Council - Regular Meeting

It's going to be back in a second, but can I get a motion to reconvene?

Motion.

Second. All those in favor? Aye. We're back in session. Thanks, Greg.

Okay.

Okay. We're going to have, let's see, board commission trustee's appointments. All right. Just so you know, I'm planning on putting Kevin Donatello on the planning board as an alternate. Okay. So can I get a motion?

Motion. Second. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Okay, great. Okay, we're going to go to the approval of minutes. The August 11th council minutes. Can I get a motion?

Motion.

Second? Second. Those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Those minutes are approved. August 11th, closed session minutes. Can I get a motion?

Motion.

Second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Motion is passed. Okay. Initial public... comment period uh... anybody on the agenda only anybody have a comment or a question please come on up state your name tom name and your address let's go sorry i don't need this okay i hope that mic is on great thalman 238 liberty avenue and hill steel and i want to thank the council the mayor the dpw everyone in town

that Liberty Avenue has finally been paved. Finally, finally, finally, the washboard is gone. The only trouble is, after it was done, we had other issues. Curbs. And I spoke to several people in town concerning the issues. A lot of the property in front of the house was dug up when they put the curbing in. An excessive amount. Dirt all over the place. Crab grass coming up all over the place. And I did complain to the town. And I did complain about the dirt in the street. And part of our curb was not done properly. And it's all broken up in one little section. And that'll be an issue in the fall and a winter when everything freezes and water. And the other problem is the dirt in the street. My section of Liberty goes downhill and everything rushes down the curb and then it'll go right into the sewer. So all the dirt and debris goes in the sewer. About a month before any of the paving was done, it was a street sweeper that went by. Shocked me, first time I've seen one in years. But there was a street sweeper that went down the street. The only trouble was the only bristles that were up was the center. The ones that ran along the curb were not going, so whatever dirt was along the curve was there.

Do you have pictures? Is that what you're showing up with, a little artwork? I have pictures of- Give them to the clerk. The clerk, she'll be responsible for handing them out. No, no, no, whatever you've got, give her the copy, she'll distribute them in time.

Okay, you're going to give them back?

Yeah, we trust her. I think I have. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

My two neighbors on the other side, they wound up having their landscapers clean it. I am not cleaning it again.

I got it. Okay, so I'll tell you what. We're at three minutes. What I would suggest is that I'll talk to the BA and the DBW are both here. We're aware of it. Let's make sure somebody drives by and does an assessment on liberty as to where things stand. Okay?

Okay. And the concrete. That I'm more worried about than.

We'll do one step at a time.

And there is a picture of it there with the damages for the concrete. And as I said, the kids use it, adults use it, door quarters. Everybody uses that street. It's very popular. Everyone wants to walk that street.

Thank you for coming, I really appreciate it. Thanks. We all do, so thank you very much. Rick, you moved up front, did you have something you wanted to say to us?

I couldn't hear it.

Okay, nobody else wants to be heard. You're hiding the face of your wife. Nothing to be heard. Nothing for Jerry, okay. Well, then that's the entire room there. So the initial public comment section is closed. We're going to move on to professionals. Let's do it in order. Engineer. You're up, Nick, welcome.

Thank you, Mayor. So I'm going to be very quick tonight. We don't have a whole lot going on other than the field currently. Most of the other construction projects that we've been involved in have been wrapped up at this point. So the field, the turf was delivered yesterday. They started installing today. So that is getting very close to complete. I believe the turf install is something like two to three weeks total.

And then- It's going to take two or three weeks to install everything?

To install the turf, correct.

How many? How long?

About two weeks. About two weeks. Yeah.

Okay, so we're September 1, so somewhere around the middle of the month.

Yeah, mid-September for turf install, which at that point it will be substantially complete.

What's left to be done once the turf is down?

It's going to be just tidying up the site pretty much. Your landscaping, things like that that haven't been done yet. Hold on. I have an update that the contractor gave me specifically for... Give me one second. So the paving for the parking lot is not going to be done until the turf is finished. That's going to be the last thing that they do. So the paving will start. It's scheduled right now for September 21st.

Well, they can't really do the paving until they clear everything and pull up.

exactly you don't want heavy equipment riding over the brand new pavement so that's that's the idea so the the grass pavers are still not finished for that emergency access drive that's one more thing that will be done after the turf is completed and the paving of the parking lot those are the only two like major items the rest of it is going to be like landscaping and things like that okay so you said the two paving things are going to start the 22nd the the actual the paving of the parking lot is scheduled to start september 21st 21st correct There was some not ideal weather over the last couple of weeks, so it slowed things down a little bit. But we're doing everything we can to keep it on track and keep it moving.

Nick, what's involved in the walkthrough when that field gets handed over? Who handles, the engineer handles that, goes through?

Yeah, so we would definitely do a final walkthrough with the contractor and see if there's anything outstanding. I will say that we've been there almost every day as it's going. So we're trying to deal with problems as they come and not leave them all to the end and have this big list of things to correct. There shouldn't be much. At the end of this I would say I'm not saying I'm not saying there won't be anything but we are trying to deal with issues as they arise rather than put it all off it till the end so it should be relatively minor if anything I don't think we actually ever received any revisions from the Environmental Commission I mean I know we had the discussion um on changing some plantings around but i don't think we actually got any specifics from them yeah i thought that was i thought we approved it didn't we have to

We did meet about it and there was specifics discussed and everything and it seemed like we had a pretty clear path forward. I just don't recall seeing a actual red line of the plan of specifically what they wanted.

It's the same plan. They substitute certain trees, right? They wanted certain trees to provide shade. Right, right. But then the sun would be in a position where those trees were not doing any good in terms of shade. So we said, let's keep the plan now and see where it goes. We can always add more trees.

My understanding was a little bit different. I thought we were going to incorporate some of those changes. We didn't add any more trees. In the planning.

So either way, I mean, if we are going to make any changes to that, that work hasn't started yet, so there is still time. If we need to, we can make tweaks. I would just say if we are going to tweak things, we need to keep it within the same kind of cost parameters that we have currently.

