Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this July 13th Council meeting to order. Everybody please rise for a moment of silence. And let's remember all of those who passed away during the month. Please salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, Okay, so just to we have a presentation for the personal Riverside theater. Amy, you want to come up with can or come up right here? Councilwoman Rodriguez will present you with a check.

How are you? Nice to see you.

Hello. Nice to see you again. Nice to see you again also. Every year we give a donation, and it's for the theater to pray the cause from residents of this town. But as I give you this check, I want you to know that we've been pushing for Selena, because I know I'm going to be there. But anyway, so don't forget, Selena's going to be here. to see it.

I went to see the last play, which was Women with Curves, and that was amazing. My co-worker loved it.

And keep doing what you're doing, because I think the town is enjoying it more than the real life. Thank you so much.

I always feel like I have my back to you.

Can you hear me? Is this... I always feel like I have my back to everyone. No, you're fine. Thank you all so much for recognizing the relationship between the theater and the community. We know how hard you all work, and we are really gratified when we see you all at the theater coming to events, telling people about them. And we really appreciate your support in all ways. And the discounted tickets for borough residents can't happen without your support. So thank you. And in addition to Selena, we also have Rock Revisited coming up, which is the music of the 70s and 80s. And then it's our 40th anniversary season starting in September. So we hope that everyone will come. And it is really meaningful to get to make theater here. in no small part because of this community and what you all support. So thank you all very, very much. And we're delighted to partner with you.

We're delighted to help you.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay, we have our investment firm here this evening to go over some of our investments. Tim, why don't you, if you can go to the podium, I guess that's easier for you. The reason we wanted you to come in tonight is so we could discuss how we are performing and are we hitting our benchmark for the, I know we talk a lot and you and the manager talk a lot and With our investments to make sure that they're invested right and we get the most bang for our dollar. The current allocations, the equities, the stocks, all the stuff that we discuss. How we're going to move forward and I know interest rates now are a little higher. So we want to take advantage of that and maybe lock in for longer periods of time. So that the borough can guarantee. A certain income every year and I know 4 or 5 years ago, Jim, we were getting 100,000 or 200,000 at the most. I think last year we got almost a 1Million dollars. It's a big thing when you have pension funds and things like that that we're trying to. You know, sustained, but I'll let you.

Okay. We have some handouts, too. I'm going to refer to some graphs and a packet that we have. I have Kevin. Do you want him to pass out what I'm reviewing? Okay. So this is a – what we're passing out here is a performance report for the uniform and non-uniform pension plans. Let's see if there's If you refer to page three, it gives you an overall view of the allocation, 60% stock, 40% bond. and cash, cash equivalents like money markets. So it's a typical 60, what we call a typical 60-40 portfolio. The investments are listed on page four. These are all very low-cost index investments. Those are the exposures that the pension funds have, and they provide the return to the pension and also the risk to the pension plans. On the next page, page five, you can see bond funds, bond ETFs we call them, and a little bit of gold. The portfolio is where the investment advisor, the portfolio manager currently is BlackRock. They're doing a very good job in our opinion. If we're not happy with them, we can advise to remove them and replace them with somebody else, but we're not recommending that. You can see since inception, the beginning value was $8 million. Deposits were $2 million. And earnings were close to $9 million, $8.7 million on the upper left there since 2018 at Janney. So it's gone up. That's a total return. So total earnings include dividends, interest, and capital gains, growth. So that's why we call it a total return. You get a dividend from a stock, and the stock also grows. the total growth of the value of the investment plus the dividends is your total return, growth plus income. And that's the total, what they consider total earnings in this report. I would look at the returns there, but I'd probably rather have you turn to page eight, because it's the returns, because your question, Ralph, regarding the benchmarks, which is a good question. How are we doing, but how are we doing versus our benchmarks, right? It's two very important things, So the police pension plan, since inception, has averaged 8.4%. The benchmark has averaged 7.6%. So it's beating the benchmark. The return for the non-year form plan is 8.37% versus 7.68%. So we're closing in on 9%. I think we can hit that. I think we're going to come very close if not exceed that in the next few years, given what we expect to see. The three-year average return has been 13.7%. In the last 12 months, about 17%. compared to the benchmarks of the last 12 months, which have averaged about 13%. So far, year-to-date, we're, the year-to-date so far, 9%. So that means if the second half is like the first, the annualized return would be about 18%.

