Council - Regular Meeting

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Okay, we are calling this meeting to order of the Hackinack City Council. It is Tuesday, May 5th, 2026. It is 5:34 p.m. If you can read the notice, please. This meeting meeting is being held in accordance with the open public meeting act NJSA 104-6 ATSE notice of which was posted on the municipal website pursuant to public law 2025 chapter 72. Thank you. Roll call please. Mayor Gaines here. Deputy Mayor Tumi here. Councilman Carol here. Councilwoman Clark Collins here. Councilman Diaz.

We have a quorum. Okay. Everyone please rise to the flag salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. I'm going to ask for a motion to approve the minutes of the April 21st, 2026 city council meeting. I'll offer. Second.

All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. I'm going to ask for a resolution to go into executive session to discuss ongoing litigation matters at uh involving attorney client privilege matters involving the purchase, lease or acquisition of real property and or any pending or anticipated litigation or contract negotiations. Can I have a motion for a resolution? Second. All in favor? I I Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, we are going to go into close session. We are going to aim to be back out at approximately 6:30 give or take. So, please just sit tight. Thank you.

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Frank, you good? Okay, great.

All right. Thank you everyone for your patience. Uh we are out of executive session. We are going to move right into our proclamations and presentations. Okay. All right. So, our first one for this evening is for public service recognition week. Whereas celebrated in May since 1985, public service recognition week is a time set aside to honor the individuals who serve our nation and local communities. And whereas our residents are served every day by public servants and volunteers at the federal, state, county, and city levels. These essential workers and unsung heroes are the backbone of our community, ensuring that the fundamental systems we all rely upon remain strong and accessible. And whereas public employees take not only jobs but oaths to uphold the public trust, embodying a deep commitment to the collective well-being and the common good of all citizens. And whereas in a rapidly changing world, public servants meet the complex challenges of the moment with compassion and dedication, often at great personal sacrifice to support their respective communities. And whereas public service is a testament to our shared humanity, and they provide the vital services that ensure every neighbor can live with dignity and security. And whereas as elected leadership changes, these workers and volunteers serve as the steady heartbeat of our government, ensuring the delivery of essential services and support for every resident. Now, therefore, I, Casim Gains, mayor of the city of Hackinac, along with the entire city council, do hereby proclaim the week of May 3rd through 9th, 2026 as public service recognition week in the city of Hackinack. We encourage all citizens to recognize the invaluable accomplishments and contributions of government employees and volunteers at all levels who work tirelessly to build a better future for us all. And we also have one for municipal

clerk's week. I would come down and present it to them, but I think they are duty bound to feverishly type as I read. So I will give it to them afterwards. Whereas the office of the municipal clerk is the oldest among public servants, providing the professional link between the citizens, the local governing bodies and agencies of government at all levels. And whereas municipal clerks have pledged to be ever mindful of their neutrality and impartiality, rendering equal service to all. And whereas the municipal clerk serves as the information center on functions of local governments and community. And whereas this annual observance offers a special opportunity to recognize and honor the critical role municipal clerks play in our communities. They are essential in ensuring transparency, efficiency, and the smooth operation of local government. And whereas the dedicated employees of the city of Hackinac's clerk's office are among the best qualified in Bergen County in terms of knowledge, experience, professionalism, courteousness, and knowledge of our community, setting a high standard for all who will inevitably succeed them. Whereas in honor of municipal clerk's week, May 3rd through 9th, 2026, the city council of the city of Hackinack wishes to recognize its acting municipal clerk, deputy municipal clerk, and the staff of the clerk's office for the vital services and exemplary dedic dedication to the community. Now therefore, I, Casim Gains, mayor of the city of Hackinac, and the entire city council to hereby recognize the importance of the role and functions of the municipal clerk's office and the impact it has on the public and salute our acting city clerk Timothy Hoffman, deputy clerk Allison Sei, and support staff Dele Stefano and Taylor O'Brien for their dedication and commitment to the city of Hackinack citizens and local government. [applause] Thank you.

And I'm going to ask, will you just come down and take a quick picture with them, please? You can stop typing, Alison. Thank you. [laughter] You're good. Thank you. Tom, you want to come come down for public service? Come on. Come on. Come on. Public service. Can you grab that? All right, that's this one.

Good. All right.

Okay. Great. [applause] Okay. Up next, we're going to have a presentation by NV5 of our comprehensive bicycle plan, the results of their study. Thank you. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor. Um, thank you everyone for um, being here to um, hear a little bit about our um, comprehensive bicycle plan for the city of Hackinac. Uh, throughout this presentation, we are going to give you um, highle overview of the introduction of the background, the vision and goals, our overall process for development of the plan and the recommendations. Um our project team consisted of the city of Hackinack, NJ dot, NV5 and uh MBO engineering. We have Bill Rivier here who was the project manager for NJ DOT for um the office of uh the the Bureau of Safety and Improvement Programs and uh my name is Rajnet. I am uh the project manager for this. I work with NV5 and I have Colin Riger here who's also a senior planner at NV5. Um just to give you the one minute background. Um so the city of Hackinac applied for um bicycle and pedestrian planning assistance to the NJOT bicycle and pedestrian planning assistance program um to to conduct a comprehensive bicycle planning study for the city. Next slide. Um our our throughout our plan we were guided by an expert steering committee that consisted of Bergen County Complete Streets, NJOT, Easy Ride, the city of Hackinack, different departments. We had the police department. We also had some residents um as well um and Hackinack and uh staff from Hackinack Mariden Health and that got us to this vision for the plan which is Hackinac is a bicycle friendly city where people of all ages and abilities can travel by bicycle and where measurable steps are taken annually to create and maintain a complete bicycle network. Um we also identified five goals for the bicycle plan. one the first one being building a culture of safe bicycling in the city. Uh incorporating bicycle planning and network implementation into the city's practices, developing a robust and safe

uh bicycle network that's connected and attractive uh strengthen regional and local support for bicycling and then tracking the performance. [snorts] Um throughout this presentation, these are some of the these are these are the components of the plan that I'm going to we're going to talk through in detail later on. Next slide. So our first uh big piece was conducting outreach with the community. Uh we developed outreach tools such as the project website, survey, an interactive mapping tool, um flyers, press release, a social media share kit, and we had in-person outreach events such uh with, you know, we had three pop-up meetings, national night out, we were at the library, we were at a coffee shop. We also had focus group sessions with key stakeholders um in in the city uh including the community relations committee at um uh the BOE and um sorry yeah council. We also uh had a presentation here with the uh uh with the council uh uh on September 9th. We met with uh the Hackinseac Environmental Justice Alliance and also had a review by NG DOT engineering and Bergen count and presented to Bergen County Engineering. Um with this I'm going to pass it over to Colin.

