Council - Regular Meeting

America.

Oh yeah.

Do it live. OK. OK.

Good evening. I'll call this September 10th, 2026 regular meeting of the Borough of Hillsdale Planning and Zoning Board to order. We begin with the open public meeting statement read by our Board Secretary, Tanya, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

This meeting is being held in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act. The notice of this meeting was published in two newspapers according to law, and time and place of this meeting have been posted in a prominent location in Borough Hall. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

And before our roll call tonight, we have the pleasure of welcoming a new board member. So I'll ask Mr. Donatello and the mayor to come down. Please come on down and swear it. And happy to swear you in this evening.

I need a copy of the Bible here. Oh, thank you. New board member. I will say before we get going with the audience at home and for everybody here.

Mike. We have kept.

Is this on? Hello? Okay. We have kept this spot open for a long time because this board is so important that I would rather have it go empty for a while until we find the right person to fill that spot. And we have found it, Kevin. He's been in my face in front of me for all the time, and I never sort of put two and two together. And one day, we're standing at the pool, and I said, wait a second. We should get Kevin. But Kevin is also the president of our board of education locally. and i didn't know any also what's your role in the soccer stuff here i'm on the soccer board the soccer board and that's actually i think when we first really started talking um and so he's he's already so involved but i guess the old statement goes that you give the job to the person who's busiest because they'll get the job done and i'm excited to welcome kevin to the board and we will swear you inefficiently

I, Kevin Donatello, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the State of New Jersey, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the state, and to the governments established in the United States, and to the governments established and in this state, under the authority of the people, I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully, impartially, and justly perform all the duties of the Office of the Planning Board, Alternative 2, To the two-year term. To the two-year term. Ending December 31st, 2027. Ending December 31st, 2027. According to the best of my ability. According to the best of my ability. So I'll be back. You're welcome. Thank you very much. And we're live. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Sheinfeld. And now we will do, once Mr. Donthell gets seated, our official roll call with our new member included. Congratulations. We're very looking forward to working with you. Thank you very much.

Chairwoman Kates? Yes. Vice Chair Reardon? Secretary Raymond? Mr. Alter? Mr. Friedman? Mr. Green? Dr. Weinberg? Here. Mr. Donatello?

Here.

Council Liaison Coletti?

Here.

Mayor Sheinfield?

Here.

Also present is Board Attorney Mr. Liebman.

Thank you, Tonya. At this time, we'll move on to invoices. First, we have Christopher Sutil. for invoices for $5,193.75. Please review the invoices. When you're ready, I'll take a motion.

Motion.

Second.

Mr. Sheinfield and Dr. Weinberg.

Chairwoman Cates? Yes. Dr. Weinberg? Yes. Mr. Donatello?

Abstain.

Council liaison Coletti?

Yes.

And Mayor Sheinfield? Yes. Motion is passed.

Thank you. Moving on to CSGSC law. We have four invoice for a total of $1,936. Please review those. See if there's any questions. If not, I'll take a motion.

Motion.

Dr. Weinberg?

Second.

Mayor Sheinfield? Yes.

Chairwoman Kates? Yes. Dr. Weinberg? Yes. Mr. Donatello?

Abstain.

Council liaison Coletti? Yes. Mayor Sheinfield?

Yes.

Motion's passed. Thank you. Moving on to meeting minutes. Tanya, can you just confirm who's eligible to motion and second?

Yes. Chairwoman Kates? Yes. And then, uh, counselee is on quality and mirror shine.

They were there for the entire meeting.

They were not, they both had to leave, uh, because I believe it was a D barrier.

It was a D barrier.

Yeah.

So you weren't eligible.

So can I pile our motion?

So I'm the only one who can vote on our meeting minutes. So we don't have a second.

Even if they weren't in attendance, it's the second thing in the motion is, is just to bring it to it.

Okay. And I have reviewed them previously. And I thank you, Tonya. They were excellent. I'll make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from July 20th, 2026. And anyone can second that. Mayor Sheinfield.

Second.

Okay. And Chair Wilkies? I vote yes. Okay. All right, then. Motion's passed. Okay.

Similar, moving on to a resolution. This is 202617, PZ0226, Block 1205, Block 5, 24 Brookside Place. Tanya, can you also qualify who can vote on this one?

Yes, just give me one second to get caught up here. This is for 24 Brookside. We have you. Okay.

Same thing on the resolution.

Everybody can second the resolution. The second thing of any motion under Robert's rules can be anybody who just wants to get the matter to a vote. You can second the motion and vote against it. If you make the motion, you have to vote for it.

Okay. I will make the motion to approve resolution PZ0226. Anyone want to second?

Second.

Thank you. Dr. Weinberg? Okay. Chairwoman Cates? Yes. Okay. Motion's passed. Thank you. Moving on to PZ1025, Block 1501, Lot 1340, Broadway. Tanya, can you also confirm who's eligible to vote on that? Yes.

