Borough Council - Regular Meeting

THE FOLLOWING IS THE CHANCE TO BREAK THROUGH THE RURAL COUNCIL MEETING OF THE BURR AND COUNCIL IN LATES. THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL AND MUNICIPAL COOPERATION OF THE TOWN AND STATE OF THE REGION WILL BEGIN AT 7 P.M. ON MAY 13, 2026 IN THE MUNICIPAL BUILDING 25-1 EXAMINING COMPETITION CONSISTENT WITH THE OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS ACT. THE MEETING WILL BE OPEN TO PUBLIC COMMENTS AND SHALL BE IN ACCORDANCE WITH TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE BURR'S MUNICIPAL CODE AND BIBLE.

PLEASE STAND FOR A FLEX LOOP.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please bless this mayor and council as they deliberate on the best of pompton links. In accordance with the open public meeting law, NJSA 10-4-6, Adequate notice of this regular meeting setting forth the time, date, location, and purpose of this meeting was provided by posting notice on the bulletin board of the municipal building by transmitting notice to all persons requesting same and pursuant and applicable of the New Jersey statute governed legal notice and advertisements by electric publications on the official website in the borough of Pompton Lakes. We've changed that statement.

It was for the last meeting. I don't know if that's supposed to be on one of them. I'll check.

Okay. Just checking. Roll call, please.

May I say?

Here.

Council President Hinton?

Here. Councilman Bennett?

Here.

Councilman Cruz?

Here.

Councilman Hinton?

Here.

Councilman Sanchez? Here. Councilman Bennett is excused?

Yes.

Witnesses of Baratoni, Marks, and Morrell are administered in my inquiry. our police chief, Anthony Rodriguez, and our chief financial officer, Matt .

OK. I have no presentations and updates today, so we're going to go right into the budget.

Liz, whenever you're ready. 26-217 be resolved by the Borough Council of the Borough Council of the County to say that the budget hearing before set forth is hereby adopted and shall constitute an appropriation for the purpose stated of the sums Therein set forth appropriations and authorization on the amount of $12,715,681 for municipal purposes, $120,317 for open space, recreation, farmland, and historic preservation trust funds, and $664,739 in library tax. OK. Before we open it up to the public, we have our CFO here, Matt . He's going to speak about our budget a little bit.

sure or either one i don't care well uh we're here tonight for the uh final adoption and public hearing for our 2026 municipal budget uh at the uh last meeting in april we had our finance and budget presentation uh for the public that presentation has been posted on the borough's youtube channel uh the borough website is on our local access channel 77. uh If any of the governing body members have any questions, concerns, or need additional information for the adoption of the budget, now is the time. Otherwise, we would thank the Finance Committee and the governing body for their work on the budget. And thank you for your consideration for the adoption of the budget. So thank you.

And for the public's concern, we take the budget very seriously. This is a long work of progress. And like we've mentioned in the past before, a lot of our increase here is because of the state mandates of health benefits and pension costs that have risen. Almost $800,000 for our town this year, which is a huge number for a small town. And it makes it very difficult to try to balance a budget when we have to make up that difference. So a lot of our increase with the taxes this year are from that, unfortunately. And we're not the only town fighting this right now. There's a lot of towns, a lot of communities in the same situation where the pensions and the health care costs are just out of control. So I'm hoping the state is going to take a look at this because we can't keep moving forward this way every year from here. Because I understand, just like everybody else, I pay taxes. And I don't want to see my taxes go up a lot either. So it is a tough time. So with that, I'm going to motion to open the meeting for public comments on 2026 municipal budget. So moved. Councilman Cruz? Second. Councilman Hinton, all in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone from the public like to address just this municipal budget? Seeing no one, motion to close the meeting for public comments on ordinance 2026. Motion. Councilman Santers? Second.

Second.

Councilman Hinton, all in favor? Aye. Against? Motion to adopt the 2026 municipal budget for second reading and final adoption.

Motion.

Councilman Hinton? Second. Councilman Cruz, roll call please.

Council President Hinton? Yes. Councilman Sanders?

Yes.