Yes. Hi. Um also um sorry the other stuff that we did to understand the characteristics of Hackinack included an extensive data collection process. We started by looking at demographics. So things such as the senior population, population uh below poverty, uh people with uh disability, people with um that live without vehicles. Uh we looked at land use um patterns as well as key destinations and parks. We also looked at uh certain factors that specifically affect bicycling such as traffic volumes as well as two resources created by the uh NJTPA including uh its regional active transportation network uh concept as well as the their level of bicycle compatibility analysis. Um we also looked at crash data. So we looked at seven years of crash data. So 2016 to 2022. Overall there were 14,510 crashes in Hackin Sack. And of those there were 100 involving bicyclists. Um however bicyclist crashes um had of those 100 there were 45 that resulted in injuries or fatalities including two fatal or serious injury crashes and that's compared to 6% across all crashes. So helped reinforce the need for this plan. We also induct uh conducted two field visits looking for the uh the destinations and opportunities that we had identified and evaluating the accessibility as well as the traffic speeds and volumes at those locations. Um we also sorry can just I just want to look at sorry we also conducted a bicycle demand analysis process where we looked at those um demographic and land use factors I discussed earlier um evaluating each of them to create ultimately a a map of the the highest concentration of all of these factors combined. So that that map on the right is where we identified the areas of highest bicycle demand. And the following slide shows the individual sort of heat map of each of those factors which you can review at another time. Um and then using all of these things together we created a bicycle network typology. So looking at the entire street network through the lens of bicyclists and categorizing them as either you know two different types of

regional connectors or commercial corridors, residential collectors or even just the neighborhood roads. um and just sort of categorizing them using their functional class, their volumes, their speeds, the context, and the land use. And then ultimately creating just a list of recommended facilities for each one. So, you know, this could be anything from shared lanes and bicycle boulevards to more intensive um protected bicycle lanes and everything in between, things like bicycle parking and wayfinding as well. And so in our plan, we have um essentially a full layout of of each one where we describe the um you know the the the typical characteristics of each one, the general recommendations, including on-road recommendations, recommendations at intersections and signage um suggestions as well. And for each one, we also have one location that we've identified as having that type providing two different alternatives for how it could be improved for bicycle use. Um and with that, I'll hand it back to Rashna.

Thank you. Um before I before I continue I I you know I forgot to mention this. So you know we conducted extensive outreach and the results of of that outreach are in our plan that are posted online but I did want to read a couple of comments. One was bicycling in Hackinack is a little dangerous says frequent bicycling friend bicycling in Hackinack is possible and can be enjoyable but it isn't ideal for those who don't have the experience or feel unsafe. It needs to be safer so more folks can ride confidently. And this is just through the survey through our focus groups. We heard it loud and clear that there is interest in recreational biking, there's interest in biking to key destinations in the city of Hackinack. So, sorry I forgot to mention that earlier. Um, but I I so based on all of that input, so the outreach, the data collection, the needs assessment, we identified a priority bicycle network for the city of Hackinac. Um the map has different colors. So the red means that it is a protected bicycle facility meaning that there needs to be a buffer from the traffic and the bicycle path. Yellow is onroad dedicated bicycle facilities. Blue is shared lanes. So those are roads that can have bikes and cars sharing the lane and greens are the trails along the waterfront. Um the dashed lines are the gaps and the solid lines are basically existing connections. And there was a there was an interest in in you know kind of having both sides the recreational and the utility piece as well. Um and you know yes this looks like a lot of streets a big network. So we wanted to identify the first step. So next slide. Um we wanted to f so the first step that the city can take is look at the city owned roads and that gives you a pretty uh comprehensive first step uh in terms of uh you know advancing this bicycle plan. So 60% of the priority network is on city- owned roads. So those are roads that the city operates and manages and has more

control over. The other roads that are owned by the county are, you know, something that might take longer um you know to to get implemented. Some of the key streets that if you wanted to just start would be Prospect, Atlantic, Railroad Avenue, and Berry Street. Um for this plan, we also developed an implementation matrix that has a list of 44 recommended actions uh that are uh centered around the five goals that I mentioned earlier. Every action has a recommendation, a location for where it it is applied, the time frame, uh the cost and then whose whose key responsibility it would be. Next slide. Um and also another way to kickstart this plan would be to have uh we we developed a pilot bicycle lane demonstration program. And for that we identified five locations throughout the city that are that are city-owned roads um where you can demonstrate um temporary bicycle lanes um that would uh gauge the feasibility of future long-term permanent bicycle lanes. Raise awareness about uh bicycling infrastructure and engage the community. This is like you can imagine it could be a weekend, it could be a day, you work with the community, you paint the bike lane and then you make it an event. Um, some of the locations that we recommended are sections, small sections of Prospect Avenue, Railroad Avenue, State Street, Summit Avenue, and West Franklin. Next, next. That's uh, and so all of these recommendations, as I mentioned at the start, are in our uh, final plan um, that talks in greater detail. I we had only 7 minutes for this presentation so we had to uh really consolidate um our efforts here. Um but we'd love to hear more and if you have um any questions this is my uh this is our contact uh um email so you can reach out to us. So thank you.

Thank you. And people can access that. It's on the city of Hackinack's website or Yes. Is that correct? Okay. Yes. Great. All right. Thank you. We'll make sure we send that out in the the newsletter this week so anyone who wants to be able to look at it can do that. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Oh, got it. He said pretty good. I think I think that was it. All right. Great. Thank you so much. Um All right. We are going to And I And also I just want to thank um NJ dot for the the grant. Um thank you for for funding that that study and thank you um Rasha for the the work. It's a long You said you were here back in September and that was quite some time ago. So, thank you for that. I know you were working before that. So, thank [clears throat] you. Thank you.

Um, and James as well. Thank you. So, moving on to our uh department head reports. I'm going to call up Ryan first and then we'll go into the uh the budget hearing. Okay. Ryan. Good evening. Evening, Ryan. Sorry.

Okay. Um, so presenting uh cso and construction updates. Um the first slide that will be coming up shortly is just an overall um visual of the sewer separation projects that have been completed as well as the two that are be coming up next. Um the next one that we will be taking care of is if you're looking at the screen on the left hand side the uh light blue that is the west of r west west of rail contracts number one and number two. So number one um has been designed we had to extend our TWWA permit with D. So that is under review. So we're hoping that gets the review completes in about uh two months and once that we get the approval from them we will be going out to bid for that project. Uh included in both west of rail projects are some green infrastructure. Uh we will be installing uh 18 tree filters in west of rail contract one and an additional 10 in contract 2. Uh these are a D requirement. uh they filter out a lot of the uh impurities in storm water while being less invasive than other uh filter systems. Uh they're plant it plants more trees and they're easy to maintain. Uh another uh big sewer separation project that we'll be undergoing uh in the next year or two is a grant that the city received from FEMA. It's the hazard mitigation grant program. Uh as you can see there's many steps and we are on uh the bottom left corner there. The uh additional design and permitting stage. Uh the uh proposal was awarded to

Boswell Engineering a few meetings ago that uh extends the design of the original plan that was in the application for this grant. Uh they currently have uh survey crews out now doing some additional work including ground penetrating radar to identify all the existing utilities in the roadway to determine uh the size of the infrastructure that we can fit in the roadway. Uh East Kennedy storm water pump station. Uh that facility is uh was constructed in the early 80s and then we had some additional improvements in the early 2000s. So that station has three pumps. Two of them will be getting replaced. The pumps have been delivered to the contractor's uh yard. Uh they're waiting for some additional equipment which is expected in May and then the control drives in June and they will start the installation of those two pumps. The additional work is the bar screens need some updating as well. So this the Kennedy pump station has two bar screen. Uh the as you can see the second photo in from the left is the rake assembly that removes the debris from the storm water. Uh a lot of those teeth are bent, worn, uh and it gets jammed up. So we're replacing those as well. Just a list of some uh recent grant applications. Uh the first three are ones that we're currently uh deciding on what to uh submit for. And the application submitted, it's approximately $21 million. the first three of which were congressional appropriations that our grant uh Bruno Associates have been uh working on this year. Uh another grant from Bergen County Community Development that the city received uh is for some improvements on Union Street from Essex to Meyer. Uh we received approximately $114,000 for that work. Uh it's been

designed and we're just uh working on bid dates right now. [snorts]

