what do we hear from this Council complete silence indifference a failure of leadership in the face of Terror Justin gold a member of the human
relations commission has has weaponized his position with callous dis disregard for human dignity his comments on Gaza were nothing short of an insult to the suffering of Muslims and Arabs I would read them to you but I think you have read and heard them enough it doesn't
stop there Goldman has openly spread vile threats and racist slur inciting violence misogyny and hatred all under his own name name this is the kind of hate we're allowing to take root in our town and it's time for all of us to
confront it the anti-islamophobia and anti-arab racism resolution must pass before more people are hurt but right now there's nothing for you to pass because you haven't even considered it you need to take it up put it on the agenda and move it forward not at some
undefined point in the future not when it's convenient for you you have to do it now not when someone get get hurt we are not going anywhere the bigotry will not live here we will keep showing up keep speaking out and hold you accountable for the hate you allow to
persist we are fighting for what is right and we will not stop and since my time is not done there was one person here that wanted to be here and I'm going to acknowledge her who didn't who wasn't here noas sedi had planned to
speak today but unfortunately she had to leave she wanted to stay that she stands before you today as a proud American citizen and a taxpaying resident of this community as someone who contributes to the welfare of this town through both taxes and active par participation in
Civic life it is her right to speak out on issues that impact our shared values of equality and justice and respect and I'm going to speak on her behalf reading her speech today I came before you to urge you to pass a resolution against islamophobia I do so not just as as an
individual but as someone who represents the countless residents who believe in the principles of fairness and inclusion that our nation was founded upon in recent times we've witnessed the harmful effects of prejudice and discrimination particularly towards Muslim Americans
whether in the form of hate speech discrimination in the workplace or violence against innocent individuals these actions harm not only those targeted but the very fabric of our society as public servants your responsibility is clear to Serve and Protect all residents of this community
regardless of their age their race religion or background your biases whether conscious or unconscious should not in cannot interfere with your ability to perform your duty every single resident deserves
to feel safe value and respected in their own Community regardless of their faith and I urge you to recognize that islamophobia has no place in this town or in our country when a community reaches out to their own and asks to their town and asks to be heard the
least you can do is honor that Community it's not that difficult it's a matter of listening acknowledging their concerns and ensuring that their voices are included in the decisions that affect them ignoring their plea or dismissing
their concerns is not an option for a Town Council that Prides itself on being inclusive and just it's your job to represent all residents and that means addressing the very real issue of islamophobia in our
town it doesn't take more and it doesn't have to take more and more severe incidents for us to move in the right direction we have an opportunity to take action now before things escalate further waiting for a crisis to arise is not leadership it's neglect this is a
chance to be proactive to take a stand and send a message that our town does not tolerate hate or discrimination in any form M kki Miss kishy I apologize for interrupting you uh we can't let everybody go on past the five minutes there's a lot of other people needs to
speak please conclude your remarks as quickly conclude with that thank you for giving me the time I appreciate that hey everyone my name is Paul Greenhouse I live on Walker Road um you know I've been living here since 2017 and I travel a lot for work and so
especially this past year I've been gone quite a bit and when I come home I'm reminded of how much I love it here and just seeing some of the other people who are speaking so passionately tonight standing up for their neighbors and for their Community reminds me of why I love
it here um the other thing that I love is just seeing my neighbors and seeing how diverse my neighborhood is and we actually have a commission here in West Orange called the human relations commission that specifically is set up
to celebrate that diversity um I think their mission on their Facebook page says the West Orange human Relations Committee uh here I can't see it how do I uh the West Orange human relations
commission is committed to celebrating the rich diversity of our Township by engaging our residents in dialogue programming and services that help create an inclusive and Equitable Community for everyone and earlier this week or just before the
weekend it was brought to a lot of people's attention that one of the Commissioners on that committee had shared some a statement online that said his name is uh Justin goldsman and he said we are humans not Muslims followed
by heart emoji and below that he retweeted a statement from someone that's that was tweeting at the actor Mark Ruffalo saying did you move to Gaza yet I mean you Advocate and love this demonic culture of the Palestinians and
Hamas so much right and there was a big kind of response to that um some people came out and criticized him and then he made a statement in his own defense saying that he was quoting a video by a Pakistani woman talking about her
humanity and a lot of people just accepted that and he was able please no interrupt and he was able to deflect but what he just a second just a second please no interruptions but in in his defense in Justin's defense of his post he didn't
address what he had retweeted you know he didn't make that statement as a quote of this video and share the video from the woman and he didn't address the statement that that he included below it and I think there's some confusion about
why that is a racist statement you know in the statement he describes he conflates Palestinians and Hamas and and Palestinians are an ethnonational group that live around the world that consists of 14 million people Hamas is a
political entity that governs Gaza and they're authoritarian they were elected in 2007 and Gaza itself has two million people and so and beyond that half the population are under 18 so half the people had nothing to do with Gaza even
being elected so here goldsman has conflated 14 million people with like which are people with a an kind of uh authoritarian political group right and that's ignorant but beyond that he's saying that they're all demonic that
Palestinians are demonic that's racist and I think that by being on the human relations commission it's his responsibility to make everyone feel included we have Palestinian members of our community how do you think that that would make them feel right and that's
something that he didn't take into consideration so he should explain himself but also it' be nice to have a response from Council from other members of the human Relations Committee I think one of them is with us here tonight and explaining and responding to that and
most of all I think he should just resign or be removed um but I think there's a bigger problem that other people have addressed which is islamophobia and maybe we should have some kind of initiative that educates people because there shouldn't be so much confusion about why a statement
like that is hurtful right um let's see what else I have to say before my time is out um yeah I mean I think that kind of sums it up for me but thanks everyone for their time oh I would just say that you know
as we listen to other statements there might be some people who try to deny or or say that that's not racist but they should all be required to address why or why they feel that's the case bye thank you
I prefer Mr Burke excuse me for interrupting Mr Burke are you okay with sticking absolutely it's up to the council have you seen some of the people up here have left uh I he should stay Mr Burke yes you can thank you please go
ahead my name is Eric Hammons I live on a Carter Road c a m i ns thank you um so my name is Eric cammond my middle name is Zev which means wolf in Hebrew my paternal great-grandfather's name was
wolf my maternal Grand grandfather's name in Yiddish was velvel which translates with all which also translates the wolf long story short my middle name is Zev after my great-grandfathers who both escaped pums in Poland why do I bring this up I believe that I carry my ancestors
history with me not just by name but by Spirit my maternal great-grandfather in particular instilled in our family a sense that our Judaism was tied to a deep belief in social justice it was intrinsic to our understanding of what it means to be Jewish he certainly faced anti-Semitism in his lifetime he had
family who were murdered and other relatives who fought with the partisans against the Nazis he saw and understood deeply the stain of anti-Semitism in our world with that said I know he would be deeply disturbed by the weaponization of perceived anti-Semitism as a tool to oppress others above all he believed in
human rights he like many Jews was not a Zionist he would not subscribe to the notion that our safety as Jews is dependent on the persecution and subjugation of other people he would be appalled that the ADL the supposed Watchdog for anti-Semitism decries calls
for a free Palestine as anti-semitic as does Miss Ruden who seems to have stepped out of the room um but waves off ilam mus Nazi salute as a a misunderstanding that same ADL is who pushes for the passage of anti-Semitism resolutions that rely on the Deep
flawed IH definition it was for this and other reasons that I as a Jew opposed that resolution here in fact some of the same arguments made in this body about existing law already covering discrimination and the notion of exceptionalism are now being used to
oppose taking up an anti-islamophobia resolution however after speaking with my Muslim and Arab neighbors and witnessing islamophobia firsthand I am moved to support such a resolution some of the behavior by of our elected officials the people they appoint and
take guidance from scream at needing such a resolution let's recap some of this the hrc's purpose is to support an agenda that identifies addresses and dismantles all types of discrimination yet these are some of the recent words from commissioner Justin Goldman
