these are like the postman. I'm sleep work now. >> No, you're on the you know what's next. I right. >> Okay. Miss Bogdansky >> here.
>> Mr. Lane >> here. >> Mr. Melion >> here. >> And Mayor Bona >> here. >> Thank you. This regular work session meeting of the Woff Township Committee is now in session in accordance with the open public meetings act. Notice of this meeting appears on our annual schedule of meetings. A copy of said annual
schedule has been posted on the bulletin board in Memorial Town Hall. A copy has been filed with the municipal clerk and has been posted on our municipal website. And a copy has also been emailed to the record. the Rididgewood News and the North Jersey Herald News. All newspapers having a general circulation throughout the township of Whiteoff. At least 48 hours prior to
this meeting, the agenda thereof was similarly posted, filed, and emailed to said newspapers. >> Thank you, Nancy. I will take a motion now to select and appoint James Shepard to fill the vacancy and serve on
the township committee until November 26 general election results are certified. I'll take a motion. So, >> Miss Bdansky, >> yes. >> Mr. Lane, >> hi. >> Mr. Milkon, >> yes.
>> And Mayor Bona. >> Yes. >> With an affirmative vote, the motion is approved. support United States and the United and just perform. Gladly. >> That's okay. >> Did you take a picture or
Okay. >> Okay. the sign in order. >> Yes, Mayor Bla, did you want to do a new roll call now that Mr. Shepard's up top?
Just add Mr. >> Okay. >> Do you want me to take a new roll call or No, >> sure. >> Okay. Miss Bugdansky >> here, >> Mr. Lane >> here, >> Mr. Milkon >> here, >> Mr. Shepard >> here,
>> and Mayor Bonster. >> Thank you. >> Okay, I'll take a motion to open the meeting for a 10minute public comment. >> Miss Bugdansky, >> Mr. Lane, >> Mr. Mr. Milkon,
>> yes. >> Mr. Shepard, >> yes. >> And Mayor Bona, >> yes. >> With an affirmative vote, the motion is approved. >> Thank you. Okay, the minute the meeting is now open for public comment total 10 minutes for speaker
issue of concern and your neighbor and I wanted to thank all of you. You were so instrumental in carrying our wonderful colleague to
heaven. Uh I thought it was beautiful that you surrounded him and the service was out and it was so many people there was really really beautiful. I was very
proud of all of you and I'm sure every member of the town was too he was so wonderful and all that. >> Thank you. Anyone else?
Miss Bdansky. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lane, >> hi. >> Mr. Milkon, >> yes. >> Mr. Shepard, >> yes. >> And Mayor Bonstra, >> yes. >> With an affirmative vote, the motion is approved. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, we will be releasing two performance cashities.
First is for the uh Grand View Avenue uh Ridge of Water Raw main project which was done last year by Underground Utilities and second for TSSP which is the company uh which is the entity uh that oversaw the Sycamac and Trhune sore
project. Um now that our road has been repaved we uh the uh responsibilities to the township are done. believe they still have some responsibilities to the county for their part of the trench. But for our port, again, for our portion of
the project, it is complete. We will be awarding contract 2025-08, which is the Lens Road section 1, Lens Road section 2, and Spring Meadow Drive pedestrian safety improvements to Smith Sandi Asphalt Construction. We received
four bids for that project. Uh this is paid for by three NJ dot grants and uh some municipal funding. Uh the municipal funding on this project is roughly 25%
of the uh the project. So, um, we did very well in in obtaining two different grants for Land Road and the, uh, the grant that cover the full amount of the pedestrian safety improvements at
Spring Meadow Drive. >> Just a comment on Road coming. How many phone calls we have to relocate? >> Two. >> Two. Four. Two. Only >> only two. The one at the end of Clinton. >> Yeah. um backs up to uh former committeeman Shanley's house
>> and the one at the entrance to Abas Farm. >> Um >> thanks. >> So uh we will be approving a new job description. It's for an updated job description for the land use administrator. As you know, Moren uh retired uh and Mia from our building department has taken over that
responsibility. We've expanded the role a little bit to be more of a zoning control person on top of just being the planning and zoning uh board secretary. And we also have a budget transfer for 2025 budget. We have two ordinances for introduction. The first is
uh amending our stop sign intersections to add a four-way stop at Clinton and Quackenbush. I've been going back and forth for a couple months now with Boswell and uh they have certified a warrant for a four-way stop at Clinton
and Quackenbush. So Clinton is already a through street. So, because it's a through street, all the streets that intersect with it have a have a stop sign at the corn at uh at it already. So, we are just adding two stop signs, one north and one southbound. Uh one
northbound, one southbound at Quackenbush on Clinton. Um and the second is an ordinance just to update our illuminated sign ordinances. This is the uh the radar signs and the crossing signs that we have. We have a list in
our ordinance of where those are located. As you know, we've added several of them over the last five years, and this is just adding the ones to the code that we've added uh over the last couple years. There are two um
motions to be read into the sorry, three mo four motions to be read into the record at the next meeting. And then we do have one resolution on non-consent and which is authorizing the appointment of William Yur as a conflict tax assessor for to handle one pending appeal.