Uh Fishini 8 9 and 10 is progressing very well. The turf uh was delivered yesterday and they're starting to install that. Uh ongoing work is uh also some scoreboards and they're continuing with uh some concrete work. So I suggest going out there and take a look. It's it's coming along real nice. Baldwin Park. Uh the concrete sidewalks were completed and uh this morning they uh resurfaced the asphalt walkways. Uh what's left is the plastic curbing around the playground will be removed and replaced with new and as well as engineered wood fiber under the play set. Uh the city was fortunate to receive a US soccer federation in a partnership with Hackinac Meridian Health the installation of a mini pitch court. Uh mini pitch is a small hard surface uh soccer court uh with rebound boards, integrated goals, uh benches and lights. Uh these revitalize urban spaces, enhance skill development for uh younger youth players. uh they are placed on top of existing underutilized surfaces and they they're very popular. So the city selected the large open asphalt area at Palaski Park adjacent to the Jackson Avenue school. Um and as you could see on the right hand side is just an example of the before and after of one of these courts. The bottom photo is the installation of the mini pitch and the top is a worn out uh basketball court. So the the size pitch that is going to be installed is going to be a 60 by 84 uh soccer mini pitch. The outdoor warning system at the city parks and board of ed locations have

been installed. They were installed last week actually. Um these will give audible and visual alerts for lightning detection, uh precipitation, humidity, temperature, heat index, wind speed. Um the only thing with remaining that we have to do is wire up the power to these units which we're uh working on now. Grand Avenue pedestrian improvements. Uh this work is going to start has already been awarded but it's we're waiting for school to let out. Uh it's intersection improvements to make it safer at Fairmount and Popppler. Uh we're we're doing curb bumpouts, uh milling and paving and new striping. [snorts] Uh in addition, this project has also been awarded. Uh we're working the our engineer is working with the contractor to uh schedule pre-construction meeting, but it's Spring Valley pedestrian improvements at each intersection with Spring Valley from uh Summit to just before Main Street. This will include milling and paving of that length, ADA ramps with detectable warnings, line striping, and uh the flashing rapid beacons.

The flashing rapid what

beacon? the flashing lights at intersections, crosswalks. Uh Bergen County will be paving South or River Street from Kansas North to University Plaza. Those dates are a little off. The uh I saw the the flashing message board today. The milling and paving is going to start Monday, May 11th, and run through approximately May 22nd. So be aware and plan an alternate route. uh Bergen County. Another Bergen County project is the East Anderson Bridge project. The uh they are in currently in the final design phase uh which includes uh the design of the bridge itself, the roadway intersection improvements, uh doing the plans and specs, any right ofway acquisition, uh environmental per permitting and community engagement. Uh sometime in the near future, they're going to have a community stakeholders meeting. Uh it says spring 2026, but we're

getting close to the summer on this one, so it should be coming out soon. Uh another public information meeting in the fall and the final design should be expected uh next summer. If you have any questions, uh there contact us on there or obviously you can contact my office and there's also a website. If you just Google East Anderson grid project, it comes up with additional information. Uh for this project uh the some access is going to be via Johnson Park. Uh as you can see the riverw walk and the grass area between the parking lot. The contractor is going to take some of that area for staging and doing the actual construction of the bridge. Uh as well as on the TX side, they'll be using that as well. Uh they're going to be doing some improvements when they're done restoration, planting some additional trees, some additional lighting, and they're going to do some work at our cso facility on the south side of Anderson next to the car wash as well. Our 2025 paving program, well 26, but this was bid out in 25 has started. Uh they did uh the contractor returned a couple weeks ago and did some storm sewer construction on West Anderson and West Lookout. Uh curb and sidewalk for each of those streets listed is going to restart on Monday the 11th and go through the end of the month. And then they're looking to mill and pave the beginning of June. Uh in addition, PSEG, they did a large gas main improvement in the city. The streets on the left have been completed resurfacing. The upcoming streets on the right. Uh they're going to start in the beginning of June to come back and finish the milling and paving of those locations. Uh they they intended to come earlier in the year, but the were postponed a little bit because Violia identified some of these streets have

possibly having lead service lines. So Viol came in to to target that area ahead of the milling and paving so that it does not have to get dug up again. In addition, the the Violia um if you see them in the area, they are doing some various locations for test pitting to identify lead service lines at people's uh residences. So, if anybody has any questions on that, contact our office uh if if if needed. Uh we did have an emergency sewer repair in uh the beginning of March over on Van Weting. It's off of River Street. Uh the initial repair was a spot repair which is that picture on the left. After which we did some CCTVing of the line to to make sure there was no other issues or if there was issues we get them corrected. We ended up not uh repairing an additional 43 ft of sewer and then doing a cast inplace spot liner further up on the line and that work was completed. And again just help maintain a healthy sewer. No flushing of any wipes. And uh that's it. Any questions? Good. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, wait. Before you anyone question? I have one. I actually had one question. Yes. The um the Palaski Park. Can you go back to the Palaski Park, Frank, please? I know you mentioned the dimensions and the dimensions you mentioned are much smaller than that whole Yes. Can you just sort of orient approximately to where the mini pitch would be? So the mini pitch is going to be um on this this side. So we are going to lose this one basketball court. Okay. So it's going to be um the 60 foot long that way and 80 ft this way. Government in action. I had a a student who made me promise to ask. So um Okay. They like to play basketball, too. Yeah.

Uh all right. And then do you know how much the grant was for the Baldwin Park improvement grant that you referenced the That's my question. The I believe it was 70 $70,000 we received. 70. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Ryan. Okay. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you. [clears throat] Okay. All right. So, we are going

Sorry. We are going to roll back to our 2026 city of Hackinack budget public hearing. Um just as a matter of order of operations, Tim, are we going to need a motion to open for that? Okay. So, um before we open to the public on that, what um if you were here at the last meeting or if you watched the last meeting, there was a um comprehensive budget presentation by our CFO. The budget presentation was um with our questions was about 45 minutes or so. Um what was done last uh two weeks ago I want to say was that an edited down version of that budget presentation was made available online. It was sent out via the newsletter. It was posted on social media several times. Um, however, before we open up to the public, what we wanted to do, just to make sure that everyone who might have missed some of that has an opportunity to hear some of that presentation is play through the condensed version of the budget presentation with all the relevant information. The fuller version is still there online for anyone who would like to see the fuller version or who wasn't here last time. Um, but just so that if anyone has any questions that maybe are answered by the presentation or maybe the presentation raises questions, you have the opportunity to have the information that was given out a couple of weeks ago. But, um, so I'm going to ask for Frank to play that and we will open up to the public after the video concludes. [music] This is the first budget that we're doing together. Okay. Uh before we get into the budget, I did just want to spend a little bit of time talking about um the financial condition of Hackinac

today or tax rate fell every single year from 2015 to 2021 and during this period 18 pilot awards were granted. Okay, now that's up to 2021. Now 2022 valuations dropped. When they dropped three years in a row in 2024, that's an area for alarm. Okay, that's a cause for me to look at it and try and figure out what's happening here. We dropped three years in a row. Commercial valuations were dropping. Why? Well, big reason was because of tax appeals. A business owner appeals his taxes, he wins. When he wins, the assessment is lowered. That brings the valuations down. That was a big part of the problem, but not the only part. The other part of the problem was when we award a pilot that commercial property comes off the tax roles completely. Now during this period 2021 to 2026 10 more pilots were awarded. Now the 10 pilots were awarded three of them were rescended on the uh the first meeting of your administration. It's obvious that pilots as a fiscal policy is not working. It's not attracting any growth. We haven't had growth since 2021 of the city. It's vital that the budget looks to the future. A budget can't be considered as a one-year event. When that happens, it causes trouble. All right? And part of the problem that we're trying to rectify today was caused by last year's budget not doing that. Now you as a governing body have every right to demand to know three things. Why is the increase that high? Has the administration done everything to keep it as low as possible? And what have we in the