goldsman uh excuse my language in advance um but these are direct quotes and if they're not becoming of this chamber they certainly shouldn't be becoming of a HRC commissioner referencing the Israeli pager attack that killed multiple children and injured thousands of civilians he States paid to get their terrorist small dicks
blown off again I apologize for my language drawing on islamophobia tropes he States can't sleep with 72 fake imaginary virgins these don't even reference the dog whistling statements that clearly call for Collective punishment the response to others calling Palestinians
barbaric talk of killing women and using the n-word Etc yet this is somehow yet this is someone you you feel should be on the HRC then there's commissioner Amy Gallatin who recently stated when posting about the horrific murder of the bius children
if you need to choke a baby to death to free your state then you probably shouldn't have one to begin with somehow ignoring the murder of more than 20,000 Gaza children by Israel and equating Hamas with all Palestinian people all life is
precious there result of the attack I witnessed firsthand when I when a trusted adviser to some of you MOA Glick bashed someone over the head with a flash at a protest yes this happened and I was standing right next to the gentleman after he was pepper sprayed by glick's buddy with some hitting me
authorities have my name as a witness and I will testify asked we have a Facebook page tatted by some of these same people as representing all Jews in West Orange with a comment stating there are no innocent people in Gaza again calling for Collective punishment their
comments and actions suggest that suggest they mean this is this in Palestine but also here here in West Orange to call back to my great-grandfather again he would never accept the notion that our safety as Jews somehow requires the persecution or demonization of other people conflating
critique of Israel's actions with anti-Semitism diminishes the very real very present threat of actual anti-Semitism insisting that calling out racist and xenophobic behavior unbefitting of town officials is somehow an anti-semitic attack is disingenuous
at best so I call on you to remove these extr extremely problematic HRC Commissioners for their blatant lack of capacity to recognize the humanity of all and to take up the anti-islamophobia resolution because the need is very real and to show that in this moment in our country when hate fills the air and
marginalized people are under constant threat we as a town can put our foot down and not accept it thank you um I uh want to start by addressing the Jeff Rogers Harper Street um I just
wanted to address the issue of an arrest I don't see any reason to speak about an issue of an arrest because the arrest does there's no conviction that hasn't been anything yet and as far as that um I was at that demonstration I didn't see the interaction that the gentleman
before me saw but I do know where it happened it happened in front of the firehouse the firehouses on the same side of the street as the synagogue that they were protesting against yet the protest the um the demonstrators were supposed to be across the street the S
the side of the synagogue was for the counter protesters for the Jews to protest against the people that didn't want them to have the right to invite someone to their synagogue to sell real estate so I just find that utterly contempt that he's already he came on the Jews side to start trouble so I
don't know what happened there I didn't see it I understand there is a uh videotape and that will show us what happened but he wasn't going over to the pal to their side to cause trouble they came over to the Jews side to cause trouble as far as islamophobia goes I'm
against hatred against anybody but I'm also against hatred against Jews and I'm against using the words islamophobia to shut down Jews if things happen to Jews that are done by Muslims just the fact that you point out that they were done doesn't make you islamophobic if you're
opposed to the islamist political theory that believes in the destruction of Israel and the killing of all the Jews on the planet and having Sharia law take over the entire planet and basically kill all kill everybody that doesn't follow Islamic law I don't think
criticizing that type of a movement is islamophobic and I don't think that if you pass something like this that people aren't going to try to do that use that very sort of thing to shut down criticism of Hamas I've heard a number of defenses of Hamas here tonight they
are contempt organization they raped they killed and and they' talked about they're not all all Palestinians but if you look at all the videos of things going on in Gaza on October 7th after October 7th when the hostages were being freed all
of those you see Universal support the people in the streets for the acts that took place on October 7th I read extensively on these uh on the situation in the Middle East and I have not seen a single Arrow regret October 7th except
for the fact that it brought on Israeli retaliation and I've heard the number the word genocide a number of times genocide is when you try to to destroy a people like when you go into in innocent civilians homes kill 1,200 of them K
kidnap 250 of them back to your home and try to destroy the Jewish people that's not what Israel has done at all and to say that you can't defend Israel and say that they're committing genocide is just obscene they are not committing genocide they are defending themselves they didn't start anything there was complete
peace on October 6th 2024 until that morning when Hamas just came in and rolled through and killed as many as they could kidnapped as many as they could raped many burned babies um I Heard the mention of Justin a number of
times um I saw the video that he was quoting there was a guy I believe he's on Time Square I don't know exactly where he was he had large photos of the two bibus children one was 9 months old when he was kidnapped the other one I think was four all right the other one was four sorry I just she was helping me
out um anyway um and he asked a um couple he was asking he was interviewing lots of people on the street he asked a couple um how they feel about the fact that these this this baby and this toddler were strangled to death intentionally by the terrorist Hamas
organization and they said that they're opposed to that ask them where they're from they were from Pakistan you ask them if they're Muslim yes they were Muslim and they said do you oppose us as a Muslim they said no I don't oppose I I oppose this as a human not a Muslim and that is what he was quoting and this is
taken out of context to attack him it's necessary to have people that will defend the Jews on the Human Rights Commission because we're being attacked um at my synagogue we have to have security every time there's anybody in the building that anybody knows about we're spending money we have to spend
money from our budget thousands of dollars a year to protect the synagogue so that we can feel safe are there any um MOS or majes or anything around here that are hiring security because they feel afraid that someone's gonna come and attack them please everybody
hey guys please all right everybody should respect everybody else's right to speak without speaking over them if you quiet please I'm going to send people out of this room okay if you you don't act civil everybody please be quiet if you
can't please leave thank you go ahead Mr okay um I the talk about um Muslims being afraid to report stuff I find that obscene I find that ridiculous in this political
environment where um Dei and BDS and BLM and all these things are taking over they are quite welcome time this up they report things all the time they help demonstrations on campuses across the country where they're breaking laws
repeatedly and even the ones that were arrested were sent back Mr Rogers please conclude your remarks I appreciate it um that was it that there should there's no reason for them to be afraid they don't have any taking no one's going after them when they make remarks no one's going after them when they get ARR
they're not being arrested thank you Mr Rogers P thing can everyone hear me yes awesome my name is imanii Oakley I'm from Montclair New Jersey and I'm here tonight to ask for the removal of Justin Goldman from the HRC as well as to advocate for the anti-islamophobia resolution to be
passed in 2011 Justin tweeted yeah I took your tacos in 2012 Justin goldsman tweeted over here in Lynch a
Texas yall pray for me and then proceeds to follow that up with laughter now I don't know about all of you but I don't exactly know what's funny about the idea of wrapping a rope around a black person's neck and stretching it and pulling it until their bones literally
snap and they die simply because of the color of their skin but that's the person you all have put on the HRC now some of you might be thinking oh well he was young don't we all go through our little white supremacy stage
what what's the big deal well here's the thing Justin never stopped in 24 in 2024 just last year Justin writes can't sleep with 72 fake imaginary versions with a blown-off
terrorist dick can you making more racist statements this time not against black folks but against Arabs and also Muslims and he just can't stop himself from there it goes on he has a Facebook post
where he says we are humans not Muslims we can make this work and we must that's a really weird statement because as far as I know every single Muslim I ever met is a human being but this is the guy you all have on your HRC
committee I am disgusted by these statements Justin is not a person who is a standup guy he is a bigot he is sexist in fact just a few years ago he actually when he was the chair of our Revolution
exus County he endorsed a guy that sexually harassed women and allegedly made a sexual pass at a middle schooler that's the guy you have on your HRC that's the guy you have on your HRC now to link these two
together excuse me I'm speaking Miss gallon please if you can't be quiet please leave okay that there's no other way no no no either you're quiet or you leave and that goes for everybody we
have to be respectful to each other please go ahead I'm sorry now to show why these two things are inextricably linked right now in your town I said I listened to some stuff I didn't even know what's going on someone was battered a Palestinian was battered
in this town a town that supposedly no hate lives here I mean I thought we had our problems in Montclair but wow all right West Orange these islamophobic statements by Justin and these racist statements