Councilman Bay? Yes. Councilman Cruz?

Yes.

Councilman Hinton?

Yes. Okay. Motion to open the meeting for public comments. Second. Council President Kent, Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone from the public like to address?

Good evening. My name is George Papaw of 1104 Colfax Avenue, but I'm sure you know that by now and you're bored to hear it. Alright, 16 years of damage was caused by a deteriorated storm drain pipe at 1102 Colfax Avenue. The borough did finally step up to cap the thing on September 13th, 2025, but no repairs to damage the properties. SIPRIS on February 25th, that is the joint insurance organization, has requested documents to move forward. But as of this past Monday, they have not received any. Why? Why is the borough dragging? The borough has received documents to the administrators, to the borough, and directly to the mayor over the years. According to Cipres, there's only one document, and that's H2M Engineering, which was heavily contested when it was issued. I'm seeing this as foot dragging again. February 25th, and still no documents whatsoever? A copy of the stormwater management plan. Why hasn't the town provided that? A copy of the tort claim notice. Why hasn't the town complied with that? A copy of the engineering report completed in 2023. Most of us didn't know there was such a report. I can't understand why. How do you run a borough? if you're not going to start responding to these things and getting them settled. I thank you for your time, but I'm really, this is just foot dragging, and it's unforgivable. My family's in danger because of the washout and the undermining of retaining walls, and my shed's about to collapse. Apparently nobody here really can address that. Thank you.

Anyone else who would like to speak? Please step up.

Hi. Okay.

Excuse your name and address.

I never did this before, so I feel a little nervous. Don't worry about it. Okay. My name is Michelle Angelo. I live at 168 Stiles Court. I'm somewhat new to the town. I've been here for three years. So I was just wondering when we had our big snowstorm back in January, it was January. I understand that I do live on a corner lot. A lot of snow was piled up in front of my property, again, because I'm in a corner lot. It had to be, I do have a picture, it had to be like at least four or five feet of snow. Because of the plows pushing the snow, the snow is heavy, and being so high up, it ruined the curb. Originally, I do understand there were some broken pieces on the curb. However, it had lifted up and I I do have pictures to like prove that it was lifted and like I totally understand I want to work together with the town to understand that like when we have snowstorms It's gonna be piled there. It's the easiest thing community and safety is first And then when the snow had melted we had saw this so I did go and I did go down here. I did speak to somebody. They gave me two cards to call. I can't tell you how many times I called. I've called several times.

Just tell me the names of them.

John Lindberg and Sal Poldy. I've called several times. I didn't get an answer. And I don't want to throw anybody on the bus. I don't want to throw anybody on the bus or anything. So then I decided to send emails. I do have to say, when I looked online, because I wanted additional people to email, Dan Roenberg.

Dan, I'm sorry.

Dan Roenberg. I think his name is. O'Rourke?

O'Rourke, yes.

I do have to say he's the only one who did follow.

He's our DPW supervisor.

He's the only one that followed up with me. He said that he's totally understandable about it. So the other day he did go and he picked up the pieces of the curb. So I feel good, like this is so good because I also have a lot of neighbors and their dogs that walk and I do think that's dangerous to have cement pieces there. So he said that he looked back from 2013, he said that he does see that the curb had some cracked pieces. And even though the snow plows pushed it, he admitted to that. And seeing that, he says that they're not responsible for fixing the curve. So that's why I'm here, to see if we can work together on a way of fixing this. Because I do feel being on a corner lot, hopefully we're not going to get that snow again for a long time. I know it's going to happen again. I also don't want the same thing to happen again because of the snow being, so much snow being pushed in the pile. And I do have a picture.

Anything you want us to see, I just ask you to bring it to the clerk and she'll pass it out.

Oh, okay. Okay. So I do have, like, the picture.

Yeah, just give it to Liz over here. And I'll answer at the end.

Okay. Okay, so that's all. I was just hoping we could work together. It's a fixed day for safety. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

Anyone else from the public like to pick up? Please come up.