administration done to make sure that in the future we won't see a high increase like that? Okay. So the blue bar on the left side are monthly claims for 2024. The gold bar are the monthly claims for 2025. So you can see how much higher 2025 was from 2024. Claims were up an average of 94% per month. And then beginning in July, we started to see relief. So the right side of that red line, same thing. There are monthly claims. Same blue bar represents 2024 and the gold bar represents 2025. And you see what a difference it made after July. Okay, we went from averaging 94% increases to averaging only 5% increases on the left side of this chart. That's the green for January, February, and March. So you see so far this year in 2026, we're running pretty far below last year. 7.1 million of that 6.3 million are the health benefits. and our bill from the Bergen County Utilities Authority, which handles all of the sewage in the city. Okay. All the sewage gets collected in our sanitary sewer system and it gets piped to the BCUA treatment plant in Little Ferry. That bill is up uh $900,000. That's from a rate increase from the BCUA. Our actual usage is down from last year, but that's a a massive rate increase. Okay. other other municipalities in Bergen County are feeling the same thing. All of the other spending that's within our control is actually down $100,000. Over the last, I'd say six or seven years, we've been cutting the snow removal budget and we haven't been replenishing the trust. So, right now, trust is is lower than it's

uncomfortably low. Let me put it that way. We need to fix that by starting to increase the snow removal budget. should have happened years ago. The library donation city donates every year to the library. We haven't increased the in fact we've decreased the donation to the library pretty much every year for at least the last 10 years or kept it flat. But the library does a great job and the library does an excellent job of using their own money for the many renovations that they're doing. They don't rely on city money and and that's excellent. Okay. And this year, for the first time in I don't know how many years, I wish I did, uh they're seeing an increase in their donation. The position of the police director has been eliminated. Um very large savings in the police salary and wage budget because that was a very large salary. Similarly, in the DPW department, the DPW superintendent positions changed from full-time from one full-time to two part-time positions, which saves us on health benefits. And given the cost of health benefits, that's now a significant savings. For the last three years, uh we've been operating with um a safer grant that we got in 2022, which paid for the salaries of five firefighters. It was a three-year grant. So these five firefighters were paid for in the 2023 budget, 2024, 2025. That grant has expired. So now the full salary of those five firefighters has to be absorbed in the 2026 budget. And that's the reason why that percentage is a little bit high. The department other expenses which is the area where we have the most control is down 5% from last year that the 2026 budget. Okay. The tax increase does translate on the average home in Hackinack would be about $48.13 per month. Poor budget decisions from last year led to a missed revenue

projection of 1.6 million. Now you miss a revenue projection that has to be made up in the following year budget. Proper fiscally conservative budgeting practices are now back in place which will prevent that problem which happened from 2025 and impacted 2026. That'll prevent that from happening in 2027. Anybody? So for example when you gave the example that in 2022 2023 years in a row evaluations dropped

why when it dropped a third year why continue on the same pattern of the pilots let's say if it wasn't working. Mhm. Yeah, excellent question. Um, but you're you're exactly right. Um, that is a failed policy. If your valuations are dropping, why do a policy that drops your valuations? Uhhuh.

Mhm. Excellent question. It sounds to me like there was a desire to get to a certain number optically as opposed to a desire to properly budget and fund the city government. Um, and it also sounds to me, you welcome to correct me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds to me like there was data that was presented. Um, you can see the health care costs. You can see that the valuations were going down. You can see that ratables were coming off the tax rules. And yet the body, the governing body, the people that voted on the budget, insisted on living in a sort of laand and ignoring that healthcare costs were rising, ignoring that ratables were going down and sticking to this policy of issuing 30-year pilots that did not actually attract ratables. All they seemed to attract was more 30-year pilots. There's a price that's being paid now for last year's budget, which if my memory serves, was an election year. So, I I just want to be clear about what is contributing to this, that this is based on 2025's spend. And it's not even all of 2025

because we were able to collectively put things in place to rein in the things that technically should be outside of our control. And could you explain to us how the 10.25% uh increase is going to be applied to taxpayers because um it's not just a matter of taking your total tax bill and multiplying it by 10%. Correct. Okay. Yeah. It's the 10.25% is the increase to the levy.

The the number the uh 10 and a quarter number is not it's not take your bill and multiply that by 10 and a quarter. That is not what that number is representing. There is a number in the presentation. I believe that number is uh about 48 19 something like that. I don't want to say the 4813. 4813. Thank you. um for for the municipal portion of your bill and um that's on the average home

on the average home on the average home. So it is not the the same level of um it's not the same impact that that number might purport. It's that's a number on the tax levy. [clears throat] Um and I just want to make that clear for for everyone. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mangan. So, cuz that's where the money's at. Number one, you have fiscal uh accounting mismanagement up and down in the hackin sack from the government to the BOE and monies does not grow on trees. So, um transition aid needs to be looked at and it applies to your um to your budget. I saw you do the 25 26 what you're going to do. It's commendable

because that's like any other budget you have, especially for a family. You see what's coming in and then you can budget for what's going out. Mhm.

And I always see in the meetings where you give the payment of bills of what you're going to pay for that particular meeting, but I'd [clears throat] like to see as it applies to Ernest and Young accounting principles. What's the revenues for that same period? especially al along these lines. Tax levy, state aid, cuz that's where the money's at. Grant funding, delinquent tax receipts cuz we have them. Okay, those quote unquote pilot receipts that we get and the construction code revenue. So, I'd like to see that put somehow. I know it's not required by um the local finance laws, but um I'd like to see that put in when you actually give those numbers of what you're paying. [snorts]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the public wishing to speak on this? Seeing none, motion to close to the public on this budget. Hello. All in favor? I I any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, thank you. Okay, we are moving on. I will not forget this time for the city manager report. Thank you. Good evening everyone.

Just to circle back on um some resident concerns. I know we had had ongoing concerns with Anderson Street and uh double parking and and parking violations and uh so forth. I I just wanted to report that the police department uh went above and beyond for the month of April. They really focused on it and actually ended up issuing 275 summones just on Anderson Street alone. So that was a great job. Uh, I will also warn everyone that the police department is going to start utilizing their drone program uh to also monitor drone. Excuse me. Explain a drone. A drone is an is a like a small aerial device unmanned with a camera on it.

I understand. Yeah. They're going to start using that to uh police the uh no parking in fire zones and in front of fire hydrants and double parking. So, I'm going to ask for you just to hold on until if you have questions. There's going to be a time for public comment very very soon if you have any questions. Yes.

So, that was a quick update on the police and and the great job that they're doing. Um just a couple quick uh updates on city events. On April 23rd, uh the city hosted the Take Your Child to Work Day. Uh seeing the next generation excited about how our city functions reminds us why our work matters. Thanks to everyone who helped make Take Our Kids to Work Day a success. A total of 88 kids attended along with their parents. It was a great day. On um on on May 2nd, uh this past weekend, the Main Street Business Alliance in conjunction with the city hosted tacos and tequila bub crawl pub crawl on uh Main Street. Uh it was a phenomenal uh turnout. They had over 400 people uh register, sign up, and participate in the day. And all the feedback from the restaurants and the business on Main Street was was beyond uh their expectations. So, that was a great event as well. Uh, I'll remind everyone, as I have done in the past, Hometown Heroes veteran banners uh are still available. There's limited space, but we have a few spaces left. So, if you have someone that you want to honor with the Hometown Hero veteran banner, please contact the city manager's office uh ASAP. And then once again, Hackpack, their May programming. They have a full programming lined up for May. You can visit Hackpack website for full event information including color buzzfly in the gallery reception, Howdy Strangers Improv comedy show and to live. That's just some city updates and that's all I have. Thank you.