So when we talked about this going back when we first brought you in, the benchmark always was 8 or 9%, 7%. But it dropped off because we had a disaster, we had COVID, we had so many things. But you have really stayed the course with this portfolio to make sure that we were getting We can get out of this, right? You're doing a good job. Let's put it that way.

Appreciate that. Yeah, I think, I think I agree with you, but, uh, but, uh, you know, it's, it's not just us, it's the manager as well. I mean, uh, that we hire to bring in, uh, and provide the performance that we've been monitoring, tracking, making sure they're doing their jobs. We're making sure the trades are getting done and making sure that, uh, they're doing their job. If they're, if they start to fall off, our job would be to come in and tell you, Hey, we're not, really thrilled with the performance recently, and it's time to move to another PM, another portfolio manager. That's what's important about the role of a financial advisor, is you have somebody that's just not going to tell you, hey, you know, we're doing great, and we could, you know, meanwhile, you should be doing something else.

Our account can make sure that you're doing great. How are we performing compared to our benchmark?

You're performing compared to the benchmark wonderfully. You're outperforming the benchmark on average since inception by almost 1% a year. 3 quarters of 1% a year, which is a substantial outperformance over the last 12 months. You're outperforming by 5 percentage points, 13 to 17. You're generating 17 versus a benchmark of 13. So recently, we're doing very well. And since inception, we're doing very well as well.

So do you think our allocations are appropriate based on the economy and everything in today's time?

Good question. Yeah, I think the 60-40 allocation, like you had said before, we've held on to that allocation for the pension plans, given what the plan requirements are. Given that the plan requires we would like to get an 8% or 9% return, that means the borrower doesn't have to put as much money into the pension plans. So I think we can hit that target. As I said, we're averaging 8% since inception. I think we can start traveling towards that 9% and exceed 9%. Given your question regarding the current economic environment, great question. We see growth ahead. research houses that we rely on for research, very positive going into the second half of the year, would not back off of equities. In fact, I would just maintain the current equity exposure now and not necessarily lean in, but we're going to rebalance and make sure that we see some opportunity that will make sure that we take advantage of those opportunities. And we see a lot of infrastructure investment, a lot of investment in technologies that are going to be, we expect to be productive. from those investments.

Good. So on this section, before we move on to the next section, does anybody have any questions?

I just have one question. The benchmarks, how are they come by?

Yeah, great question. So the benchmarks are broad. You can see they're listed on page eight. These are widely accepted benchmarks, what we call CFA recommended benchmarks. That's a great question. When we set the benchmark, what we're looking for broad-based benchmarks. What we don't want to do is set benchmarks that the portfolio manager wants you to see, right? We want to be very broad-based, market cap-based benchmarks. Market cap-weighted like the S&P 500, for example. The larger the country, the larger the size, the larger the weight. It becomes very difficult benchmarking. We use the MSCI All Country World Index, and we use Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate. Same thing, market cap based by country. So it's because we have a global portfolio, the manager can go anywhere, anywhere they want around the globe, not just the US. They want to go foreign, they can do that in emerging markets. So we're not giving it a mandate that you have to stick with something. We're just telling the manager, hey, look, go wherever you need to go. Just get us the best rate of return with the least amount of risk. We're not going to tie your hands. That's not our job, right? global benchmarks. And those global benchmarks are 60 stock, 35% bond, and 5% cash because we have to maintain some level of capital.

And are we outperforming not only benchmarks, but are we right in line with, let's just say, a similar portfolio from a different local municipality or organization? Are we exceeding, do you think, the average market?

find is most if you if you look at most pension plans most institutional money they have a hard time competing with benchmarks which is a lot of where a lot of criticism comes from sure so i think blackrock has been doing a great job got it thank you anybody else okay so we also discussed numerous times the water plant fund and what the risk will be if if we move

To this new section. So, years ago, when we look at this whole thing, when again, when you first came in. We even had a meeting with it was the. Treasury. I can't think of it anyway. The way the investments for written. Like, no council could come in here and say, we want to go by Cisco. We want to go by this. You have guidelines for you to follow. It's very restrictive. And they do that for a reason, because you can get some wackos up here to just start saying, let's start buying different stocks. Before you know it, there's no money left in the account. And we always talk, Tim, this is a business. You treat this like it's your own money, like it's your own business. You do the best you can for the taxpayers. That's always been our objective here, to make sure we do the right thing. But the Wooder Fund, although there's $24 million in that fund, it's not worth what it was 20 years or 25 years ago. Because with inflation, you still have $24 million in a bank, but that doesn't produce the amount of money you need to keep up with expenses and things that are going on. Am I saying it the right way? Yes, you're saying it.

