Council - Regular Meeting

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as pursuant to that now requires the pursuance of public law. A copy is also posted on the vote to vote outside of this meeting room and provided to any interested parties. Please silence your cell phones, which I just did because I don't feel any of that. And we can be recognized by the mayor during the public hearing. The public comment portion of the meeting. You will need to state your name and town of residence for the record. Will the clerk please read the roll?

Mayor Sheinfield? Here. Council Member Camp? Here. Council Member Colletti? Here. Council Member DeRosa? Here. Council Member Mazetian? Here. Council President Rosso? Here. Council Member Rucco?

Here. Okay, we're going to move to the approval of minutes from the special meeting on June 15th. That's the one we did on Zoom. If you've had a chance to review it. And when you're ready, if someone would motion it.

Motion.

Second.

Second.

Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The minutes have been approved. It's the initial public comment time. This one is four items on the agenda, one topic per customer, per speaker. Would you like to be heard, sir, on the agenda? This one's on the agenda. After we're done with the agenda, we're going to open it up for a wide range of things. Okay, great. Having seen nobody else in there, we're going to move on. correspondence. We have two pieces of correspondence to file from the principal of the St. John's Academy School asking for a SLEO and an email regarding the rise in our taxes. Can I get a motion to receive?

Motion.

Second? Second. Those in favor? Aye. Is there anyone opposed? Mr. Mayor, question? Yes.

What was the outcome of Ann Mitchell's request?

We can go into that. We're trying to move forward, and I believe we're close to it, aren't we?

Yes. If I may. Go ahead. Yeah, sure. If that assists. We've exchanged agreements. I was on the phone with their person today about putting a little meat on the bones, and that is, I would tell you we're a couple days away.

okay but inclined to agree oh i think it's a given that it's just a matter of now papering it a little bit right right yeah thank you it always comes down to the dollars it's coming down to who's going to pay for what who's going to go for what who's reimbursing a lot et cetera but it's moving along very nicely okay uh we're gonna move on to the professionals reports um okay so how about the guy who's got e-bikes going in uh next week maybe he wants to talk first chief

Thank you. So we're going to cover the monthly report for June 2026. Our community policing, they did a 5K at the farm event. Thank you for everyone that attended. Went over very well. We did the New Jersey torch run. I think we spoke about it last meeting, but we covered project crash was in June. So I mentioned in this report. um went over very well with the high school that's been going on for multiple years now we also did a chief for the day program uh amazing young lady came in and thank you all for participating have her up here she had a great time she actually come back to the department since and visited a couple of times so it's you know very nice uh for traffic and patrol we had 785 calls for service 113 motor vehicle stops 29 motor vehicle accidents 21 selective enforcement details We did 10 parking enforcement details, responded to 68 medical calls. We issued 55 written warnings, 27 summonses. We had one adult arrest and 118 property and security checks. Our detective bureau investigated 46 cases. They closed 27 of them, one of which resulted in an arrest and a charge. And our firearms investigation unit conducted nine investigations.

Since I led into it, I'll ask. I saw you guys have put out on social media an alert that the e-bikes are going into effect, the new state regulations. Correct, yep. Do you have any comments on it? I mean, obviously you guys are prepared for it.

Yep, we're prepared for it. We just would like to, as we said in our social media post, parents do your due diligence and register these bikes, insure them. There's Title 39 violations for that now.

When they register them, are they registering them locally or with the state?

With the DMV.

Okay, so they have to go to the NBC to register them.

It's not a traditional license plate. It's going to be a sticker on these bikes.

Highly visible so that you guys won't have any problems identifying them?

Yep, it'll be visible. If the motor vehicle stop happens, they have to be able to provide a valid driver's license, whether it be a moped license. If they're 15 or 16, if they're 17, they're required to have a motorcycle license.

motorcycle license not just a regular driver's license yeah it needs to have the uh endorsement so if if any one of us who doesn't have to have a motorcycle license we would have to in order to ride one we'd have to have one yeah honestly i know i do i know your husband's got his own but you have to be over 17. yeah yeah it goes for the specific uh the motorcycle version of it so the little m next

the higher yeah yes the highest end of the i don't remember the exact wattage but it's the ones that go over i believe it's 50 miles an hour it's the okay it's the essentially an electric motorcycle no pedals nothing like that so they put them sort of like um equal to the motorcycle yeah that's here the ones you see every day or mostly every day they're still considered e-bikes yep but uh the the highest tier is they you know they travel as fast as a traditional vehicle but if you if you just had if you were

any long contemporary sort of driving around riding around on the on a traditional e-bike that doesn't have you're fine yeah you're okay with that as long as you have a driver's license correct yeah yep the actual motorcycle version of that you know once you're accelerating past the whatever it is the rpms correct actually it's a different thing yeah like i said i believe it's 50 miles an hour or greater yep chief if you impound one of these bikes how does it then get released

Same as a vehicle. You've got to show proof of insurance, a valid driver's license, and registration.

Do we have a place to keep these?

Yeah, I mean, we can impound them, we can hold them here, or we can hold them at our tow yard with our tow companies we work with.

Does the law prohibit an e-bike, or whatever you want to call it, to ride on the sidewalk? Because a motorcycle wouldn't be allowed to ride on the sidewalk.

No, I mean, the law doesn't even prohibit a traditional bicycle to ride on a sidewalk.

A couple weeks ago, I can't remember. there's a bicycle i think it was an e-biker he was coming up on a couple a young couple walking yeah i don't remember the street and they had to give away he wasn't yeah so i thought oh my god yeah if they hadn't given away or maybe if they were hard of hearing they didn't hear it what would have happened yeah yeah but yeah we're prepared for it just please you know register ensure these a title 39 summons for unlicensed unregistered it's expensive and it's you know it's on your driver history so

Just do your due diligence. We're fair, but the law is the law. It's coming out. We've given plenty of warnings. We've acknowledged that it's coming, and it's here. Okay.

Question. Yeah. You mentioned summonses 27, 20.

Title 39?

No, you said when you were going down the numbers, you said you issued 27 summonses. Yes. They're all traffic related, right? They're traffic, correct. Yep.

Anybody else have any questions e-bike or non-e-bike related for the chief? Thank you for your report, sir. Yeah, thank you. Superintendent of the DPW, Barry Peterson, you're up.

Okay, so fields will start with Centennial Irrigation System. As of today, it's been fixed with the exception of finding another break, but that'll be there and it's not affected any plant services.

Okay.

Under the trees, we saw a couple of storms, severe storms.

Gary, could you speak into the mic?

We saw a couple of severe storms. We still have a lot of debris down at the W yard. I've been advertising free firewood for residents to take. parks beachwood park are people are people taking the wood yes they are i have actually been getting emails because it's running thin uh if we're gonna have more so uh i said yeah mother nature will provide plenty more until we run out okay um beachwood park saw some damage to the uh nature trail which has been fixed there's one section that's caution taped off there's two dangerous trees leaning over unfortunately a new section of the boardwalk that's in there potholes we're going to be making more repairs we finished that third stormwater basin rebuild from the bottom up we just installed the parking permit only signs and the parking spaces have been painted. For the community center. I'm sorry, for the community center. The permanent parking for the community center on Patterson Street. Signage is up, the street's been painted.

Okay, we've had some people express concerns with respect to the width of the street and whether or not

there's going to be interference at the administrator mike and i went out the other day we measured patterson street from the edge of the parking space to the opposite side of the curb we have 21 23 feet okay we measured out here same thing and it's actually a foot narrower out here on central avenue My foreman was out finishing the job, finishing some work out there. There was a landscape trailer, and I think he said like a box truck, and they both passed, no problem.

And there was a car parked on the other side.

I don't see it being an issue. The police department, I believe, already okayed that.

central avenue here is actually narrower than that street yeah well the difference is that we're basically constructing and have the opportunity in theory to to make adjustments with you know we're we're in a community here that we're not taking anybody's home and pushing the end of their yard to expand the road yeah it's not a problem okay it's not a problem it is a 25 mile an hour speed limit there you can always post some signage

to remind people of that and then finally the gpw renovations we're in uh underway we're kind of in full swing with some concept uh designs and we'll hopefully have some more for the next meeting is this for the for the main facility yes the main facility and for the bathroom to be installed in the mechanics uh shop in the garage yes okay in the blue building there was never a bathroom there so now that he's in there working the plumbing yeah yeah we're gonna put plumbing and a bathroom tied into the existing sewer system

questions of our superintendent could is it possible in view of what you said about you know the almost width and they of course can pass but you're going to put signs up what about those electronic signs that measure the traffic so that if somebody is going more than 25 it starts to to blink we could look into um they're probably not cheap but no they're not cheap um but something we could look into

If we feel that it would help slow the vehicles down.

Yeah. Would they be covered? And I asked, I guess it would be the chief. Would they be covered by the special fund that we get?