All right.

Thank you. Okay. I'm going to ask for a motion to open to the public. But before we do that, [clears throat] um I just want to let everyone know that this is public comment on agenda items only. So we've been doing this since October uh of 2025. So if you would like to speak on any item that is on the agenda, um please come forward, state your name, your municipality, and what item on the agenda you are going to comment on. Um it's a public comment, so you are welcome to ask questions if there are answers. um that that we're able to give. We will give them afterwards um if if we're able to. Okay. So, anyone from the Oh, I'm sorry. Can I get a motion to open to the public for agenda items only?

Second. All in favor?

I Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Any member from the public wishing to speak on any agenda item, please come forward. Sergey Toy Story T Hackinack in regards to the Anderson Street Bridge. I want to find out from the council their contacts down at the state do why the website that proclaimed they were taking public count uh comments was not functional. The email sent to Miss Reed was not returned and they're trying to push through stuff without having the required community engagement. So, I like that to be looked into.

Thank you. How's it going? I'm Shelton Harley and I'm uh I'm interested in what's going on around here. And what's now? I got a question for y'all. What's the definition of a sidewalk? The definition of a sidewalk. I'm going to let you finish your comment and then if you have I'll I'm saying every why is everybody walking in the streets and not on the sidewalk. Is that [clears throat] is that I see everybody everybody's walking in streets. They got sidewalks around here, right? And and and bicycles and everything. You understand what I'm saying?

Yes. All right. That's agenda. Okay.

That's comment. Okay. [applause] Thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening, mayor, members of the council. Um, my name is Matthew Gillson. I happen to be a Hackinack resident, but of the law firm Murphy Schiller and Wilks. I'm here tonight uh on the agenda item, you have the K group is my client, and we are asking for a resolution of need for a 54 unit all affordable housing project on Hiler Street. As part of our process to applying for the state, one of the items that we need is for you as the council to dedicate that there is a need to pass a resolution that there is a need for affordable housing in Hackinac and that this project would help further that need. Uh we have if it could be brought up uh a rendering of the project. This would be on the the the houses that are currently located at 151 17 and 21 Hiler Street. And it would encompass 54 units. They would be all affordable and they and they would be within the guidelines of the affordable housing rents that are set by the state. As you can see, there's also a rooftop amenity space here. So, this is this is a very well-designed modern new building that's going to take into account all the features that other buildings would have except this will be at affordable rates to h to any residents that apply for the lottery for this. So, if there's any questions from the mayor and council, but we'd ask you to act favorably upon the resolution of need that's before you tonight.

Right. Thank you.

Good evening. Uh Josh Cohen. I'm a Hackinack resident. I just wanted to uh speak in favor of the bike plan. Um I also had a couple questions. I wanted to know like my understanding is it's just a plan that was submitted and I didn't know I'm curious what are the next steps to it. Is there any implementation plan? Are you planning to apply for grants? Do you have anything identified for that? Um you know like to me I'm I'm very concerned about pedestrian and bike safety around here. Um when we moved back um I used to ride my bike and and it's just it's not safe to ride on the streets anymore. I don't you know we like to go to Sty Park with the kids. Uh it's not safe really to bike to there. There's have to be very very very careful doing that around here. Um pedestrians also very dangerous. I know you have many comments um all the time. I hear hear the gentleman over there speak about pedestrian safety. I agree like you know I used to live on Summit. We took the 162 to the city to commute. The most dangerous intersection and the most dangerous um area of my commute was always in Hackinack crossing Summit and uh you do have a new light there, but it's just it's terribly dangerous to walk around here. So, anything on Summit and uh Payic Street right there, which now we have new new lights at least, but um yeah, it's it's still it's dangerous to walk around here. Um, in terms of the the bike path, um, you know, I think there's also my understanding is there's a a municipal library of sorts that you could get equipment from for free to set up a demo path. And, you know, I'd love to see something like that happen. Figure out, you know, pick one of those paths that's easy on a city road and and test it out and see if people use it and and what happens with it.

All right. I'm saying bike l I I do hope that that you will install bike lanes. Yes. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks

Victor from Hackinack. I just have one question. Are we going to go down this same path with this affordable housing? And my question is to the gentleman, I don't know who he is, but what's going to be the room capacity? Because one and two bedrooms is not for a family. We need at least three bedrooms in these apartments. If not, we're going to go down the same BS path path as the lash board. We got to we have to make some changes here. What's a you know, it's not feasible for a family to live in two bedrooms. That's ridiculous. So, I need to know the answer to that.

Thank you. Anyone else from the public wishing to speak on any agenda item? Okay, thank you. Um, before we move on, the one thing I just want to address is that in the last 12 years, there were absolutely zero affordable housing units built in the city of Hackinack. So, the path would be a path of some versus zero. Um, there were zero affordable housing units built in the last 12 years. Um, so I just want to state that and make that clear. All right. Um, moving on to

new business. Oh, I'm sorry. Motion to close to the public. Thank you. Motion to close to the public on agenda items only. All second. All in favor? I. All oppo. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. All right. So, we have an ordinance for second reading. Resolution 126-26. If you can read it, please. Thanks.

Resolution 126-26 is the adoption of ordinance 07-2026, an ordinance to amend chapter 148 of the code of the city of Hackinac, streets and sidewalks, article 2, general regulations and restrictions to clarify obstruction of fire hydrants. This ordinance has been published according to law and now calls for a public hearing. Okay. Thank you. Motion to open to the public on resolution 126-26. Second. All in favor?

I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Any member of the public wishing to speak on resolution 126-26 and that resolution only? Seeing none motion to close to the public on resolution 126-26. I offer second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Motion to adopt resolution 126-26. All second. Okay. Roll call, please. Deputy Mayor Tumi. I. Councilwoman Clark Collins. I. Councilman Carol. Hi. Councilman Diaz. I. Mayor Gaines. I. Motion passes. [clears throat]

Okay. Ordinance for first reading, resolution 127-26. Resolution 127-26, introduction of ordinance 08-2026, bond ordinance providing an appropriation of $630,000 providing for the construction of a replacement elevator for the Johnson Public Library in and for the city of Hackinack and authorizing the issuance of $598,500 in bonds or notes of the city for financing part of the appropriation. Thank you. Um, can I have a motion to adopt, please? I'll offer. I'm sorry. Motion. Yeah. Motion to adopt the resolution. I'll offer. Thank you, sir.

Second. Okay. Roll call, please. Deputy Mayor Tumi. I. Councilwoman Clark Collins. I. Councilman Carol. I. Councilman Diaz. I. Mayor Gaines.

I. Be it resolved that the above ordinance being ordinance 0820 2026 as introduced does now pass on first reading and that said ordinance shall be considered for final passage at a meeting to be held on May 26th, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. or as soon thereafter as the matter can be reached at the regular meeting place of the city council and at such time and place all persons interested be given an opportunity to be heard concerning said ordinance and that the clerk be and he is hereby authorized and directed to publish said ordinance according to law with a notice of its introduction and passage on first reading and of the time and place when and where said ordinance will be further considered for final passage. Okay, moving on to the consent agenda. If you can read the consent agenda, please.

