Council - Regular Meeting

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We're good to go. Okay. You want to hit hit that record button? We're good. Wow. All right, Kathy, put your phone away. Who's playing? I have to tell everyone to put their cell phones away. Turn it to mute. We got on mute. Okay, guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think we're down to like Well, let's call the meeting to order and let's all rise for the backwards pledge of allegiance. The flag going backwards. Jerry, do you want to come up lead us in the pledge? No. Pastor Julie, what? No. You want to lead us in the pledge as opposed to Rick with his face in America?

No. Okay, we'll do it from here. All right, everybody. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all looking sharp with that haircut. Rick, there you go. Okay. Uh this is a meeting of the Hillsdale Borrow Council on this 12th

12th day of May, 2026. Notice that the time and place of this meeting has been provided to the Bergen record as well as posted on the website. On our website is provided by public law. As pursuant by public law, a copy was also posted on the bulletin board outside of this meeting room and provided to any interested parties. Please silence all cell phones. Wait to be recognized by the mayor during public hearing and the public comment part of the meeting. You will need to state your name and town of residence for the record. We got the recording. It's good. Okay. Okay. Will the clerk please read the role? Mayor Shinfield, I'm here. Council member Camp here. Council member Kleti here. Council member D. Rosa here. Council member Mazachang. Council President Oso here. Council member Rico

here. All right, we have a quorum. Um, we're going to recognize National Public Works Week, which is May 17th through the 23rd, and the Hillsdale United Methodist Church 150th anniversary. We'll get right to it because I know you don't want to be here all day, but let's come on down. Um, go down here. Come on up, everybody. Come on up. Just stand over here so we can all see. We had I had the honor of participating in the face the council so we can all see so we can all see. Had the uh the honor and the pleasure to um attend the service last Sunday

or two Sundays. I've lost track of all my time here. Um yeah, Mother's Day wasn't yesterday. It was the week before. Yes. Um for their 150th anniversary and learned some amazing things that the first gathering of the Methodists was actually on the top floor of the train station. Several years a couple years before the first church was constructed. Right. Yeah. 1874 is when 11 people gathered in the second floor of the train station and then the first building, the first church building, uh what is now our parking lot that opened in the summer of 1876 and then there was a fire and then back and forth and all that other stuff.

You remember the fire?

Well, it was it was wonderful to be there. Um and of course we want to recognize it as a as an entire governing body. uh we thank you for all that you've done. I will tell you that I had such a warm feeling to be in that room with all of you and hearing I mean there's just such a feeling of joy and love and no matter what your religious beliefs are whatever it was just such a great feeling community and I thank you for inviting me and I thank you for all the community stuff that you do for us. You host Boy Scout troops. you're we we couldn't do our lunch program with the middle school if it weren't for these wonderful people who have opened their hearts and their doors to us. So, I thank you for that as well. Um, every time we call you, you say yes. Um, and and and that's just absolutely wonderful and and this is just even the least that we could possibly do um to thank you for everything you do for us and for the community at large. and I say thank you on behalf of the governing body and we have um a resolution honoring you and uh I won't read the whole thing. Actually, I probably won't read any of it because I really I you know read the things but it's for your for your for your own place it somewhere prominently I'm sure and and I thank you very much. So thank you very much. If you would like to say something to the to the body um I'm sure that we would all be very welcome to hear your words. First of all, I'd like to say thank you to your mayor field for joining us for the anniversary service. Your presence meant a lot and then uh please know that our church is here to you know walk with you guys and then we are here to support you and also yeah work together. So thank you our

this is our pastor Julie Lee. Thank you so much. Welcome back anytime. Well, thank you. I think you have enjoy and the rest of you are all welcome. Thank you. This is a a time. I I I just like to particularly thank you because I know, you know, when I first came on the council, I learned that you guys had volunteered. We had a generator I think uh put uh near the church and

and um you serve as a u the proper term but as a cooling center but also as a as a place in the disaster where some of our residents who lose heat um during the winter can can stay and I think we've utilized that over the years periodically. Not a lot but but good. That's a good thing. Um so thank you for everything you've done to echo the mayor's comments. Thank you. recognize Denise, two prominent families in our church, Nicole. Yeah. Thanks for everything you do for the town, the food pantry as well. Um the cafeteria for the kids.

Yeah, the mayor mentioned that. Yeah. Um but I was also struck by uh when you hosted the crescent lighting, which I thought was ironic, you know, a different religion in in your house of worship. I think it's uh it speaks volumes to how welcoming you are. So, thank you for doing that. Well, the the motto of the United Methodist Church is open doors, open hearts, and open minds. So, everybody's welcome. Okay, that works. Thank you. Uh I also want to express my thanks uh for everything you do for the community. Am I right? Have you been recording some his history videos recently? I I find those so interesting and informative. And another thing that should be highlighted because I've learned quite a bit myself about uh So did we.

Yeah, it's it's incredible. So I recommend everybody go check those videos out. If if somebody from the public is looking to to watch those, where could they go? Oh, there's a YouTube link. So yeah, I can share the YouTube link on our church website and also church Facebook page. So yeah, you can share. Excellent. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Exactly. Come back. Goodbye. There goes our most of our crowd. Right. Here's the true lovers of government still with us. Okay. We don't have any approval of meetings. The initial public comment portion limited to only one item on the agenda. Would anyone like to speak to anything on the agenda? No, we're going to pass that. Okay. No correspondence to file. Uh it is time for committee reports. We started there last time. Let's start down this end. Councilman Camp.

Well, the the the pool commission's meeting is actually Wait. Oh, guys. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. I thought I I went right over that before we even got to correspondence. Before we get to committee reports, we did say we're going to have a discussion about sell service. Okay,

so let's talk about that. Um I'll happy to kick it off. Um as everybody knows, this council did not approve the last round to move forward with with the contract and now we are trying to figure out what we're going to do. Um, I'm going to give you what I've been working on, at least some quick updates on some things and happy to throw open the discussion and see where things go. Um, I did go back to the Pasak Regional High School, Pasak Valley Regional High School to talk with them about the possibility of doing a land swap. The back of the school, actually where the tennis courts is, belongs to the county. It is green acres and I thought that possibly we could trade a little bit of their land for some of our land uh or part of the school land and put the tower up. Unfortunately, uh after we went the BA and I went and talked to uh the board, the board of education in close session and unfortunately uh after speaking with the people who run Green Acres for the county, what we came to determine was that unless the use of the property, even after a swap, is for recreation or conservation, they will not allow it. So, that property became a non-starter. Uh, I'm happy to talk about the other properties. Um, I've been in touch with Verizon as well. I don't know whether I should just give you guys a data dump on what I've got. We can go from there. Uh, I was on the phone with Verizon today. I've been on the phone with them. In general, um, if you'll recall, Pier 4 gave us six potential spaces. So, we voted down the one at Stonybrook. I just said we can't do the one at Pasak Valley