We have you.

Okay. May as well tell Dan not to come at this point.

Yeah. You know, he just texted me. I would tell him, don't bother.

If he's taking an Uber here, I'll drive him home. It's right around the corner from me. Well, he had to get home anyway.

Let me know you're ready, Tyler.

Yeah, I know you're texting him. okay okay thank you so um i'll make a motion to approve pz 1025 340 broadway do i have a second second thank you dr weinberg okay and share one piece yes okay motions passed good thing i was there yes good thing you voted for these things yeah you're right true okay so we are not hearing the tree ordinance discussion tonight um I will say, though, I realize I didn't initially open to the public, so I'm going to do that. I'm going to open the meeting to the public on any items or issues other than those listed on the agenda below, or that may come before the board on another evening. Seeing none, I'll close the meeting to the public. We are not going to discuss the tree ordinance. I just asked Mr. Liebman quickly, it is the time of year when we talk about going out to bid for professionals. I asked for Mr. Liebman's recommendation on whether the board continues that practice of going out to bid every year. Can you give us your opinion?

I don't think there's any reason not to do it you should so so I've got a question I understand it's to sort of check rates and to make sure that everybody is in line given the fact that we're all very happy with the professional services that we have is it not more of sort of calling others to come forward for something that we're not planning on doing anyway we're kind of wasting other people's time

I don't want to bind the future board. This board may have new members in January than it has now. I don't know who the candidates are. I know it's strange to hear a professional expose themselves to competition. Some municipalities actually have ordinances that require the fair and open and annual process. All of the boards that I represent annually advertise for all of their professionals. I'll say when the fair and open process was adopted statewide maybe 15 years ago, think there was a lot of movement I think sometimes boards didn't know the quality perhaps of other professionals that were out there but I will tell you also I've seen this process lead to some weird things mayor like I've seen instances where the regular board professional doesn't get his response in on time yes and some interloper comes in and takes the job yeah but but you know what what we've also seen happen is

if we were intent on hiring the person that didn't, we'll reissue. I understand it's kind of a game to do this, but as I said, I don't really want to be wasting people's time otherwise. And as far as the board voting on it next year, the issue that we've got is that the with the with the possible change of mr coletti councilman coletti who because simply because of the assignments may not be here right we're still you know we still are going to have a quorum with everybody else because we're not changing the body as a whole and plus the I'm always torn, and you can tell me the answer to this, as to who the people are that actually vote. So let's say that there was gonna be somebody on the board right now who's not gonna be on in January, right? But their vote still counts, but we're officially not voting them on until January. Because we're not picking the professionals until January.

Correct.

But if we've already decided the way we want to go because we have a closed session and we go through all this stuff, we've already picked those people that are going to be there.

We usually notify before the January meeting so the attorney can get the appointments ready for January.

So, you know...

Yeah, like if you decide not to put out for RFQ, you're sort of like binding the future board.

But I think the mayor's point is it doesn't, it's irrelevant.

But it's irrelevant in this case anyway because we're going to bind them anyway.

Yeah, I mean, and the reality is, you know, you can fire your board attorney at any time for any reason. True.

Or he could resign at any time. Right. That's the way it works.

And yeah, and you can pick special engineers and planners for special projects. Right. Depending on expertise that you feel like you need.

I don't mean to go off on a tangent or whatever else. I just personally. I wouldn't be in favor of putting it out for that reason.

I understand what you're saying. Believe me, responding to an RFQ is a time-consuming process. It is. I'm fortunate in my office and my previous office, I had staff that spent hours assembling the information, like all the attachments and copies of the latest insurance certificate and the business certificate and the W-9.

How many people aren't interested in doing that when they know you're going through

an exercise right in futility yeah right being that we have don't have our full board tonight and we will probably need a meeting next month the rfq would have to go out one tanya i believe the clerk i can look to see when she said she's going to post it i'm just even gauging if we have another meeting before it goes out to to uh

Does anybody else have an opinion on this?

I understand both sides. We've had years where we did not go out to RFQ as a board. Mr. Lehman's been the strongest in sort of advising it. I guess in terms of our professionals, would we see a copy of our professionals' contracts if we don't go out to bid for the new year?

Why wouldn't we?

well because usually that comes in rfq like i don't i've never seen but we're going to have to extend somebody's contract anyway right but let's but we would want to know what those rates would be we would still want the same information we get as if so could we could we do a hybrid and just say

give us what what your proposal would be for a contract knowing that we're going to keep you and then we're basically in negotiation yeah I mean you can I think that's and we would want to see that information I think that I would be more comfortable seeing that information okay I'm happy with that concept yeah yeah that's that's easy that's easy enough to have uh you're trying to save your work Mark you're coming back

i i appreciate that very much i really enjoy it we just like i agree but i still think we don't have a full board and it shouldn't be one person's opinion it should really be well that's what i'm asking it should be a full like we've always gone into closed and we've always as a board made those decisions so um nothing not that i don't value your opinion i agree with it all right so do we know tanya when we're going out to do it uh she said she'll she'll do a separate one the first october meeting Okay, so I think that would be too soon for us to even gauge the board's feelings because we're not going to have another meeting before then. So I don't know that makes sense to...