Yeah, I just ask that the BA just get everybody on the same page with that, with regards to the Environmental Commission and Colliers, to make sure that they've incorporated some of those changes, right? i have my notes from that meeting when we met and all that uh with the commissioner and you and um i can for i can send this after the meeting okay thank you any other questions for nick yeah the last one is about there is a lot of areas of natural grass there right and we don't you know have any water sources to water that lawn in you know in months to come. Can the engineer kind of work out something where we can get a sprinkler there? Because there's multiple areas that are going to be dry.

You're talking about near the field house?

I'm talking about Washington. I'm talking about the field house. I'm talking about the walkways, the paths. There's big areas of natural grass that you can even see now not having been watered. It doesn't look aesthetically pleasing.

Yeah, so I think long term irrigation should definitely be considered for those areas. Just because of how labor intensive and how frequently you need to water grass in order to keep it looking nice. We have made some adjustments to allow for easier installation of irrigation in the future. For example, we had the contractor put a PVC sleeve under that emergency access drive, because that was one area we knew we wouldn't be able to cross. They'd have to dig the whole thing up in the future. So we had them put an empty PVC sleeve through that. That way, when we need to run the line, we can just go right through that sleeve and we don't have to dig up anything. So we've thought about this and have made accommodations for it. But obviously, an irrigation system is going to cost a good amount of money, and it's something that we need to find the money for to do. In terms of something in the interim, I think we're just talking about long hoses and sprinklers, right? That's what we have to do.

Okay. Anything else? Okay, thank you. Next up, Police Department. Chief.

Thank you, Mayor. August 2026, thank you for the attendance. We did our national night out. at beachwood park for community policing traffic and patrol we responded 655 calls for service we had 105 motor vehicle stops 17 motor vehicle accidents uh nine selective enforcement details 13 parking enforcement details responded to 59 medical calls we issued 46 written warnings 27 summonses were issued. We had one adult arrest and 86 property checks. Our detective bureau investigated 27 cases. They closed 17, and our firearms investigation unit conducted seven firearms investigations.

Questions for the chief?

Chief, next week we're having two officers being recognized for life saving.

Uh, yeah. So, uh, the next meeting, uh, yeah, it's gonna be, um, so at seven o'clock next meeting, we're gonna have our two officers, two, uh, volunteer EMS, uh, workers from Hillsdale, as well as the family is for a childbirth award. Yep. Um, so we'll have the family in attendance and, uh, should be good. Shouldn't take up too much time, but hopefully we can get that done. Um, should be a good amount of people in a couple of questions.

Um, The one I always harp on or question, how's implementation of the eBike stuff? How's that going?

We haven't had any eBike calls.

Have you noticed that, I haven't, two years ago, it was insane. Everybody was, do you think, I guess the law may have scared people?

Yeah, I mean, thankfully, from the police side of it, cause wise, we never really spoke spike too much. So we're not seeing that much of a difference, but just from everyday traffic, there's not really many people talking about it. I'm not hearing much from social media about it. So yeah, maybe the law is going into effect, slow some people down.

I'm going to wait a second until the siren goes. I have another question. Okay. I was walking along Patterson Street over the weekend as I tend to go on my walks. A lot of people are concerned who live in that area now with the speed in which people are going through there. I know you've got the electronic sign up at 25 miles an hour. I asked the BA whether or not we could put And he said it doesn't make sense because of the winter and the plowing, etc. I don't know if there's either more enforcement with someone who's out there on a regular basis to kind of scare people into slowing it down. Whether or not it's possible to say, I know that there are removable rubberized speed bumps that can go in and out of the season. I don't know whether that's an option or whatever. But I just want to call the notice that I'm getting a lot of feedback that people are concerned that

people who use that as a cut through and did so at a more excessive rate of speed now there are more people there yep so we did a minor traffic study over there a couple months ago for similar complaints that s curve over there is a 25 mile an hour s curve if you take that s curve at 25 miles an hour it looks like you're doing way over 25. we were there a month or so ago with the super from the apartment complex Um, I know that we ran radar over there. We had to complain it actually with us and 99% of the cars that they ran radar on were doing the speed limit, you know, but, um, yeah, we'll definitely target it. Uh, go back and just keep it mud on radar. Yep.

I have a couple of questions.

Yeah.

Okay. Um, I think last year or so I, we talked a little bit about potentially, and this is something that maybe could be discussed in a police committee meeting, but school starts this week. Um, and the kids on the east side of town, They know better than to go up Hillsdale Ave because it's a hill. So what they usually do, because they can't ride with their 16-pound book bags up the hill, is they cut through Memorial, which they're going to start cutting through pretty soon, or they cut through Everdell, and they go up Washington. Once they get to Washington and Kinderkommack, It's a nightmare, and as you know, there have been many accidents there, and there's no crossing guard. To cross over Washington to Kinderkammack. If you're on Washington, to cross over to Kinderkammack, there's no crossing guard. And I can say this because my child does this on a daily. And I watch him like a crazy mom on my phone. But they all do that. All the kids take the bike up Washington because there's no hill on Washington. They're not going to take it up hills they like. They're not going to take it up large. Those are massive hills. so if there was an opportunity to have a crossing guard or you know i'm sure there's a cost with everything but or maybe we sort of figure out a way to um i don't know monitor that because that there is no there is no blinking light there's it's a dangerous intersection. So that's the first thing I wanted to talk about. And we're bringing this up in the police committee meeting as well. But I guess I also wanted an update. I'm not sure if I've heard anything about the St. John's SLEO. Are we okay? Do we have? We have a SLEO? We do? Okay.

So, yeah, we did interviews today.

Oh, nice.

Yep. Definitely have good candidates in contact with the administration over there. I spoke with them already. Okay. We have a second round interview next week. with their staff to make sure everything's you know laid out they know exactly what they're signing up for what the expectations are we have the you know the background investigation side of it along with what we have to do to actually put a police officer in a uniform in a in a school testing stuff like that licensing but we're very confident we'll have someone there and they're aware of this by the beginning of October so there's only a couple of weeks of non-coverage Yep, and they're working out on their side. They're keeping their security company on a month-by-month basis for now until we can get the officer in there.

Another question?

That's it. The number of units over there at Patterson Street is about probably 50% occupied right now, right?

103 was last you said to us.

So have you seen an uptick in traffic on that intersection where the bank is?