High School. Uh the there's the one in Riverale, which isn't ours to do. It's on a private golf course. So, that became a non-starter. The property at um Hillsdale House they looked at with with mapping and there isn't sufficient land to build on it to to to create that tower there. And they can't and they could possibly put a micro tower on the roof, but that would only serve as a very small area and it kind of defeats the purpose of putting a tower up there. It would be a small tower on the roof just couldn't support a big tower. the Bible church uh unfortunately the Pasc Bible Church is right in front of it's between Piermont and the Holddron Brook and you need to have 50 feet away from a water source in order to build a tower. So there is no place on that land I think you're probably close to 50 feet from the end of where the water is to the street. So there really just isn't a place to build it there. The other location was at Metobrook and that's just I mean that's even moving it closer to the children. Plus I spoke with the board of education president and spoken to superintendent Lombardi and as kindly as they possibly could they declined my request to consider it. So there are now we're talking about possib a couple of other options and we can all talk about everybody's different ideas. Um the Verizon folks were talking about potentially doing um micro towers. They don't know how many they would require. The limitation on a micro tower is that it's only got one provider on a tower. So for let's just for round number

purposes say it's 20. it probably won't be 20 towers to to fix the holy side. Um, if we put one up, we are required to carry everybody else. So, if we did one for AT&T, we'd have to do one for T-Mobile, have to do one for Verizon if they requested, which would mean basically 60 40 foot towers around the east side of town, which probably is it's something to to think about and to talk about. The BA and I last week just as a unofficial check had three cell phones, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. And we drove around to the spots in town on the east side that have proved to be problematic even outside your house way over. Uh, and what we found was that in no in no portion did it did did any of the phones ever get above two bars. So that's just what it is. I mean, that's I guess anecdotal. Um, but some places it was two bars for one carrier and one bar for another or an SOS um, beyond that. So that's the information that I've got now. still hopefully, you know, um, somebody will be able to determine whether or not at Verizon they're interested in doing these 40 foot micro towers. I think it probably is coming down to a situation of location and dollars for them as to whether or not it's something that they want to invest in. Uh, these are not this is not a cheap solution to it. So, I I'm looking at more of the holistic situation. How do we take care of the problem for the entire east side? Um, we've talked about possible solutions for small portions of the area, whether it's going to be Beachwood or the pool or wherever or the schools. Um, I'm not opposed to doing that, but I also want

to make sure that when we if we're going to do something like this and make an investment in this that we cover as many people as possible. Those that's my thinking in this. Um, who would like to add to the discussion? Yeah, I I just had a couple points that I wanted to make with regards to to number one, the location that um that you were vetting with the school 100 which which the high school 100 100 Nicholas right is a 2.7 acre piece of property that's owned by the burrow back there by Seth Gardens. Is that the land? That's not owned by the burrow. That's by the board of education.

It's I thought it was on our tax. lot. The bulk of Sapienza Garden of Ba and I were looking at it in his office on on the screen. To the north and to the east is county where Sapienza Garden is located where the the round table is that is burrow property. So it was I I thought it was like 2.5 acres of land. There was a house there at one point. Uh the house was actually used for a fire department exercise. I I believe that's wetlands. I believe there's a house on I don't know what there is or isn't I mean it's my understanding it's anyone would know it would be it would be

well the RO family because we live there now because you happen to have somebody who who manages the area quite nicely. Yeah. I mean, my wife is on the board of trustees, but she didn't she wasn't aware of the fact that when um her garden, her board of trustees wanted to improve the watering of the the garden. We asked the engineer at the time, Chris Tatiel, to look at what was there. And one of the things that he suggested, he said, "Well, there used to be a house and there probably is a pipe that extends there where you can pick up water." Now, the that that pipe I I've never seen it. I don't know.

Um we didn't get to that point. Um the trustees I felt it was expensive. I mean, I think they it was very expensive to to pick up that water and then to do the to do the connection. Uh the Sapienza garden trustees have to go get water from there's a water pump that's near the uh tennis courts and we have to hook up they have to hook up hoses. I've helped them do it. Okay. um the women who were on the board really aren't able to do that's not power that's not

it's not power but they they had to get water from there so my point being is that yes there was a home there I don't know what what what utilities are still able to be tapped into electric water I don't know um but I'm not so sure that I'm not so sure putting the a tower there though would be well received. I was just curious if that was the land that was going to be swapped. Uh no, the land that was going to be swapped was not Sapienza. There's property

um if you're on top of the if you're there, it would actually be on the west to the immediate west of the football field is a piece of property owned by the board of education. That property would be closer to homes than at Stonybrook if we had done it to Hillsdale residence closer that so we would be trading one for the other to the homes I guess on St. Nicholas and St. Mary's over there west of the football field. You said that property there. There's a property just to the to the if you're looking at it. Yeah, it's where the football just to the west. To the west. That's like beyond the score be behind the scoreboard. I believe that's the case, right? I'm just trying to

So that's that's the board of education's property which is why we were contemplating training for some of it because as I said where the tennis courts are located is Wooddale Commons which is the county property and so we were thinking about a possibly a little piece of land up by where they've got a permanent um portaotty so it' be up in that area up there and then you'd have to talk about we would be running power up there but they made it very clear to me that that that was not going to be an option. So, while we do own probably land in Sapienza, we would we would have to deal with probably the same number of angry

Yeah. I thought it looked on the map it looked like it was off the beaten path. It was 2.7 acres of land. It was sold back in 2008 if the address was 100 St. Nichols. Yeah. But, Councilman, if I can just summarize all this, it's all moot. If the carrier doesn't want to go there, it's it's thought they vetted that piece of property out.

So they looked at them at that whole section and they came up with the six locations. Verizon in writing twice. I have it in writing from them. They are not interested in anything but a macro tower. They don't think anything else will work because of the topography of the town that side of town. May I can share what we're doing here just so we can we're all on the same page. Uh so AT&T has a a contract with the federal government to provide cell service to first responders and government employees. It's on a different frequency in in case of uh it's an emergency storms uh it's on 700 MHz. It'll work even if the tower doesn't work. This will connect to the next tower

but residents cannot for first responders and government employees only. And now they can add it to the schools also. Right. And you just need a pay stub to show that you are in fact a first responder in order. I don't have that. I didn't tell me that. We looked it up. Yeah. Well, the information I have right now. So, what we're doing at Boral Hall right now, we're switching all our phones uh from Verizon to AT&T FirstNet. It's called It's not the regular AT&T that everybody out here can't do this. First can't do this. So, only first responders and government employees. Yeah. Fire department, police officers, ambulance. Only them they can. So we are switching our phones to that service in the same for us for you. No not so

no I don't uh since we don't have a holistic you know plan and Verizon is not interested in anything else but a macro tower. Well they no that's not necessarily the case. They did say that they're looking into so the information I have from them in writing is that. So but as of after we turned that down I spoke with okay them today

also. So maybe they can come up with the Let me So uh AT&T is willing to do do for free to go to the high school and install uh what they call booster pro. It doesn't connect to the tower. It connects to the internet through an Ethernet cable. So they'll put six or seven of these inside uh the ceiling in the high school only and the high school will connect to the and and they'll connect to the internet and the high school will have only AT&T and so so what will end up happening is just so we know from from a peacemail perspective we're going to put a one-third carrier because one of the three major carriers potentially in the high school but that if you live on the east side of town and don't have signal anyway way, you're not able to call in there. And if you're live and if you're a student in there trying to call back out, you still have the same problem. Yes, for the for the people that probably live in the 700 ft

of the high school, if you live there, you probably are going to benefit from it. But from the perspect and if you happen to have AT&T and if you need to call 911, well, that's a different that's a different scenario. I passed it to the high school and the high school is looking at their IT. They're they're concerned about security. So it's between the high school and AT&T. If they are interested, we have the connection to the government, the contact at AT&T. They'll do it for free. If they're not interested, it was a How does this help the not