Yeah. I would have to check into it. Um, I've reached out to them recently on a couple of things. I was glad to reach out to them. Some things got okay, some things got denied.

I mean, I don't know how expensive. I'm thinking probably less than five figures each one. I don't know. But if they could be put either one way or the other way. might be a good thing because it gets our i think it gets residents attention when they drive like i know there's one on woodcliffe lake i'm always traveling a certain street there yeah and it causes me to slow down because it reminds me what i should be knowing any other questions

I know the DEP stopped by recently to inspect Centennial Field and there were some recommendations given. Have we made any progress to any of the recommendations given along those lines?

We have made progress. The environmental company just finished a round of testing for methane up there. They were presently looking into the gas system, detection system up there. And I'm just waiting for a PO. to be cut, and I'll order the boom mower for the back of the tractor.

Nice. Good progress. Were there results for the methane testing?

Yes, everything was sent down to the DEP.

Oh, but we haven't gotten the numbers yet.

No, I haven't gotten numbers.

Anybody else? Thank you. Appreciate it. Collier's engineered. Engineering.

maybe thank you mayor so right now we have a couple paving projects that were just recently completed one of them is the dot municipal aid program which we do every year it was the 2025 fiscal year program for liberty ave and arcadia way so we recently finished that project there's still some loose ends being tied up in terms of like cleanup some sprinklers that were damaged things like that that we're still fixing but the vast majority of the work on that is done we also completed the the paving work for the riverside cooperative paving program which is another program we participate in every year it's a great program we get discounted paving essentially that requires very minimal design so there's very low engineering costs and we get a bunch of towns involved that all go into one big bid so you get kind of like almost like a bulk discount pricing on that paving it's a great program um under that we did um Willowbrook Road and Cedar Street those are the two roads that we did under there so that was also recently finished I know everyone wants to hear about updates on Memorial I'm looking at Clemente because he's already mad at me I think so Memorial is moving along well although we are looking to probably be in construction through most of August at this point that's what it's looking like Right now, I have a tentative schedule from the contractor. It looks like they're talking about placing turf starting August 10th. That's what they're targeting right now. I'm sorry? What's been the delay? It's not that there has been a delay. It's just the pace of the work, essentially.

I spoke to the contractor. He said there weren't the months, but the delay.

yeah oh it is okay it's just you know just the weather just the weather yeah the winter the winter months were obviously that that was the big major setback that we had but since then um it's just been little things right it's things that come up while you're doing any kind of large building project if you think about doing something in your house right something always pops up that you didn't think about it's little things like that where you know you got to take a week here to fix this one thing there's been a bunch of small items like that um so at this point like i said august 10th is when they're targeting right now placing the actual synthetic turf and after that they paved the parking lots it's about two weeks for the turf okay so we're really talking about september for full completion yeah and then after that we can just do the the landscaping stuff which is we want to wait until september october to do that anyway and september when you say lay down strip that's also striping laying it down striping the whole thing yeah yeah so as soon as they finish the uh synthetic turf the next item on the agenda is the asphalt for the parking lots okay so that's the last thing that goes in yeah

yeah nick there's a change order on the agenda tonight for um i think the plumbing for the field pass correct uh this project has crossed over the six million dollar threshold when you add up all those change orders um i know that we talked about maybe there being some favorability in there like we talked about the soil there was 110 000 there that we added uh to the project but uh i think in conversations with you there was like some favorability there 30 40 000 maybe of soil we didn't have to acquire That's correct. When do all those numbers get met out? And the second question I have is, with us being about six weeks out from completion, how much more in change orders do you anticipate? And is there any big material numbers that we're going to get hit with?

I don't think there's anything major that we're anticipating. There might be a few small items left. But as far as I know, I think you have the vast majority of the change orders that we're aware of at this point. And when you mentioned the soil import, there was a change order that you approved for, I believe it was $113,000 in change. That assumes that they needed to bring in about 350 truckloads worth of soil. Now, when we received that change order, Collier's proactively went and reached out to all the contractors that we're working with on active construction projects and said hey do you have any clean soil that you're getting rid of that you need to dispose of on a construction project because it almost becomes a win-win for everybody they have to pay to dispose of it so if we give them a place to bring it that's more nearby and it's free you know that's everybody wins so we were able to make a couple arrangements like that And I believe we brought something like 50 to 70 trucks worth of soil to the site for free. So we still need 280. Yeah, so we offset that cost a good amount. I still don't have a final number from the contractor in terms of how many trucks they actually brought in, but the number that you will pay, we're actually going to be receiving manifests from them of the actual number of trucks that were brought in. So it's not like you're only going to pay for what you got, essentially. Okay. So you will have a reduced cost there. There's also a few pay items within the original contract that were kind of like safety net items if you will you know in case we run into this we have some costs allocated for it which we're not anticipating using the full amount of those items so there's going to be some savings there as well so the point is basically yeah i understand that we have increased the overall budget of the project a little bit from a percentage standpoint it's not a huge amount honestly when you're talking about a you know six million dollar project

uh a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars is actually you know that's we kept it pretty close to the original budget i think we did really well there to be honest ba are we going to be able to to manage given those costs um with the revenue stream that we've got dedicated for this or we're going to be able to yeah we're covered we're going to be able to cover that okay anybody else no

Okay. Correct. One thing I said. Yeah. 50 miles an hour result is 500cc. It's 28 miles an hour. It's required on an e-bike to have an e-motorcycle. You need an endorsement for any of them that go 28 miles an hour. So you do need that traditional motorcycle license. over 28 and you guys could be out there with a speed gun and knowing that they get 30 making sure that they're cool

The scooters are about 28, right?

50 did seem high.

Any other questions for anybody who are professionals here? Thank you very much. We're going to move on to committee reports.

Start at the far end.

Councilman Rucco? Sure. Access for All, there was no meeting in June. Their next meeting is July 20th, 7 p.m. at the library. Board of Health did meet June 16th in Borough Hall. It was attended by representatives from the Ambulance Corps and the Construction Code official was there as well. For the purpose of ensuring understanding of what their protocol vis-a-vis hoarding situations that represent obvious health risk to the individual and the neighborhood. So it was a good conversation. Northwest Bergen Regional Health Corporation was there, as they always are every meeting. They reviewed what the US is doing to enhance Ebola screening. No cases have been found in the US as of that date. They view the risk as very low. They reviewed Hantavirus monitoring, no confirmed US cases, low risk again. They gave us an update on the Board of Health on contaminated IV tubing in healthcare facilities. There's a particular manufacturer, ICU Medical. that has this problem. So they've been working with the county to make sure that all those things get recalled. Nurse Cohan gave her report. She reviewed the various exercise, the mental health, and the discussion classes that she orchestrated at Hillsdale House in the library. And she reviewed various home visits and case references that she gave during the previous month. The next meeting is September 16th at 7 PM. Seniors have gone into hiding for the summer, but the rumor is that they're congregating regularly at the Stony Brook pool. Monthly lunches will resume in September as well as the meeting of the Forever Young Club, both taking place at the Hillsdale Community Center. That senior lunch is scheduled for September 23rd. The finance committee met on July 8th with the CMFO and the BA. We reviewed the detailed budget reports as of June 30th. The rate of expenditures that are portrayed in those reports is pretty much on course with where you would expect to be at this time of year. Pool revenues are slightly down in a year-over-year comparison, but that was explained to us because the revenue derived from credit card membership purchases hasn't yet fully hit the books.

Yeah, I was under the impression that they're actually up.

Yeah, it's a timing issue. And again, to your point, the management is anticipating a positive net income by the end of the year. Well, yeah. I don't know how much. Year over year. Yeah, I have those numbers from earlier. All right. Yeah, that's fine. Health insurance, the borough is continuing to implement its decision to change the health insurance plan that it offers to its employees. staying within the SHBP, the State Health Benefits Plan, but changing a number of the terms, most significantly the deductible, opting for a higher deductible, while also offering employees employer-funded HSAs to deal with the higher deductibles. Acceptance from unionized employees is being negotiated and is expected to be obtained. It will significantly help reduce this expense line item in the 2027 budget, and is also expected to be a net positive for employees as well as for the borough. That's all.