The following items are considered to be routine in nature and will be enacted in one motion. Any items requiring expenditure are supported by a certification of availability of funds. Any item requiring discussion will be removed from the consent agenda and consent agenda items will be reflected in full in the minutes including any exceptions and/or additions. The consent agenda includes resolution 128-26, resolution authorizing the payment of bills. Resolution 129-26, resolution authorizing tax refunds. Resolution 130-26, resolution authorizing correction to taxes for 360 Main Street. Resolution 131-26, resolution authorizing persontoerson and place-to-lace liquor license transfer for ZPT licensing LLC for license 0223-33- 068--00007 to be located at 309 to 311 Vincent Avenue. And resolution 132-26, a resolution to amend the calendar year 2026 approved budget. and resolution 133-26, resolution appointing Otterstat as risk management consultant for a one-year term.

Thank you. Motion to adopt the consent agenda. Second. Uh roll call, please. Deputy Mayor Tumi, I. Councilwoman Clark Collins, I. Councilman Carol, I. Councilman Diaz, I. Mayor Gaines, I. [clears throat] Consented agenda passes. Okay. Uh non-consent agenda item resolution 134-226.

Resolution 134-26 is a resolution of need for affordable housing pursuant to the provisions of the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency law of 1983 as amended NJSA514K-1S and the rules promulgated there at NJAC 5801-1.1. Mayor, with your permission, I'm going to uh step off the DAS. I have a conflict on this issue. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Um motion to adopt resolution 134-26.

I'll walk offer. Uh roll call, please. Deputy Mayor Tumi. I. Councilwoman Clark Collins. Hi. Councilman Carol. Hi. Councilman Diaz. I, Mayor Gaines, I. Resolution passes.

Okay. So, we are going to go back to our public comment. Um, this is for any member of the public who would like to speak on any issue. Um, again, please direct your questions, comments to me. We will respond afterwards. And, uh, you have three minutes. I'll keep time for you. I'll ask for you to stay within the the constraints and I will politely ask you to bring your point to a close and please politely oblige. All right. State your name municipality when you come forward. Thank you, sir. Oh, I'm sorry. Motion to open to the public. Sorry. No, no, you can stay right there. Motion to open to the public. Second. All in favor?

I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Sergey Soltoy Hackinack.

Thank you. First off, I want to give a uh 5-second moment of silence for the security uh not security, but the traffic crossing guard that was killed today in Woodland Park while helping kids cross the street. She had to push two kids out of the way before her life was taken. And again, as I previously stated, it's paramount that the pedestrian safety in this city, as we already have by the finest HPD, they try to do their best, but we need more in terms of enforcement, especially of these guys that are distracted, unaware, smoking cannabis, and doing what who knows what while they drive these vehicles. So, it's going to come a time where we're going to hear the name of the city of Hackinack. Satis forewarn everyone on this dice. So, in regards to the library budget, I saw that it was 630K and I said that 5% that they're down paying should be more. I know those board of trustees and the JPL is the finest in Bergen County. it has the money and I think that 420 should have been in the max not the 599 because as you already know as of um the accounting the 26 uh outstanding balance of our debt was 151 million and we're servicing about eight no six million

So, I think we should reduce that and let JPL cover most of that up front. Even though they're getting those grants, they could they're getting more. They're getting more. And I'd like to commend Frank Bordicelli, Mr. AV and Web Master for his outstanding job. We came out of the the 80s to the 21st century in in terms of web design. So, I'm I'm happy to report that it's given the people what they should get in the 21st century. And I'm happy that I see that we're finally on the map. We're competing with Jersey City. We're almost going to be there, but it just takes some effort and time as we do more input into our unified transparency that you guys um ran on and this community of children, families, and community. So, thank you guys for what you do.

Thank you. Thank you. [clears throat]

Good evening, Bridget Hack Hackinac.

Um, I commend you for affordable housing. I dealt with it for the 12 years where there was zero and no support from community about affordable housing. I went to court with the previous actual um council. So I will say this, affordable housing is needed. A city can't survive without affordable housing. That means families need more than two bedrooms. So I am going to hope that from the last council who always with developers would only say they can only do two bedrooms. I am going to hope that we get a third bedroom. If not at least a loft where it can be turned into a bedroom. So I am going to hope that when and if you sit down with these people here that that is the conversation you are actually going to have as a council because you should be supporting community. That is what this is all about. I hear always here across the board you know how you want to collectively come together but everybody has their own ethnic areas that they deal with as community. Uh Mr. Diaz, I know I've heard, you know, from others that you support your constituents who actually come out and voted for you and you have conversations with them. Same thing with Miss Tumi. I am praying and hoping that we get to have those conversations as a community. We know we're only 19% within the city now. The city is changing and evolving. So, I am going to hope at some point that

community we can have a community forum. Bergen County just had one. Let us hear what the community has to say. Let us hear how they see you are doing or not doing. So that's what we should be doing. But once again, I do commend you guys um for the affordable housing. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm Rich Serbo and I'm on Spring Valley Avenue. And um look, I want to talk about a few things. When it comes to bicycle riding, I rode a bicycle in Hackinack for many, many years. It is not a good idea. I quit uh maybe it's 10 years ago. Uh you it's a dangerous uh you've got to be uh on your toes if you're going to ride a bike around Hackinack. Oh my god. Be careful. It's it's a dangerous thing. It should be, you know, mapped out somehow. Uh uh it's it's too much. The cars are too much. Okay, that's it. Um the thing I wanted to bring up is taxes. I mean, we're not going to sweep taxes under the rug now, are we? We're going to talk about it more because it it's gone up quite a bit. And my big question is, what happened to the cap? Was that given out and then just said, "Okay, we're taking it back." There was a cap on taxes for a while, wasn't there? Any any answers? Nobody?

This is You know how this works. It's you. It's your time to speak and then in a couple of minutes um when you're done, we'll we'll respond. All right. So, you're going to ignore me until I'm done and then you'll you always get answers.

You'll decide to answer later. Okay. So, what about the cap on taxes? And um I'm confused also by what's going on here. I don't I don't get the protocol anymore. It's not the same. It's very confusing. And uh please let's uh straighten out what the heck's going on here. And the other thing is uh Mr. Mangan. I I know he works hard, but I mean, he's he's in charge of the budget. Okay. And why now all of a sudden is there trouble with the budget? Why wasn't why wasn't this brought up uh last year? Why wasn't this brought up previously? I I don't get it. I you know, all of a sudden all of a sudden everything is in the trash. Uh the the board of education is going down the tubes and everything. So, what what the heck's going on? And that's my question for Mr. Mangan. And I want to say hello to Mitchell Harley. How you doing, Mitch?

I'm Sheldon. Haven't Oh, Shel, you're Sheldon. All right. I haven't seen you in so many years. Good to see you. How you been, brother? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. Marty Smith, Prospect Avenue. I'm a member of the city's condo co-op advisory board's traffic safety committee. For several months now, we've been asking the city to consider passing an ordinance that would make it a traffic violation for pedestrians to cross a street while texting or talking on a cell phone. Last month when I asked if the city had come to a decision, the captain from the traffic department took the microphone and said that they were going to try to have an educational program to address this issue. I'm sure this is very well intentioned, but I can guarantee you that this type of program will not meet the results that we are looking for. There is nothing like having an ordinance in place now. This issue has been before you for three months. I can't understand and what your reluctance is to consider this type of resolution when this has been passed by dozens and dozens and dozens of cities and towns throughout the country with very positive results in the in the uh end of the day when less uh injuries have been sustained by pedestrians throughout the country. So, is there some reason that you did not want to give this an opportunity to be enacted?