It doesn't help the res. Also, mayor, uh, Aryium Networks was just just acquired all the assets of Crown Castle, uh, small cell provider, uh, one of the biggest small cell providers. Uh, what they do is, uh, they're backed by private equity right now. They're growing very aggressively. They bought Crown Castle. They bought Crown Castles. Yeah. When was this? Uh, so the deal just closed in May. Okay. So, uh, they have a a goal to grow. Um and this is something that we should make a phone call to to contact their regional uh support. But they do towers. They build infrastructure to host carriers,

right? So they built small cell towers in the public right away. Uh where they would go out there and charter carriers to piggy back on their infrastructure where you don't need 60 towers because they can go ahead and build a service that'll be able to facilitate three three carriers on their for fact. Yes. Yes. So, we have to make the phone call have the introduction. It's it's similar to Munite. Um and their agreement that was made back in 2022 2020 2021. But that's what Area Networks does

and and that's I'm still trying to wrap my head around the MUN site contract that that we have. Um which was you know we started that process um the bureau attorney I mean we started it in 2021 y

and after many meetings to discuss it we we finally got to a to a point where we signed a contract with MUN site with the understanding and they they conferred they they confirmed it with us that the whole idea is that they will serve as sort of the the watchdog or the the gatekeeper. Um they'll help us put up uh small cell towers. 20 ft. 20T's not going to do it. What? 20T won't do it. Whatever you could be more I don't know. But

twice that. But the idea would be that the whole idea of us signing the contract was we didn't want to be subject to individual providers saying well you you gave it to AT&T now you have to put it up for us um you have to put it either on a utility pole or allow us to put an you know another small cell tower around. The beauty of the of the technology was that you could put all three carriers plus the police plus the fire in a in this one tower. Um Mark, if you have if I'm that's my my recollection is that they they leased

or or they actually had a whole list of the coordinates of the tiv inch every location that they they were talking about 40 for the town or 16 for the east side. I believe whole town I said 40 for the 409 for the entire town. Um, and they would strategically place them throughout, but you didn't have to do the whole town if if you have cell towers that way. But so, but so they would act as the middleman, but that still doesn't But we still have to have somebody to be interested. Yes.

Yes. And I mean, I don't think that we know if we were to put out, you know, interest to AT&T and to T-Mobile, um, to do a small cell tower project in that limited area. I wonder what the what the response would be. Well, the way Aryan networks would do it is that they would go out there and identify the coverage gap and that's what they would market to carriers and they wouldn't build it to spec. They would build it to a carrier specific once they got the agreements in place.

That's the way they would work. you you spoke to to AT&T um on a very non-committal basis with respect to what they saw as the the coverage and the lack of coverage. Yes, very consistent with what we saw. So AT&T is basically expressing the same concerns that Verizon has for the lack of coverage in those areas. They did tell me on on the record that their their long-term plan a year from now is to look at installing a tower either in Park Ridge or in Riverdale, not in Hillsdale, that will give signal to that side of town. It's on their white board is what the way said it's to the entire east side of town. Yeah.

And and there's municipal they've identified land that's going to be acceptable. They're working on this right now. So it's they called it the whiteboard. It's on the white board. It's not there's no plan yet. So it's just in the concept that we're talking about it like like they know there's people here are talking to it. Yes. They know there's a gap a gap and they know they need to fix it. Uh we talked about uh maybe taking the cell towers here and making them higher. Can they add more or maybe can adjust uh the antennas? Uh they had their engineers. They had very sophisticated maps that he can't use with me because they're classified for them, proprietary, whatever.

U but uh lots lots of red and they're so sophisticated inside the high school that there is a thousand kids and 200 are in this side within feet when they turn their phone on and tries to connect to a tower it shows a red dot. If it if it connects is a green dot. So, so they have the you know the data and if they have it all the other carriers have it so they can do all the analysis on how many phones actually trying to connect to the tower and fail. Far beyond just the school though because it's not Yeah. So yeah. So they have you'd have to you'd have to take all the way from the end of Ruckman straight across past

it's it's in color the east side exactly where we know the gaps are are in red and orange and then they can zoom in within feet. Okay. So we so we identified the issue. Okay. So we know the but we knew that was an issue to begin with. We did. So the solution is is to have a tower a macro tower somewhere somewhere for them. Not in Hillsdale for them. It's not in Hillsdale for for purposes. So So they also have issues in the other towns. So yeah, in Park Ridgeville.

Well, so I what I'm what I don't understand is if they're talking about a tower, let's say in Park Ridge at some point, even if they clear the tree line, it's I mean I was under the impression that if we if we had one in Stonybrook, we would just get to the end of Ruffman and that you're talking about a mile and a half maximum in perfect conditions for coverage. So, how are they going to be talking about what would if they're in Park Ridge and you want to go towards Hillsdale Avenue or anywhere over further towards Westwood that's further than the technology currently exists

correct mayor so what I was told by their engineer so Verizon focuses on the data on video feed on high speeded data on on bandwidth it is like 3.2 2 GHz. Okay. AT&T and uh I did my home and T-Mobile focus on sound, the voice first and then data. That's why I have AT&T. I can go to Beachwood and make a phone call. I can't on Verizon. But you're doing it you're do you're doing it at two bars at two bars. But I can still make a phone call. And when we were standing in the in the Bible church, it was one bar.

You can make a phone call. How many of you can can operate with one bar? But the point may pay mayor is they focus on data. That's why maybe they can go further. It's it's a different technology. It's a different frequency. I understand. So So cell service is a very ambiguous term from the standpoint of saying is the cell service phone rates or that the diabetes monitor that that may may operate at a higher frequency is able to connect because those are a shorter distance or the heart monitor that's operating not at the lower end of the spectrum but at the higher end of the spectrum. if that can work.

I think for the purpose of of this discussion matter, we don't have a like you said a holistic plan. There's no solution. There's one solution except for the macro tower as we were told by Verizon. Right. The reason I went to the high school is maybe we focus on the smaller ones. Maybe we can do something with beachwood and different different technologies for so they have an outdoor ones also that they can do within. But but at that point then we're talking about a peacemail solution. A peacemail solution by provider. Yes, that's that's I don't know how else you going to solve this. No, unless you get a host carrier, which is Crown Castle or Arium Networks. I just host three carriers, right?

Does that would we have to break our contract with Munisite then? Well, Munices contract I I remember it now. The ordinance was to to to show where to install those towers, those cell sites. So they can't come in and say I want one here in front of this house and one in front of that house. The uh the deal was we had 16 or so locations specific with with coordinates on where they can install them. That was the whole purpose of that ordinance. So they don't you go out and just you spread this all over town.

Right. But what I'm asking is I I seem to remember that there was some concern by the members of the council before you know when we had the discussions and we signed the contract with Munite that what position would that put Municite in? like what? And the conclusion that we reached was we were turning over basically the the the administrative duties to that company um should providers demand to put greater sales service in Hillsdale. Now, nobody's demanding it now and and Verizon didn't demand it. They simply answered our RFQ. But Municight sits in the catbird seat, so to speak. Um, we we I guess the word seated certain responsibilities to them uh in return for service that they give us. Um, and that was a concern at the time,

but we discussed it. We overcame that concern and we moved ahead with the with the contract because we saw towns at the shore doing it. We were warned by lawyers at the league during that convention in that the convention in November prior I guess it was 2021 I remember COVID was still was still big. Um and they warned us about if you don't pass a piece of legislation like this you could be picked off cherrypicked by the by the service providers. you'll end up with utility poles. AT&T here, Verizon here, uh you know, um T-Mobile over here. It looks visually it looks terrible. Um and nobody wanted that,

right? But but I but from what I've read or understand about union sites is that we still I I want to make sure that we don't end up in a situation in which we don't have any backup power to it. that and also that they're a lot of the places that they're looking to do it. I know that MUN sites was was looking at doing it in Franklin Lakes. The issue for us is they call it the Pasak Valley for a reason and they call it Hillsdale for a reason. We have highs and we have lows and to be able to make that connectivity point maybe we may have to go too high for what MU site is offering. I don't know.