Uh with regard to updates, first congratulations Rudy on your reelection. Uh congratulations Jim. Welcome to the township committee. You do have some big shoes to fill from Mr. Madigan. Uh, with regard to the election, I just want to thank Nancy and the staff in the clerk's
office who were here at the wee hours of the morning uh, on Tuesday and stayed into the dark hours of the night and Nancy had to even take the trip down to to Hackinack and drop everything off afterwards. So, thank you to the clerk's office for making our election in town run smoothly.
Thank you to our DPW and our uh, building maintenance staff for helping Nancy set up. Uh, and thank you very much. Thank you to the Christian Healthc Care Center and to Cedar Hill Church for again hosting polling locations. And without I do have one more thank you,
and it's to the staff at the library. The library, as you know, hosted early voting again this year. Not as big of a turnout as we had last year. a little bit more easy easier to manage. But I was there for a meeting on Monday after early voting had ended uh between uh
early voting ending and and the actual polling open on Tuesday. And in the one hour that I was there, there were no less than 15 people that came in thinking that they could still early vote. So, and the staff was very courteous and and letting people know where they had to go and and and get directing them to the right polling
locations on Tuesday. So, thank you to Laura at and the staff at the library. These past few weeks, we've been working hard to find a solution to the extremely high increase in health benefits uh for our staff uh that is
coming in 2026. We are clo we have a solution. We are close to getting it approved. Um there will be resolutions that we need to pass at our next meeting on November 25th. Um
And uh I'm th I'm I'm pleased with the results. Uh actually if if everything goes cor if everything goes smoothly, we'll we will actually have a decrease on from this year's health benefit um costs uh starting next year. And it's
with the I want to thank all the employees for for taking the time last week to meet with the brokers to hear the plan out. Uh but pretty much what it is is a high deductible plan in which the uh township was covering the member out of pocket. Um and when you add those
costs together, it is still a savings over what we're paying now. So more to come at the next meeting. Finance committee will be meeting uh shortly. Uh but the finance staff, Diana, Fran, myself, we've been working to put
together the 2026 budget. Um, and we will be uh ready to start working uh on narrowing down our budget requests uh in December. Uh at the next meeting, we should have
the uh introduction of our 2026 salary ordinance. I want to thank the personnel committee for meeting with us today on that. Uh Woff Avenue pre-construction for Woff Avenue paving uh that's being done by the county of Bergen occurred this uh occurred this morning. The sidewalk portion of the project should
begin immediately. Um there's a lot of ADA ramps, some curving, uh and a lot and some sidewalk replacement that need that will be taken care of by the county. Again, that'll be done before the winter. And then paving will occur next spring. Uh we
will be working with Smith Sandi, the at the uh vendor who just uh received our bid to make sure that the ADA curb ramps and sidewalks that are needed at Spring Meadow will also be done before the Whiteoff Avenue paving begins in the spring.
Uh Ridgewood Water is currently working on their next phase of their raw water connections to the Cedar Hill treatment facility. Um they finished on Flaker. Now they're on James Way and connecting it down to the back end of the treatment facility that will be located on the uh
Cedar Hill property. That's all I got. >> Thank you, ma'am. Yeah. Janet mentioned it. Beautiful service. I do want to point out it was
the light that was crying when there was aust I see it as quick. The entire front will remove and reset and it looks
really great. It's much easier to reverse that walk. really faint underps resources. as we move forward.
Obviously, it's a great also follow the Hills today. No, the board >> just have to be under fire department.
Let me see if I can total of 84 calls the month of October 822 hours. So far this year, the fire department responded 624. I don't have to go into that, but here's
a couple of dates that are important. December 5th at 7:15 p.m. Santa will arrive here on the fire truck and toys for December 13. Please drop
off your toys. doing a great job. Lastly, I mean, couldn't go without mentioning every single department, anybody just
came together such beautiful way. Just makes you feel really good. Put the flag up. Just thank you all. Everybody Jim, we're all looking forward to working
with you and bringing you up to speed. I don't think that's going to take too long. Congratulations. I want to congratulate you. And then I did acknow again
beautiful lady. >> And yes, congratulations mayor on your election. Okay, welcome back. >> Congratulations >> and welcome forward to communion
the other day committee we're still on some big announcements that are going to be coming out the next few weeks or so and then in Centennial we spoke about this in the past but Tom's pet project was
drove a little bit nuts on it and all of us nuts on it It's it was basically 95% complete, but we were fortunate to have a section in there where we could be doing a nice uh a nice tribute to Tom in the special
edition calendar. And then just lastly, I just want to thank everyone that came out to the uh services for Tom last week. Um you know, between the uh you know, the town hall employees, DPW
funeral procession town hall. Everyone was outside, you know, it was Tom and uh I also want to thank the escort funeral escort. You know, we had fire department was there trucks in there.