Excellent.

And when we talked with her, this is going back years ago, she said, you just do the best you can. And we're trying to get you and Kevin right now to look at some different, not angles, but different things to do to invest this money. And we're still using the other firm that has the 20%. bfm right so they they have the funds we're just looking at the overall value how we can manage it better what can we do is there a way to get better interest but again we need a guarantee for this money to come in so we can invest this 24 million again where we can guarantee five percent and it's you got to stretch it out longer Look, interest rates can go up to nine, interest rates can go down to 1%. We don't know. If we all had that crystal ball, we wouldn't be sitting here. But again, I think that we got to figure something out because our expenses keep going up and our money's staying flat. And we're using, we're spending the interest just to pay pension funds and things like that.

Well, you know, so... So when we discussed this, when we looked at this situation, look, you can't take credit risk. You can take some duration risk, but you can't take credit risk. Credit risk is that they don't pay you back. You invest in somebody. It's very simple. You give somebody money, and they say, oh, I have to default. I don't have it. We're going bankrupt. That's called credit risk. But what you can do is extend your duration event, extend your maturity. So on page two of this report, the report showing this is Bristol Borough dated July 10th, 2026. On the second page, what we had looked at and what we were concerned about is if you take a look at 2014, Ralph, as you said, You know, the same $24 million is in the account, but look at the returns that it generated in 2014, $224,000. You'd think it was a completely different portfolio, given that we're currently getting $922,000. How could that possibly be? Well, interest rates have changed, right? Interest rates have changed. In section of the investment policy statement, which I'm looking at a copy of this policy statement, section 11, maximum maturity, the maximum weighted average duration of the portfolio will be no more than two and a half years. So the type of risk we're taking on now is reinvestment rate risk. To make that simple, let's say you go to the bank and you have a CD and you say, okay, what was I getting before? Oh, we were getting five, 6%. Well, what am I reinvesting now? Well, now you're getting two or one, right? That's the kind of situation that you were in in 2014 when you got a $224,000 return. So the two and a half years sounds good when you're writing it in a proposal because you're staying short. You're not taking any duration risk, any maturity risk, what we call interest rate risk. And if interest rates go up or down, the value of the investment goes up and down, the present value of the investment goes up and down, showing that the statement could go up or down. However, the common question is, Let me understand this. So the investment present value will go up and down, but if I'm still getting the same amount of income guaranteed every single year, what does it matter? If we're not going to sell the investment, if we're just going to keep it as income, well, it wouldn't matter. Eventually, at some point, it would become due. You can guarantee your principal back. You're going to spend that money, and you're going to reinvest at that point, maybe 5, 7, 8, 10, 12 years from now. rate risk, meaning that we're going to now reinvest at lower rates, putting us in this situation where we just lost $700,000 in income if we go back to where we were in 2014. And interest rate risk, where if interest rates rise after you buy the investment, the value can fall, but the income won't. So what we were discussing is a more balanced view, allowing the borough and the investment advisor and the portfolio manager some freedom to decide what is right given the cash flow needs for the borough, opening up that duration a bit, allowing some flexibility, allowing you to lock into some of these rates that are currently providing the income that the borough needs and for the foreseeable future will continue to provide with reasonable assurance the cash flow is going forward. So what we were just looking to review for the borough is allowing the borough to decide and allowing that language to be broadened up a bit and allowing some flexibility there so you can lock into these rates so you don't go back to 2014 again. Now, I want to just point out, if I can read what the investment policy would state, instead of just As I mentioned, the current portfolio paragraph states the maximum weighted average duration of the portfolio would be more than two and a half years, and the maximum maturity of any individual investment would be five years from purchase date to maturity. Well, if the average duration is two and a half and the maximum maturity is five, that means we have to have one or two years to make the average, correct? So for purposes of the maximum maturity, average life and the time of the purchase will be used for the maturity mortgage-backed securities. I'm not going to get into the nuances there, but you get the idea. We have a lot of reinvestment rate risk that we're reinvesting and put ourselves back in time to where we were when we just lost $700,000 of income because we just reinvested. We didn't lock into some of those rates. So what we were reviewing was to change that language in some prudent language. Again, we want to say prudent. The portfolio should be managed in a manner consistent with the borough's anticipated cash flow requirements, long-term objectives, and the preservation of capital. No specific maturity or duration limitations shall apply to the portfolio or to individual investments provided that all investments are otherwise The borough manager, treasurer, and any duly appointed investment advisor shall have discretion to determine appropriate maturities, durations, and portfolio structure Based upon market conditions, projected liquidity requirements that the borrower needs, not saying going after this in a way where it hasn't been thought out that the borrower needs to give us an idea or give the investment advisor ideas of what liquidity requirements there are. But then use that to your advantage to lock into rates where if you don't need that liquidity, you sell some of that liquidity to get you the returns that you need to provide you the income. So going after it a little bit more, I think, prudently and a little bit more thoughtfully, let's say, and on where you need to be. Risk considerations and the borough's investment objectives. And then we wanted to write a paragraph, again, just to kind of point out that we're not saying to just go and buy 30-year treasuries and, you know, lock, you know, take that kind of all that risk. In managing the portfolio, consideration should be given, and I want to stress this, consideration shall be given to diversification of maturities, Interest rate risk, as we said, locking in and watching interest rates rise. Income generation and total return. So again, doing it in a prudent way. I'm not saying that because we're opening up the ability to choose the maturities that are appropriate to do it without thoughtfulness. We certainly want to be thoughtful about what the risks are and what the important needs of the borrower are currently. Investments may be held to maturity or sold prior to maturity when deemed prudent. and in the best interests of the borough. And then for mortgage-backed securities and other securities with a certain principal repayment schedules, estimated average life or other industry standard measures may be utilized for portfolio management reporting purposes. The borough's primary investment objective is to maximize proven interest income alongside capital preservation and liquidity. What we don't want to do is And we didn't. Similar to where the US government should have locked into longer rates, and there was some controversy over there when they could have borrowed at very low rates, and they didn't. And to this day, we still question when interest rates were very low, why didn't they lock into lower rates? So that's the problem.