I always looked at it as the opposite which was their vision at the time that was explained to us um down in Atlantic City as well as when they came here was that because we are Hills and Dale the the construction of a m of a of a monopole faces certain challenges that a small cell tower approach would not have to overcome. if they can go sort of line of sight to line of sight. No, nothing was said about line of sight. You may be right, but that was not those are those are connected by fiber. You don't need line of sight. They're independent.

Well, some are some are fiber. And first of all, we I mean it's a whole other discussion about whether they're going to lay fiber. But so you signed the contract with beauty site as potentially this panacea, but why didn't anybody ever say, "Okay, now we've got it. Let's actually do something with this. What was the Because no carriers are interested. So no carriers are interested. No one approached us. No one approached us. I mean it wasn't you know we were not No because we

we didn't um identify the pro the gap problem per se at that time. You know it just it wasn't foremost in the mayor and council's mind. Yeah. It was it was a means to just somewhat ensure that we were going to have multiple poles and carriers and it was going to be confined to just the MUN sites. So the question of coverage wasn't really an issue. I I think Anthony is correct. It was effectively a defensive measure, not a coverage measure. Right. Um which are not obviously the same thing.

Correct. So, so the purpose I think if I recall and I don't know how active MI site is or not anymore but the the goal was to assure that we and this was a 2020 fear that we would deluge with these small cell sites and these small antennas all over the place three in each location one for each carrier and that MUN site would handle administration so that wouldn't happen. Nobody ever felt it was to guarantee that we would have more of anything. The purpose was so that we would have less of everything, right?

Um but now emerging three or four years later is this concept of a of a coverage problem in a profound way that affects the school. Maybe I mean we obviously could talk about all night and I think maybe the only thing we'd figure out is the the extent of our ignorance but why don't we get a meeting here with anybody from MUN site if they expected the contract to have any meaning they need to be here they're a stakeholder anybody from AT&T Peter Lupa any committ or individuals from the governing body want to do this.

Well, I mean that seems to me like that's far more bureaucratic than we need to be as opposed to saying we have a deal with site. It seems to me it's a it's a phone call from the BA that says we understand that your job is to consolidate so that we're not dealing with three. You're you're acting as our intermediary. um where how do we go about deploying you and if we do how does that ensure coverage biders to come in and do that?

Sounds great. And also I don't think the contact that we have with Munisite prevents us from going to another provider like Aaron who bought the assets of Crown Castle uh because I think that the public right away is wide open and we can provide master license agreements to these providers. Again, that's I think we have these kinds of discussions should be taking place with certainly with Peter Lup likely with some representative of new. Yeah. And one of Peter Lup's plan as I recall he uh devised a strategy to go with the six small cell uh uh nodes. It only works if somebody's interested in

Yeah, Verizon said no to that. Verizon already said no to it. So whatever I mean we could all come up with these other plans but at the end of the day if the carrier doesn't castle or we spoke to I'm sorry when we spoke to AT&T did we ask them why they didn't bid on the macro tower they didn't think they had an issue there didn't need it they didn't need it. So that's that's the scratch your head thing about this whole thing. They didn't they didn't bid on it for voice. It works for data and for video and bandwidth it's not as good. But for voice they have an issue.

And I understand that there's more of a cost burden for the carriers with some of these small cells. But you know I think we have to continue to push back on that because it's their burden right. It's their business. It's their right. But it's also our residents that I mean you know we're at the point where cell phones aren't a nice to have. We've all become a point where there a need to have that for public safety and everything else that we unfortunately for better or worse we're tethered to. Right. But I think I think it carries responsibility is if they do identify a coverage gap in the area that they do have to provide us the least intrusive way of addressing it. No, they don't. But that touches on something. They don't identify a coverage gap.

Right. In fact, according to every carrier, coverage is great 100%. Well, they don't because what we've learned is that their definition of coverage is at a very low megahertz and a very low bandwidth and one bar seems to be an acceptable number to them. So when the they're required to report to the FCC that we have 100% coverage in the area, one bar constitutes 100% coverage. Now, who here thinks that one bar is sufficient to to live their lives in, you know, in today's society? I know. I know. If it's constant and you get one to two, yeah, you can make the call. The trouble is when you're down to one, you don't get it. You could very well lose the one,

right? And then that and that and losing that one could be as simple as doing this. So you can stand there in the corner with your with your arm getting unbelievably tired and sore because you know if you move two inches to your right, the collar is going to drop. And but is the is the action item the first thing that should happen tomorrow? What is the action item? I would say I would say that if we've already got a contract with them

that we should at least see if they and see whether or not they they actually can offer what we need because unfortunately uh if this were such a great option I think they would have been deployed elsewhere and if it was cost-effective and the carriers were able or willing to do it I don't think we'd be asking why isn't it you know we'd be say great it's deployed here. It's deployed there. We want to get on this as well. I don't I don't I don't I see towers up. I don't see munis throughout Bergen County. Right. So why is that?

So So I have the audience here. Uh the whole thing was about them controlling where the towers the small cell towers would go. That's the whole thing. It was an aggressive marketing on their behalf. They came to all the towns, right? And they said 5G is coming. If you don't control where the towers will go, they'll be all over your town. Might as well have an ordinance that says these are the coordinates that only here they can go. Well, so that's that's fine, but that doesn't do any good if none of the providers want to be carriers or No, and I think you got it right in the sense that both mics, you know, they're the gatekeepers, but they're not but they're not the people walking through the gate.

Right. Right. the the ones walking through the gate have to be the providers or and maybe is there a fourth provider? I don't think anymore, right? So, it's only it's only the three. They don't build SPC communications. SPC communications is the fourth SPC. Yeah.

So, yeah. So, they collect the fees, they look at the application and make sure. So, so let's let's assume because we haven't had great luck with this whole performance that we've been doing that we go to MUN site which is located right here in lovely Midland Park and we say um great we have this deal with you sort of the I hate to do field of dreams if they build it if you build it they will come um what is their ability to say attract a carrier or two to it because I think if you get one, you'll get more. But but I mean, if this were if this were a viable solution, I kind of think it would be deployed

or or m they might say, "Well, you signed us to a deal by the gatekeepers, but you we have to have to attract the have to attract it. It's not their audience. It's not their responsibility." I get it. But but but they may have they may have contact. they should be the con the positive conduit because they're not making any money and they're not getting out to deploy if we don't have a carrier. So they're a business without a solution at that point. Right. But if a municipite or an area networks can uh finance the infrastructure, it's going to be a lot easier for a carrier to hop onto it than them building the I think I don't think we have any idea what the numbers are going to look like and how it's done yet. I mean we don't we don't know their business model.

We don't know their business model. So we can't we can't state other than we know that we have one company that is supposed to be able to by you know GPS coordinates go mayor. So we're going almost in a circle. Yeah. So we called I called site spoke to Matt Watkins one who John knows Matt Watkins referred us to Glenn Pearson which is how we got Glenn and Glenn Pearson has contacts with Verizon and all that. So, we've done this circle already. To go back to Munite, they don't build. They just like you said, they're the the gatekeeper. I don't think they'll help. I'll call them. It's Matt Bark. Same same.