Okay, so we'll start with the Economic Development Committee. The committee met on June 17th. We're working on a community survey that will be distributed to both residents and business owners. The purpose of the survey is to gather valuable feedback that will help guide future planning decisions, support our local businesses, and strengthen our downtown. We're meeting again tomorrow evening to review the final draft, and we're hopeful that the survey will be finalized to share with the community shortly. We encourage everyone to participate once it's released as a feedback we will receive will help shape the future of Hillsdale's downtown and business community. We'll move on to rec. Memorial, we just got an update from Nick, but we are, Dan is working behind the scenes to help coordinate field scheduling to ensure that we have all of our, maximize the use of all of our facilities for the fall season. As far as Centennial, Barry also just covered it, but the lighting and irrigation issues have been resolved. Otherwise the fields are in really great shape. uh let's see hillsdale community center installation of the acoustic ceiling tiles in the main gathering space is underway and should be completed by next week we really think this will help improve the functionality of the space rec programs the fall recreation brochure will be released on august 15th so be on the lookout for registration information there's also openings available in the mini camps at the hillsdale community center which will begin the week of july 20th and run for three weeks Summer sports have transitioned smoothly despite the temporary loss of a few fields. And thanks to the cooperation of PV and Paramus, we've also secured some additional field space and that allowed for scheduled games to be played without any cancellations. Summer camp, we're now on week three into summer camp and everything has been running smoothly across both camp locations. Thank you to our rec staff for all of their hard work in making this another successful summer. The Summer Concert Series. We kicked off the Summer Concert Series in June with a great performance by Alex Quint Orchestra at Veterans Park. Our remaining concerts are scheduled for, there's one tomorrow featuring Queen. Hopefully everyone will show up. July 29th we'll also have Country Fresh. And lastly, USA Soccer Watch Party. We had a really great turnout. Saw it on social media. We posted some pictures for that watch party on June 19th. A special thank you to Lucas Al for donating so many hours of his time to make it a very successful event. We had hoped to host another one on July 6th, but unfortunately the weather had other plans and the event had to be canceled due to the rain. That's it.

Okay.

Thank you, mayor. Uh, just some light summer updates, uh, planning board, uh, July 9th meeting, uh, was canceled. So the last, uh, excuse me, next meeting is July 28th. So the last meeting we had was June 23rd, relatively light agenda, but worthy to note the planning board did adopt the resolution. It was 2016 15, which memorialize the, uh, the addition of the three apartments on top of four 16, four 32, four 24 Hillsdale out across from Wendy's there. The board also continued an application for 46 Florence Street, which is a single family home addition. The fire department had 34 calls in June verse 32 in June of the prior year. It's relatively flat. However, I know they've had significantly more calls in the month of July thus far than they've had in the prior year. The new ladder truck is scheduled to be delivered between the last week of July and the first half of August. Our fire department representatives had a successful trip down to florida to inspect the truck in which they noted very few minor couple items that are now on a punch list for the manufacturer to complete so hopefully we'll have that soon our chief farrell has requested the purchase of approximately a thousand feet of five inch supply hose after recent incidents highlighted the need for that additional hose capacity which was mainly due to trouble reaching some fire hydrant locations or hydrant not working and damaged couplings uh the request is currently being reviewed by the fire department's excuse me the request is currently being reviewed within the fire department's existing 2026 budget and the chief has requested a detailed breakdown for the remaining budget to continue evaluating his funding and the additional budget adjustments may be considered later in the year if necessary but the ba and the cfo are working on getting in the hoses as quickly as possible we did have our second quarter 2026 fire committee meeting on june 22nd there were a number of topics we discussed department is currently working and continue to work on improving their iso rating their recruiting is always a little less than they'd like but it is stable they like to see normally two to three apps per year and they currently have three applicants and they also mentioned that they will be pursuing a preventative maintenance contract on the new ladder truck so we will be on the lookout for their proposal there that is it okay um was there any discussion about how they're getting along with having the ambulance working out of their bays

Okay, we're not, okay. Yeah, you're actually where I was gonna turn to next. You're sitting right in front of me. Anthony, Councilman DeRosa, yeah.

Yeah, just to answer your question, the Airman's Service had expressed that the fire department has been very generous with their headquarters and they said the Airman's Service would treat it like their own. So it's been working out rather well. okay so staying on the ambulance service in light of the tree that fell on their building the chief and president of the ambulance service asked to meet with the ambulance committee two weeks ago actually last week the numbers are not in yet from insurance but ambient service daughter prudent to sooner than later suggest that depending on the cost to uh revise to remodel the building and what insurance may or may not pay it might be prudent to consider other options as far as

to the reconstruction of the building.

So right now we're just kind of holding, waiting to see what insurance we'll pay.

That's kind of vague. Other options? That's kind of vague. What are they contemplating?

So do they go up? Do we add a second story? And will the current structure support that? Should we revise it so that two rigs will fit in there, given the course that we're pursuing is what we're having, two rigs in the lake, in Bill and Sharon's. So that's kind of what they're thinking. And they're willing to... They have funding that they are willing to designate towards it, but again, we don't know any numbers right now.

Right, and a second floor would also, they were also contemplating creating some sort of place for people to sleep overnight or rest there and also having plumbing in there.

Yeah, so currently there's no showers, there's no bunk area, so yeah, that would be a contemplation as well. Okay.

Okay, anybody question? You've got the Board of Ed stuff?

Nothing on the Board of Ed. I do have the naming committee. So just by way of background, several years ago in Philadelphia's history, there was a tragic incident with the D'Alessandro family and Joan D'Alessandro, while delivering Girl Scout cookies was sexually assaulted and murdered by another Hillsdale resident.

He's actually passed away by then. Yeah, he was incarcerated, but he's now passed away. Yes. Behind jail. Never got out. Okay.

Good. Okay. So, the naming committee, I'm going to read actually from their recommendation. The naming committee, let me back up. Mrs. Delosanto, Rosemarie Delosanto, asked that the borough consider naming her street... It's an honorary name.

It's an honorary name. It's not renaming it the official name, but it's adding a second name.

Yep. Okay. So Mrs. D'Alessandro asked that the borough consider that naming, and the mayor had created a naming committee made up of six members of the town, including council member Rucco and myself, just out of a cross-section of the community, to consider what would be appropriate.

So I'll read from the recommendation. The naming committee met on Tuesday, July 7, 2026,

consider an application submitted by Rosemary D'Alessandro requesting an honorary street sign to dedicate in memory of her late daughter, Joan D'Alessandro. The committee begins by expressing the deepest sympathy for the unimaginable loss endured by the D'Alessandro family. Joan's tragic murder in 1973 forever changed their lives and left a lasting impact on the borough of Hillsdale and communities throughout New Jersey. in its deliberations the committee recognized that jones memory has been honored through several lasting memory memorials within the borough including the joan de los angeles memorial field house sign in 1994 the memorial tree in veterans park in 2003 the grotto at saint john the baptist as a white butterfly garden at the hillsdale train station in 2014. these memorials serve as enduring reminders of jones life and the profound impact her loss has had on her After careful consideration, the committee concluded that rather than creating an additional memorial dedicated solely to Joan, it would be more fitting to recognize the extraordinary legacy of the entire Della Santo family. In the face of unimaginable tragedy, the family transformed their grief into decades of advocacy and service.

Their efforts helped lead to the enactment of subsequent strengthening of Jones' law, advocating against the parole of Jones' murderer, Establish for Jones, established the Jones-Toy Foundation to support hundreds of oppressed children, and promoted child safety awareness through education and community outreach.

Their work has undoubtedly protected countless children and stands as a legacy that extends well beyond. Accordingly, the naming committee unanimously recommends that the honorary street signs be installed beneath the existing Florence Street sign at the intersection of Clinton Avenue and Florence Street and St. Nicholas Avenue and Florence Street. Consistent with the borough's Existing honorary street signs should be blue in color and display the name Dulles and Andrew Way, accompanied by the image of a white butterfly, a symbol long associated with Jones memory and legacy. The responsibility of the naming committee was to suggest to mayor and council what we should do. So their hope is that this would be done early September. And so I offer this to mayor and council. I don't know if we want to consider it now or at the next meeting, but that's the recommendation of the naming committee.

Anthony now that you have a recommendation in place are you going to go back to Rosemary and family and discuss what the recommendation actually is and whether or not she would be in line with what the what the naming is or would you set up a discussion with her so that she could buy into whatever it is that we're willing to do or that the committee recommends right now we're just sitting at a recommendation i have a question go ahead i i support i support it i just care who pays for it does this come from the d'alessandro like fun or does this come from us

I think we have to do it. In the past, we've done it.

In the past, we've done it?

What's the cost for something like that? It's not that expensive.

And who installs it? We do. We do it? We do.

If you look at one like right off of Kinderkommack now, where you have, I think it's called Dury Way. It's blue with white letters. It's on top. I don't really know if that's the standard or it goes to the bottom. And it's not expensive.

I think the decision point mayors for you to decide whether this is the name you want to put and then you decide.

So, so I just want to make sure I understand this. The D'Alessandro family asked to name it for their daughter slash sister, but you guys decided to honor the family by instead of because, right, because of this several memorials that already in towns for Jones,

But also we felt it fitting to recognize what the family has done.

So this is sort of a different recognition then because it's not- So I wouldn't say Joan Way, this is the family name. This is D'Alessandro Way. Okay, correct.

A number of the committee members also felt that given the charge that we had with the documents and what the standards were, It was directed toward recognizing the contributions of the person that we're about to honor. In this case, Joan was a victim. She really didn't, It sounds crude, but you didn't do anything. Right.