I think everybody needs a plan, in my opinion. I mean, it all depends whether you work for somebody, whether you retire, whether you, you have to take your, maybe break it down so people don't understand this. You take your household income and your wife gets her hair done, she gets her nails done, she goes shopping, you buy groceries, electric, whatever, but all your payments, your insurance payments, there's a number and you have to hit that number every week or every month, whatever that number is. So if this number keeps growing, and this number staying where it is, you can't survive no matter who you are. You got a mortgage, you got taxes, you know what I'm saying? This is going to keep rising, just like the borough. You know, what we're getting now, 10 years from now, probably going to be nowhere near enough unless we can keep bringing money in and not spending it and doing the right thing and trying to live off the interest. But what's killing us right now are pension funds and You know, there's fixed expenses that you can't change. No matter who's sitting here, you have expenses that come along with this job. It's tough, it really is. It's a balancing act.

If anybody has an interest, you can look at the Barnes Foundation, the situation they got themselves in.

Explain that, because we talked about this.

Yeah, so the Barnes Foundation had themselves in a similar, they had an investment policy statement set by Barnes himself, who said he could only invest in treasuries the artwork out of philadelphia we wanted in the local area and wanted to fund that unfortunately uh the investments were able to provide that in the beginning but because it doesn't you know uh treasury bonds do not offset inflation right if you live off all the income you take all the So you find yourself in a situation where you take a risk where you necessarily didn't see it coming, so to speak, right? So in this particular case, the risk was not in the fact that they were preserving their – they thought they were doing the right thing by preserving principle through government-guaranteed their capital. And the real purchasing power of their capital declined over time. And he needed to move. So unfortunately, they weren't able to meet the objective by keeping the artwork out of Philadelphia, and they needed to move to Philadelphia. So that was something unfortunate. They should have broadened the investment mandate to allow the investment manager and the foundation itself to review what would be appropriate. They would able to invest more prudently under at least the best we can, is try to lock into some of these rates that are currently available that meet the borough's needs today and try to offset some of the reinvestment rate risks that we currently have where we're just reinvesting in two years. We have to keep our fingers crossed that rates stay higher. And if they don't, then we're in the barn situation where we're putting ourselves in a situation we don't want to be in.