Okay. So, but so we're going to what I don't want to end up in is the same situation in which we have our sites even down to a T whether it's 20 40 or 60 of them and still nobody that wants to actually service then we've got then we've got nothing

regardless. And that's why I'm trying to do the meal piece maybe until someone comes in and says if you want signal that's the only way I see now unless no one's going to come and build the 1516 ones or the macro tower which we don't want the peace meal. Alo in Beachwood they could do you know peace meal there's high school they could do beach u peace meal the residents in that side of town maybe there's another technology that that they have I didn't ask him about that well it was my understanding that the the range of service is not great with doing that anyway I mean nothing opposed to it but it's not like it's going out a quarter of a mile in every direction you're talking about several hundred feet

600 so these things go up to 600 600 you're going 600 what things are Those Mike I'm sorry what you said those things get what it's called u uh booster AT&T booster pro it connects to the internet what is it is it a no no it's a it's it's a box just like that box okay that that that sits in the ceiling and emits a signal that's connected to uh the internet through a cable ethernet cable and they would go where in the school in in the school but you're not putting that in Beachwood Good. They're looking at beachwood too. Four outdoor say. So that's for indoor. They have four outdoor.

So we're then talking about an entire wiring because that would have to be hardwired because we have no service connectivity. No. So they so they have to look at that and the and and one solution as you're talking maybe on the east side of town if if if one house puts this and and can and and and can bring in six seven neighbors into it and every few houses until you know the problem is that I'm really not in favor of having

the public be forced to to carry a solution on their shoulders because we can't come up with one. I mean, to me that seems like I mean, why? We can't come up with a solution. So, we're going to say spend $600 for a box and pay for free. AT&T or, you know, the carrier will do it for free and then there's no service charge for it at all on a monthly basis. They connect to their internet. So, their internet charge, they want the service. They want their they they want to maintain the subscribers and it would have to be an open bandwidth. And how would it I mean there's so many questions with that because now you've got a car driving down the street and is it hopping from signal to signal? I mean, you know,

I I can ask if you want I can ask the AT&T engineers to come and talk to us. Well, I I suppose that's certainly a possibility. I mean, you know, I, as I said, I'm not really in favor of doing this part, this part, this part for one provider for AT&T. I mean, you know, and and not have it for everybody. Yeah. In business, we used to say it's not an elegant solution. Well, it's not elegant. But but is it workable? I don't even know.

Well, that's what I meant. If it's it could be workable, but just not not the way ideally that you'd want to see it. Um but the the the counter to that is that in order to put what some believe is the elegant solution, which is the monopole in Stonybrook or anywhere, um it it's it's going to devalue property and have raise other issues. Well, I mean that that's speculative, right? I mean, we we've had that. Well,

you know what? We we look I we we have to go into all this stuff, but we know that we have a tower right out here and there are homes right in this area that people aren't saying, "I'm not going to buy here because there's a tower over there." We have the ambulance service on the other side of here between here and Washington with a tower that's in that lot and the new construction homes all sold over ask price. So, we can talk about anecdotal, but I don't know. But I but I don't know that we can. We're all speculating.

Yeah. Right. To a certain extent. Yes. And and you know, real estate agents have told me both in Westchester and here because of our of our intense uh you know, density density. All right. Bergen County in Westchester that uh you know if you if you plop a cell phone tower anywhere next to a residential area you'll get anywhere from a 3 to 8% drop in the value of of homes. Now that's that's that's anecdotal. That's anecdotal, right?

There's there's been a couple of studies but not in not in the the New Jersey. But you could also make the opposite argument of saying, and I don't know why we're kind of going down this path because we've already been there, but I just say that you could also make the argument that how many people walk into a home and say there's no service. I wouldn't buy a home here. So, I mean, you know, it kind of cuts both ways and I don't have the answer to that. I don't know. And I don't think that anecdotally is going to get us anywhere. We we've been No, no. This is helping to move this forward a little bit. If you want, I can ask AT&T rep to come and engineer to come in. They know a lot uh about the technology and how this whole thing works. I can I can ask them to do that. I have on my notes here to call Crown Castle and and admite. Uh

you would you would ask for the castle governor. You would Aryiam networks you would ask for the regional government affairs rep. Is it Arian or Aaron? A r i m i. Okay. They build it, but Crown Castle has to pay for it. Before they were purchased, Crown Castle did not bid on on the monopole. Yeah, but there wasn't there was an envelope received by American Tower that did come in late. We weren't able to open it, but there was somebody else there. Okay. But it was still for the same location anyway.

Yeah. I'm just saying that that was another third party carrier. Wasn't wasn't it wasn't crown car. But but the American Tower is another one as opposed to Crown Castle. Okay. I haven't heard any carrier say to us yet that they want anything other than a monopole. I'm not advocating for it. I'm just saying that I want to be able to set our expectations that there isn't anybody that has said, you know, micro towers, let's build them tomorrow. I'm all for it. You know, I haven't I haven't heard that from anybody. But but then again, the municipality didn't ask for anything but a monopole. Well, we asked for solutions for it.

I don't think that's No. No, the resolution that got right was for monopole, right? But but in in speaking to the providers there, I mean, there hasn't been any interest in those micro towers. Yeah, there's 250,000 micro towers in the country. Again, I know plenty of council people in Cliffsite Park. That's what they're propagating in those areas. Cliff Park, Fort Lee, that's what they're doing now. They're not they're not uh even entertaining.

And maybe I guess that Well, then why is I would ask what is the model that makes it attractive for a carrier to go there and not to us? I think it's be and again maybe councilman also knows a little more but I think it's because those two towns you cite what Fort Wayne cliff side my mother's grew up cliff side you look at them and all you got is hills and valleys are steeper than what we have here probably is far worse monopoles probably are not going to work you'd probably have to put monopoles all over the place and it would really look bad and I'm sure you know the mayor in cliffside park is not wouldn't have agreed to that so

that's why they've got what they've that um ours is a little more subtle in terms of the topography.

Uh I may be in the minority, but I struggle with our role as mayor and council to provide self service for the community. I I understand the safety aspect of it and if we could cover that aspect like around the schools and it sounds like AT&T for first responders does that well but I just don't know that we're in the business of providing cell phone service for everybody and and so I I think there's we have some areas to explore and maybe they'll bear some fruit but it may very well be that at this point in time there isn't a viable solution. Well, there there was a viable solution. We voted it down. Well, so it's not like it wasn't viable for some of us.

No, no, no. I understand. But but as far as a but as far as an a system that would work that was someone interested in providing it, that did exist. Yeah. But but we don't have that with the microtype. But it existed because it was the path of least resistance for Verizon, not for the Well, I I guess you could make that argument. But you could also say that ver that AT&T and T-Mobile didn't, you know, they didn't bid on it because it's because they were going to piggy back because they don't perceive they have a problem. I think that they were going to piggyback on it and the people that do most of the building, but but but but Verizon then lowered lowered the height of the tower, which would exclude AT&T T-Mobile from being and being being effective.

Yeah, they dropped it down 120 ft. And no, no, wait a second, guys. Let's let's talk about what what the point to it was. At 150 ft, they were able to be lower. There's a ramp, a slope to the parking lot. Yeah. So, at the lower point, they were be at 150 ft and could take three carries. If they're going to raise up 30 ft because they're going to build it by the entrance of it, then you're still going to be the same actual height at 120 and 150 because of the ground and you could still carry three carriers, but they they explicitly said it in the meeting that if they came down to 120, they couldn't guarantee that the other carriers would benefit from being on,

right? So, they were they were going to put up they were going to do first of all, we had the discussion with them afterwards to say we didn't want it by the front entrance. We wanted it down below and it would have to go up higher anyway. That would have been a discussion for the planning board had we gotten there. But it was also that they were going to do it with an extension so that we could build it at whatever height and extend it up the feet to make sure that we have extra carriers on it because that's the problem we've got here and at the uh and at the uh DPW. We have two towers. We have two towers downtown for that very reason that we did not build the first tower high enough to accommodate the three carriers. So, and you have to carry. So, if we built one at 120 and couldn't accommodate three carriers and somebody else came on and said, "No fair, you have to car cover us as well." We would have been building a second tower at a higher height. That that's that's my point is that the 120 wouldn't have been adequate from multiple carriers because you would have been you would have been elevated by the

I can only tell you what Verizon said in the meeting. So I understand that's your opinion but I know what I heard in the meeting.