frankly they are scary if you are a black person living in West Orange you cannot count on somebody like Justin goldsman to keep your interest in mind as he sits on the HR HRC if you are a Muslim in West orange
you can't even count on the government here without the anti-islamophobia resolution to protect you and if you are a black Muslim in West Orange well good luck you might as well leave because
this is essentially a sun downtown now and you should all be absolutely ashamed of yourselves for protecting this this man who has said these horrendous things now I'm going to end my statement with this here is something from the American
Psychological Association black boys are viewed as older less innocent than whites children in most societies are considered to be in a distinct group with characteristics such as innocent and in Need for protection our research found that black
boys can be seen as responsible for their actions at an age when white boys still benefit from the assumption that they are children and essentially innocent that right there is exactly what is happening with Justin he is a grown man he is not a child he is not a
boy he has been a racist for a over a decade and I guarantee you if it was a black person if it was a Palestinian if it was an Arab if it was a Muslim who had these types of comments especially saying the word on these posts
he'd have been out of there yesterday but you are protecting him because of his whiteness and because of his privilege and it's disgusting thank thank you so much for listening thank you musi 570 Broad Street 570 what I'm sorry Broad Street
thank you I am here uh no excuse me what what town is that Newark thank you you're welcome I'm here on behalf of K New Jersey the Council on American Islamic relations uh New Jersey
chapter and I'm here to express our deep concern and outrage regarding the recent anti-muslim social media post made by Justin Goldman Who currently serves as a commissioner on the West Orange HRC his dehumanizing remarks and
perpetration of harmful stereotypes are utterly unacceptable and unbefitting of anyone in a position tasked with promoting diversity equity and inclusion his behavior not only Fosters bigotry and discrimination but also undermines the mission and values of the HRC which
is to address and dismantle all types of discrimination and bias As Leaders it is imperative that you set an example and demonstrate that such hatred and intolerance would not be tolerated I emplore you to stand with the community and take the necessary steps to remove Justin Goldman from his
role this dehumanizing narrative is what leads to a surge and bias and hate against Palestinians and Muslims broad that Palestinians and Muslims broadly face in New Jersey we urge the West lawence Township to take the three following actions
remove Justin Goldman from his position as HRC commissioner make a public statement condemning the islamophobic actions of of Justin Goldman and pass the resolution addressing islamophobia and anti-arab racism and I just want to
also mentioned that there will be some remarks and there was some already made defending Justin Goldman because he is Jewish and the fact that this is happening is only because he is Jewish and it is absurd and laughable to make such claims that because he's
islamophobic and we're addressing his islamophobic nature that that is being anti-semitic it has nothing to do with his his identity as a Jew and PE the the person that came here and mentioned that this is an attack on the Jewish Community this is not an attack on the Jewish community at all this is an
attack on Justin goldsman because of his racist remarks and islamophobic remarks anti- Palestinian remarks has nothing to do with his identity other than the fact that he is a bigot and he needs to be held accountable for his comments he's spreading hate in West Orange and he's
completely disregarded his his public position representing the Muslim and Palestinian community in West Orange but we I implore you to not take that position you are elected by Muslim and
Palestinian constituents and West orans as well and I emplore you to stand on their behalf and take the right responsibility and punish Justin Goldman for his comments you mentioned in the last board uh city council meeting that
there was no need to adopt an islamophobia resolution because you haven't seen uh reports of Islam phobia this is the best one you're going to get it's coming right out of the city council HRC and there's other HRC members that also islamophobic and anti-
Palestinian that were mentioned so if you want reports this is handing to you on a golden plate thank you Michelle gross Devonshire I'm sorry what was the address Devonshire terce thank
you two weeks ago I was the victim of an anti-semitic hate crime I received a threatening message on Facebook and I'll read it we'll come to your house it's a matter of time Hamas and the Egyptian
Army are coming that was in my inbox sorry I notifi the police because that's what a citizen does and they're investigating I can't thank the police
enough for all the Care they've taken to protect my family and keep my family safe anti-Semitism is at an all-time high people put hateful signs outside their homes to intimidate their Jewish neighbors our local synagogues have been
attacked mobs March through our neighborhoods screaming about their hatred now we're seeing personal attacks on Jewish members of our community this personal attack on Justin is another form of
anti-Semitism taking an innocuous message and turning it into something ugly dgg digging up messages that were sent in high school bringing up incidents in Middle School to to malign someone's character I'm sorry sorry that's blatant anti-Semitism I urge the council members
to not entertain this hatred I urge the council members to not entertain this hatred that is spread spreading across our community and I would add that allowing people from organizations that have known ties to
terrorism shouldn't happen either thank you my name is Tamara moyal I'm on Sullivan drive I'm sorry can you spell your last name am m o y thank you I'm here tonight because I think
that the council is missing context and I think it's incredibly important that that context be brought to you I I'm here un unprepared speaking off the cuff because I saw on West Orange 411 no how reposting the um
care call to fire Justin I that at that time I had no idea who Justin was I saw it I reacted to the post and I said this is appor as an Israeli American I don't stand for it etc etc and then I and then I looked at the the post that they they they
had pictures or screenshots of the of the posts in question um very difficult to read but I digged a little bit more and I was looking at the clip that he was referencing when he said because my my my response was to the comment that Muslims are not human okay that but there's no place for that that's that's
islamophobia that's hate there's no place for that but it was taken completely out of context he was quoting the woman in the video at the vigil for the bbas children who who was saying I am putting Humanity over religion and he
was and in his quote he was only echoing her sentiment and to take that out of context and then to start pulling other things out of context antias rhetoric is not islamophobia it's just not and for
him to say that that to make to to make a reference to the pagers going off in the groin area which is what happened okay that's not islamophobia that's saying there there was an attack onah terrorists terrorists the US calls them
terrorist Switzerland calls them terrorists he can call them terrorists and not be islamophobic if he's referencing the fact that the the there was a parade in Gaza with hundreds of thousands of Gins that came to celebrate the murder
of the bbas children there were two caskets the youngest children the youngest people ever to be abducted in recorded history their bodies were being paraded around that that was
important that is hate so to to reference that and to call it demonic that that is not islamophobia period context is important this is somebody who is in his
day job right the chief of staff for assembly man share who's pushing through the the or who's trying now to push through the IH definition of anti-semitism to to to push that law through okay this is a Witch Hunt this
is a Jew hunt Okay this is a guy who If he if they're able to get him fired if K is able to get him fired from his position this is going to impede on the IH definition of anti-semitism being passed at the state level it has already passed at the federal level and that is
what's going to protect my children in these Public Schools I grew up in West Orange I came back to West Orange to raise my kids IH is important and he is he is just a scapegoat this is this is bigger than just Justice and if you don't see that context and
don't take that into consideration then then you're missing part of the bigger picture he is using his platform to speak out against Kamas that's okay that's not islamophobia to to take his his quote
it's it's unfortunate that he didn't use quotations it really is unfortunate but that's not islamophobia it also it doesn't make it doesn't make sense out of context either it wasn't in line with with his other tweets taking something from when he was a 14-year-old kid which was a
private conversation between him and a friend great yes okay he's already made a public apology for that and he's and and he's been in public service for for how many how many years this the the the issue with the hard R in question
happened 20 years ago so why are we bringing up now and saying we need to oust him now because of that Supremacy please if you open your mouth again I'm going to ask the police to escort you out of the room I demanded if you want to speak
please go outside I have a question for you no no you're either quiet or you're outside this is my time the only only black person I don't care what color of your skin isce officer would you please escort her
out of the room please everyone was no other person on their side interruped multiple times was arrested by police hold on hold on wheree stop it please be quiet if you cannot be quiet get out of the council chamber I can't
believe all the adults here in your behavior you should all respect the right of other people to speak no matter how much you dislike it this is America please go ahead anti-Semitism in the past this is
this is this is the 2023 stat in New Jersey has increased by over 100% for us to have the IH definition of anti-semitism passed into law is very very important it's something that organizations like care don't want to happen this is why Justin is