Well, have I got any questions for Tim on this issue, real wood or fun money? So again, I know you and Jim speak a lot. I know Kevin, you guys go back and forth, emailing each other. I'm very confident. I know that you do a great job and your team does a great job. And we just keep an eye on what's going on and You know, council's willing to, we trust the manager enough to make decisions, which we did. We invested some money long term at good interest. So, nobody has a crystal ball, but I know we're in good hands. Great, thank you. Okay, we're going to now open up public participation. So anybody on this side of the room want to speak on anything, go to the podium and state your name and address.

Hello everyone, Jose Acevedo, 637 New Buckley Street. First, I'd like to thank the mayor for shining a spotlight on the history of our post office the other day. I wasn't able to attend, but We have the most beautiful post office in the state of Pennsylvania. So thank you for putting that spotlight. And Ralph, thank you for mentioning that maybe a possible raise for the crossing guards.

Not that it's going to bring me back, but I know you mentioned it in the other meetings.

But that's why I'm here. I want to speak about trying to control the speed on Beavers Creek. Driving through other towns, I noticed under schools that they have the And most of them have the model, too, that shows you what speed you're going at. And as you're approaching that arm, if you're going too fast, it'll just shine on you, slow down, slow down, slow down. So I'm hoping we can do something with that, look into that. It's a safety issue. Maybe we can use the grant money from the casino grants that you put out every year. That would be nice. I'd like to have two put-on favors for you. one closer to Buckley, and the other one coming off of Pond Street. Right now in Pond Street, all we have is the sign that tells you the hours of when there's been a misdemeanor report. So I think we'll go a long way to help them keep the kids safe, the parents, slow down the cars for a month. I think our chief can be out there. They slow down. As soon as he leaves, he knows what happens. Off they go to the races again, so I think I think it would help. I'll have our engineers look into it. All right, thanks. The other thing is, ever since SEPTA started charging parking, we got a lot of cars on New Buckley Street. We know. The people don't want to... pay whatever. I don't even know what the fee is for that. It's a dollar. So it's five dollars a week and they don't want to pay that. The problem is we had a lot of cars going right up to the curb on Washington Street and it was hard to make a left or right arm to the street. New Buckley also. Yeah, and I'm not sure who was in Bob will put in the stop. He put up a sign that said no parking from here to the corner, which was, I'm not sure who exactly did that, but I think that's helped in a way. But I'd like to see the curves painted to the course as well. So it's a visual, don't park here, you're going to get a ticket. So I think that would help also along with the signs that were placed there. Coming out of New Buckley, behind Beaver, it's another issue is the cars parking too close to the curb. It's hard to look around if it's safe enough to make a right. We have a park heading towards the school. Coming on the left, we have Lynch Auto. I talked to Jim today. People just pull up either on the sidewalk or on the street. That's all painted yellow. You're not supposed to do that. So I asked him if he could put a sign up on his door telling people not to park in front of the building. So we'll see what happens with that. I think he was more receptive to that. And you mentioned that in the old days, traffic used to come off of Beaver onto New Buckley and exit it out on Washington Street. I've seen pictures like that, too, where the car departs heading towards Washington Street. I'm like, well, I'll bring it up. I don't know if that would involve a traffic study or if it's doable in this age. So there's something else to look at. Third thing is a senior center. I am now a member of a senior center for the last couple of years. And I know that there was a $75,000 grant to repair the roof. Any idea when that might have started?

The roof is scheduled for September.