We might have to go back to the meeting because I think the engineers did specify that that was the lowest that they could lower the poll to ensure that they could still get the other carriers on the meeting. That's what I heard. So we I mean we should just I mean we should figure that out. But um to to the point, I mean, I think it's great that we um can secure um a little better safety by getting service for our um emergency service workers, but I would think that if uh people with uh lack of service can't contact those emergency service workers, like we heard from the public uh last week, um somebody had to run out into their uh the middle of the street to to make a phone call while there was a medical Um then you know it's it's moot. You know if if the residents can't contact an emergency situation then um you know it's it's does us no good that emergency service workers can't contact.

Would you So would you like me to ask AT&T engineers to come and talk about the technology in general? We only heard from Verizon specifics. I I wouldn't want I don't know about you guys, but what I would prefer to do is have that you have that discussion as opposed to waiting a month and especially when we start getting into a point where we only meet once a month now because it's the summer coming up. So in order to keep things going forward, I would say that that meeting should take place with you and them and report back to us in whatever way we can so that we can so that by the time another meeting comes along, we're further down the road than if we have to sit and wait for them to show up at a meeting. Fine. Yeah, that's fine.

Does that make sense? That's fine. Yep. I'll send you an update as I get. And uh we're actually having calls every day now just because We're migrating our phones to them. I'll ask uh so just so I know what uh what to ask you're looking to see uh first of all how to get service to the homes how to have the residents have service and AT&T it's well whatever it is is there a holistic solution that they would be willing to deploy that they could deploy

and that would be the first question then the next question would be is that something that is isolated to only AT&T or is there is there a way that whatever we do we can replicate twice more and Mike would AT&T be interested in small cells in the area doesn't have to you know be left only to Verizon okay freezing

she's cold So just just one other question and if you're talking again I would ask him why so that we have an answer as to why they did not bid on the monitor. Is T-Mobile going to be included in this or I'm only talking to AT&T because of the first responder frequency. Okay. Why did they not bid originally on the Okay. Regardless of what the answer is at least one. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Any questions that come to mind? You can send me an email later on. It's not uh

I I yeah I I as I said what I don't want to have happen is we end up just waiting and to do something and then we get half an answer in June and then we're only meeting once in June and we're talking about it again in July. And that's fine. If you think of any questions just

Michael Yeah. The only thing I'd say is I remember that um when we received an email from uh Peter Lup, you shared those results with uh Verizon and they had a more technical analysis as to why the small sales service wouldn't work and they kind of laid laid that out. So if that you could use that to kind of inform your questioning with AT&T to to kind of share that why they thought it wasn't going to work. Well, again to to Councilman Camp's point, um I think that Peter Lup wasn't trying to address the entirety of the coverage gap. I think he was trying to address a good part of it uh in his solution that he modeled with six uh small cells. So

I guess ter good part of it is subjective because I don't know if if we're talking about just the schools, is that a good part of it? Well, I think whatever I think also one bar and two bars is also subjective too. Well, I agree. Okay. Anybody out here think that two bars and one bar is an acceptable level of self- service? Only in public commentary. You can come up in public commentary and let us know. All right. So, I think we've given the BA his direct ability to make a phone call or play Call of Duty. Uh, all right. So, let's move on to unless there's something else that I' I've missed. Does anybody else feel like there's something they'd want to say? Okay. Let's move on to committee reports. We'll start down here with Councilman Camp.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh there we we don't have a lot uh today. Um the pool meeting is is scheduled for tomorrow. So I plan to have a more substantial update. Um I just remind as always the um the residents to uh register today and that's there's going to be an open house at Stonybrook this weekend. Uh it's a great time to check out the facility and sign up. And even if you did sign up, you can go and get your picture taken and uh get adjust get all that stuff taken care of for for your passes for the year. Is that it? Yep. How does registration say that? How does registration look? Registration.

Oh, the last I've talked to Patty, the registration's been consistent um with the previous year. Okay. Yep. Pretty much. Okay. Councilman D. Rosa.

Uh bulk of my report was last meeting. However, the local board of education met last night. That's Smith, um Melbrook, and George White. Um it was their May meeting where they usually wrap up the school year. Uh they recognized three teachers of the year, one from each of the schools, and also several retiring teachers. Um several students were also recognized for their accomplishments, including student artists whose work will be featured in the Bergen County Clerk's 2027 calendar. And there is one uh young lady from Hillsdale who will be represented on one of the months in that calendar. That's all I have. Okay, you're up.

Yeah. Uh just a quick update uh from our last police committee meeting uh specifically our officer on loan. Uh the program allows one of our officers an opportunity for extensive field work outside of Hillsdale. It is a great opportunity for our officer to gain experience. In exchange, our bureau gets to share in funds forfeited in cases where our officer has worked. The full-time cost of our officers officer has been recouped, and the burrow will also benefit extensively. Uh it's anticipated that gains will be over $100,000. Uh those funds are used primarily for vehicles, community policing, and equipment. Uh and it's great to see our officer uh contributing uh to areas outside of the burrow.

Okay. Council Gleti.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, start with the fire department. April, they had 22 calls versus 26 in April of the prior year. Uh, this is the second consecutive month where we've been slightly lower than the prior year, but still we're running slightly higher in total year to date. Uh, planning board next meeting is May 14th and the last meeting April which was on April 28th, uh, we they memorialized 1C variance for an ad level on St. Nicholas and they had a hearing for a Dvariance uh which is adding residential apartments on the second level of the existing retail on the corner of Hillsdale and Winkler Way. Uh it's important for the council to know more about about these improvements for this particular plot. Uh because this is again across from the west lot. We currently have the barber shop in there, deli, dry cleaners, nail salon. Um, and this is probably going to be seen as part of the further beautifification of of of town and a significant investment made by the owner. Uh, they're also proposing on that ad level they're putting on to that retail outlet three two-bedroom apartments. Uh, and they're going to add parking for all of the apartments there. So, they're going to have

behind behind the behind the building. That's 11 spots, right? In total, they're going to do do 11 spots. Yeah, I think one is just a relocation on the street maybe or Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, one of the variances uh is also a height variance and that's to accommodate some decorative roofing that they have in the design as well as a proposed clock tower on the corner. Uh, and uh, the owner already has had numerous meetings with the economic development uh, committee over the past year as well as with uh, burough officials. So, the next hearing on that will be May 26. And of course, the mayor and I have to recuse ourselves at these meetings because it is a devariance.