When your comments are done, we will respond and answer your questions. Okay. We did last time we had people come out and answer your question. [clears throat] We'll make sure your questions are answered. Next item. Mr. Freeman, can you tell me, do we have a scheduled date for the installation of crosswalks and flashing pedestrian crossing signs at the intersection of Anderson Street and Union Street, both on the east and west side of Union Street?

Do we have a date? I don't believe we have a date. Ryan, is Ryan still here? Yeah. No, we don't have a date. We're still waiting for DOT approval to go out to bid those for that project. Does that involve federal funding?

And my last item, we have flashing pedestrian signs on Prospect Avenue at Berry Street for north and southbound traffic. The sign for southbound traffic at that location has not been functioning for three months. I've spoken to the traffic department at least six times over the last 3 months and it's still not functioning. Uh I'm not impressed with the action by the traffic department, but hopefully this can be brought online as quickly as possible. This is the southbound side of the street.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

Thank you very [laughter] peace and blessings everybody. Brown Neita Sheree Hackinack. Question number one, I want to know, have you guys um considered the ADUs? Um I also want to bring this back up. I brought it up maybe about a year or so ago. The school on Second Street in Hackinac across from the park. Could you please reconsider um at least putting up um school zone in that area on the street? Uh more signs. I've watched a lot of mothers struggling getting out of their cars in the morning, have to cross over that street and it's busy at a certain time. Some kind of better notification that there's a school there and so these cars coming off the safe street don't be flying through that area because it doesn't look like it's a school there, but it's a school and a park. So, we all need to be aware of that. Um, I want to ask about Junth. You know, I'm on the rec board. I wanted to ask about Junth. Um, we've been having a problem getting information about budgeting. Um, I don't know if Steve got anything recent about that, but we need to know what we're working with. Not only that, I want to say that moving forward, we do have a a better plan in place uh to be more proactive in getting our funds. So, we would like to at least try to match funds that we had last year if that's possible. Um, you know, we had some big ideas, but we don't know if they're going to all be able to be accomplished with what we may be working with. So, we like to have that information. One of the plans moving forward and mayor, this is specifically for you. I spoke to JT,

our family member, James. He said he would be willing to come on board uh with us. Maybe not this year. He may be able to help with something, but next year, that's James Taylor for those who don't know. um come on board with helping us to get that job done. He's ready, willing, and able. I know we talk a lot about the 4th of July, but I want to say this cuz I don't know if everybody knows this. Fourth of July is is like a slap in the face to African-Ameans. When our ancestors was on the plantation, they came home from celebrating Fourth of July. They brutalized, beat the men, and part of their celebration was hanging our ancestors. Uh not a pretty picture. our grandmothers and greatg grandmothers and so on and so forth. You know that the massa came in drunk. So you know what happened to them. So most of the holidays is not a lot that I myself can say that I celebrate and I know some of my uh um constituents they they don't celebrate either and they'll tell you. But I just wanted to share that little part of Fourth of July because it's not important to me at all and to a lot of other people, especially the African-American community. Again, it's a slap in the face for us. But we celebrate it. It's a family time, which is the best part of it. We're off. We can spend time with our families, but it's not something that we're going to uh, you know, raise hell about. So, I know there's a budget for uh most of the things in the city. We like to have transparency on what our budget is. We have a board meeting tomorrow and if we can get any of that information to help us move forward with our planning that would be beautiful and I thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Just to let you know you will you'll get a response m you'll get a response about um budget in advance of your meeting tomorrow so that you can plan adequately. The manager will reach out to you. Thank you. We appreciate you. Thank you. That was cool. Anyone else from the public? Oops. Sorry. Anyone else in the public wishing to speak? Okay. Motion to close to the public. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. All right. Um, Deputy Mayor. Sorry. Yes. Good evening, everyone.

Good evening. And I just would like to thank everyone for being here tonight and uh and for your comments and we're again we're always listening to you and we're always doing the best that we can to address your concerns and we always welcome some positive feedback as well. And uh I hope you have a good evening and a good week. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Uh, speaking of taxes, at our last meeting um, two weeks ago, there was a gentleman, I don't see him here today, but hopefully he'll watch uh, this meeting um, at some point in time. Uh, he had a question as to why individuals who no longer have children in the public school system are still required to pay school taxes. So I thought that was an important question that needs to be answered. In New Jersey, including here in Hackinac, public education is funded primarily through local property taxes. This structure is established at the state level and is designed to ensure that school districts have stable, predictable funding to meet educational and operational needs. School taxes are therefore assessed uniformly on all property owners regardless of whether they currently have children enrolled in the public schools. This approach reflects the long-standing principle that public education is a shared community investment. Strong, well-resourced schools provide benefits that extend far beyond the families who directly use them. Highquality schools contributed to maintaining and increasing property values, support a safer and more stable community, and help sustain a strong local economy. They also prepare the future workforce that will serve Hackinac and the broader Bergen County region and essential roles across health care, public safety, safety, education, business, and the trades. In addition, well-educated communities experience lower long-term costs related

to social services, unemployment, and public safety. These are communitywide advantages that benefit all residents, not only those who school age children. For these reasons, school taxes are structured as a collective responsibility. Every resident contributes to the educational foundation that supports the overall well-being, economic vitality, and long-term stability of Hackinac. This council recognizes that tax concerns are significant for many households, and we remain committed to ensuring that public funds are used responsibly and transparently. Our goal is to maintain a school system that strengthens our community and serves the best interests of all residents. I just wanted to share that with you.

Thank you, Councilwoman. [applause] Thank you. Um, speaking of recreation, there is a meeting tomorrow at 6 pm. The meeting has been moved to here right here in City Hall. So, if you can join us, please do so. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman,

good evening. How are you? Um, just two quick things. Uh, Mr. Smith, we are working on um that uh problem with the um stop signs uh on Union Street and Park Street. And the city manager is going to take care of that light at Berry Street. So, we're trying to do, you know, it just doesn't happen overnight. The projects are um have to be brought to the DOT, to the county, and then, you know, we have to get approval. So, we didn't forget you. So, believe me, you you'll be up here 3 months from now, and hopefully it's done or we're still waiting for something. So, thank you for asking. Uh Mr. Cohen, if you go on our website, our bicycle plan is listed there. Uh I think we just posted it today. So give it a look over see what you think and we're looking for public in input at any time. So but uh we discussed it uh to today and it's on the website. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman.

Thank you. Good evening. I heard several times tonight the word transparency and I and I would like to tell you this since July 1st from 2025. If there is something that I'm proud very proud of this council is the transparency that we've been showing for those eight or nine months. The perfect example is this budget. Okay. how many discussions we had already about this budget and we still at it. If that if that is not an example of transparency, then please explain to me what transparency is. I think uh we've been uh straightforward and giving everybody the opportunity to come here to discuss to propose okay before we make a final decision. As we work through the 2026 budget, I'm reminded we why I always had a deep respect for history. History shows what happens when tough decisions are avoided and more importantly how important it is to learn from the past. What we doing now is taking a clear responsible approach to ensure we don't carry forward the challenges we inherited. This isn't about looking back. It's about moving forward the right way. Fiscal responsibility is front and center for us. And I'm confident that next year you'll see a stronger, more disciplined budget that truly reflects our commitment to the community. Thank you all for being here. And in case that you forget, happy.

Good night. [applause]

I did forget. [laughter] Sorry. [gasps] Thank you, Councilman. All right. Right. I'm going to um try and address a couple of things that were raised. Um so, first I do the um a comment was made tonight and it was reiterated from the previous meeting about asking the state for state aid. Um and the comparison cities that were given were Jersey City and Camden. Those cities are incredibly different for a significant reason. Jersey City is currently facing a $250 million deficit in terms of their municipal budget. Hackinack is not at a deficit in terms of its budget.