Paul Bowlby, 120 Romaine Ave. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Elks. I am a trustee at the Elks, and we are in the process of replacing the, for want of a better word, manual sign that we have on the corner of Perrin Avenue and Jefferson with an electric sign. And there are five charges that we are responsible for paying. One of them is a $2,000 Permit fee, I don't know if that's escrow or if that's a permanent fee that we have to pay. But if it is, I don't know if I can bring it to you guys or whether I have to go to the zoning board. But is there any way that a $2,000 fee can be waived for an organization such as the Elks, which is nonprofit and a local organization who does nothing but benefit the community?

Thank you. Anyone else from the Public Electric Press? Seeing no one, I have a motion to close the public session. Motion. Councilman Begg? Second. Councilman Sanchez, all in favor? Aye. Against?

Okay.

All right, so I'm going to let my attorney respond to some of this, but Mr. Popoff, you failed to mention we had a meeting Monday with you and the administrator and the DGIF representative trying to work out your problem. And at that meeting, it was brought up to your attention that a form was sent to you that you haven't filled out in over a year, and you're waiting on that form. Now, you said you didn't receive it. It didn't come from us, so we didn't send it. So you need to get that form back right away. The other forms, I'll ask Michael, do we know anything about those?

We're working on responsive documents, but we just met with the resident on Monday. So we're trying to do it as expeditiously as possible. George did give me some stuff tonight, hand delivered. So we're gonna deliver that to the JIF tomorrow.

So for the council's understanding, we had a meeting just two days ago with Mr. Popov, myself, Michael, our JIF representatives. Things were brought up, things we needed from him, some information that we'd like to see if he had. And we told him he could actually physically bring it into our administrator. He would make copies and he would get it out. I guess he did some of that today or yesterday. So it's very hard for him to come in here today and ask this question when we did this yesterday. And we're also waiting on some paperwork from him. Can't talk from there. You want to say it?

I got to provide a document I never received.

Mr. Popoff, you're now in discussions with the insurance carrier. And like any other insurance claim, an insurance carrier has questions regarding causation and valuation and extent of damages. I'm going to instruct this body to no longer engage in any conversation regarding this because now this is an insurance matter. The insurance carrier is involved. We don't know exactly what the insurance carrier ultimately is going to conclude. And certainly nothing that has taken place today should be considered an admission of any sort. But due to the fact that Mr. Popov is a resident, I think that we all understand that to the extent possible, the administration was seeing if there was anything our insurance carrier can or cannot do with respect to this matter. And Mr. Popov's communication at this point in time should be directed through the insurance carrier because ultimately that is the entity that's going to have the ultimate say and may or may not make contribution to resolve this issue. I could certainly sympathize. I'm not saying this to be curt or rude. It's just the way that, you know, insurance disputes are handled, and it's not fair to expect responses now that we have the insurance carrier involved. The communication should be with them, and certainly I think that we could facilitate the insurance carrier being responsive to Mr. Popoff, but this isn't the forum for that type of communication.

Okay. Thank you. Michelle, thank you for bringing that to our attention. So the person you would want to talk to is the person you spoke with. He's our DPW supervisor. I'm going to ask our administrator, Michael, to reach out to him just to understand what the situation is, or maybe you do already. I don't know.

Yes. Ms. Angelo did email me, or I got a copy of an email. I forget explicitly. My initial reaction is, according to borough code, the curb is the responsibility of the homeowner. But we try to help out and in good faith repair curb damages where we can. So I will follow up with the DPW tomorrow and see if it's something that we can fix. And I'll have our DPW reach out to Ms. Angelo tomorrow to follow up.