Nothing out of the ordinary, no. and 25 miles per hour is probably the lower you're not going to go lower than that on a street right no i mean if we were going to change the speed limit over there i know there's you know you would have to do that on the back end too with the town to establish a new speed you know speed limit over there but a regular road and a side street or anything like that's 25 miles right and there's been no issues with the parking that we put on that street cars have been parking there on that they have been parking there they're not supposed to because the ordinance basically says it's reserved for when we have events there but you know once in a while there are cars out there yeah and just so we're clear too we don't we can't enforce anything yet it's not in our ticket system the ordinance that passed so we don't have an ability to we can't take we can't issue a summons on orders to just pass because it's not in the nj court system yet for issuing and it would be a warning so i would give a warning any other questions just how long does that normally take to get it uh the tenant abuser was handling it and they said the turnarounds relatively quick but it has to go through their version of the council meetings you know at the state level so we're hoping within a month or so once they run through their cycles of meetings

Any other questions for the Chief? Thank you, sir. Thank you. DPW Superintendent Peterson, it's a mouthful. Welcome back.

Thank you, it's good to be back. So fields, we've got the football and soccer fields have all been striped in line. of their practices. I believe at some point, once the football season starts, we'll finish Centennial for their B game, their nightly B games. Downs Tree Service got backed up, as we know, with all those storms. They're finally back to the list that they have. They're slowly but surely working on the removals and the safety curtains, as well as DPWs, remove the handful of trees around town in August, including two at Memorial Field we took down. Downs came in and took down another one. Parks, routine maintenance continues with the grass cutting and hedge trimming. Pothole repairs are continuing. The yellow striping on Patterson Street has been completed. from Piermont, I believe, all the way up to Parkview Tribe.

Okay.

I don't know if the VA brought it in, but we are in possession of the Jones Joint Legacy Lakeside. Oh, no. Yeah, it's in the office.

And we're going to be doing that next week.

That'll be, we'll be putting that up Friday. Labor Day. Labor Day. They're doing a presentation on Labor Day. Right. So all offices, including DPW, are closed. Okay.

The sign's going to be installed. It'll be installed. And they'll be able to pull something off of it.

Yeah, Bea and I spoke this morning about that, and we're going to figure out a way that it can be removed.

It'll be covered and easily just be pulled down. It's a magic trick. Okay.

DPW renovation plans are complete and is set for the agenda. Right.

Anyone wants to see the plans?

Go out for a big process.

Okay.

Special events, new season is coming up. Caddocks have been diligently working. on servicing and repairing any of our equipment, as well as the shared service has increased as well due to Washington Passion's upcoming leaf season. Okay. Also, I've been looking at two different dates for the Council to decide when we want to start leaf season. One would be Monday the 12th of October, And the second would be October 19th. The first date is two weeks prior to what we started at last year. And the second date is one week prior.

What was the experience last year as far as... I know that people, you know, we always are going to hear from people that say, hey, there are leaves, I want them out, they're picking them up. What's the... Is this in reaction directly to that, that you're going back two weeks in a week?

Yes, there was a lot of... complaints and concerns that the leaf season was started too late.

Do you think one week is sufficient or two weeks is necessary? You haven't put out a recommendation, you've offered us two days.

I think two weeks is, Not really needed. I think a week prior.

Okay.

So you're recommending a week. If it does get a little heavy, I can always put the vacuum, the two vacuums that we have out to pick up rather than putting out all the equipment to keep our costs down. Okay. So when would be the start? It would be Monday, December 19th. The 19th. And I'll have the vegetative waste curbside pick up and when we start picking up leaves as we... Is that it?

That's it. Questions for the DPW superintendent?

Yeah, just one. In prior years, I've asked this question and I crossed my fingers because as far as a leaf removal equipment, the borough used to get used equipment. They were out of service more times than they are. I'm pretty sure we're in good shape, but I just want to kind of hear from you. Yes. Are we good for next season?

We are good for this season with the additional two packer trucks attachments that were bought. Yeah, I know we invested a good amount. So this year I'm only going to be looking at one rental truck. Okay. Which will dramatically keep costs down and depending on who the company is, if it's, you know, is the only one again that bids on it. they'll have at least one backup truck that they can send into town if their main one goes down. Okay, good.

What year is our gated contract up? Is it after this year? 28th. It's going into 28th.

more questions um with with all the trees down it has uh i think we said that the path in inside of beechwood park with the where we laid down the actually laid down the the wood path there was some trees and uh down inside there has that clean up uh the trees have all been removed off the path okay um it's just the eagles as the ordinance says yeah

It's moved and laying off to the side. Okay.

Good to know.

Any more questions?

Mayor, so the superintendent is very humble. The trees we took out from Memorial Field. The two? There were three trees. So one we could not reach, so we hired the contractor. And two, they looked at it. I would say if we were to hire the contractor, it would be at least $2,000 each. Yeah. And they jumped at it, no questions asked, with the truck. And three, four guys took it out within hours. Took them down?

Do you have a stump grinder? How do you pull those out? We do not have a stump grinder. We have a stump still there.

So the stumps are there. It gets loaded by hand or by machine. But those were big trees. Oh, I don't doubt it.

I just think that'll be an add-on for whenever we have to have somebody else. As long as you're here, you want to pull those stumps out? Right, right.

Barry, we're going to increase the limit for downs. Are we going to move forward with the purchase of those trees for the borough?

Yes, that's separate from the tree removal. But because of that, it's the same vendor. We have to do the resolution to increase.

But we'll be able to get that in. Yes, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Anything else? Fred Rubell will be very happy. That's all of it.

No one? Okay. Thank you very much, sir. We're going to move on to council committee reports. Start alphabetically, I guess. Well, not alphabetically. It's at the top of the list. Chris.

Oh, okay. Great. Stony Brook Pool Commission report here. As we know, there's still an opportunity to enjoy the pool this week during the weekdays from 4 o'clock to, I believe, 7 or 8. I want to say 8.

8.

Thank you. It's getting dark. So if you want to get some early evening swims, I highly recommend it. Try to get everything you can out of summer. And then during the weekend, there'll be some regular hours. Last month I had, so there was a meeting on August 12th and last month I had stated that through August 11th there was $831,000 in membership revenue. An additional detail with that after the meeting was that from through August 11th for total revenue we were at 1.028 million. And this was a little bit under what was on the budget. And they were the commission was citing the 42 days of rain that we got. We got a lot of rain. Yeah. 42 days. Pretty amazing. So a lot of early closures and all kinds of things.