So you're talking about, you almost were honoring the 501 and the efforts of the family. Right. Is that, so I'm just trying to square the circle or whatever, that it wasn't the initial request, it was to honor Joan, and then you decided that you'd sort of twist that a bit.

I'll let Anthony answer that.

The family did request that it be Joan's way. However, in light of the four other memorials in town for Joan, the committee felt as though it would be more proper to recognize what the family has done. Okay. Okay.

And has anybody gone back? Obviously we're kind of traveling in untrodden ground here. Has anybody gone back to Rosemarie and said, this is what we're thinking of doing?

nobody has yet i thought it came back to really until the mayor and council right no so that's just the recommendation you're making those okay yeah i've spoken i've spoken spoken to rosemary

I'm not on the committee. She has a desire not to be the center of attention with regards to the sign. She doesn't want to make it about her. She would like an opportunity to discuss a name with the committee.

Well, it's ultimately kind of up to the, they've said move forward. They've got a problem with, well, not a problem, but are recognizing the issue that The actual victim has been recognized four times, so- But I'm talking about the specificity of the name.

Yes, well that, but- So we're recommending a last name that somebody may not be comfortable with. So I think it's our responsibility to go back to the family with what- We first have to decide if we decide we want to proceed. With what the committee's chartered with, have a discussion with them on what name is okay with them. uh before we but you also have to put guard rails around it right and if they're saying this committee's saying that four other streets are following these certain rules we can't are we willing to no i'm just talking about the specificity of belisandra way no i understand i mean it could be called rosemary right i i it's it's whatever the family buys into at that point it's what they've recommended we do and then what we're willing to do and so look i think let's let's

GET TO A CERTAIN POINT HERE. ANTHONY, JOHN, THANK YOU BOTH FOR PARTICIPATING IN IT. AND THANK EVERYBODY ELSE. AND THANK YOU TO ALL THE MEMBERS WHO WERE VOLUNTELED. WELL, THERE HE GOES. WHO SAID THAT WE'RE GOING TO GO AHEAD AND DO THIS. if we decide we want to go along that way i think that we then as an entity we can we can test the uh borough administrator to come up with something in connection with speaking to them directly as to what may work um i think there's you know i think the 501c3 is called jones joy so i mean we would have to we would have to decide what we wanted to do if we you know if if If Rose Marie said, I don't want my last name being used, I don't want to do it that way, we obviously don't want to create an honoring that someone isn't comfortable with doing. So we'll work with that, assuming that we think that we're basically honoring the legacy of the work that was done. If that's what the committee seems like they've come up with, then we have to come up with the right name. Are you comfortable with that, Anthony?

Yes, yes.

Okay, so if you decide, if you decide this. I have no problem with that.

You want to call the council and then I'll- Yeah, let's call the council now to see if people are comfortable with that. We're going to be honoring the legacy,

nonprofit um that was set up to honor and to educate um if we're comfortable with that great and then we'll task the ba to move forward with that any conversation i think yeah i think you're right you know we set up a mechanism to um that

And I think it's proper that we just kind of pull the council right now. I'm happy to do that with the VA if that's appropriate.

That's fine. All those in favor?

I'm sorry. What am I in? Why are we in favor of this? Well, I know what we're talking about, but are we like saying we're in favor of pursuing this? Are we saying if we say yes, then we're going to build it or we're going to adopt it?

We're going to adopt it and we're going to authorize the BA to negotiate or negotiate to have a discussion with regarding something acceptable.

he'll come back to both parts and if that's the case because otherwise we're talking about meeting in august to do it got it okay they have a september yep goal to get this done and i think the way to think about it is the committee was charged with certain guidelines to evaluate the application so the committee's recommendation is to is to decline the applicant's request.

To the individual.

Right. We came, Anthony and the other members of the committee came up with an alternative, which we haven't formally yet presented to the D'Alessandro family. If she does not like it, then I think our job is done. Right. And she would have to come up with another proposal.

So this is what we're proposing to do. This is what the... the mayor's committee has decided that they want to do if we're comfortable with that we tell the ba go ahead and anthony wants to work with her as well that's not a problem i don't see it um yeah i would just add one more thing there wasn't a lot of deliberation every committee member was in solidarity um with the

Somebody had to be persuaded. Everyone kind of owes out the same mindset. Okay.

So you're deciding on whether or not to put an honorary sign that says the yellow sign drove away?

Well, no, we're authorizing, we're saying we want to honor the legacy through the work that was done to get Jones Law. to do the education, figure out, speaking with the family, something that they would be comfortable with that we can do, we would be authorizing you to come up with the verbiage, two, three words, to sit on a street, sorry.

That fits within the parameters

So the DPW would like to be heard from.

Just something else to think about also, Mr. Mayor, is it takes about three to four weeks with emails going back and forth and proof checking to actually get the sign in-house.

That's why I don't want to wait until August.

Yeah, exactly. I contemplated

Okay. All those in favor of what we've talked about, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anybody opposed? The ayes have it. Great. The VA has been so authorized, and if you want to coordinate with the appropriate parties.

I'll speak to you, Anthony, tomorrow. Great. Okay.

Is there anything else, Anthony, you'd like to discuss now?

it's been a while okay um library and environmental commission have their meetings scheduled towards the end of the month uh just a quick update uh with regards to the environmental commission uh members of the commission met with uh viega sally and the engineer to discuss the landscape design for memorial field in an effort to incorporate aspects of the tree ordinance Opportunities were identified to substitute more shade trees, and there was an emphasis to add some irrigation to ensure proper watering to protect the significant investment that will be made. I know that the VA has some follow-ups with regards to getting some water on that field in any way possible. The investment is going to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars utilizing grant money. And it's important that we set ourselves up for success with it. I don't think Nick has had an opportunity to review that yet, the request. But I think that we do have a couple of weeks knowing that this project isn't getting tapped until August 10th. So we should take a look at that. And that's it.

Okay.

Councilman Camp. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor. um all right first stony brook pool commission uh the pool commission met on july 8th and um let's i i think the the numbers look strong uh membership revenue um and i guess this is uh not these numbers deviate from um councilman rocco's uh finance report but i guess it must have to do with the credit card processing uh membership revenue at this point is 816.9 000 which is ahead of both 2024 and 2025 at this point in the season i think 2024 was 802 000 and 2025 is 810. so we're kind of seeing a positive trajectory here um And last year, the membership continued to come in after this point. So there's still more revenue to be had. Overall revenue is at $929,000. And some extra, when we dive into the crosstabs here and some extra bright spots to celebrate is that guest rep pass revenue is up to uh 27 000 so far this season thanks to a successful move from physical guest passes to the community pass system and it's a good example of cutting down on the abuse of the the physical pass system while making things easier to handle The old physical passes are still good through 2027. So residents who still have them laying around there, the drawers should take them in and use them before they expire. Swim lesson revenue is up. Summer camp has $44,000 still to come in, which they will get at the end of the season. And junior lifeguard registration just opened for kids 10 to 14. which is another strong way to get some extra money in because it's $185 per registrant. Birthday parties continue to be a strong revenue driver. And while we won't be hosting the swim team this fall, the rest of the season's performance financially should cover that gap. On the facility side, the competition's pool suction line was upsized from four to six inches, and the spray feature is back in working order. That piping work done on the competition pool should cut down on the repair costs we've been seeing. New patio furniture was donated at no cost to the borough, picked up from KPMG's former Montvale office. And a big thank you to the Ambulance Corps who came to retrain the guards on CPR and other life-saving activities. Timely given a recent incident that happened in Teaneck, it's good to have this type of training for our lifeguards. It was really well attended by our lifeguards. And the 4th of July weekend was a big success before the storms rolled in with about 1,100 people at the pool at the same time at its peak. That was quite an interesting stat, I thought.

I think we may have beat them this past Sunday. Yeah, there was even more.

It was crazy at the pools. It's great to see, yeah, the pools as popular as ever. You know, earlier in the year, we were talking about struggling pools, and ours is not. The revenue is very strong. The planning is very strong. It's a very well-run operation, I think. So very, very good to see that there. For DPW, you know, Barry covered a lot of it, but I just wanted to note that we had a quarterly meeting in June. We reviewed, you know, I'm a broken record, but I love this stop the sip program idea that I know that we submitted a grant for that. And we already touched on the DEP inspection of Centennial Field but there's a lot going well with the DPW as always thank you thank you Barry and thank you for your your consideration to cost and all the things you do I think you've been very diligent about finding savings for the borough so thank you for that that's it he's doing well for yeah I'm married to a Packers fan. I can't say anything bad.

Well, we're going to do that. I thought we could do that in the committee report. I mean, in commentary, you want to talk about it? Why don't you talk about the Hillstone? Yeah, go ahead. Sure, go ahead.