our two new our two new pieces of equipment and also we were fortunate to have B County Sheriff's Department came up and motorcycle cops came up along with our own. So I really want to thank everyone that made that service very
very special. >> You're next if you want to say you're off the hook. We understand >> two things to say. One, I'm honored to be up here with this group of esteemed colleagues to say the least. in this town for 40 years and I think hopefully
I've earned the right to speak my mind up here and add my comments and whatever I can do to make the town a better place. And you guys did a great job. You put it in a wonderful position to start with. Now we got to figure out how to make it even better than it is. So and the other comment I'll make is I will
never f everybody who comes to me says you got big shoes to fill. I just I don't think anybody's ever felt what he did for this town and the first one to congratulate everything that he ever did for this town. He was just such analled
town mess. Okay. Um, I want to mention the Rotary dinner on Wednesday. I think it was 22. It was a dinner almost.
Um, and it was it was a good dinner. They the Rotary honor that night. That was a great Joe is well worth the honor they gave him. And uh it was a difficult
situation, but the Rotary did a great job. It was a great event. And I think everyone who was there had a good time and yet understood the loss that we were facing that time. So I want to thank Rotary Club for doing
a great job for hiring Joe Vanderl superintendent and really um on Wednesday the 29th we held a white Republican county
committee meeting as the chair. So I called the meeting um and we had vice chair and here we had a very good attendance from the county committee members and it was a difficult meeting dealing with the subject of naming three
candidates to replace Tom but the county committee I want to thank them we had a good meeting there were a lot of questions asked there was a lot of discussion and uh everyone worked in the same in the same in the same direction and everyone knew what we had to do and
it was at the same time a very collegial meeting and we got a lot accomplished in a timely and we did our constitutional statuto submitting three names to the township committee. Um I also want to thank my
colleagues on the township committee when we met and selected to be join us here. I appreciate the conversation we had and the way we worked together and I think we made the a very good call. But I want to thank everyone who was
involved in a very difficult process. Um election day I want to thank as we have already everyone who participated um Nancy and and Courtney from the clerk's office, our DPW crew for getting up early in the
morning and doing all the set up and take down at night. Uh here again, the library and her staff were just amazing and uh good working group of employees
we have here. Um Tom's funeral, you know, it shows the kind of the whole town came together and it shows the kind of town we have here and it makes you even more appreciative of the fact that we're all here and we're living and I just want to
thank everyone uh who participated. We talked about every we talked about them here already and I can't I can't I can't say enough to our town for what they did in remembering Tom and
his church did out but the thing Tom would have really liked about that was he had that he had traffic tied up in two towns at the same time. He would have really liked that. So, um
and I think that's all I have. That's all I have. Oh, I want to also thank the lunch as well. Um was She was a go-to person for
planning and zoning. Um, you know, we have able planning and zoning attorneys, we have able engineers, but for a lot of the applicants, she was a go-to person. And if she didn't have an answer, she would get it for the she did an outanding job. And I wish her and I wish
her and her and her son well. Retirement and Thank you, mayor. Uh, want to congratulate you, mayor, on your re-election >> and Jim, on your selection and willingness to come on board here with the township committee and from
everything I know, it's a very good choice. So, congratulations. Um, going to sound a little bit like a broken record. I talk about this almost every meeting, affordable housing, but we do have our settlement conference coming up on November 17th on our housing element
and fair share plan. As you know, we got a challenge on the last day they could possibly challenge it and then we went a couple months to hearing nothing, but we do have a settlement conference coming up. We'll be working with our planner and getting ready for that next week. Um, so I'll keep you informed of where
that's going. still trying to zero in on what really they're pinpointing our challenge to be honest with you, but we'll we'll get there. Um, just want to say a couple words about Moren's retirement. I was the zoning board attorney in town when she came on board
and I can say from my experience here, but also in other towns, we had an excellent person, Moren, in that office. Um, she dealt just the way she treated the residents and also her knowledge. as the mayor said, if she didn't know, she'd give you a call and she learned
very fast and she did an excellent job. So, we're going to miss her. I'm sure our replacement will do well, but um she was a real asset to this town in that position and I I'll miss her because I still would call her sometimes about some things. So, I just want to wish her well in her retirement. Uh that's it.
>> Mr. Mr. Mayor, I do have one last thing. Sorry. Just condolences to father Stephen >> u >> his father Joseph >> who was a white golf resident for the last five months uh passed away >> uh I all I and I could remember when when I got a call yesterday I'm like I
remember something about his birthday and it was the year Tom was mayor >> father Steven was here for the invocation and had to leave to go to go be with his father because his his birthday was on January 1. >> So We have no
>> Miss Bugdansky. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lane. >> Hi. >> Mr. Milkon. >> Yes. >> Mr. Sheepard. >> Yes. and Mayor Bstra. >> Yes.