August 31st. Okay. Thanks. And also, is there any grant money that we can look into? The building itself, you guys have toured the building, right? Say that again. The building inside needs to be looked at. You guys have, I don't know who, but I know Ralph, you've been through the facility. It's not a welcoming, like when you walk up the rear entrance, there's a shed there with a hole in the roof. The facial boards are pulled off. You could use a paint job. It just needs a lot of touch up. The building has good bones. The building reminds me of this building. When you first came on, This place was in bad shape. And through a million dollar grant, no taxpayer money, this is what this building looks like. It's the best looking municipal building in Bucks County, and I would argue there's probably been a whole state above Pennsylvania. So if there are grants that we can use without using taxpayer money, I think it would be appreciative. The people who run it, Gail, Bob, Luz, they do what they can over there. They're limited to the income. The county has... giving them less money. If the federal government gives the states less money, the state gives the counties less money. The counties give the boroughs over the towns, the townships less money. So it's trickled down. It's not working. So any help that we can receive through grants will be greatly appreciated. And that's it.

All right. Everybody stay safe. So you got the dates, you can bring it back to them when the roof's getting... Yeah, we'll have a meeting Wednesday.

So that was August 31st. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else on this side of the room want to speak on anything? I didn't even see you back there.

Are you hiding? I'm just falling apart. I broke my toe for attendance.

I can't even say there's anything fun. It was taking pictures at the t-ball game and I fell over and my body went like... Stacey Dragon, 209 Newbrook Street. So I just wanted to come up here and give a few updates of things that are going on at the field with some of the players and some of the older ones who have been playing that most people aren't aware of. So one of the first things going on is I was contacted by some of our high school baseball staff and they are going to be running what they're calling open clinics It's going to be for students who attend Bristol High School or homeschool through one of our programs. Upcoming grades or incoming grades seven through 12. The first one is on Tuesday at 430 at the backfield, the 6090 field in the back, the senior field field. depending on who you talk to, it's got five names. So they can stop out on Tuesday and get more information or they can message Bristol Sports and we'll get them over the team reach contact for that group. Our major boys coach, which is age 12 you, they're going to be running fall workouts, fall clinics. It's any player, I don't want to say boy, because girls can attend if they want to play baseball. within the BBL boundaries, ages nine through 12. So our BBL boundary goes from the Edgeley Bridge, oh no, no, I'm sorry, the Turnpike Bridge for boys to the end of Croydon on the riverside. So we have an entire boundary. So they will be running clinics. The dates and the times will be forthcoming, but they will be free clinics. to any of the boys who want to attend. We also have T-ball. We were granted a T-ball program this year that no other league has in our area. We were able to accept two and a half diapers so um the only stipulation was and we do it anyway our program normally is t-ball is four and then our mini ball which is coach pitches five six so we already met the criteria but it's two and a half to four and it's considered fun ball we're still trying to work out the bugs we did an entire season we got a lot of compliments on it the kids kept coming back so that was a positive stacy tour attended sandy jimenez did an amazing job working with me being out there the kids lover so the parents had shown an interest in wanting to come back and do more so we're going to do what we're going to call sandlot days we have them all in the team reach we will also post on the bristol sports page and if we can get it on to the rec page as well where we're going to put a few dates out They can come out, we have gloves available so they don't need to buy any equipment. We have tons of gloves sitting there and anyone upcoming age two and a half to four can come out for free and we'll run some skills and drills with them and then we'll run some games. And we're gonna do that through the entire fall to kind of keep the kids playing. On the girls' side. Um, coach Dustin DeFazio has, he's the middle school coach here in the borough. He has done clinics for the little league in the past. He is going to be running another set of clinics. They were absolutely wonderful the last time he did them two years ago. We don't have dates confirmed or age groups confirmed yet, but that will be forthcoming as well. Um, also on the girls side, um, we had a lot of girls leaving for travel softball to go to different areas. So we formed what is called Bristol Chaos Travel Softball two seasons ago. The team is doing very well. The 12-year team is doing very well. They just got back from nationals. They performed way beyond what they thought they were going to do. There are 11 girls on the team. Eight of the girls from that team are Bristol Borough residents. They ended their season 33-13-1. So as a first year First full season team going into this, it was pretty wonderful to watch. Also, with Little League, we are always looking for coaches. Always, always, always looking for coaches. So if you are interested in coaching, please reach out to us on Bristol Sports, on Facebook, or bristolsports.com on the website. There's a background check that needs to be done, obviously. And there's also skills and classes that have to be completed before you can proceed. So there's an A, B, and C course through USA Baseball that we require all of our coaches to have. What else we have going on? Okay. So we also have a group of young men. They are, I believe, 27 and under. 27 to 19, I believe, is the age group. All of them have played here in the borough their entire lives. They're a team of 17. 15 of the 17 are from the borough. The other two, one is Croydon and one is Levittown, but their families are both from the borough. These boys are now sitting, they play in the Baldington Men's Softball League. They are sponsored by Finney McGee's. It's their third year playing together. They are sitting in third place heading into playoffs. The same group of boys goes into charity tournaments and they honor my dad and that's why I'm wearing the jersey this evening. They honor my dad and they play as Bristol boys going into the charity tournament. So great group of boys. They're out there every Sunday. They're a lot of fun to watch. They don't always play in Bristol, but they do play different places in the area. And I guess one of the last things that I have to address is the Little League website has been a nightmare for three years. Little League International has finally Got their eyes open. They removed who was running the site. There will be a new site coming new supplier as it is to administer it. So registration will open the end of December or November into December for the spring season. We'll have more information for all these different clinics when they're coming out to let them know in registering early. There is a payment plan. so that parents can break up the payments and not have to pay it all at one time. I believe the max payment, the highest payment for one child is $125. Each additional is $75. So it's not like it's $125 for every kid. We also have grants available through the Every Child Plays situation. So that's also an option. They can come in and say, hey, I can afford registration, but I need equipment. And we donate equipment to them. Or hey, I can't afford to pay at all. We offer them tickets to sell in advance so they can sell the tickets and bring the cash back. The parents who are paying $125, we give those raffle tickets. If they choose to sell the tickets, they keep the $125, turn the tickets back in, and their registration ends up being zero. So that'll be end of November, beginning of December. And Bristol has always been District 21 for as long as This past year, there was a change made. District 21 and District 30 merged. The District 21 director stepped down, and District 30 took over. So it doesn't really change anything with us, but now the district itself goes out into, like, Northampton, Newtown, and those areas. And it did change the all-star situations a little bit, where kids had to go a little bit further to plan their tournaments. Any goodness, Greg?