I don't know if you have the answer to this, but was there a price increase for the registration on the pool? Would you say there's more membership, more registrants out this year versus last year, or is it most of the time an increase in membership?

That's a good question. I haven't got the detailed numbers behind that. There was a seasonal increase in membership. From what I've heard, people are still signing up.

Yeah. The numbers are pretty close to the other as before. I think that they're doing a lot more creative ways of bringing in revenue, birthday parties, different clubs and events. chris was talking about the summer camps um they've they've gotten creative in finding additional yeah i'm just curious about base registration right these registration were pretty much on the same area i think it was 1100 or something like that yeah i don't i don't have that somewhere for that but uh yeah the birthday parties there's been a lot of them and that's been uh the ba has asked you to talk about would you like to talk about it oh i i mean i i would love to um

i didn't prepare any comments so i'll kind of improv it but just go over what we did in so uh back when i came on to council in january i came to the ba with with an idea that would would with the main goal of uh improving connectivity, discoverability of borough resources, and overall communications between the residents. We obviously, we've expanded our role on social media. The borough Facebook page is putting a lot out there. Mayor Sheinfield is now active, and it's great to see the updates, especially with recent emergencies that are going on around. And so we found an affordable vendor to help develop an app for us that would point out some of the most important links related to the borough. who you need to call if you need assistance from the dpw a little direct email link there what's happening the you can see the upcoming summer concerts an easy way to contact the hillsdale police department planning board meetings even paying your taxes getting that but i i think the real power from this app and I think as we get more comfortable with it and the department heads use it more we'll be coming from the notification system which during our testing period I was very impressed with the notifications that we were testing out because we were using real stuff that was happening around town I was finding about stuff directly right on my phone while I was out and about. My watch, it would come up on my watch with the Hillsdale icon to find out the OEM announced emergency flooding considerations with the recent storm. more lightly recently with with the firewood that's been made available and I obviously people are seeing that notification because we're running out and residents are requesting more it's it's it is I think I have to thank BA Gasali for help facilitating this and getting buy-in from the rest of the borough department heads and the employees I think you guys did a great job pulling this together in a short amount of time And I'm impressed by it. And I think over time, it's only going to get better. We're going to learn that. I encourage residents to reach out and give feedback. No feedback is too small. I know there's ways we can improve, and we want to hear it. We want to hear it, and we hope everybody downloads it. It's called Hillsdale Connect. Hillsdale, both on Apple and Google stores. And it's free.

That's great. Anybody have any questions on that? No? B.A., you're up.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So we had a meeting with all employees who participate in the borrower's health insurance plan along with our benefits consultant to review the proposed high deductible plan. We are now looking to analyze each employee's current coverage including both the employee's contribution and the borrower's cost and comparing them to the proposed plan which offers the same benefits but with higher deductible. I will have that analysis done in the next few weeks, and hopefully I can present something to you back at the next meeting.

Last month, we also... With regards to the state health plan, I'm hearing another double-digit increase. Yes. For this year?

For next year. Yeah. Yes.

Yes.

Somewhere in the 71%. 71? What?

They're talking about a 71% increase? That's not just understandable. That's people living on the streets.

The reason why I don't have the analysis done already is because we're waiting for the final number so we can actually compare real numbers.

That just seems like fantasy land.

Mayor Retz. I got something from the league, the League of Municipalities and like that, broke it down into different components, but it was nowhere near 71. It was more like 17.

Yeah, I thought it was 20%. How can they possibly attribute that to it? I mean, I know that- Let me get the final numbers. Okay.

Yeah, let's just weigh that.

Last month, we transitioned all Borough-owned cell phones from Verizon to AT&T FirstNet. Again, FirstNet is only available to first responders and government employees. And we added additional phones to our Office of Emergency Management and to the Ambulance Corps. The feedback has been very positive and we've already seen a noticeable improvement in the cell coverage and reliability. Staff and first responders are now able to use their cell phones in many areas where in the past they were not able to. Staying on a cell service, I promise you I'll give you an update today on the cell service. I've been working with AT&T for the past several months. AT&T is looking to build 11 cell towers throughout New Jersey. I was asked to submit and I submitted a request to AT&T corporate for them to look into building one in Hillsdale, whether behind the high school or at a viable location in town that they will come in and submit a recommendation for. So that's in progress. In addition, we also looked at providing Wi-Fi to dead cell areas in Beachwood Park and Stony Pool as a test. They came in, they measured, they had all the equipment inside the vans, outside the vans, and the conclusion is it will cost about $9,000 in hardware for each location and about $200 a month for each location. and it will cover the entire park uh good for about 400 feet away from the system from the center point

So it's a very regional solution.

It's very regional. It's very regional. So if we want to have multiple regional solutions, you're looking at 9,000 in hardware and then about 200 a month for each location. So five locations looking at 1,000 all the month.

Did you discuss that with Pasco Valley High School?

I have not discussed this with anybody. This is...

i i i question again at&t you say you go back to the high school um where yeah i've been told on in no uncertain terms from green acres that they will not allow any tower because why wouldn't they have allowed Verizon AT&T steps up it just shows need the the what I've heard is that Greenacres is concerned even if it's if it's for public safety they are concerned of opening a can of worms because then you're going to have every single carrier going into these public spaces and asking for that change and they they just won't do it

if they decide that hillsdale will will get one of the 11 cell towers they'll work with us on locations okay that's very amorphous yeah i mean that's where we are okay what's the timeline on those uh whether or not hillsdale is chosen

This year. But that's no different than Verizon wanted to work with us, right? I mean, is AT&T looking for other solutions?

No, it's a monopole. So they're looking at a monopole, too.

So I don't know that it – so that's the Rubicon to cross because it's not going to – because it doesn't matter whether it's Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile. So basically what we're hearing is that AT&T is saying they have a coverage gap that they want to address as well. Okay, great, but I don't know that that, we still have the same situation that we were having six months ago in January.

Yeah, in the past AT&T didn't want to participate into the analysis. Now, maybe they'll come back with a new solution. If they decide that Hillsdale is one of the areas they want to move into.

Just to be clear, you approached them. They didn't approach you, correct?

We approached them for the first responders originally, yes. And then we went back to them and said, can you look at...

So when they came back, they came back on their own initiative for a monopole?

they so they contacted me and they said we're looking to install 11 self towers would you like us to look at hillsdale i said yes so this is submit this application which you've done which you've done and now they're looking to see if it's viable for them to actually spend money here okay that's where we are so we'll see what comes back yep uh the senior center melissa said that about the soundproofing. We recently picked up a number of furniture items from KPMG campus in Montvale, including leather chairs and tables in the back room. It's all brand new chairs. We picked up an ice machine for the DPW, computer monitors, outdoor chairs for the swim club, sofas that are in the lobby. Altogether, we estimate the value of the furniture we picked up and equipment to be about $25,000. let's give a big thank you to the mayor of montville and the kpmg building manager for offering these items to us thank you well you were here so we could thank him i will let him know i will let him know we had uh this is there's some numbers here uh just bear with me uh we had a conference call uh this morning with the piermont development team regarding the financial obligation under the pilot agreement for the patterson street project under the agreement the developer owes the borough a third payment of 250 000 dollars We assumed it was going to be this year. In the contract, it's due on either the third anniversary of the issuance of the CO, which was this year, last month,

The third anniversary?

After three years of the shooting the seal. So either three years from now or there is a capital event such as a refinancing of a construction loan. So during the call, the developer said that they are expecting to refinance within about one year, which would trigger the final 250, which would be next year.

So the original anticipated date was this year. You're saying that we're not going to get it either in three years or when they refinance the project?

Yes. So we had Joe Bauman on the call. We had the financial advisors and their financial folks.

This is apart from the pilot, then?

This is, no, correct. This is the pilot. No, no, I'm sorry. This is apart. This is the third 250 that they owed us. They gave us 500 already. The 250 we thought we'll get this year.

But we were expecting that we're going to get somewhere around, I think I estimated 735,000. All right, so bear with me, bear with me, bear with me, bear with me. Yes, I know, it's separate.

Bear with me. The pilot agreement requires a payment to begin once the building becomes operational. Since a temporary TCO was issued in March of 26 this year, the project became subject to a pilot payment effective April 1, 2026. As a result, the developer owes the borrower payments for the final three quarters of 2026, totaling $375,000 for 2026. They paid some property taxes that will be deducted for beginning January 1, 2027. The projected pilot payment is $735,653. Under the pilot, the board gets $95,000 and the county gets $5,000. developer also reported that 109 units are fully leased and folks are there now they are pleased with the pace of leasing so what this means to us is we will get the 375 and then the 250 hopefully next next year uh that's 750 for the pilot Next year.

To the following year.