Camden is facing a $91 million deficit in terms of their budget. That is not the situation here in Hackinack. So, we cannot I mean, I guess you can ask for anything, but but Jersey City hasn't gotten it and they've got $250 million in the hole. So, it's not it's not that we aren't exhausting every revenue stream. Um, you can see that from day one, we were trying to figure out ways that we can sort of rein in spending that's within our control. And I'm very proud of what has been done so far. And as the councilman said, I think that people will see the results once we have the ability to um continue to show them. Someone made the recommendation, it might have actually might have been you as well. Someone made the recommendation about giving um a little bit of an update as to revenue um at some point outside of the budget season. Um I'm speaking personally. I'm one of five people up here, but I think that's not such a bad idea. I think at some point maybe further along in the year just to give a little check-in for everyone and let everyone know how we're tracking for for the year. I think that would be helpful so that people don't have the shock of realizing that things were not all good under the hood here in in Hackinack, which is what we sort of realize once you start digging in under the you know looking at the numbers. Um, so to have a little check-in I think isn't such a bad idea. So I do want to just be very clear about the protocol at meetings because that's come up um several times. The protocol at meetings has been the same as it has been since October of 2025. We open the

meeting to the public. If it's a regularly announced meeting, they open at 5:30. We vote on the minutes. We salute the flag and then we go into close session at 6:30 most until about 6:30. Today we got out a little bit late but until about 6:30 [clears throat] I believe most people have understood the protocol because when we are here at 5:30 almost no one is here. When we are here at 6:30 you all are here. So I believe that any questions about the protocol seem to have been sort of worked out between October and today. But in case there's any questions, um that is what the practice has been consistently at every regular meeting since October and that was noticed. Um, in terms of affordable housing, I just want to um, say very clearly, I agree with everything that came out of um, that Miss Rucker brought forward. Um, one of the things that bothered me personally, and I know we've discussed this, is that for the last 12 years, there was a policy by the governing body, not us, that said, "We want to invite development to Hackinack and we want studios and we want bed onebedrooms and we want to actively discourage families from coming to Hackinack." that we're going to build all of these buildings and we promise you Hackinack, no families here. We are closed to families. The previous administration said that is not who we are. This is one affordable housing project. We have other we have another affordable housing project that we had a similar resolution at the immediately um past meeting that we approved as well.

We are being tenacious about inviting people that would like to bring affordable housing to Hackinack to the table to make their pitch as the Kg group did this evening and to try and find ways to make Hackin Sack affordable. Um our goal is to make Hackinack affordable whether you're in quote unquote affordable housing or not. We want hous to be affordable for everyone. And I never understood the literature I got in the mail that celebrated that we had 25 affordable units coming in a city that had put up 4,000 units. To me, that's not something to brag about as the previous people thought it was. So, we are going to make sure that affordable housing is a priority for us. And I hear what you're saying and it's only one project, but we're we're going. Um, I just want to uh Mr. Smith, I'm going to ask for you. Um, because we do not know of the other municipalities that have passed similar ordinances and that those ordinance have ordinances have reduced pedestrian texting and walking. So at several points it's been said that dozens and dozens of municipalities have passed similar ordinances to the one that you are asking about and that it has been implemented to great effect in those communities. So any information that you can provide as to the municipalities that have passed similar ordinances in the state of New Jersey and that they have seen a reduction in people texting and and walking. We welcome that data. We will take that data. We will consider that data. We have asked for legal counsel. We've asked for the PD. We've asked for people to look into it. We have not found that data. But if that data exists and you have found it, please bring it forward. We are all

humans. It's possible that we have missed it. So, please bring it forward to us and that will help us in our consideration of it. In terms of pedestrian safety, Ryan, I want to thank you for your presentation. It's been a little bit since we've had Ryan time. Um, but there were a number of pedestrian sidewalk ADA cutouts. Um, light what were they called? Light uh what were those? What were they? Flashing stop signs. Flashing the flashing stop signs have gone up there. There was something else that's going up at some of these um corners. Beacons.

Beacons. Thank you. Thank you. Um there is an effort to utilize grants to help make Hackinack safer for our pedestrians. And this study that we had with the bicycles was a grant-f funded study to look into Hackinack being safer for um bicyclists. So there are upgrades coming on to that effect. Um and I just want to speak on two more quick things. One of them is Baldwin Park. You saw that there were improvements being done to Baldwin Park um in terms of just some safety improvements, some sidewalk and things like that. Um, at the last meeting we had an opportunity to utilize a grant that was specifically earmarked for Baldwin Park for a and we because of a deadline considered moving forward with a splash pad. But as with everything, we hear you. We're listening. We're receiving feedback and we will consider and weigh whether or not we proceed with that. But I don't want There's no time machine, Ryan. There's no time machine coming. Hack GPT is here. Just want to be clear. No time machine. But there is an opportunity. We noticed. We said if you have any feedback, come. That's not moving forward without the public. That's inviting the public. That's saying come share your thoughts. People shared thoughts. We proceeded to apply for the grant, but it's just an application. And if we are awarded the grant, we will once again invite the public with plenty of notice to come and weigh in on whether or not a splash pad goes into Baldwin Park. But I just want to be very clear that that is what the grant is for. The grant is not for bring your best proposal for Baldwin Park because that's not what the grant is for. That could be a different grant at

a different time, but the grant that's currently before us is for that particular project. and people will be able to weigh in on that just like they weigh in on any of the other things that is before this council. And lastly, uh Roberto spoke about transparency. I'm going to say communication. I think that we um we really make an effort to communicate. We communicate via the newsletter, which has been plugged, I think, at every single meeting. We started the newsletter in July [laughter] when we just got sworn in. And the newsletter goes out every single week on Friday, rain or shine, holiday or not, with brand new information. We post clips from meetings on social media. We post not only on our official hack city of Hackinack page on occasion. We dabble into Hackinack happenings and try and meet people where they are. We try to communicate. When we think we do a good job, we let you know. When we think we could do better, we let you know for better or for worse. And we take the slings and arrows that come with all of that. So, what I want to encourage people to do is if you have a question, if you have a concern, please interface with the city. Email the city manager. You can email any of us. You can leave a comment on our city of Hackinack social media so that someone from the city sees it. But we don't want anyone to be ill informed or misinformed in the city of Hackinack. And by way of anecdote, I just want to say people seem to believe everything they read online. It gets posted. It is immediately believed as truth. We sent a letter with my

signature on it with city of Hackinack letterhead in a city of Hackinack envelope to people about solar savings and people threw it away because they thought it was a scam. This is the culture that we live in. Not a hackin sack thing. This is just the world. But people get the official correspondence and say that must be fake and they see a random post and go that must be real. We want you to be informed. Knowledge is power. That's right.

And we want all of our citizens and residents to be empowered. So, we're going to continue to give you information. We're going to give you honest information. We're going to explain and explain and explain until you're tired of hearing us, but it will be accurate information from us. And if you have questions about it, reach out to us and we'll get back to you. All right. And with that, I'm going to ask for a uh resolution actually for us to go back into close session very briefly. We just weren't completely done back there and we needed to get back out here for you because we were already waiting. No action will be taken after. You are welcome to wait if you wish. Um but we're just going to come back out and adjourn. You are welcome to wait, but I would like for a resolution to go uh briefly for about let's say 15 minutes into executive session. Second.

All in favor? I I Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay, we will be back to adjourn, but no action will be taken.

Okay, we are out of close session. It is 9:10. Need a motion to adjurnn. Second.