Councilwoman Vasach is not here tonight. You are clean up. I'm a lousy baseball player. Well,

access for all um held their art show at the library on May 7th. It was well attended uh by the special uh needs artists and their families. Awards were given out to the many artists who contributed their artwork and still up there. It'll be up there for another week or two weeks, I think. Uh so if you go to the library, it's on the basement level. Uh that meeting room. Uh quite impressive. Special thanks to Ruda Fino and Gia Schneider for making it all possible by their planning and contribution of their time and their talents to arrange the event. They did a great job. Also, special thanks to our library director uh and their and his staff for their cooperation in making the space available. The next meeting for access for all is going to be May 18th. Board of Health, um, I reported on at the last mayor and council meeting. Um, they will have a meeting on May 19th at 7 p.m. here in the Burough Hall. The seniors have their lunch at the Hillsdale Community Center on um, senior lunch coming up. I think it's not this Thursday, but the next Wednesday. I didn't put the right date down. Oh, I did. Um,

their senior lunch is May 20th at 11:30. Uh, Italian panini sandwiches and a dessert will be served, but they also have a Forever Young program coming up May 14th, which is I believe this Thursday and that's at 11:30 in the Hillsdale Community Center. Um, the regular senior lunchons, as I just keep repeating because Patty Patty asked me and she's it's a difficult administrative thing to I guess execute properly. uh not not because she's failing on it, but because I think the seniors don't always follow the instructions. Uh it's open to all seniors that the lunch program $3 donation, but they have to let Patty know at least four days in advance uh before they uh they're attending. Otherwise, Patty orders food and either too many seniors show up or not enough seniors show up and we have excess food or too much or not enough food. So, it's important that they let let her know. And finally, the finance committee since the budget has been adopted. Um, so having regular meetings to review expenditure levels and provide initial guidance to the BA and the CFO, uh, subject to ultimate approval by the mayor and council, these meetings will resume. Our next meeting is going to be May 27th. That's all.

Very quickly, Mr. Mayor, uh, the transition to Prime Point for our payroll system uh, is progressing. Uh we cleaned up a lot of uh old data. Uh so we're back on track. Uh we're all happy to see that. Uh Memorial Field is moving forward. They're installing the drainage system now. And in about two weeks, the field will will be flat. It will begin to take shape. The fieldhouse is being cleaned and remodeled uh with the help of the sport commissioners and coaches. And uh that should be uh completed when uh the field is completed. The one delay I can foresee now is the playground. Uh it may go in phases. Just one is the funding. Uh two uh we had a choice of of of the flooring having a first class flooring or having something that will would have to be replaced again. We're spending $6 million on this thing. Might as well do something right. Uh so we may have the floor first uh and and some play equipment and then phase two next year we can come back and add more equipment to it. That's the only uh hiccup that I I foresee as of now. Um but we'll see if we have enough money left over or changes. We can have the whole thing done. That's what I have. Okay.

And I have to say over the last couple of days they've really stepped it up. Yeah. you uh in about a week or so once it's all flat. Uh so they go in about six feet or so and they put those yellow drains. They are they're hollow. They get filled with water during storms and then slowly drain out. Once that's done and it's all flat. That's it. Next is carpet and laying it all out. It looks like that wall in Washington's completed too. It's almost complete. Yeah. Y and they back filled it. Yep. Yep. They'll be bringing uh probably 30 truckloads of uh of new soil to fill the back for uh for all new plantings.

Do you foresee any change orders that may arise? We may have that ask. Yeah, it's a difficult question. I can't say on the record, no. There is always going to be there might be one for the cameras just because we don't have uh the polls. We different polls. Uh but it won't be uh substantial. Thank you.

Okay. Uh we're going to move on to the consent agenda. R 26131 through R26148. Does anybody on the council have anything they want to move to the non-consent agenda? Seeing none, can I get a motion to accept to pass the consent agenda? Motion. Is there a second? Second. Wow. All those in favor? I.

Anyone opposed? Nope. Okay. Consent agenda has passed. There's nothing off consent. So, it's time for the public comment. Limited to three minutes on any topic you would like. Um, please state your name and town of residence for the record. Who would like to be noticed? Come on up, Jerry Bey. Hi, Jerry Bey, 64 Westdale Avenue, Hillsdale. Um, I wanted to thank all of you for the conversation tonight about where we're at with the cell tower. It was actually very informative and I look forward to further discussions. Um, I do just want to state that I think it's interesting that prior to the mono tower at Stonybrook being voted down, this room was full of naysayers on a regular basis. um this seems to not be the um occurrence tonight. I hope people are watching on YouTube or plan to watch um and that they continue to be concerned about this issue in town. Um it really is a health and safety issue. Um uh and um for um Anthony D. Roza, I I just want to say I'm I'm I I understand your your thing about that. Why does the town have to do this uh provide cell service? But um the health and safety part I I know you understand that on um that it is a really a big concern. uh when the ambulance can't contact people on their radios and have to use cell phones, um it will be that would be a great thing that they can call um the hospital or call um the police department with an AT&T um phone or server or whatever. But um it really uh does continue to be a a a real concern

when they cannot when the the community the citizens in in our community cannot contact 911 themselves. Thank you. Thank you. Who else would like to be recognized? One down, one up.

Rick Ceino. First thing I' I'd like to thank the council for entering into the agreement for the styrofoam program. This Saturday will be the kickoff for the um the I'll call it a mutual agreement with Ridgewood to send the styrofoam and uh so bring all your styrofoam in. Um it's been a long time coming and we've been paying to bring it to Pump and Lakes. Um so that's good. Um, second thing is while I was sitting, while I was listening, I did some research on Google Earth and uh the burough tax maps. The Sapienza Gardens does have a sewer main about 50 60 feet going north south from the end from the end of uh the pavement at St. Nicholas. I don't know if that's limits what can go in there. It's also in a hollow. So the monopole probably has to be taller

to to have the same effect as what the other what Stony Brook would have been. And the last thing I'd like to just explain a little better what J my wife was speaking of. I I was on the ambulance. I've been on an ambulance for 30 years. I've retired from it. But what happens when you're in the you have a patient? There's two mean two ways to communicate to the hospital to the emergency room. There's a radio but recent years that's discouraged. The everyone listens to the radio. It's not private and the preferred method is to call the emergency room on a cell phone and we cannot the ambulance cannot reach the hospital the ER doctor from the east side of town. they have to wait until they drive. Um, or if you're in somebody's house and you need some help, you know, the radio, you can relay through the repeaters, but it's not, you know, again, it's a public radio. Everyone in the world is listening to that. Um, you know, and I promise I'm going to come every meeting when I'm in town. I'll be away next, maybe next time, but and point out another public safety reason why we need this. Last week I spoke about the three-year-old with the uh head bleed and mom couldn't call out. The ambulance cannot call out. It's a problem. And you know when it's a serious issue, um you're kind of got sitting there waiting trying to get through to a doctor and get real get some more guidance for what to do with your patient. What hospital should we go to? Should I take this patient to Valley which has a heart unit or may to the trauma center? Um most of our crew chiefs will will make

that judgment call but not you know sometimes you you you want to have that backup of being able to call in. This is what I've got. And I've on quite a few of my calls over time, I've asked I've asked the hospital, can I bring this patient there? And they said and they would say, "No, we don't have that specialist on call." One was a um severe amputation. Um obviously it want that that they wanted to go to Valley and I called and they couldn't handle it. Um but not having a cell sell cell service is a problem. Okay. Thank you. Thank you,

Mike. Could the ambulance uh resources use first like in the meantime like so we are changing everything to uh the first net first responders first net. Yeah. Okay. Who else would like to be recognized? And the final comment actually don't have any complaints. We don't complaints comments. You don't have to have complaints to speak to us. Your name, please.

Yeah, my name is Aiti Sen. I live on 39 Grove Street near seeing my kids school getting redone completely. So hopefully I'm sure it's going to be a great project. But today I'm here actually to propose a couple of things for the town. Um I think it'll add value to our residents as well as attract um more um I guess good name for our town. The first one is I'm an avid uh gardener and I actually I used to be on I mean I knew married very well. We used did our community garden for several years here uh in in uh near what's the name of the park? Mr. Anir, huh?