Right, so this reinforces that we made the right decision by not anticipating this revenue in advance, despite some suggestions from the so-called experts that we should have. At the time the budget was adopted, there was no certainty as to when the permanent CEO would be issued. and when the developer would actually refinance the construction loan so now we have some knowledge of what of when he you know they will refinance and how much they owe us so we had the cfo also on the call so the 375 minus whatever taxes you know they paid that's coming this year uh hopefully the 250 next year and the 735 next year would you say the taxes they've already paid those properties

we're generating about $168,000 a year. So we would take whatever portion they paid of that already obligation.

As of April 1st.

Okay, so basically three quarters of 168. and we would take that number and deduct it from the 300? Correct, 375, whatever they paid.

They didn't pay the whole amount yet. They paid by quarter. So whatever we owe them will be credited, and that will go into the account.

Mike, could you? Was David Young concerned about that one-year shift and receiving that $250,000 if that one-year shift actually becomes a three-year shift? How does that impact the budget?

No, we're fine. The 375 is going to cover.

So effectively what I believe happened there was the 250 was originally budgeted as revenue. It was, yeah. Not this year. What happened here, though, is you lost that, but you're picking it up in the beginning of the pilot payments, which was not in the budget because we weren't allowed to put it in.

right so you have a net i think small good guy about 125 000. i'm pretty sure that's exactly what's happening something doesn't ring true here and maybe it's because i misheard you my recollection having negotiated this deal is that there were three payments of 250. first one was when we issued a co what was the second one

The second one is when they get the permits.

Okay, which they've done. What was the third one conditioned upon?

Is when three years on the third anniversary after they received the final seal.

Okay, that's where my memory- Or if they restructure. Or there's a capital event such as- So in effect, what you and Bob have just discussed, since the pilot payments, which are dependent on the revenue stream that they get from tenant lending, has already started to kick in. We're going to get that money, which does exceed the 250 that we thought correct we didn't want to we didn't want to recognize it because we weren't sure that we were going to get it i don't think we can but we have not what we have not recorded in our budget the pilot payments we did not take that into account okay so in 2027 that's what you will be recognizing and the 250 grand if they refinance if they well even if they have three years that they don't refinance if they refinance next year they always so you said they are going to refinance they're talking about it in a year okay so that 250 could be delayed but but the expected pilot payments that our financial analysts projected exceed well exceed that 250. we're talking about pilot payments of 1.3 million dollars okay when the when the project is fully fully fully out fully 95 yeah okay thank you but so yeah right so

By my calculation, just for the records, we don't have them wrong. If they were paying 168,000 and they're starting April 1, they've lost the first quarter. We don't contribute to that. That's $126,000 that they would otherwise be paying but but because it's 375 000 in pilot money we would deduct that from the 126 that they would otherwise pay and we come out of 249 000 which is basically a wash for the 250. yeah and if you really want to get a granular

when we refund them or give them the credit for the taxes that they paid yeah so they paid the taxes which we paid the schools already the county that money is gone we're not going to be getting the money back yeah so the cfo is working on exactly how much they paid actually i mean so we have to make sure the type of money because the pilot money comes 95 to us yeah and general taxes do not correct okay makes sense I think that's all I have.

Any other questions? No? Okay, great. We're going to move on to our ordinances. 2622 on introduction, an ordinance of the Borough of Hillsdale County, Bergen State of New Jersey to amend Chapter 292 of the Borough Code entitled Vehicles and Traffic to include Article 8, enforcement of Title 39 on private property. Be it resolved, the ordinance of 2622 entitled an ordinance to establish Recreation Department. Program in summer camp fees in the Borough of Hillsdale is hereby introduced.

by title and be further resolved that the borough clerk is hereby directed to advertise that ordinance with a hearing date of what it appears that maybe that was a little bit of a word processor yeah yeah it says okay because no one is caught yeah so um it appears that being resolved yeah should be that ordinance 2622 is introduced entitled an ordinance to amend all right 292 vehicles and traffic entitled vehicles and traffic is hereby introduced by title be if if i may be further resolved that the borough clerk is hereby directed to advertise that ordinance with hearing date of august 11th on the official borough website etc and then it calls for you right to request a motion right

okay sorry for i've had very little sleep exactly how you can can i get a motion to introduce it um i'll motion second second yeah wow okay all those in favor oh you want just a question and this is um

This is necessary to achieve what we said we were going to do with Patterson Street. Correct. That's the goal of this.

This is in order to effectuate the parking plan and the ability of the local police department to issue tickets on the private property.

And under that title, someone had to make that request. And I gather someone has made that request. Patterson Street did.

The request was made. We did not have a section of our ordinance that addressed this. So we just created a new ordinance section. And if any other...

parking lot shopping mall or whatever asks for this kind of relief will include it now in this section and otherwise our police department wouldn't have the necessary authority to enforce that on their property okay thank you okay all right so we've got a motion in a second all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed great anthony are you there yes okay yeah i hear you you're you're in favor okay great okay um we are moving on to adoption of 2618 an ordinance establishing recreation department program and summer camp fees in the borough um can i get a motion to open this uh ordinance to public hearing for 26 18. motion second all those in favor aye it is it's now open to the public would anybody like to be heard you're okay okay can i get a motion to close motion second all those in favor aye okay now there you go we're going to move to adopt Ordinance 2618. Can I get a motion to adopt? Motion.

Second.

Second. Mr. Councilman Coletti. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? It is adopted. We're now going to move on to adoption of 2619, an ordinance establishing salaries for the Recreation Department. Can I get a motion to open the hearing to the public? Motion to open. Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Sir, would you like to be heard on this ordinance? I'm good, thank you. You're good. Can I get a motion to close the hearing? Motion to close. Can I get a second?

Second.

Those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? No. Okay, we're going to final adoption. Can I get a motion to adopt 2619?

Motion. Second?

Second. Second down there. All those in favor of passing it, signify by saying aye. Aye. Is there anyone opposed? We have adopted 2619. We're moving to 2620 for adoption, an ordinance vacating and extinguishing the public right in a portion of West Street in the borough of Hillsdale, County of Burton. This is what basically we need to do our affordable housing.

Right. Mayor, if I could just make a notation as we move on. Sure. Exhibits A and B are an earlier draft of those two exhibits. though we introduced with those exhibits and in fact during the meeting Nick forwarded us slight modification the corrected ones right so there was it was just adjusting a little bit of footage for the for the right right so just the notation the exhibits that are attached to this ordinance are still the old ones so Nick if you don't mind re-forward the new exhibits which are the adjusted line and the changed legal description to Denise and I. And by tomorrow, we'll attach the correct exhibits.

So we're going to be adopting it based on the idea of the modifications that we did see. I recall. Yes.

Yeah. They were circular.

Right.

Okay. But the point here is those new exhibits are hardly any different than the ones we did see.

It moves the line five feet or so. I wouldn't call it a significant change, and it was deemed necessary by all of the engineers.

Right, because we're voting on something that is really not correct, but you're telling us the incorrect part of it is such a small piece.

The incorrect part is minor, and again, if you recall, we introduced it with a discussion that the exhibits were being swapped out. I just note that they have not yet been swapped.

Okay.

All right.

So can I get a motion to open the public hearing on 2620? Motion. Second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. We are now open to the public. Would you like to be heard? You're good, okay. Can I get a motion to close?

Motion.

Second. Second as well. All those in favor? Aye. It is closed. Okay, now we're going to motion to adopt the ordinance 2620. Can I get a motion? Motion. Second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? 2620 is now adopted. 2621, a capital ordinance to appropriate the sum of $194,341 for the improvement of Ralph Avenue and Legion Place in, by, and for the borough of Hillsdale in the county of Bergen, state of New Jersey, and providing that such sum, so appropriated, shall be raised from an NJDOT grant. Can I get a motion to open the public hearing on Ordinance 2621? Motion to open. Can I get a second?

Second.

Those in favor? Aye. Sir, you're good. Okay, nobody else? Barry, you don't want to talk about this. Can I get a motion to close? Motion to close. Can I get a second on 2621 to close?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. No opposition. Okay, now we're going to move on to adoption of 2621. Can I get a motion?

Motion.

Second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Everyone opposed? We have adopted Ordinance 2621. We are now going on to the consent agenda, 26172 through 26189. And we're going to go all the way down to the bottom here, 189. Okay. Can I get a motion?

I'd like to pull one of them just to pose a question, unless you think I can ask the question without pulling it. Well, which one do you want to pull? 26187. 26187. Okay. Okay. So can I get, could I, could I pull some as well?

Sure. 26180. 26180.

And 26188. And 26 what? 188.

26188. Yeah. Okay. All right, so can I get a motion to pass the consent agenda 26-172 through 26-189 with the exceptions of 26-187, 26-188, and 26-180? Motion, somebody? Motion. Second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. The consent agreement is approved. Let's start by addressing, let's do it in numerical order, 26-180. Can I get a motion?

Motion.

Is there a second? Second. Discussion?