What was it? It was the deficiency in registration or was it like.

The membership revenue is actually higher than previous years. Yeah, all the concessions, all the programs that they have. Concessions, yeah, definitely big, keeping people away. The membership revenue, I don't want to say it exactly, so don't put this... It's not official, but I want approximately like 15K extra, like somewhere.

So what are you talking about? We're talking about the repair and the maintenance of the...

So that's, I'm talking, so total revenue, but like there's a good news story here that even though the total revenue was... was lower than was anticipated the expenses was budgeted for 1.2 million and at the time of the meeting we've only spent 600k leading up and granted there's some big expenses that need to be paid out but the committee commission was saying that it can't be more than 7 to 800k by the end of season So even though the total revenue was lower, the margins are very strong and we spent much less. All the repairs that were done in the previous year really came through. That said, the competition pools remains an issue that's the only area where there's been frequent breakdowns and so they cited that there could be could be a benefit to doing additional maintenance, like getting a completely new pump and motor for that.

The plan, they're like $400,000 favorable, but that money may be allocated to the competition pool.

Well, I'd have to get the information on that. But it would be that much. It's going to be a very strong year in the black at the end of the day, and it's a good time to remind the community that the pool is completely self-sustained and that none of the taxpayer dollars are needed or ever go to the pool.

The chief's here as well. Today, Saturday, the lightning alarm went off a couple of times. Do you know anything about that? I do not hear about it. The sky was completely clear, and they went off.

Yes, ma'am. So we had a call with a vendor There's some sort of a signal that went to the system, so they're changing that. Westwood has the same system, and that didn't go off.

Because twice in one day, they've got to be out for half an hour. You've actually got to physically leave the pool. There are people lined up sitting in their cars with kids. They weren't happy.

Yeah, we had actually called with them, with the OEM and DPW.

Yeah, that had happened during the summer.

at least twice what happened twice in one day on saturday yeah yeah okay yes um not to put a not all good yeah i mean it's a big report you know we're at the end of the season there's there's a lot going on but so the there was some some good additional revenue stories to talk about what was coming in is the the guppy camp was underway at the time had strong registration This fall, there's a junior lifeguard classes that I understand were nearly full at the time of the meeting. And that's a great way to bring in some revenue at the end of the season. The commission also revisited the discussion around its decision from January to discontinue high school student parking at Stony Brook. the conversation had came up over social media and they wanted to address it. The commission basically reaffirmed and agreed with each other that due to previous costly incidents that included with vandalism that happened as a result of the relationship and Also very low amount of students actually taking part of the program. I believe they cited only five students actually were parking there, that the risk was just too great to continue having parking at Stony Brook. So they kind of reaffirmed that decision. Also, they had spent some time discussing communication following a recent social media post that received significant attention. I don't know how much of us are online junkies, but there was quite a bit of discussion there, and the commission wanted to address it. But they were talking about maybe doing more to help members and the community understand operations around the pool. who are the people that work at the pool, who is the staff, who would like, how do they go about testing chlorine levels? One of the commission members had come to the meeting with a short video shorts prepared to kind of kind of Show show people that if we got communications out there people would understand some more of the pain points that they they communicate online aren't quite as as serious as they can they can be exploited out to be and A good story that to follow that out was that they had just hosted the Bergen County the Bergen County Championship swim meet Um, for the summer, all the other teams were coming into the pool. Um, people were out with their phones, recording the facility, like in awe of how nice it is. Uh, it's, it's kind of widely said that the feedback was just that everybody's like, this is, there's a reason why they have the championship meet at Stony Brook every year is by far in a way the best facility in the area. So that's really nice to hear and a testament to the upkeep of, uh, of, of that. And yeah, so that's the report, everybody. It's a lot to go through. I have a question for Chris.

Yes. Chris, I'm not sure if you know the answer to this, but since the five cars will no longer be parking in the lot, does that mean that the fence will be closed? because last year it was open and because of the overflow of students at Meadowbrook, since there are 65 additional kids there since the fifth grade is now at Meadowbrook for another year, parents were, at least 10 cars were parking at Stony Brook to pick up their Meadowbrook kids because there's no parking in Meadowbrook and there was kind of like an unspoken, I guess, agreement of like, hey, can we use the lot for Meadowbrook So if that fence is closed, that might, Meadowbrook parents are kind of, there's nowhere to park. So maybe it's something that can be brought up to the commission if they're, you know.

Yeah, I don't have an official answer on that, but yeah.

If we keep it open, we have to plow it and keep it clean. That's all. I think it would be closed. It would be closed. Just because we don't want to maintain an empty parking lot.

Because quite a few parents were using, including myself, we were using the Stony Brook parking lot because Metal Brook, again, just 62 extra kids or 65 extra kids in that building. Parents can't park there. Yeah, but there may be changes here. They might have to make changes. Okay.

And Chris, I know at the Finance Committee meeting this morning, we didn't talk about, with the CFO, the reports that he generated as of August 11. But I think to the Stony Brook Pools Commission's credit, they are running a profit, I think it's about $200,000 or $250,000 more than they did at the same time August 11 of last year. They are a little behind in anticipated Yes, that's right. Right. Okay.

And then I heard you say the membership revenue was, was stronger, but because of the rain days, they weren't bringing in, but they're doing significantly better than prior year.

Right.

They had, it seems like they had budgeted expenses that never got realized and then didn't say about the competition pool that may.

They've had several repairs over the course of the year. They're just considering maybe how to have those repairs be less frequent and what that would require. They're still way ahead, even with those types of repairs. We'd be very much in the black. Any other questions?