being hunted for lack of a better term his statements are being taken out of context and additional statements are being brought up where there have no place to be brought up if you wanted to oust him for for being racist against blacks then that should have happened a
very long time ago uh I I I think that I said everything that I needed to say thank you good evening thank you uh Brent Draper Scott nestro Road West Orange uh I just want to say that I congratulate the
Council on not taking any of the poison pills and passing finally the Lea blower van B thank you uh I just want to address a few things on that uh as there was a person who said uh well it happened with Co when people were
working at home I just looked it up one-third of Americans are still working at home and in New Jersey the number is even higher I work from home my wife works from home two to three days a week New Jersey is in the top seven states of
people who work at home not the bottom seven not even the top 10 the top seven and the noise is very important it is destructive it is ear shattering it is interrupting you can't even enjoy a cup of coffee with that kind of thing going
on so thank you all are finally passing them uh one more thing about immani Oley um that individual accused me of something a few years ago and I've never met her until tonight and what you should know about her is she is a professional rabble Rouser that's who
she is she is an ugly person who goes around creating trouble I know Justin and I don't think he's racist at all and that's just sick uh the type of things that she was saying she ran for congress against Congressman the late Congress in pain his brother called me up who is
this woman she's accusing my family of doing this that and the other I've never met this woman I said neither did I but that didn't stop her so just so you know who immani Oakley is she's a professional rabal rousel RAB Rouser victim finally I want to finish my
statement on zoning board because I I ran out of time because this is very important because you all hold the purse I want to thank congresswoman councilwoman projecting councilwoman Ruden for uh pulling uh the zoning board attorney's um request for pay because I
don't believe he deserves it and I sit on the board so finally in 2024 the aforementioned Steve Warner was paid tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money as attorney for the zoning board but he failed and I do mean failed to realize that in application
number ZB 2402 the zoning board didn't even have authority to hear that so he's getting paid for the lengthy hearings that we had to the tune of $195 an hour $78,000 for a part-time job in one year
you need to hire a forensic investigator to look through everything because this is disgusting I I serve on the zoning board I'm the only member on that zoning board who voted against him to get the job and told him publicly that I had no
confidence in his legal counsel this person is being paid $195 per hour and has racked up a bill of $78,000 that he wants from our taxpayers I say no and thank you Council
councilwoman Ruden for pulling that and I hope that you hire a forensic accountant to look through that and examiner and make sure to claw back running for those lengthy meetings we had on ZB
2420 uh pardon me ZB 24-02 and that's the um residents are soon to be residents at 691 eigor Rock Avenue for anyone who is um interested or also like to point out that uh the
attorney and illegally serving chair of the zoning board didn't know either that we had no authority to even vote on this matter he's been on the zoning board for 15 years consecutively and served as chair for
the last six in violation of this Municipal ordinance that this town not only passed and was signed by president pesi but when you were offered the opportunity to resend it you said no you upheld it and this attorney stepen Warner has told the zoning board that
you people you elected people don't know what you're doing ignore what they wrote and go with what I want to go you're going to hire a councel a councel attorney a attorney for the council make sure to rectify that please do not pay
Steven Warner $78,000 of my tax dollars because he has done a shoddy job and he absolutely should not be paid for these several lengthy meetings that we had on an issue ZB 2402 that we had no right to
vote on in the first place thank you my name is Cindy Dresner I live at 37 Lake you drive I've lived here West Orange for 25 years Miss jesar I'm sorry to interrupt you could you pull the microphone closer to your mouth so everybody can hear thank you my name is Cindy Dresner I live at 37 Lake View
Drive I've lived in West Orange for 25 years and I've raised four children here I've been extremely proud to live here and raise my Jewish children in an extremely warm Multicultural environment it is therefore
disheartening and nauseating for me to watch what is happening here today it is clear to me and to many in the Jewish community that a Jewish person is being viciously targeted threatened and falsely maligned in an organized way on account of the fact that he is a Jewish
person who is outspoken and outraged as all as we as many of us are about the Monstrous crimes that have been committed by Hamas and this is a malevolent attempt to silence him and to destroy him in an effort to advance an
agenda anyone who took the time to watch the video clip that he referenced of the interview with the Muslim woman it is obvious that he was touched by her comment that she felt sorry about the bius children who were killed because she was a human not because she was a
Muslim I watched the video and it made me cry this is anti-Semitism happening right here in this town that means so much to me and I hope and I pray that this Council will not bow to the bullying of the mob many of whom as you must have noted like immani Oakley do
not even live here and will not go and please do not go down the evil path of cancelling a decent person who has given so much of himself to West Orange if we allow that where will this type of bullying and cancelling end how many other people will will be bullied and
cancelled please think about that thank you Amy gallon Amy gallon speaking in my personal capacity with slight reference to a different one uh with also just wanted to start with an apology um I was actually clearing my throat at one point
yes I did whisper one word before and I quieted as soon as you asked me to other than to say I'm sorry so I just want to say now I'm sorry again but I I okay so that's up Amy gallon your address please Crown
view I didn't actually prepare words like I have in the past um but I just want to speak from my heart there's a couple a few issues going on here um and when I first saw Justin's
posts last week I knew exactly what they were it's easy for me to know what they were I care about my people I care about other people I care about Humanity but I know
Justice also and so what am I going to do attack my friend for not using quotes and and play grammar police because that's really what I would have wanted to say when I first saw but I knew right away what it was and I thought well what a beautiful
statement because Justin more than most people I know knows how to embrace a Unity to elevate and transcend beyond the color of skin Beyond an religion Beyond nationality and what have you
because this is all I've known of Justin from pretty much the time I moved here so I thought it was Preposterous and that any other comment CR I agree and not really my style but I
agreed with the sentiment was 100% calling out a terrorist if you can't call out terrorism um that's a problem and everybody who is sitting there who took swore an oath of office should step the hell down because you swore to uphold
and defend a constitution and and protect against enemies foreign and domestic and Hamas is one of those enemies which kind of translates to my uh apparently somebody pointed out something that was on my private thing
um which was something that I shared um and I believe they have may have quoted it correctly by the way I was calling out himass but we're going to go back to Justin because it's not about me please please when I saw
the other comments I was shocked this is not the Justin I know at all nothing something's not right and I took a little bit of a look and I saw that there was a lock which meant that it was something that was in private and then I saw what the year was and I was
like oh my God he was 19 years old then I also saw that there was a handle attached to the name and so before I ever even spoke to him I went and I looked and I discovered on my own oh my God they are friends and it turns
out it was his best friend who was black who said some pretty awful things that as an outsider I would have been horrified because that he said about Jews but they've been best friends since they're at sixth grade and they broke down the barrier of what you can and you
can't say to each other because they foolishly at 19 years old used a new social media to communicate with each other but in lockdown mode some somewhat and then they grew
up so there was never any Mal intent and even if there was anybody who knows anything that Justin has spent every waking hour fighting for every marginalized Community under the
sun he has more love in his heart more dedication and passion for public service that it is nothing but let's go after the Jew and what an easy way out and how embarrassing to claim islamophobia and
racism off of something when he was 19 that he's publicly apologized for even though I don't think he really should have had to to some degree be but that he's any moved past anyway and other other than that we have repeatedly he has repeatedly I have
repeatedly the Jewish community has repeatedly made it clear this is not Jews versus Muslims this was I stood here in October of 2023 this is not Jews versus Muslims this is not Israel versus Arabs this is not Jews versus Arabs it's
not Jew it's it's versus terrorists we're calling it out and we are vilified all these horrible things you see online oh my God the hypocrisy in this room is astounding some of the people here having some nerve I'm I'm
out of time but if um there is any call from that bench to REM to have uh Justin resign coming from particularly the person who appointed him um I will be back here to make quite a statement um that will be very much directed to that
councilwoman who is not present because it will be um very blatantly anti-Semitic good evening my name is Anthony Lee I'm from East Hover what was your last name please Lee thank you uh sorry