Discussion? Yes, so I- Wait, this is 180. 180, right? That's good. So the gas tax- Okay, yep.

Go ahead, yeah.

Yeah, so no, I was just- Go ahead. This seems to be something that's, this looks to be more of a political resolution for state level. And so I just wanted to pull it out because I'm not sure how it got here. But also when I was looking into it, I saw that this is based off of a 2024 law that was enacted at the state to help fund $10 billion worth of transportation costs, roads, bridges, and those types of projects. the sort of projects that we're able to fund, uh, like the Ralph place and the Legion, um, grants for, for paving. And so that's the revenue stream. That's the revenue stream. Yeah. Some of the other grant monies that come in. And so, uh, when I was looking into it more as well, there's the escalator, it seemed to be a compromise, which negotiated to keep these, these funds solvent so that, um, we don't get it. We don't increase taxes in other areas, say from income tax. or a sales tax. So, um, I just, I just don't think it's something that the borough of Hillsdale needs to comment on based off of those. It's, it just seems like, uh, I'm not even sure how it got here.

So if anybody else wants to add, no, I'll contribute to this discussion if permitted. Um, I asked that to be put on, um, Each year, New Jersey sets a required revenue target. For example, in fiscal year 2026, the law set the cap at 2.115 billion up from 2.032 billion the prior year. That's a 4.1% increase. The cap increases annually and it's supposed to increase through fiscal year 2029. The Treasury and the Legislative Budget and Finance Officer meet every November 15th. They review the actual fuel consumption, the revenue generated at the current tax rate, and whether that revenue will meet the statutory cap for the upcoming fiscal year. That cap is determined without anyone's input by the state. If consumption falls, the tax rate has to rise because the cap is fixed by law. Lower gallons, which is what we're experiencing in the state, means the tax rate must increase to generate the required revenue. That's exactly what happened for the 4.2% increase effective January 1. That's how much the gas tax went up. Consumption trended below last year's level. Therefore, the formula dictates that there be an increase. Now, the issue here is that the total gas tax, which is now 49.1%, which is 13.4% of your overall amount, that escalate is automatic. The legislature doesn't have to step up to say we're going to raise the taxes. It's built into the law. That formula is sensitive to gallonage, not inflation or project costs, and gasoline consumption, as I said earlier, has been declining because you have more fuel-efficient vehicles, you have EVs being adopted by a certain percentage of the population, and you have post-COVID commuting changes. And the revenue target keeps rising because the politicians down in Trenton keep saying we need to increase this. So as the consumption declines, your taxes go up. I personally don't think that's right. I think if the legislature wants to increase your taxes, they should do so here. Now, as to your point about this doesn't affect Hillsdale, well, I don't know. You fill your, I don't know what car you own, Chris, but I go like once every 10 days to fill up two cars and my taxes go up and all Hillsdale residents that have a gas they're paying this tax and they're being taxed without having their representatives actually sign off on it. This is not just unique to Hillsdale, this is happening across the state. And a number of municipalities have adopted this resolution, several in the Pasquac Valley already.

Yeah, I could just respond. It's that repealing the escalator, there's no replacement plan to make sure those funds are solvent. And we have a precedent in this governing body to not take stances on similar issues like you advocated for removing language. related to EV vehicles in an earlier resolution from this year. So I'm just not interested in supporting this repeal. I don't think it's necessary.

Well, I think just on the EV language, because if I recall, what the language that was proposed by you assumed that Hillsdale.

I did propose the language.

That was just the original. The resolution.

It was encouraging as opposed to acknowledging. That was from the right.

Right. And I didn't feel it was appropriate at that, nor did the council, nor did the council feel that it was appropriate in that resolution to encourage his residence to go one way or another as to what it's, what it should purchase. Okay. This is an entirely different situation.

So does anybody have any more questions? We've got actually at the two ends of the days here. So does anybody have any questions one way or the other before we move this to vote? No? Okay, well, since there's an opposition, why don't the clerk read the roll on this one?

Council Member Mazachon? Yes. Council President Rosso? Yes. Council Member Rucco? Yes. Council Member Camp?

No.

Council Member Colletti? Yes. Council Member DeRosa? Yes.

Okay, so the resolution passes five to one. Thank you, everybody. Now we're going to take up 26187. Can I get a motion?

motion second second discussion yeah i i was responsible for pulling it the only purpose in in so doing was i always feel that it's important particularly when we have budgetary pressures that we're dealing with if the borough administrator can can explain what the duties of this part-time assistant will be and why they're needed

sure so currently we have a full-time position that uh supposed to report half time to the DPW and have time to the front desk administration uh she's been working mostly on DPW just because of the amount of work and the DPW has in their budget that we can take on a full-time person so Sandra McCall will be full-time DPW administrative assistant uh which opens up uh the front window and instead of the full time we're getting a part-time assistant in the front window to work with loose caboose do you project that this will increase our overall salary expenses for next year uh it will be the part-time salary yeah

But will our aggregate go up because of this change, or given all other things being equal?

So the DPW budget will go up to cover for the full-time person. Okay, all right. But the money is coming from a different fund, from your fund.

It's coming out of monies from seasonal employee wages, which for reasons of snow removal, I had kept that one line high, but we're well below what I had anticipated. So we pulled money to compensate Sandra out of the seasonal employee wages.

okay is there any other discussion on it then um since it's first and seconded already can i get uh can i get a all those in favor of passing 26 187 aye aye aye anyone opposed 26 187 is adopted 26 188 can i get a motion motion second second discussion um yeah so so i pulled this one um it

For the main reason that the language in this resolution was focusing on very specific Senate bills. And I know that when we were constructing the language, there was some back and forth that I was hearing about. And I'd be curious to hear some of the mayor's commentary on this, because I know you know a lot about affordable housing. that I feel like this is something that maybe could be a broader that we could table and that this we adopt some broader language because I don't think that Hillsdale should be penalized for being good partners in the affordable housing process. And I feel like we've done a very good job with our fulfilling our obligations. And I just would encourage us to maybe not have a short-sighted resolution that just is very focused on these three resolutions specifically.

Well, hold on. Wait, wait. Before we go, I just want to say, so that everybody understands, Hillsdale has been compliant. Um, with round 4, excuse me, I don't know what's going on my voice. We actually did very well. In fact. I believe we were the 1st in the county and maybe even the 1st in the state. To settle with the program, we had a very good number. So, I want to set that as sort of the parameters for.

how we got here and where we are now uh before we get into commenting i'd like the our council to make a statement on that so i i drafted this it was completely my hand if you want more in it put more in it if you want less in it put less in it i haven't gotten any comments it was on the consent agenda it could have been easily adopted without comment and now perhaps there's comments it is not intended to be limiting uh in fact just like with the gas tax we get legislative bulletins all the time if one if an affordable housing thing comes up in the future and you don't like it i can do another resolution then this resolution doesn't have to encompass that

And no full, Chris, like I just wanted to make sure I understood more. And if you're saying that.

When we challenge or when we comment on legislation, we comment on the legislation, just like the gas tax that you just discussed. We don't comment and generally say, and any future legislation down the road that might be like this. But if you want to say that, just comment. It's in my computer. I can change it. Just tell me. But generally speaking, we comment on specific legislation. That was what this was intended to do. It was intended to be a consent agenda item without being, frankly, very interesting because I didn't get any phone calls about make this change or that change. But unless there's some other direction, So you all know I drafted it this way.

Yeah, and no criticism. I think I would have just wanted, I think myself personally, more time to review so that my comments are a little broad. But I wanted to pull just to address that. And like with the gas resolution, I don't...

i don't know how much we need to be commenting on on state uh legislation here in hillsdale when there's focused problems that we have locally i'll just add to the conversation i just think the reason why it is important especially that we're specific in this circumstance is because this legislation yes it's state legislation but it directly impacts our ability right to direct the future right and well-being of our own town right it specifically bypasses our zoning ordinances our master plan our ability right so if we're not specific on something like this one as a council we haven't taken a specific stance against something that does direct us excuse me impacts us directly how does our public know specifically what we're voting on if we're just being broad in nature right and the fact that this has momentum at the state level and you see other towns reacting as well around us right it just and i'm being redundant on this point it has a direct impact all right fair enough right unless there's further discussion mayor is there okay um is anybody all those in favor

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? No. All right. So we adopted 26-188. That is everything off the consent agenda. It's time for public comments. Sir, would you like to come on up now? Yes, sir. We're all wondering, what would you like? You've sat through an hour and 40 minutes. Please state your name and address and let us know what you want.

My name is James Mallick, 34 Lake Street, Hillsdale, New Jersey.

I'd like to speak about striking the parking in front of the Congress. My understanding is, I recently saw the permit parking only. My thought is, what exactly does that mean by the permit parking?

okay um do you want to just let me normally it's true comments but i don't see any reason unless anybody has an objection to actually getting into this and discussing it with you i appreciate you coming in you sent me an email earlier today i've folded on people

Yep.