Councilman DeRosa. Just one report. Council President Oso, myself, and the BA met with a couple members from the Hillsdale Volunteer Ambulance Service regarding the status of their building. So we do have some insurance money that's come in. The HVAS has some funding as well. So we're talking about what we can do with the building together. So we talked about adding different scenarios, airing a adding a bunk area for crews, fitting a second ambulance, of course, making ADA compliant. So a couple of things were discussed, but I believe the BA is contacting an architect to kind of now put pen to paper or mouse to screen and come up with what we can do given the funding and what the possible scenarios could be. So more on that soon. You missed me. I was there. You just didn't see me.

you know i i actually wrote your name that i crossed it out and i couldn't remember if you were there i was there i was on time it's crossed out tell me at the end so you weren't actually there i wasn't in the room okay okay anything else no any questions for councilman

council president yeah just an update on the environmental commission uh next environmental commission meeting will be monday evening september 14th here at borough hall be open to the public we touched upon the trees that are going to get planted in the borough about 25 trees and we're going to use the shade tree contribution account of which is about 15 000 and we'll use about half of it for this planting we had to do a little bit of work to get the downs limit Raised to use that vendor because they've given us a good price on that planting. On August 12th, the approved the boroughs, urban and community forestry plan update, which the environmental commission assisted with. This is a long time coming and I'm glad that we finally got a file. Fred Rebell in the Environmental Commission is also working with a certified tree expert and hopes to provide a short information session to the residents in October here in Borough Chambers on the requirements of the Borough's tree ordinance and what is an unsafe tree, especially in the view of recent storm events. And the Narborist will be here to go over the specifics. With regards to energy, conservation, resiliency, and sustainability, the Environmental Commission has begun working in earnest with the Business Administrator Ghazali and Council President Oso, that's myself, to identify and push forward energy saving options that may save the borough money. We talked about having these charging stations in the commuter parking lot, which we have some follow-up work to do. And there's other initiatives as well, like solar panels, things to consider. And the VA has a laundry list of items that we need follow up on. And the library took the summer off, and we'll be meeting in a couple weeks.

They've got an HVAC problem. And we have an HVAC, which I'll report on. Substantial. Yeah. Okay.

Any questions for the Council President? The HVAC issue is at the library? At the library. Yeah. It's not working?

It's dead.

Yeah. Older units that they're looking to go through the PSE and G energy. Hopefully they could get 50% subsidy on those stage vac units if they qualify.

It's $50,000, I think, that's what Dave was talking about. Plus they also have the railroad ties are giving way- On the wall, right. At the wall, the retaining wall, and we've got to figure out what we're going to do with that because- There's a tree there. Sitting up at the top is another tree that could be in jeopardy and that wall is in disrepair because that's the way it is, because who's surprised? Councilman Coletti.

Thank you, Mayor. Two brief updates. Planning Board did not meet in August. The next meeting is September 10th. Fire Department, 35 calls in August of this year, similar to last year, 38. Remember, though, July was a really busy month. They had 75 calls, roughly 75 calls in July, so it did come down in August. The new ladder truck, it's scheduled to be delivered from what I heard today as of Friday, September 4th. If all does go well, the fire department will reach out to the mayor and council if they would like us there to welcome the truck. So the chief will email us once he has a firm date and time.

That is it.

Question? Bless the truck. Bless it.

Who's blessing the truck?

Who's driving it in? Who gets the honor of driving it into town? Barry, you might know better than me. Who's driving it in?

Who's driving the truck?

Oh, the manufacturer. They don't trust us.

Because otherwise it was a fight between. Oh, I like that. That's a good call.

Maybe they can just stay around and drive it, too, in case they crash at Everett. Council.

All right, let's go. Economic Development Committee. The Economic Development Advisory Committee met on August 19th to review the results of the community survey, which was distributed to residents on July 17th with a closing date of August 1st. The survey was shared through the borough email, eblast, It was shared through Facebook. There was also a notification shared right through the Hillsdale Connect app, so if you don't have the app, download it. And also there were printed copies made available at the library. The purpose of that survey was to gather feedback from our residents that will help guide the future in planning economic development decisions. We were incredibly pleased with the responses, receiving 1,118 total survey responses, Awesome. So next Tuesday, September 8th, the committee will be here. They're going to present a brief overview of the survey findings and share recommendations with the council. We're we're very excited to share the hard work, time and thoughtful input put in that the advisory committee put into this process. And I do think that the results will provide us with some good insight as we plan the future of downtown. Okay. Let's move on to rec. The Fall Rec Brochure, it was released about two weeks ago. Registration's open for most of the programs. Also Mahjong classes have been added due to popular demand, so look out for that. On September 18th, square dancing, I see Jerry here, but we'll be hosting a free square dancing uh thanks to the 150 committee i think it started back a couple years three years ago now uh so it will be hosted at the 125 here oh did i say did i say 50 oh my god 125. so we all just gained 25 years um that will be hosted on the 18th at the piermont community center so uh everyone should attend it's free and it's fun um On September 19th is the Fall Festival. It will be held from 12 to 4 at Beachwood. We're still looking for more sponsors, so if anyone is interested in sponsoring the event, they can reach out to Dan Conti. We have a very busy fall coming up because we also have the Oktoberfest. It will be held on October 2nd at 7 p.m. at Beachwood. It'll feature a beer garden, some live music. Last year was really fun, so hopefully more people can attend. Memorial Field, we already got an update from Nick, but it's in the works. And that's all I got.

Any questions for? October 2nd is the?

Oktoberfest at night. Friday night. Friday night at 7 o'clock. Okay. And it's live band and beer.

I like both.

I know. Melissa, with regards to economic development, has Darlene Green been involved? Not yet. Not yet. You might get a recommendation.

Stand by.

I'm very excited for the data, Melissa.

It'll be fun. Data guy.

Very excited for it.

Yep.

Anything else to report?

That's it.

Councilman Rucco.

Thank you, Ms. Mayor.

Access for All did not meet this month. Their next meeting is September 28th at the library. Board of Health did not meet in August. Their next meeting will be September 16th at 7 p.m. right here at Borough Hall. The Finance Committee met this morning. We discussed three big items, the electric sweeper, the health insurance situation, and the Memorial Field playground, the financial aspects of that. Let me just take them one at a time. The cost of the sought-after EV sweeper plus DPW charging station was originally estimated at $381,000. A state-sponsored grant was expected to cover the full cost. However, the quote from the manufacturer is now up to $600,000. So if we proceed to move ahead with the EV sweeper, the borough would need to come up with about $219,000 one way or another. The committee discussed various options using a modest portion, for example, of the Clean Communities grant money. We're limited as to how much we can use of that money, but we could use some. We also talked about issuing short term debt. It also discussed whether purchasing a gas combustion sweeper might be a better alternative, but we were able to quickly conclude that that option was not feasible financially because of the lack of any grant funds to cover the cost.

What's the life expectancy of the current sweeper that we've got?

I don't think we use that current sweeper. I think it's dead. It's dead.