for Stacy. Stacy, can I just ask one favor? Could you email all those dates to Brian if you haven't already? Just in case someone ever requests a field or whatever so he knows everything that's going on.

I'm glad you said that. So we have a guy that we work with who does a lot of the charity tournaments. He will have the insurance information, the whole harmless and all the documents in place. Let me pull it up. It's August 29th. There is a player in our group of all these softball players and his daughter was diagnosed with cancer so her name is morgan and august 29th they're going to be utilizing the field for a co-ed tournament to benefit this family um so that one i did i just forgot to mention that as soon as i get the dates for the clinics i'll let them know as well and we're going to try and avoid i believe sundays because i believe that's you stacy oh yeah adult kickball sign up if you haven't seen it on facebook it's a great time but thank you all thank you thanks for all you do okay anybody else on this side of the room want to speak on anything on the other side of the room

I just want to make a quick comment on motion number seven, authorizing the appointment of Officer Lepore and Detective Davis, acting sergeants. Appointing Officer Lepore and Detective Davis to these positions, acting supervisors will ensure continuity of leadership and maintain supervisory coverage across all four squads that we have. Maintaining a supervisor assigned to each squad is essential for operational efficiency, accountability, officer guidance, and effective response to daily incidents and critical events. These appointments will provide a seamless transition and help preserve the level of supervision necessary to support both department personnel and the community we serve. Based on their experience, professionalism, and demonstrated leadership abilities, I believe Officer Lepore and Detective Davis are well qualified to assume these acting positions. So thank you for your authorization to leave.

No problem.

That's all I have. The other thing I want to do is I want to try to give a sergeant's test, because we've been dealing with acting, acting, acting. Maybe we can do sons. these guys they pass could become permanent sergeants.

By the end of the week hopefully I'll have the study guides ordered for them.

Okay.

Any questions for the chief? No. Great. Nothing today. AJ?