If we're not going to do it, I don't want the clerk to have to do it. Well, that's what I'm saying.

So it sounds like we only have a few members here, but you can give your opinion, too, as our council liaison. sounds like not so much as a formal motion but there's the idea that maybe we just seek out this year proposals from our current professionals look at those and then can we determine if that's okay or then we may want to go out of it if there won't be time so there's always time i mean the january is kind of hard tanya doesn't want to do it she wants denise is doing it i mean i get it i get it yeah no look i'm i i don't need to hijack it i'm open to anybody what do you think we should go out for 60 days notice 60 i think it's like every town does it i've seen towns issue them we usually do them for 21 days oh it's only 21. we do 21 days at the mayor council i don't know I can actually check our old bids and see. But yeah, so 21 days would give us enough time if we decided. Just if the board came back and said, yes, the majority does it's you you're feisty mayor i agree i i do second that idea all right so maybe tanya will um we'll tell denise not to go out to bid and we can ask our professionals just to send what they're yeah just what they would have sent in for a bit yeah what are your proposed rights for next year yeah okay mr colletti how do you feel about that do you have anything or do you prefer like

Like you said earlier, I think it should be total board consensus. Whether that conversation is had in closed session or public, I think it needs to be had. When professionals are doing their jobs, you don't change for the sake of change. If they're unbiased, independent, you don't change. It's only when you go... really need a change and when you've got a long period of time and you really need to make sure you're paying fair market for something, right? That's when you really do it.

Thank you. So in October, meaning we may be adding to the agenda, closed discussion for professionals. We will be busier in October. Dr. Weinberg, how are you feeling?

I agree. I mean, I understand both sides of it. If the professionals, we can always fire a professional. We know that. Well, we don't want to leave ourselves hanging. He kissed me on the head. If he's not doing the job, we go into closed session. We say this is not working out. We have to send it out for bid.

Okay. Okay. So let me just reiterate, we're going to ask the professionals to submit proposed bids, which would be Mark Levin, Krista Taylor.

A form of a... You want to know what the proposed rate is? A hybrid. Yeah. It's not a bid.

We would like to see what their proposals would be for next year. Yeah.

For 2027.

I can let them know we're not going out to bid at this time. The board will discuss in October whether we will... Discuss when they...

And then I'll put this closed session for October whenever we're meeting in October.

I do appreciate your Okay, any other thoughts on this matter Okay, anything else the board would like to discuss or bring up tonight I Again, it's good to have you in that seat, Mr. Donatello. We have been waiting a long time for a strong member, so welcome again. At this time, I will open. Mark, do you have anything to add?

I would just say that Mr. Donatello needs to sign up for the landing spots. He already has. Excellent. Do you have my contact information and my cell phone numbers and my card? Thank you. You can reach out to me anytime.

And obviously I'm sure you've checked if your other boards have conflicts with this meeting, you know, or not.

The Board of Ed meets on Mondays. Okay. So the Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yeah, the Tuesday and Thursday schedule works out. I already informed that I'm going to be missing the October 8th meeting due to a work obligation at night.

okay thank you he's already taken the stormwater uh that's great that's great and you know as an alternate you don't have to be president you can watch the meetings if you're not here because we may need you to vote i'm sure tanya told you yes correct how to watch our meetings and all that thank you okay thank you at this time i'll open the meeting to the public is there anyone from the public that would like to address the board on on any matters seeing none i'll close the meeting to the public our next public hearing tanya we think it's going to be october 8th correct

I have, yes, let's see. I have no agenda. Uh, the next one for the 27th will be the 27th.

We have nothing on the eighth either.

No, because we have a conflict attorney and she's away. Okay. So she can't do the eighth. So, and we have nothing else. Uh, we only have one that we're waiting to have complete.

We tend to have. Quiet periods and then very, very heavy periods. Feast or famine. Yes. Okay, so we're looking on October 27th. October 27th, 7th, yes. At our next meeting. And that's 55 Melville at this point, we think?

At this point, it hasn't been deemed complete from Chris, so we're just waiting on that, but I've already spoken to Allison, and that's like the question mark of the date.

Okay, so do you want to announce the next bullet here?

If it hasn't been publicly noticed for tonight, we don't need to. Okay.

So our next public hearing will be October 27, 2026, Tuesday, right here in world chambers. Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Motion.

Thank you, Dr. Weinberg. Second.

Second.

You made it through the whole meeting, Mayor Henley. Congratulations. I know.

It's so strange for me to sit up here in an entire meeting.

Thank you, everybody. Good night. Good night. Oh, thank you.