um there have been a lot of things discussed tonight I just wanted to I think I there were a couple points that I still wanted to make um returning to the subject of a anti-arab and anti-
and anti-arab and islamophobia resolution um the three many most major news outlets
for the last 15 16 months or so now however long it's been have reported that there has been a marked uptick in anti-Semitism anti- anti-arab racism and islamophobia um um I believe if I understand
correctly West Orange C uh West Orange Council passed an anti- anti-Semitism resolution condemning it which is great and I applaud you for and I commend you for that um
the issue is that in this time when all three of when all three of those forms of hatred are markedly increased and their communities certainly know it only addressing one is very much a mistake in my
opinion of course resolutions don't solve everything might not Sol might not solve much but they were important to the communities in question um sorry I'm speaking off the cuff like
many others but lastly guarding Mr Justin Goldman um I don't know him myself I I do want to
Echo something that was said before that trying to enese one's Humanity by saying that we are humans and not Muslims is very very strangely worded because every Muslim does consider
themsel human um and one last thing before I depart and let let us all go um indeed it is completely it is completely
legitimate to to criticize and to and to uh and to say whatever about Hamas the okay actually okay I have several Sim taneous points going in my head I'm autistic I'm
sorry uh you're doing fine gracias I um that the problem the problem is like we saw with one particular speaker here standing up for the rights of Palestinians is seen by
many as agreeing with or endorsing Hamas and and that is where the devil lies lastly lastly I have heard comments tonight and last night saying how Justin could not
Poss Justin goldsman could not possibly be anti-arab or islamophobic because he has stood up for every marginalized group Under the Sun um I know from personal experience having a my my girlfriend's mother my
girlfriend's mother is very much a Zionist also a self-described hippie um and I also know a person from and I also know someone from college who it um very who faced racial
discrimination like at the hands of of Israelis themselves yet um yet is perfectly capable of dehumanizing the Palestinians is that there is a particular exception when it comes to this topic and I feel like that is
something that I needed to mention uh so thank you all and good night thank you thank you Mr Le my name is Craig Goldman and we live at 52 contori Avenue
uh I happen to know Justin from my son uh and him played soccer together that was where actually we met that's not really why I actually got up and spoke which is the first time uh I'm here to speak it's because I'm a kind of a
practical person I was a teacher for 27 years and retired this year and I really look at everything that I look at is well so what are we going to do about it so we have people up screaming and yelling about International things and honestly I don't think any of that belongs here I think our job is to do
what right for West Orange um but what I didn't hear was anyone get up and say so let's talk about it the last speaker actually was wonderful you know what he brought up some wonderful points it would be a great thing to have 20 30
people sitting together talking about it we had people stand up here today say that they feel they're not safe in town okay let's what does that mean you're not safe in town let's they they want you
to put out something on paper and that's going to change it I don't think so what's going to change is people getting together and people talking and people figuring out what is the problem is there really a problem is doesn't does it exist does it not exist if it does what is it if it's a Police Issue okay
so let's bring some police in here let's all sit down together and let's talk I mean it's 12:30 at night we're all going to go home and unfortunately I don't think anything's going to be accomplished and I find that to be very sad um the possibility of someone's life
being ruined without sitting down and talking with people and someone saying to him who might not like him at all but saying to him could you explain what you just said you know what I don't agree with him politically I would never have voted
for he who he supports but I sure wouldn't sit here and say something about him without asking nor would I say anything to any of you without calling you up first and saying hey can we sit down and talk about this and try to figure it out and I think that's what we
need to do I need we need to figure out a time that we can sit down and we can talk and if all people want to do is yell well then you know what they're not part of the conversation they don't really want to take care of the problem because if you really want to take care of the problem then you'll be willing to be open sit and have an honest
discussion of the problem and I know that's a lot harder than it sounds but I do believe if we really want to change our town that's where we need to uh move towards thank you want say good evening good morning I guess
right the uh Larry Ryan for us exactly Larry Ryan coming Circle um I I don't want to be repetitive to everything everybody said but I do want I have a few points to make um the first I want to really talk about is the is is going back to Justin so if you were here last
night for the human the the HRC committee meeting it was a beautiful thing because the beautiful thing was is that people sat around this table and they actually really talked about how to make this community A Better Community didn't make a difference what religion you were what race you were it was
beautiful it was absolutely fabulous talking about the programming for the entire community and how we all need to be there to support each other regardless of where we are and it was an amazing thing and their part of it was obviously Justin was part of that activity uh and as well as Amy as well
and and other members of the committee it was a beautiful thing to watch and I'm really proud of the fact where they've where the HRC has really come so I really want to say something for about Justin Justin actually I had Justin a long time uh he's been my neighbor for a long time and his family has been for a
long time um Justin is and if you do go back you've heard the story I won't repeat it is that if you look at the video that he talked about and you must look at that video it's you as as Cindy said all it's going to do is make you cry in that video and but it is does
talk specifically about what This Woman This Pakistani woman said about the fact that she's a person we're all people we all have we all have hearts we all have souls we all cry for different things and that's what she was talking about that's why it's it's was important to
look at the message and I know that the way that Justin said it was a was was taken out of context and I want to tell you that now that Justin has been there for this community forever he's been part of this community you you know bringing up drudging up old stories from
when he was in high school who cares we all did that weird things in high school we all said stupid things in high school and and we all can remember them as we all know um but basically bottom line is is that Justin has done so much for this community and also I do know that the councilwoman that they recommended
recommended he be here was felt really strong strong at that time when she when she recommended him to be part of it and I respect that she she will continue to to support him to do that because he really does play a major role in our community so that's number one and
Justin I I respect Justin for all the things he does it's amazing what he's done in this community overall so I want to say that number two is I actually want to repeat something that Craig said um it it's like it's like a little bit of deja vu because literally a year ago
um we were sitting at B V meetings and other Town Council meetings what we kept saying is why can't we just sit in a room and talk to each other and figure out how to make we all love West Orange why can't we just be together and be part of West Orange and and put everybody together and talk about it
it's critical that we sit down and have those conversation so again once again I'm going to volunteer that we should go ahead and start having those meetings and and those opportunities we're going to yell and scream to each other and that's okay but we all live together we want to live together we want to support
each other we want to know each other and we don't want to be angry with each other there's no reason to be angry with each other we're all here because we wanted to live in West Orange and we all love so I do recommend we do that again the third item I know um is this we've heard tonight A little about the incident that took place in the
synagogue uh and the and the altercation that took place um it is all as we all know we've seen a lot of it in the newspaper this past week um and I've been privy to a lot of the videos now that have been taking place and we we will see the true story of what is taking place in that activity um
it is a very the videos are very clear the material is very clear and it all come out to explain what what what did take place so it is really so I at the moment we should feel proud of our community we should not be hitting and screaming and yelling each other and and
worrying about each other so my recommendation is again is let's work together let's be together let's work with each other I appreciate the work of the Town Council it is not easy I know the work that you have to do um but please call upon us to be able to
connect and make this community as great again as we always want it to be because it is a wonderful community and we want to live together thank you very much hi am Goldman Curtis Avenue um it's very tough to follow Larry he he's thorough and so there's really very little I could say about everything he
said so I want just to bring something to the attention of the Town Council I don't know if you're aware or not aware it probably is the wrong board in this town I should be bringing it to but I do think it's important there was an incident this week I understand in one of our middle schools in which a teacher
gave a project for children to draw flags and I believe it's a sixth grader I can't tell you with certainty did in his flag of Israel and was rebuked by the teacher that that's not an acceptable flag now I believe it's a board of ed issue and I believe it's being brought to the