No, no, no, no, no, no. That's absolutely fine. I'm glad you did.

So, um, so we have the community center.

Yep. And, uh, we needed parking for the community center. We have limited parking inside the garage. We have four parking spots in front of the community center. So Paterson street was one of the areas where we look to add more parking. So in conjunction with the police, uh, DPW, uh, we've injected the county to see there's an issues. Although it's a municipal street, it's, it's our own, it's, it's, it's our street. The measurements are two standards. There's no issues with that. It adds about 21 parking spots on one side and two or three others right by the community center. So about 25 more parking spots which we need. That's why that was done. And by permit only meaning when there is an activity inside the community center, people would register online or they come here and they would pay for the activity and the computer would generate a permit for them. So the, so the permit will be between two and four o'clock on Monday, the 16th, it'd be very specific.

And what would happen on a random Wednesday when there is nothing there, but there are spaces.

can't park you need a permit to park so nobody can park there otherwise oh that's what the ordinance parking only that's our ordinance saying it's uh by parking by permit parking only

after that striking was done i measured it around 22 feet but i looked online the department of transportation and they recommended no less than 26. i was just wondering where the where the clearance came on 23 feet where that came from

So our streets here are all very narrow.

On that one, right?

But on the side street, we're at 21. Yes, so on Central, the one right by Borough Hall here, Central, we measured this morning, it was actually one foot narrower than Patterson Street. It's 25 miles an hour. We can put more signs. And if we have to put a bump there, we would have to put a bump there.

Yeah. Yeah. So sure.

Yep. That's fair. I mean, that's the reason.

But we also, what we're talking about also here is that I wanted to clarify, that those spaces will be for a set period of time and only then and otherwise they have to be vacant it's then i guess incumbent upon the police to enforce that if there's no event going on and there are cars that are there you do that business that you will do with anybody that's parked illegally

Yeah, because my concern was, Wes, we've been at a company with the traffic trailers, and also the landscaping and buses traveling through there, and that's what my concern was. I didn't know there was going to be parking at the time when they were starting.

We actually looked at having more stripes on the side to make it even narrower so people go slower. They see the vision that this is a very narrow street, they'll go slower, adding a white line on the right side. So now with the parking spots, it took care of that. But we were looking at that street all the time to make sure that people follow the rules and stay below 25 miles an hour. But the science will help. And if we have to put a speed pump and take it out during the winter, there's something else we can do.

Yeah, since living on the north end of Patterson Street, there's an S there. Yep. And I happen to be the superintendent of that apartment complex. Okay. It's the preserve. I'm not the superintendent. And where our entrance is... Unfortunately, I don't know who authorized it, who should be making the decision on going north or south. It happens to be, the entrance happens to be in the estern, which is, the line of sight is a little challenging for some of the tenants. My next question would be on who decides whether, if I bring up to the owner of the complex, to switch entrants and exits to make it more safe for the tenants to align the site rather than stopping in the middle of the estuarine chart turn. I think we should understand that particular point.

yeah so the traffic pattern of the development that's that's determined by the planning board when they first submit the application yeah i want to switch it out you have to the owner agrees with it i would have to bring up the planning board yes they have to do a traffic study but what i suggest since you have a concern is maybe tomorrow or sometimes this week we can meet you on site

chief if you're around or someone from traffic and dpw we can meet on site and uh we can talk about all those concerns because what's happening is that some people being in the western since it's not straight there's no self-destruct people cross over okay somebody goes i mean the turn it's nearly you're talking about from south to north yes exactly and that's what the concern of the tenants are they've been close calls and nothing's happened yet so that's what i was thinking about just sorry man no this is this is a rather you know I'm just trying to just make sure. Yeah, same here. It's turning in there, you know.

Yeah. And I think we all appreciate it because when you come south on that street, it's a decline and the cars pick up speed and then they go into the S turn. I call it the giant slalom.

So the reason why I was asking, you know, more than anything, how to go through it, but obviously I have to ask the owner, you know,

The owner would have a fairly substantial planning board application for what's called an amended site plan. So it wouldn't be something to be undertaken lightly. You'd need engineers, surveys, site plans, applications, escrows, and public hearings.

maybe there's something else we can do i'll call you tomorrow and we'll meet uh with police and and the super okay absolutely all right all right i'm still thinking yeah okay thank you thank you james appreciate it um it's now anybody else

No? OK, we're good. We're going to move on to council commentaries. I'm going to begin with, we all know about the storm we had over the 4th of July. I would personally like to thank all of our emergency services personnel, OEM, police, fire, ambulance. You guys got more calls with more chaos that went on in a short period of time. Trees falling down, fires, people blocked into homes. It was unbelievable. just just listening to the radios and hearing what was going on i think for the fire department alone there was something like 24 calls in the first 24 hours it was pretty overwhelming yeah we were four days into the month and i believe we had like 24 25 goals yeah it was crazy so now up to 53 total and still halfway through the month let's hope there's nothing else right and a brush fire um So thank you to all of you. I know John Najarian, of course, is watching at home because he's diligent like that. So thank you to all those guys. I want to thank PSE and G. We had four days of power outages as a result of that. They were on calls with us, with the mayors, with state representatives on an ongoing basis that kept us informed, that kept it going. We didn't get the last house back on, I think, until Wednesday morning. We had one remaining house. That's not the house you want to be in, but we kept bringing it down. We started out with 800 people without power, and You don't feel it quickly if you're the one without power, but I am so pleased with PSEG. I also want to give a special shout out to State Senator Schiappese, who was on every call I was on. And she represents a heck of a lot more towns than Hillsdale. And every time that she got on the call, Hillsdale was the first town that she mentioned. And so I thank her maybe because she just knew I was sitting there. But for whatever reason, she did a great job and I want to especially call her out for that. Also at the pool of the Holdren Brook between the pool and the field, there were some trees that were in the brook. And Patty pointed out to me, I called over to the county. Mosquito control came within four days. Cleared it out and cleared out seven additional trees that were in peril of falling into that brook. And at the time, if you recall, we were anticipating another two inches of rain that following Thursday. Could have been a disaster. So I want to thank the county and thank Mosquito Control for getting out there and doing that. i hope everybody had a safe fourth of july otherwise and um that's where i'm going to go from there so we started that way this time let's start over here councilman camp with your commentary have to echo the mayor's comments thank you for emergency service workers just incredible work uh with with already a tough year that it's been uh i will end with download the app today download hillsdale connect please thank you request also i think before i can go on Could you give us a number, how many we were getting?

How many downloaded? How many downloaded we have? I can give you a live one. So as of this morning, we're up at 500.

That's a good number. Good start, yeah. Very, very good. That's a nice piece of . Yeah, download the app. And be patient. We're going to be expanding.

capabilities of it uh but it's great for alerts council president yeah i echo what the mayor and chris said with regards to emergency management services i appreciate all your efforts uh also looking forward to august 10th uh nick i'll meet you out there when we uh watch the turf uh get brought in um

Okay. Anthony, you're up.

Thank you, Mayor.

Just want to echo what you said about the emergency services at the EPW.

Also want to thank for procuring that furniture and equipment. And just a reminder that National Night Out sponsored by the Hillsdale Police Department is Tuesday, August 4th, I believe.

uh that's all okay great councilman coletti thank you mayor um yeah i mean not not to be redundant but thank you for the dpw first responders police department fire department ambulance everyone for for what you guys do obviously you make our lives a lot a lot a lot better than they would be otherwise insecure so thank you that's it

councilwoman massive charlie okay ditto to what they said so thanks barry um but i'd also like to thank councilman chris camp and mike casale for their hard work on bringing the new hillsdale connect app to our community what i love is that there's so much information now available at your fingertips and it's easy to use one stop place i think one of my favorite features chris you mentioned was the alerts and notifications So this will help keep our residents informed about news, about events, and any updates that happen. I really do hope this will simplify some of the communication and everybody download it and check it out.

Councilman Rucca.

DC disconnected.

All right, somebody's messing with us. Since I lost power for close to a day, I want to thank all the efforts that were done by our emergency services to get things going. And also, I reported to Barry a leaning tree two days afterwards, and within two hours, that tree was removed on Riverdale Street block from where I live. So thank you, Barry. and last comment i want to thank the hillsdale fire department for inviting the mayor and council to their annual outdoor chief's barbecue uh this past saturday night councilman colletti and myself were in attendance and we had the opportunity to get to know better some of the members of the fire department in an informal setting along with a good number of members of the ambulance corps and the dpw employees who also serve you know in either an ambulance capacity or in the fire department thank you all

Okay. That seems to be all we have here. Can I get a motion to adjourn? Motion. Second? Second. Those in favor? Aye. We are closed. The next meeting is August 11th, 2026, 7 p.m. in this building. Thank you very much.