Mspirit or

mix spirit park. Yes. But so every year when the frost comes in, my house becomes a little forest because I bring all the big plants inside my house and it's okay. My I mean I I can negotiate with my family members but the plants don't do very well actually inside a dry house. So what I was thinking, what if we had a community greenhouse for winter from frosted to frostate where us the residents could bring our plants and keep it and you know maybe we'll take care of it. We'll take we volunteer it and we started and this is my friend friend Kathy Kathy Abney. So she was she's also very um plant lover. So we were talking about it. At first we thought, how about the place right next to the library? You know, there's a big spot and could we do something over there so that we can keep the plants in winter. Then we thought, well, that means money. You have to spend something to make it. Who knows what the zone? I know it's a flood zone whether it'll let you construct anything or not. Even proposing it may be too much. So we thought, what about we have Stonybrook which is closed from September through May. What if we could take a part of the Stonybrook and make a space for a a winter greenhouse for the plants? And I don't know what it takes, what the logistics would be, how it's going to be done, but it would be a huge service to the plant lovers. And I think we would be happy to have such a thing in our town. So that's one thing of course.

So the second thing is a little different thing. So for the longest time I thought what if this is a has got nothing to do with any facility or anything. What if we had we planted because one of the things as in you know kind of somebody who loves and follows some of the environmental issues monarch butterflies are having a hard time finding uh migratory routes and they're all this global warming has like basically messed it up a little bit. So my proposal is what if we made uh planted plants like butterfly bush and other things that attracts monarch butterflies all through the town in some ways and within couple of years it might attract the monarchs to become uh my hillstale could become a migrator on its migratory path and my vision is what if it happens

ma'am you just have to wrap up your past three minutes Oh, I'm sorry. Quick, if your friend would like to be the next person to talk about it, but your Yeah, maybe your three minutes have expired. Huh? Your three minutes have passed. Okay. Would somebody else like to be recognized? Yes, I would like to be recognized. Okay, come on up. You've got three minutes. Thank you for your attention. Sure.

Kathy Ebony, 38 Pascro. I will finish. Um just the idea of planning plants that would attract butterflies specifically and it could be long-term tourist attraction bring people into the town in some sense and then they could shop at our restaurants and I mean shop at our stores and eat at our restaurants. You get the idea and I think maybe starting the planting and I know Tracy Hansen is on the environmental committee knows a lot about it. Start in the public the schools here, Stony Brook, etc. So, that's basically our proposal. Milkweed is the plant that that Yes. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your coming down for that. Thank you very much. Anybody else like to be recognized?

No. Okay. Uh we will close the public comment section and move on to council comments. Um, I thank every I I once again thank everybody who came here to speak who came in here to listen knowing that we're going to have a discussion about cell service. Want to again recognize the United Methodist Church for their 150th anniversary. I don't think Yeah. No, we'll be before that. Um, and thank everybody up here for I think uh an informative discussion um and and having potentially some ne next steps to see how we can advance this this issue. Uh so thanks everybody. That's pretty much my comments. Uh I started there before we'll go down with

you get to thank you. Um, Shopright celebrated u all of its employees at the Hillsdale store today who worked hard to generate over $8,000 in donations for feeding those who don't have sufficient food. Uh, and it's a it's a joint effort with the Wake Fern Corporation and General Mills. Uh, the mayor, Councilman D. Roza and I attended uh to congratulate the general manager and Sasha, I can't pronounce his last name. And then Jack Callahan. Jack Callahan. They're both great people. Uh who for the second year in a row finally managed or did manage to achieve the store's goals and get their pictures on the boxes of Cheerios. Um so if you go there, look for the Cheerio boxes with their their picture on it. Uh Larry and Sarah who owns the Shopright chain, uh he was there along with his family and corporate executives to celebrate. Uh for as many years as I've been on council, I think we all know this, the Ensura family has been very generous to us in so many different ways um committing literally thousands of dollars to support recreational programs, uh our our concert series. Um so it's no surprise that they do this. Uh so patronize them as much as you can. Um then the last thing, Memorial Day ceremonies are coming up. Um the scouts I I always get them confused. I think it's troop 108 is going to have their their breakfast in the Episcopal 109. Thank you, Miss B. Um at the at the Episcopal Church at 7 a.m. Uh the ambulance corps will have its uh mini I call it a mini ceremony at at uh 8:30, the fire department at 8:45, and the police at 9:00. Then the main event is the American Legion uh ceremony in Veterans Park that occurs at 9:30 and then that f that's followed by the parade at 10:30. Um as if any encouragement is needed, I will ask all

the residents to come out and uh and participate in as many of these activities as they can. I will see you there. Councilman Kleti, thank you mayor. No comments tonight. No comments tonight. I want to thank you very for putting us on topic on my discussion on the agenda tonight. Uh I think that they're they're tough conversations. I think there's a lot of opinions on here on on how to move forward and uh what we can and cannot or should or shouldn't do with this. Uh but I'm committed to trying to provide better coverage uh on the east side of town and uh I'll work tirelessly to getting that for the residents.

Council D. Rosa. Uh last meeting I had spoken about the benefits of the redevelopment at um the Piermont. I had left out in addition to uh adding um u leaving the tax burden um and adding a free community center. I forgot to mention that it also um met our uh statemandated quota for affordable housing which was another big plus. Uh and on Memorial Day, uh again, Monday, May 25th, uh Memorial Day, Memorial Day being different from Veterans Day. Veterans Day is where we honor and remember all those who served. Memorial Day is a more solemn remembrance of those who gave their lives in service to our country. Um it's sort of a dichotomy of a day because it is that remembrance part, but it is for a lot of us the unofficial start to summer as well. So, um, the burrow has, I think, over the years refined how we celebrate both those and it's it's developed into, as um, former mayor mentioned, the three ceremonies at the emergency services, uh, and then a a remembrance in Veterans Park. Um, and that's the remembrance park, and then we kick it off with the with the parade as well. So, um, I I encourage uh, everybody to come out. It's one of those days I really enjoy in Hillsdale. It's baseball, hot dogs, apple pine, Chevrolet. Um, you know, it's a cross-section of of the United States and it's a I enjoy the day. So, hopefully you'll be out either marching or or watching and pray for good weather, too. That's all I have.

Council G.

Yep. Few things. Um, I'd be uh remiss if I didn't bring up again our recognition of National Public Works Week. uh any reason to celebrate our amazing DPW department after, you know, the the seasons that we've had. I'm I'm just fullthroatedly for supporting them and uh all the great things that they do for this community. Um, I also wanted to highlight something that I that I've been seeing online that um a great way to perhaps start off your Memorial Day weekend is by checking out uh something a former uh resident is coming back home to do. His name is Jake Prussia. He's uh doing a benefit for uh military mental health and the wounded warrior project. and he's it's a really amazing story where he's been running 10 miles a day for 50 days straight. He had a little bit of an injury in there and I think he's still been getting it done by walking and he's uh coming into the end of it uh at the Pasak Valley uh track I believe. I have to reconfirm that. But he's he's going to be doing that here in the community. Uh his family is still here. There's going to be other members of the community participating and I believe they're inviting anybody who else wants to to uh join them. So, I think that is a a great way to um honor the get get everything started off for Memorial Day.

That's it. Great. Thank you. Um seeing no other business before this body, can I get a motion to adjurnn? Motion. Second. Second. Those in favor? We are adjourned until 7 p.m. on June 6th in this chamber. Thank