Board of Ed but I remiss to not bring it to the Town Council where the Board of Ed has the ability to really influence and sway over our children I'm wondering if any of you knew about this know about this and can follow up on it because I do think it's not just a board of Ved
issue it's a much larger issue that really addresses you know it shouldn't either way teachers should be impartial and students shouldn't be forced to think one way versus another way or influenced in any way and everything I left Larry so I'm going
to name an address please I know you're famous but name an address please I'm not famous by any means um Infamous then maybe Infamous council president uh I'm sorry I'll shut up no you're fine uh Justin Woodland's complex um my understanding is that the clip in
reference has been played or at least shared by amongst members it seems like everyone heard the the exact quote and the messaging from the clip so I will not spend 45 seconds playing that um I think it is very clear that it was a
Muslim Pakistani woman going up to a vigil for the two bius children an influencer says where are you from this is so beautiful I'm glad you're here we're not here because we're you know because we're Muslim we're here because we're human and this is a wonderful thing it doesn't matter if you're black
black white straight gay Muslim whatever you are it's because we're all here as humans and that was the intent of that there's a heart in the quote and it's very clear it says we need more of this and whoever's filming behind me continue to do so um I just wanted to say that
um you know I thought that was a beautiful moment at the time where we're talking about heightened anti-Semitism and hanti and heightened islamophobic remarks to elevate a moment in time in which we can highlight
joint resolution to celebrate our common humanity and that's what that was about and you can twist those words and you can twist words that were relitigated from 2022 you can relitigate those words that have been debunked from my deceased best
friend you can keep recording me and you can keep doing whatever you would like to be doing behind me and you can keep trying to tarnish a record but I would like to just asked for the record to stand I passed the Medicare for all resolution in this town I led the
immigration rally at the 911 museum I hosted the 27 Muslim ban in gain mus anti-muslim ban rally in Gainesville Florida I came back here and I have led multiple George Floyd Floyd reference
rallies and I have stood with this community constantly so if you would like to take an excerpt from a recent week or two weeks or three months in which we've all been elevated and all have been saying things that we probably
think and maybe we shouldn't be saying and relate them to your time in high school or five years later when you're 17 or you're 18 and they're to your best friend or the Tom whomever you
want you know what I walk past partio every day when I walk back towards the high school to just go for a walk I hear the same exact things the difference was unfortunately I was the generation of Twitter that's not an excuse and that's
not to dissolve any pain that I've ever caused in that regard that is not to say anything that I said was wonderful or bad or ill intended or wonderfully intented it was to say it was a time and it was a moment and if you want to draw
pattern between a blank of 2010 until a recent comment about a terrorist organization and we can dissolve 15 years of the track record that I've given to this town and I appreciate the commentary from not just the Jewish
Community but from our Collective beautiful Mosaic of humanity here in West Orange then I would like to just draw attention to the say that you are self-directing select moments in time to prove a point
because nobody has documents from 2012 that have recently been deleted since the point of 2022 to still have on preservation unless you were using them for future intent and if you had the time to scroll
back for six seven eight months let alone 15 years because you listen to a clip that said a Muslim Pakistani woman celebrated the fact that she could commemorate with a Jewish mother and a Jewish family celebrating with the death
of two little baby kids who were killed by the hands of terrorists then all I'm going to say is that you're clipping moments in time to prove a rhetoric and at that point we cannot function as one a democracy but two as a society and my
remarks have been gone this entire time but if the functionality of democracy is the respect of humanity it comes down to us having the forgiveness and the due diligence to understand that God gives us Grace and God gives us other
opportunities the Progressive Movement in this room everyone in this room you went to jail no Second Chance ban The Ballot Box I've been there I've done more for that than anyone in this room you don't want to have another chance because of tweets from 15 years ago
that's on you but let's call it what it is and we'll call it a targeted campaign about hypocrisy and other things and I stand with this community to always stand for every single West Orange resident to fight for them and I will do whatever I can as a human relations commissioner because I have done it for
the last decade and I will continue to do it that's works thank you Matt Dragon 13 Sheridan Avenue we've heard a lot about tweets but I'm going to touch on some other comments in November a man was
assaulted here in West Orange a man was assaulted a man wearing a cafa was assaulted a Muslim man was assaulted I don't have to say allegedly assaulted because I witnessed it from a
few feet away as I tried to intercede exactly one month after a town Council Forum where the now elected council members not just engaged with but supported a bigoted
antagonistic inflammatory question asked by HRC commissioner Gatlin that seek to paint Arabs and Muslims living in our town as other a Muslim man wearing a cafa was
assaulted in West AR councilwoman elect Ruden was there before the man was assaulted she was there filming those of us gathered to protest the sale of land stolen as part of an ongoing genocide I'm left wondering what she did
with those videos I'm left wondering what effect HRC commissioner goldsman had by posting during an HRC Zoom meeting the comment quote war is war
math is math horrible War regardless the population in Gaza has gone up 6X so it hasn't gone down question mark end quote that comment was made in response to Arab Muslim and Palestinian residents
sharing their pain over losing friends and family members in an ongoing genocide that comment in response to residents sharing their pain seeing people who look like them buried in
rubble made in response to Residents pain when looking at dead Palestinian kids but seeing their kids quote war is war math is math
horrible War regardless the population in Gaza has gone up 6X though it hasn't gone down question mark end quote Justin goldsman a West Orange human relations commissioner type that
out and press send an official statement in an official meeting then he deleted it to try and avoid being held accountable when it rightfully upset our
neighbors that's what people are defending that's what you're defending by pretending we don't need an islamophobia resolution in West Orange that's what you want us to accept as Humanity in West Orange what is humanity if our
appointees charged with bringing us together allowing us to see each other's Humanity are openly celebrating the maming killing and vaporizing of children yet you want us to believe
you're standing against islamophobia an anti-air by not doing anything I've advocated and lobbied and volunteered with Justin in the past but these comments in this role cross every
line I can imagine this was sitting together talking through things Justin couldn't clear that bar it seems there's no way to remove an HRC member that seems abs ABD but if
it's true I'll give you the same suggestion I gave the HRC work with the HRC to disband and reconstitute the commission then you can all reappoint Commissioners you stand behind to represent you in their interactions with our
neighbors but first you need to put the resolution against islamophobia and anti-arab racism on your agenda and Men pass it then you can follow the values of that resolution and fix your HRC thank
you is there anyone else who would like to speak I'm going to close public comment and ask any of my colleagues if they would like to respond I would councilwoman Scarpa um I'm sitting in this seat
because I love this community as much as all you who live here who have come out to speak with us and I thank everybody for coming um Craig you took the words right out of my math I've thought about that maybe Educators think alike I've
thought about how I felt about this the other day and just kind of wrote my feelings and the way I see it is the same way you do our goal is to unite our community rather than politicize or
divide it I promise you we will continue to work with all of our residents to create a positive welcoming environment that minimizes outside or political influences for decades we've watched
those with political or personal agendas impede our progress by politicizing our seniors our environment and the commercial development of this Township John F Kennedy once asked us
ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country I ask you to ask yourself and your children to ask not what your Township can do for you but what you can
do to unite our Township so come to our next meeting and share your positive ideas with us and that's about all how feel about it thank you councilwoman councilwoman would you like to I'd just like to keep
my remarks kind of short thank thank you everybody who came out and spoke tonight um I think context is essential I think a lot of you who spoke tonight helped to bring us that context because it shapes our understanding and it shapes our response to a particular issue of what
we are hearing um I think everybody on this coun feels that racism and defamatory language is absolutely indefensible and we will all fight and stand against it I also really like Craig is Craig still here okay Craig I
mean you're I I nominate you to to be the head of this organization that brings people together to to um to speak because that's really what will move our town forward um my concern in what we have seen tonight is that a lot of this
outcry has been orchestrated by an organization that itself is stained by anti-Semitism with an agenda of its own we received so many emails from from people mostly a form letter only four of
them were from households living in West Orange the mission of the HRC is just too important to be hijacked by an outside organization last night the HRC met um I've spoken to people who were