So we're going to Paramus now?

Yeah, Paramus. We've gone to Paramus now for the last, how many years, Barry? Eight? AT LEAST 8. AT LEAST 8. AT LEAST 8.

TO QUALIFY FOR THAT GRANT, TO QUALIFY FOR THAT GRANT, TO QUALIFY FOR THAT GRANT, WE HAD TO BASICALLY PROVE THAT WE HAD TO BASICALLY PROVE THAT WE HAD TO BASICALLY PROVE THAT THAT SWEEPER THAT WE HAVE IS THAT SWEEPER THAT WE HAVE IS THAT SWEEPER THAT WE HAVE IS RETIRED, CRACK THE BLOCK AND SEND RETIRED, CRACK THE BLOCK AND SEND RETIRED, CRACK THE BLOCK AND SEND IT OFF, RIGHT? IT OFF, RIGHT? IT OFF, RIGHT? CORRECT.

CORRECT.

CORRECT. YEAH.

YEAH.

So what was the main cause of the higher prices? Are they just going for more money now? Because I know Oradell had previously bought one using the same grant money, so I'm a bit surprised.

Ask the BA maybe to weigh in on that.

So we actually called them also. They got the same grant, but they funded the rest of it from different grants that they had, from different capital grants that they had to cancel. We were basically misled originally saying it would cover the entire cost, but that's not the case.

So the committee asked the CFO and the BA to develop what I call an all-in cost on the EV alternative, taking into account lifetime maintenance expenses, the labor cost of us having a DPW employee run the machine throughout however many hours it would take. And the debt financing expenses that would be incurred because we're going to have to borrow money to purchase this. But also including revenue that we might recognize if we were to enter a shared service contract with another borough to clean their streets with our sweeper.

recognizing the useful life would come down on the street sweeper and replace the battery which is right that's the negative aspect because when you use it more it just wears down and it depreciates at a faster rate Mr. May I wanted to ask you also though but we're going to

We have a current expense every time we go to parameters.

It's a true fully loaded net cost analysis, so we'll take into account our current spend as a credit towards- Right, and that was again, we're trying to determine whether it's better to stay with the existing arrangement or actually buy- Because if it's $220,000 or something like that, over a course of whatever to finance it versus what we're paying paramus correct yeah right right right no one's concluded that it's not feasible we just we would like the numbers before we move ahead of course as a finance committee um and just so the rest of the council knows you're currently paying parameters roughly three to four times a year about i think it's about fifty five hundred dollars cleaning

Denise might know the exact numbers perhaps.

I think Barry said sometimes three, sometimes four a year. So we asked the CFO to just take the conservative number three times a year.

I thought it was a little less that Paramus was charging like $5,000 for two sweeps Memorial Day, and then I don't know when the second one occurs, but the cost of a third and a fourth was really starting to get into a pricey arena.

We should be able to see what the payments were to Paracas.

Yeah, the records on Edmond should tell us what that is. But that's that man's job over there. Your job. And then we would take into account savings that we would be achieved if we no longer paid Paramus to clean the streets. So all this has to be put into the all in cloth. So a decision to buy the EV sweeper or continue with our present arrangement with Paramus is not likely to be made until the committee is satisfied that the acquisition makes sense. But there is also some time urgency to this because VA has informed us that the price could change again. There was a quote, that quote is only good for so many days. So we're sort of under a time frame to try to decide this in October.

And what's the expiration on the grant itself? When do we have to use it by?

We don't have the grant. I don't think there's a deadline on the grant.

We have to extend it, Barry. It's the end of this year, but we can do an extension with a reason.

Okay, so there's two dates we're fighting, right? Possible increase on the growth and the possible that we need to do it in consideration. So we need to move on this.

Yeah, this is on a fast track.

Yeah, but once we decide in October to move ahead, The grant is almost assured to us. The concept of it having an expiration date is only valid in terms of us delaying the purchase. Actually, I think it's a leasing arrangement. It's a full payout lease over five years, and then we purchase the thing for a buck at the end of the lease. One of the intangible benefits that we should consider is that Hillsdale is going to be able to use this vehicle more frequently to clean our own streets and storm drain grates than what Paramus currently does. So that's got to be taken into account.

But then we're taking somebody off the line in the DPW to work more there. It's always a whole bunch of facts.

So the committee asked the BA and the CFO to prepare a bond ordinance for next week's meeting. Um, for the 219, I believe, um, to have it in place, it will be introduced. It won't be passed that, but the time has to go by so that at least we're ready to move in early October. Okay. Okay. Um, makes sense. Memorial Field Playground, we discussed the pros and cons of using rubberized mulch this year as originally anticipated, I guess, and replacing it within a year with the rubberized padding, which is the desirable, what we wanted ultimately. The committee recommends the latter go with the padding don't put the mulch in Because the mulch has to then come out you're paying for mulch and you got to remove the mulch It also has an effect on the equipment that's going to be down because the mulch is like so high So the committee's recommending that we go bite the bullet put the padding in This year as a necessary one-time expense plus installing the swings which we understand are not that expensive including those for physically handicapped individuals, as well as some of the jungle gym equipment. Not all the jungle gym equipment, but some. The rest can be installed next year. It helps spread out the expense over a two year, well, I guess it would be almost a two year time frame.

John, I will have one update on the padding.

Okay, good, good, good. And the last topic was health insurance.

I was going to talk about the incremental change, the 54,000 that we would need to do. You're going to do that.

Yeah, I'm going to leave that to the VA. The health insurance, both the VA and CFO continue to evaluate options to reduce the cost of employee health benefits. The process is being complicated by the worsening cost estimates that are coming out of the state for the state health benefits plan as to what the premiums will be for what I call the higher high deductible plans and the lower high deductible plans. The cost of those premiums keeps increasing as towns leave the state health benefit plan, leaving the remainder of us to pick up the cost. There still appears, according to the CFO, to be room for savings for individual employees and the borough in 2027 if we are to go with one of the high-high or high-low deductible plans, but the window's narrowing. The amount of savings that we originally anticipated we might achieve and share with the employees is not as great because of the cost increases in premiums in general. That's a frightening future. So more to come on that, but decisions, I guess, are going to have to be made in the fourth quarter, early in the fourth quarter, because we have to sign up at some point.