Yeah, I just have one quick staffing announcement. I just met with the young lady. Her name's Marissa Thuren. I'm bringing her on board to help with emergency management. By the end of this year, she's going to have a master's degree in Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Who is it? Her name's Marissa Theron. She works for Bucks County Rescue Squad. She approached me about helping out, so she's going to be an asset to us with all of her stuff that she has listed here.

Any questions for AJ? No.

I just wanted to mention, Stacey's mentioned it for a minute there, but again, Brian Morris is our part-time director of recreation. And, you know, any questions, concerns you have about scheduling or using fields, please email him. It's bmorris at bristolborough.org.

Is it? Or .com.

bristolbarrow.com, and Brian's been working with the organizers of Kickball. He explained to me how surprised he was to see how popular it actually is, so that's fun, and I know Jesse, the planner, does a really good job with that, and we are in the middle of a flag football season, another successful one. Lots of kids playing, lots of fun. That's all I have. Brian? I don't have anything.

Maria? Yeah, I actually want to remind everyone that This Saturday is Jibaro night. It'll be at the monument, Puerto Rican monument, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Prior to that, they will have the raising of the Puerto Rican flag right here in front of the building, and that's at 5 p.m. to 5.45. then He-Letter Night at the river in front of the monument will take place. And then Saturday, July 25th, it is their 53rd annual Puerto Rican Day Festival, and that is at the Bristol Wharf from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Rob, can I just add one thing before we? Sure. I'm not sure if we're meeting prior to August 4th, but Tuesday, August 4th is going to be National Night Out at Snyder Jurati. Just wanted to remind everybody to come that night. It's going to be a great night. We'll have a lot of stuff for the kids. The theme of the night will be school supplies again, and a lot of preparation has been going into that. um this last month or so with the town and the businesses in the school district so i think there'll be two meetings in august they take us to third and tenth off the top of my head but september the seventh i think is labor day so we won't meet we'll just meet the following week okay so everybody's welcome to come and have a great time thanks

I do want to announce that the council has an executive session for approximately 20 minutes prior to the meeting to discuss the personnel matter. No action will be taken tonight. Okay.

All right. So that ends this part of the meeting. Again, anybody in the public want to speak on anything? That ends public participation. Number two on the agenda.

Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to accept the council meeting minutes for June 1st of 2026 and June 8th of 2027. May of 2026, except the police chief report for June of 2026, except the fire chief report for June of 2026, except the inspection report for June of 2026, except the public works report for June of 2026, except the hard report for June 2026, except Gilmore report date of July 2026 for June 2026 work.

Second by Ms. Rodriguez, questions or comments?

close number three mr president i'd like to make a motion to authorize advertising ordinance amending the provisions of chapter 15 motor vehicles and traffic part 2 traffic regulations section 15-201 maximum speed limits established on certain streets second one mr cousin questions or comments just so everybody knows these are the streets i've mentioned side streets where we're worried about kids guarding out front of cars

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Number four.

Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to authorize advertising and ordinances to accept the certificate from the Bristol Borough Water and Sewer Authority requesting the borough terminate the authority's existence.

Seconded by Mr. Cousins. Questions or comments? Just so everybody knows that the sewer, we don't need a board anymore. There's no reason to keep paying people to be on the authority. So we're ending that. Jeff, everything was... All the paperwork was in line.

We have to do an ordinance and advertising. You have to have a public meeting. And after you do that, we send something to Harrisburg with an affirmation from them. Then we file something to the reporter of deed. We have a process to go through.

But it took all this time to get all this.

I just wanted to reiterate I mentioned it on Facebook in case anyone watching this is not

Any other questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Number six.

Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to authorize awarding the 2026 CDBG curb ramp project to NJS Concrete LLC for all items in the base bid for a total project cost of $212,800.

Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to authorize the appointment of Officer Dino Lepore and Detective Billy Davis as acting sergeants for patrol squads two and three effective July 2nd, 2026.

Seconded by Mr. Contreras. Any questions or comments? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Number eight.

Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion authorizing accepting the recommendation to amend section 11, 2026.

Memorandum. Second by Mr. Catrochi. Questions or comments? All those in favor? Aye.

Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to authorize the resolution to apply for the Building Resilient Infrastructures and Communities Grant Program through the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the amount of $3,150,000 to be used