there they were able to talk things out in a very peace Peaceable way um the HRC deserves our confidence um deserves the confidence of this Council to address issues on their own terms thank you Council Council
celino than so last about six months seven months ago uh folks from um how can I start this there was calls from members of the
public that wanted a commissioner removed that um made anti uh or proposed made ant well I'm not going to State it they felt that that
person made anti-semitic remarks and they wanted that person removed and at that point in time I had stated I'm not going to remove anybody from the human relations Commission because if we can't have the
dialogue at the human relations commission it should be it should be dissolved because that's where the conversations have to go years ago for us Oldtimer in town um years ago human
relations commission uh started out with conversations on race and we all broke up into little parts of the church and had some really tough conversations but we all departed friends and I know this is hard because this is not just here in West Orange
there's this is just this global conflict and I appreciate all the remarks made this evening and where my heart goes out is there's
been so Much Death and destruction and you know we're dealing with a terrorist organization that has taken over um a a piece of the world and we're
dealing with that here and it's been so disturbing on so many levels and I'm sorry I'm not going to cancel someone from her our community that I've known since a child and has was the leader front and
center of the black lives movement if anything you know if you don't know Justin um he's front and center he he is you know just have so much energy he spoke so well this evening
and could have used the quotes but no it was scary to me with this hearing all of the testimony and and this this weekend of talking to different folks and and I have not had a
one-on-one with Justin yet but to go back to when he was a kid and kits him with his friends and yeah not not not not not nice on both their part but unfortunately again I always go back to
my Schoolboard days you know we had a we had so many instances 10 15 years ago with the students back then with the you know when all the Social Media stuff just started coming out with my space and even in the locker room talk I had
you know my son was in sports and it we had to tell them you you can't talk like that to one another even though they're kidding and they're they're friends it's just having those conversations so that HRC there they I think they did a phenomenal job last night just hearing
and talking to few few people as well and that's where this has to go and this is where we have to um move forward um the resolution I'm not going to rehash that because apparently I didn't do a great job last time when I
did that um but yeah our attempt was the last Council was to um pass both of them but we didn't have uh one that um we could move forward with and I know folks who worked on it in in the in the town
uh feel put off by that and I got a phone call why couldn't I support it and the first one I couldn't um it was um structured around the Care Organization and if you Google uh Google
there's a lot of controversy there and um so yeah so um you know we just couldn't do that and well for me for me to give the support so I'll speak for myself and as we move forward now there you know we have a new Council and you
know everyone one wants to you know move move forward with and I'm going to stand by that because I did in the beginning the January meeting and I I went back but I just don't see us coming to a resolution on on a draft that everyone
would be able to to work with and that's unfortunate so again um we have a a nice community event scheduled for Thursday night for Ramadan um what's so disappointing before all this occurred this past week before that I was talking to uh members
of the Jewish community that were very excited they wanted to go support the Ramadan event to show support and try to and those are the kind of you ask what we could do to move move forward that's a kind of event and the things that you want to do to move forward together like
sometimes you you you just got to say we're going to agree to disagree um and everybody thinks you don't care but every there's a lot of caring I hear from everyone we're just the words are just not there so I think we have to move forward show in other
ways that how we care and uh get through this West Orange because we can't go cancel people and we have to learn to talk to each other and thank thank you everybody especially all of you who are standing here still here this evening I know it's it's been a long night so
thank you so much councilwoman gber Michael are you still there yep I am would would you like to speak next absolutely thank you so again I just want to reiterate that I'm sorry that I can't attend in person this evening my son is six with the flu
we were in the Urgent Care last tonight um so I'm wearing two hats tonight I'm on mommy duty as well um so first I want want to address the concerns regarding my appointee to the human relations commission Justin Goldman recently it
has come to my attention that he has made numerous offensive and derogatory social media posts over the years including the use of racial slurs and deeply troubling remarks about various communities had I been aware of these
statements at the time of his appointment I would have never selected him to serve on this commission the human relation commission is intended to Foster inclusion respect and understanding and these remarks are entirely incompatible with that mission upon learning of these posts I
immediately informed Mr goldsman that he must resign he refused as a result this weekend past weekend I have formally requested that the township resend his appointment so that I may appoint someone better suited to uphold the commission's values the
administration is currently reviewing this request and I will continue to push for his removal I'm also grateful for the recent appointment of a qualified individual to the commission by councilman Joyce Ruden I was act actually when I spoke to Mr goldsman I
told him I was going to appoint that individual who had yet to be appointed um but I didn't want to belver waiting on the administration's response so I told councilman Ruden to please appoint this person who's an expert in this field I appreciate the community's
engagement on this matter and will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure accountability even if that means working on legislation where Commissioners will have the ability to remove
appointments like there are at this moment there is a commission where they have that ability so if one commission can do it I don't understand why the HRC cannot do it now regarding the anti-islamic
anti-muslim resolution and I've spoken to members who have worked on this resolution and I explained what I'm going to explain now and which I've explained in the last
meeting and throughout the years I remain committed to ensuring that all marginalized groups are represented fairly and inclusively I fully recognize the importance of addressing islamophobia anti-muslim and anti-arab racism as well as all forms of hate and
discrimination in our community I would like to point out that during the council's vote on the anti-Semitism resolution in 20123 I was the only council member to abstain I also said no one is going to
vote no to an anti-Semitism resolution I pleaded with my colleagues to table it so we can vote on that and also vote on a hate has no home here resolation resolution at the same time to include
all marginalized groups which would include all marginalized groups only then council president Bill retherford supported the idea and supported this and I did so transparently and I made my position
clear on the record like I am tonight and if this Council decid to vote on the anti-islamic and anti-muslim resolution I will have to abstain like I did for the anti-Semitism
resolution our town is a Melting Pot of diverse communities and I believe that we should approach hate and discrimination in a way that supports all marginalized groups including the Muslim Jewish lgbtq plus black latino immigrant and other
communities a hate has no home here resolution I believe is effective and fair and reflecting our commitment to treating everyone with dignity and respect as I promised in the last meeting I said I would draft the hate
has no home here resolution and I did and I emailed that to my colleagues and that has been added to the agenda today and I look forward to discussing this under new business pending matters tonight and I hope my colleagues will support this
thank you and I conclude my response to public comment thank you councilwoman uh excuse me just a second I want to thank everybody for coming and speaking
and it appeared that it was very difficult for a lot of you to speak the words that you felt you had to say and I heard those words and I heard the pain and the fear and the mistrust and the hurt and it
was it was overwhelming I'm I'm truly at a loss for words and heard a lot about uh trashing the council's uh statement and things that we've said and our position on this issue and all I
can think of say is to repeat what the council agreed to say at the January 6 meeting because I think it still holds true if not even trer now than it was January 6 and for those of you who haven't heard me and there's probably not too many that haven't heard me I
apologize but I I think it's worth saying uh speaking as council president for the new 20 25 Council I believe council members understand and fully support the law and customs of our country society and community that prohibit and abore all forms of
discrimination period no caveats no conditions in all C cases and for everyone I believe we all agree that we must treat each other as equals with love respect and Justice Just as we want
to be treated and just as our Constitution and laws provide as human beings we are all different and will differ and as we seek solutions to these disagreements we should always keep our principles of
equality respect tolerance and Justice foremost in our words and actions both for ourselves and for those with whom we disagree I believe the people of West Orange should be certain and confident that their council members do not and
will not tolerate discrimin discrimination of any kind that we should oppose discrimination wherever it raises its ugly head and that we always will and speaking for myself I believe these types of resolutions are unnecessary once we have firmly