That's all. And those numbers are, we thought it was bad last year with 35 to 41%. Yeah. We would be wishing that that's as bad as it's going to be if that's what happened.

What are the towns doing that aren't joining, that are dropping out?

They're going to either privately arranged insurance with a private company. But I seriously question whether they are going to be insulated. They may have a year of benefits, but the market. The market is moving in a way that is pricing people right out of it. When you supply something and the supply, if you encourage usage of certain things, what happens is people demand more of it. And that's what's happening around the nation. You're making health insurance available. People want it. They get it. And the insurance companies are not necessarily the best at keeping control of the cost.

That's just my personal- Well, we also make the argument that the federal government was subsidizing our Medicaid system, which they haven't. So those cuts at the federal level are now being seen at the state level.

That they are being passed down the line. Yes. I mean, I'm a Medicare Advantage purchaser. I don't know what my costs are going to be. I'll find out in October when United Healthcare contacts me. So it's not a pleasant story.

mayor just to chris's point what we're doing in hillsdale we're looking at our lowest ratio report currently currently so it's always two years back yeah so we're trying to get a real-time loss ratio report from a different company the same company that's being used by the insurance companies that's what they use so we're going to get that report and then present it back and see where we fit in there

And if our loss ratio is lower than- Right now we're 136%.

And if you're not under one, the insurance companies don't want to carry you because it's costing you more. It's costing them more to carry. All right, all right. Okay, anything else? Those cheery numbers? I don't know if I should say thank you for that report.

Yeah, I know. I'm the guy at the end that depresses you all. That's okay. I'll be gone in December. Somebody else will depress you.

I wanted to say thanks to the, I'm not happy to hear about the sweeper, but thank you for continuing to pursue and see what the options are for payments, see if we've got a viable path there.

I really think that the borough could benefit from having a sweeper. It turns out the gas combustion approach, we can't afford it. If they would get to give us a grant on that, we would consider that. But right now, I think the only option in town is outsource it as we've been doing. Electric or outsource. Or do the electric, buy the electric. Yeah, right.

Okay. B.A. Gasali, you're up.

Thank you, Mayor. First, I would like to thank the volunteers who are taking care of Warhol front and back landscaping. They were here in 90-degree weather, weeding and cleaning. They are Debbie Moy, Suzanne Stigliano, Pat Hicks, Ann Molina, Lisa, Owen Peacock, and they're working alongside Tracy Hansen. So if you see landscaping flourishing, they're really spending time on that, and we want to thank them. The DPW building, again, Barry touched on it, but it is a major project. We have the plans in place. They're going out for bid. And we're doing some renovation, adding office, adding a staircase. And it's from money that we got from IDA that we saved up. And we're hoping the numbers will come back and we'll be just even with what we have.

Thank you.

We need to set up a day for the grand opening and the ribbon cutting for Memorial Field. I'll throw out some dates on email and we'll see what works.

We're already kind of looking at October at this point?

Yeah, early October probably. Okay. Yep. Also, I want to mention there's going to be a town hall meeting here on Monday, October 5th with Mayor Schoenfeld talking about DEER, the DEER survey, and bring all the tough questions to him. I want to be here and listen.

Don't you have a council meeting that night of your own? No, no. I made sure I'm here.

The ambulance building, again, another major project. I know Anthony touched on it. So when the tree came through the roof, we can replace what we have now with insurance money to take us back to where it was before the tree fell on it. We are looking to keeping the same footprint but expand by one bay and raise the ceiling a little bit. I think that would be ideal if you want to get a second rig eventually. And we'll also be looking at getting half of a second story above the lounge. So I'm working with the engineer and the architect to get some real numbers, find the financing for it, and come back and make a recommendation. We own the building. Yeah. But we want to make it.

But there are issues also that if we go in certain directions, we have code issues that we have to deal with. Either way, Mayor. Either way.

Either way. We have to bring it up to code. Okay. ADA compliant, the bathrooms and all that.

The electrical, the whole thing has got to be redone.

Councilwoman touched on the next meeting during the survey, your presentation. We will engage the board planner, the board attorney, and start to look at downtown rezoning and some of the recommendations coming out from that committee. I think you'll like what you see and hear next week. Great.

Mike, there was work that was done on that rezoning plan a couple of years, like a year ago, a year and a half ago. Can some of that work be leveraged?

Absolutely. That's why we need Mark. Mark was involved in that.

Yeah. Because we used to look at different areas at that time too, right? Okay.

The playground, so we were looking at using mulch just to save some money this year in phase one, and phase two, come back and change that. In speaking with the contractor, the mulch has to be 12 inches thick. And if we were to do that this year and then come back next year and remove the mulch, the playground will be 12 inches higher than what we want it to be. So the engineer and the contractors, they put their heads together on what else can we do. And can we talk about it now?

We can, but I would say it's not a definite thing that it's feasible yet. So we need to evaluate from a safety perspective.

There's a third option that I think will be good. It'll look nice, but we're just looking at how safe it is if someone falls on it. And what is the it?

That would be using artificial turf, the same style turf that we're using on the field for the playground area.

Yeah, to turf the playground.

This is an evaluation that involves fall zones and heights of falling and the softness of the material. We have to talk to the playground manufacturer and see what the specifications are of that equipment and the specifications of the turf and compare the two and make sure that all that is safe.

If we were to do the rubber, it's about $54,000 more. We need more than that. If we find a way to make the turf work that is safe, I think that should be workable.

The turf as opposed to the...

turf as opposed to the rubber correct so the the the playground surface would be the artificial turf the same stuff that's used on the field what is typically the standard is the mulch of the rubber The rubber and or mulch are the things that you typically see on playgrounds. I will say that having turf on a playground is not unheard of, but there's specific type of equipment that that's suitable for and some equipment that it isn't. So that's the part that we need to evaluate just to make sure that there's no issues with that.

The mulch, would you glue it together? I mean, that stuff gets everywhere.

The rubber mulch does not get glued together, and it does get everywhere, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

I'm hoping by the end of this week we finalize this because the equipment is in the warehouse ready to be installed for phase one. There are three stations and the playground.

If we pivot it from the rubber mulch, we can get that pad in in a timely manner?