established and proclaimed our opposition to discrimination of every kind therefore I believe it is the best for our community to focus on the issues challenges and future that we as a governing body can address through Solutions that have a significant impact
on making West Orange an even better place to live visit and do business and that is our goal I think it's still our goal and our Focus going forward and I ask that all of you join us in that effort thank you and that concludes my
remarks um so where we stand now is that we have we have lost certain people from the administration who uh I think the mayor is told to go home and uh I envy them but uh and I appreciate Mr Burke
sticking around for uh this late uh but I think now might be a good time to adjourn um may I say something I just want to sorry I'm sorry was was that councilwoman gber Michael yes yes please
go ahead yeah I don't think we should adjourn only because there's something time sensitive we need to pass the the council the aison to the rent leveling board they have hearings they need to schedule um there are I think a couple
other things we should discuss too at least the rent leveling board we should pass yeah that's right Miss Myers is uh a great appointment go go ahead so I would like I'm going to make a and I appreciate that councilwoman um I I
swear I was leaving at 11 o'clock tonight but I couldn't walk out on these residents and because you know get coming home at 3:00 in the morning it's very very ear speak um if if it's I don't want to get into a whole
pending matters I think we've stayed here way longer than we thought we were going to stay However the hate has no home here resolution I don't think I think we should just take a quick vote if we're going to move forward with that or not because um I just then we got to do this
next next council meeting and I mean here's my my motion for that and that would be a Qui just a quick quick go around the room support it or not um it's not
so much I don't want to support it but you can't have it both ways you can't say you're not going to do um no more resolutions in 2025 and then pass this I think it's an insult to the Muslim Community if if you do that so I
appreciate councilwoman working uh on it very really hard and I know heart was in it and what it it means to do and all that but I just think you can't stick on one hand not passing any other the resolutions and then past this I think it's just insulting
to to the community I agree with you counil woman but you know I believe the council should pass an anti-muslim resolution I have to abstain because I abstain on the anti-Semitism that's for the four of you to decide but I think that we should
also pass a hate has no home here I've advocated for in the past and I will continue to do so okay everybody knows what's going on I'm sorry go ahead councilwoman let say you know we need to heal and hate has no home here we say that so it doesn't make
sense why we wouldn't pass that resolution okay so what we're talking about here is there's a section of the meeting that I'm recommending that we skip at least most of it and it's the section called new matters in which the council discusses whether we want to
take a step forward with an ordinance or resolution to the next level which is to put it on the agenda in a final form to vote on so we basically vote to vote on something at the next meeting or meeting
when it comes up so uh one of the thing that we've got two suggestions so far one is to vote on our uh consensus appointment to the rent leveling board and the other one is
to vote on and I guess perhaps to discuss first whether we want to move forward with councilwoman gber Michaels uh proposal to uh she has drafted a hate has no home here
resolution and uh if the rest of the council wants to do that I suggest uh we uh make a couple of motions and and uh vote on them if uh if you're amable the first one would be
for the rent leveling board uh consensus appointment and the next one would be for uh the hate has no home here go home yes we go home and then we then can we go home yes yes okay
be able to get these on for new matters for next time oh sure yeah don't bring it up as an ordinance for the next yeah put it on as an ordinance you keep saying Ordinance do you mean ordinance a resolution okay for pending
matters yeah yeah no some one of it is an ordinance okay so here's what we're doing in new matters we vote on whether we want to put it on the agenda so if we vote to approve something and we get it and it we get it in shape it
can be on the next the next uh agenda if that's what you want is that your question yes okay so are we agreed that we want to uh consider these two motions now wait council president yes when I spoke earlier regarding pending matters
I said there were several there's one more I think is important it's not a resolution it's not an ordinance it will take 30 seconds maybe a minute we need two hold on we need this takes the not long we need two new appointments or
Council Liaisons to the Redevelopment deal we don't have them it was council president Rutherford and and councilwoman castelino and those have expired we need to select two people we have this deal that's going on and I
think that's important I don't think that expire that was for the transaction does anybody know that whether there's anything excuse me uh councilwoman does anybody know if there's anything in writing about what these positions are supposed to do what Their duration and what the terms of
them are no there's nothing if I remember correctly they attend the meetings and they report back to the council we're supposed to get I believe monthly reports but those two terms expired when both their terms expired last year now councilwoman just got
reelected again councilwoman celino so I think it's important to select two people that doesn't take long oh yes let's go ahead okay so so we've aged those three we've agreed that the rest of the agenda is going to be the three items that are previously discussed to
have the citizens budget ordinance on for next and the and oh this is we're taking a f minute break this is just crazy I this is just crazy then we gotta end it yeah that'll take we'll be here another half hour
e e e e what we are going to do oh go ahead I'm sorry Mr Fagan we're on okay what we're going to do is we're going to vote on whether we're going to consider something so councilwoman gber Michael
please uh make a motion for consideration of something thank you I make a motion to vote on Kabir S as a rent leveling board Council consensus appointment I'll second I'll yeah any
discussion no no okay let me roll call V thank you to her councilwoman Celina yes councilwoman G Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kobak yes okay that motion
carries councilwoman celino please make a motion I'd like to make a motion that we vote on um not to not to move forward that ha has no home here resolution off because
I don't agree with the resolution but just that we there was an agreement to not to have resolutions all right I second that okay wholeheartedly okay so this is to not to move forward with the resolution councilwoman celino yes councilwoman
gber Michel no council woman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes okay so that we're gonna have discussion on this because I'd like to say something briefly I'm disappointed we said we
wanted to move forward and I don't understand how we're going to move forward when people are going to keep coming to the meetings and every meeting is going to be like this until some resolutions get passed so you know I'm disappointed but my colleague have spoken and there's no support for
the hate has no home here resolution that I drafted thank you and i' I'd like to say something um sure I and I have no problem with this hate has no home it is a very good statement yes however in respect to the
council president's decision which we all made prior to coming on not to make further resolutions like this and to look at other ways to try and address some problems so um I totally support
everything that that um the councilwoman wrote um in this obviously don't don't um want any hate in West Orange but it's just a method that does not seem to really bring us change so we have
decided not to focus on doing further resolutions like this I just want to clarify councilman Ruden I never agreed to that statement the of you may have but I've always said we need to have a ha has no home here resolution since 2023 so um I never agreed to
that okay let's move on would anybody else like to comment before we move on no okay councilwoman Ruden would you please make the next motion yes I'd like to make a motion to put on the agenda for the next meeting an ordinance um
outlining the new membership of the citizens budget budget advisory commission board board board it was the commission it will be the board no it was a committee committee it will be a board I second
that okay councilwoman Celina yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman scar yes council president kovak yes motion carries councilwoman gber Michel would you like to make another motion yes I
make a motion to app Point council president Joker kovak to the Redevelopment deal happening downtown I'll second it um hold on one second please uh
okay SS okay all right sorry about that c councilwoman celino yes councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes the motion carries
is there anyone else who would like to make another motion yes make another motion to appoint Susan Scarpa as the other liazon to the Redevelopment deal I second is there any discussion
no Okay C uh councilwoman calino sure councilwoman gber Michael Yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman yes council president kovak I'll switch with you yes yeah all right the motion
carries they're easier is anyone else during the meeting uh is there a second a second wait no I want I have one more thing I'm sorry I'm sorry I in my motion thank you thank you I'd like to put on for um a
resolution for the next meeting um a resolution to establish a commercial lawn care registry to permit and communicate regulations and enforcement with business operators working in West Orange I second that any discussion I think it's a great
idea because when residents need to look for landscapers who are going to use electric blowers they'll have somewhere to go that's my dis that's my end of my
discussion anyone else Madam clerk councilwoman celino oh no councilwoman gerer Michel yes councilwoman Ruden yes councilwoman Scarpa yes council president kovak yes I
make a motion to adjourn the meeting a second all in favor lat the night West Orange good night night colleagues