Yeah. They're ready for it. Uh, I think also, uh, finally I have, uh, my last mayor, uh, we're working on getting monitors in this room where they'll come down from the ceiling. So two would be facing the audience and two would be facing you. So when they are in presentations, instead of looking at one monitor and having to come out or change, it will be all, uh, very convenient and it'd be there stationary.

That's all. As good as the monitors that you've got in your office.

You mean your computer? It's a movie theater. I'm so jealous. I am so jealous.

You can thank the Montvale mayor for that. The mayor of Montvale donated a gift to the BA of Montvale of a massive, BA of Hillsdale, a massive television set. And I have TV envy. Okay.

Mike, one last question.

The cameras have been installed at Memorial? Or not yet?

We're actually working with the chief on funding, so he's funding half, we're funding the rest. The cameras will be, they'll be on, because it was complicated to have additional poles and power, so we're going to put them on the field house and on the scoreboard, different cameras, these are high quality cameras where they pivot and zoom and all that stuff. We'll catch all those trespassers. With the dog, with the black dog. Yeah, the killer. Any questions for me, Mr. Mayor?

No. Okay. We're set? No other questions for the VA? Okay. We're going to move on then to ordinances. And ordinances, I mean, we have one ordinance. 2623 for adoption it's capital ordinance of the borough of hillsdale in the county of bergen state of new jersey authorizing various recreation improvements and acquisitions in by and for the borough appropriating therefore the sum of two hundred thousand dollars and providing that such sum so appropriated shall be raised from the borough's capital improvement fund can i get a motion to open the public hearing on ordinance 2623 motion second second All those in favor? Aye. Great. Would anybody like to be heard on ordinance 2623? Jerry's shaking her head no. Rick's not even looking up at me. Okay. Can I get a motion to close the public hearing on ordinance 2623? Motion to close. Second? Second. Those in favor? Aye. It's closed. Okay, can now we get a motion to adopt 2623?

Motion.

Second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? 2623 is adopted. We are now going through the consent agenda 26200 through 26206. Does anybody want to take anything off the consent agenda? seeing that nobody does uh can i get a motion to pass the consent agenda motion second there's a second all those in favor aye aye anyone opposed the consent agenda is passed we do have a resolution on the off consent non-consent agenda 26 207 a resolution approving employment agreement between the borough of hillsdale oh no we're not going to do that we're going to carry it over we had a discussion and closed on that but it's not going to be here so that resolution is pulled uh it is the public comment time um any topic three minutes come on forward you've been waiting for this thank you for your patience Mr. Savino at 64 Westdale. Who are you and where do you live?

Richard Savino, 64 Westdale. I have two brief things. One, the engineer mentioned the landscape plan for Memorial. It sounded like you didn't get the memorandum we wrote after meeting in June with all our detail. There were some planting compatibilities. Fred Rubel provided it to Mr. Gasali on July 2. I have it in my cloud if I need to resend it. I can resend it to him. But there were a number of things. We suggested a number of exchanges of shrubbery for shade trees. And we were trying to keep it cost neutral. And the big cost involved, which is a recommendation, there really needs to be irrigation for all of those, for the investment in all those plants. But that's another story. So if you need that, let me know. I'll get that. It is in my cloud. Second thing. traveling in Ireland, and I haven't been here, I'd like to remind everyone the east side of town needs cell service. And my story for tonight is Dennis Murphy is the weekend manager in Hillsdale House. A couple years ago, he was talking to the ladies in the lobby, fire alarm goes off. Dennis is a long time fire instructor, He carries a county band fire radio on his belt. He goes up, third floor, opens the apartment. It's a kitchen fire. The guy left food on the stove, went down to the lobby. Dennis puts it out very quickly, but on his radio, he's listening to four departments responding to that building. It's a high-rise building with response. He is trying to call. He said he was literally hanging out the window trying to get a cell signal, could not call. He said, Chief Dury pulled up first in the chief's car, so I'm dating, this was a while ago, and came in and they tried to stop the other three departments. I don't know who showed up, but that's a problem and it's not going to be solved by small other band-aids. People who don't live in town could be in an emergency and need to use their cell phones. He was canceling the emergency call. He wanted to cancel the other three departments. For all those departments to commit to come to Hillsdale is a major commitment, and he was trying to stop that. So just another story on how we need cell service on that side of town.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Please don't forget about it.

As long as you're coming to the meeting, I don't think that's possible.

Anybody else in the public? I'll have a story every month. We have one person left in the public who hasn't spoken yet. Does she want to be heard? Okay, thank you. It's time for council commentary. I'm going to start. Tomorrow night, I'm having a meeting here. I haven't publicized it because it's just in the neighborhood. There's a group home going in on 32 Chadwick. Some of the neighbors want to come in and discuss what's gonna be there. It's new concepts for living. They did not require any variances, so they did not need to go to the planning board, but people have questions, and just for the edification of everybody here, It is just the same as any regular real estate transaction. It's been on the books for five decades now, in the 70s. And so they are coming to town. There's no variance needed, but it's an opportunity for people to discuss that. So that will be tomorrow night at 7 PM. If any of you find that you are not getting enough sleep at night and would like something to help you prepare for it, come on down. So there's that. I'm going to be also meeting at the library, having sort of an open house on September 26th, which is a Saturday from 10.30 to noon. No air conditioning. What? No air conditioning. No, I'll be doing it on the first floor. The third floor is where the whole thing's shot. No, I'm hoping that it won't be too hot. yeah um that's that's pretty much what i've got going on uh to report on thank you for the the the national night out cheat that was a a great night um and i'm sure that at the next meeting we'll have more stuff so since we started that way we'll go this way for council commentaries in europe councilman no comment no comment councilwoman massachung

uh so the high school started today and our k-8 students start on thursday i'm sure lots of parents are excited about it uh but i do want to wish all of our students our teachers and the administrators and a wonderful you know school year success in a wonderful school year and i hope everyone has a good first week back that's it councilman coletti happy uh labor day safe labor day to everyone

Councilwoman Meza-Chung stole my reminder about back to school, so keep that in mind. I drove past the high school, the crossing guard, and two people were, the crossing guard had just come on duty. They were crossing the intersection, and nobody stopped. They wouldn't even stop for the crossing guard who was trying to cross. Well, that's great. And I want to thank the police chief for helping fund the cameras at Memorial. Appreciate that. That's it.

Councilman Camp. No comment.

Well, okay, can I get a motion to adjourn?