And I can sympathize with you. I live on the corner not too far from you. And when we have those large snowstorms, those corners tend to be a pileup of snow. And I've even had to say, do we have to pile all the snow in front of my house? Look, I understand they're doing a job, and they have to do it, and it's sometimes difficult to find a place to put that snow. And we've kind of instructed them to get the snow off the streets first, make it passable, and then they're supposed to kind of go back a little bit after the storm and find other places to push the snow. Okay, and meanwhile, our administrator just mentioned that he'll have a conversation with the DPW person tomorrow and see what we can do with that.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Okay, Paul. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can we waive permit fees for individual groups or not? By resolution of the governing body. All right. So we could make a resolution if that's something this group is interested in doing and waiving just the permit fees. The other fees I'm not aware of. I don't know what you were talking about with the other fees, but I would suggest you talk to Liz for the next meeting. We'll put it on the agenda, and then we'll have a discussion from the council about that. Okay? Okay. Okay. Motion to approve the following minutes. Regular meeting minutes April 22nd, closed session meeting minutes April 22nd, 2026. Do I have a motion? Motion. Councilman Sanchez? Second. Councilman Hinton, all in favor? Aye. Against? Authorizing the bills and claims as listed below, can I have a motion? Motion. Councilman Sanchez? Second. Council President Kent, all in favor? Aye. Against? CONSENT AGENDA. ANYBODY NEED ANYTHING REMOVED?

JUST 2614 AND 2615. 14. OKAY.

ANYBODY ELSE? NO. OKAY. CAN I HAVE A MOTION? I'LL GO AHEAD, LIZ. I'M SORRY.

We're going to move 26 to 14 and 26 to 15.

Okay, can I have a motion? Motion. Councilman Cruz, Council President Kent, all in favor? Aye. Against? Okay, 26-14. They're both the same.

I'm just curious as to what the payments are for. Is it for new work that's going to be going on?

Just let her read it first. Yeah, Liz, you want to read those?

26-14, authorized change order number three for Willowfield Inclusion. In 2015, it authorized final payment application six for Hershfield Park. Thank you.

Okay, Mike. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Yes, so 26214, authorizing change order number three for Willowfield Improvements Project. This is a change order that came up in the field with our borough engineer and the contractor. It's in the amount of $10,500 and it has to do with installing additional irrigation along the parking lot between the new T-ball fields and the parking lot that's existing. The initial plan that was approved within the bid specs did not have irrigation in that area. And we felt that with the high traffic or the high pedestrian traffic of those that are attending games and practices, that without irrigation, the grass would get damaged very easily. So we were just looking to maintain for the future that area. So it was within our budget appropriation for the project. So it's within budget and recommended by the engineer.

So just out of curiosity, because there's a lot of traffic during the season. I do agree with that. Is this going to, because I've seen irrigation systems, it helps a little, but in hot days, warm weather and heavy traffic, it doesn't really survive. I mean, I know we're spending $10,000 on this. I mean, I'm not an engineer to say different, but I would hope that it does work. $10,000 is $10,000 only to find out that the foot traffic is heavier than he assumed. And on very hot days, grass doesn't provide too much with heavy traffic over it. So, I mean, I just wanted to put that out there. We all know how Hirschfield, I mean, will always at this point. And there is a lot of traffic and not much less down there with the traffic.

Thank you. And as Councilman Hinton may know, our DPW reached out recently to the Little League because there's been complaints of the Little League driving vehicles on the new grass areas. So we've talked to them. We've talked to the soccer folks. We're trying to get them to understand that they can't drive vehicles, ATVs, equipment on this new grass, that they can do everything that they can do to try to not do that. We realize that sometimes it's unavoidable, but we just felt that we should put them on notice, perhaps, just because it's brand new. We don't really want it to get damaged.

Is there anything we could do to section that off?

It's fenced right now. We did actually just today, we ordered additional fencing through the DPW that we're going to put up to further block it. And I'll get into the project in my report, but it's looking like about two and a half to three weeks, the kids will be able to go on the field.

OK. You want to do Herschel pork and chicken?

Yes, thank you. So this actually is not a change order. This is the final pay app for the project. So the project has been substantially complete down at Hirshfield Park for the storage building. This final payment app is for $6,400. Councilman Hinton and I and the DPW met over there about a month ago. With the contractor, we determined that there were a few change order items such as baby changing stations in the bathrooms. We're looking at automated locks on the bathrooms that keep the bathrooms open during the day but lock it at night, not needing staff to go down and open and close every day. A spotlight in the attic and some shelving and other items. But the project is complete. The construction official is looking at issuing the certificate of occupancy and the recreation commission and I are going to be working together to get them back in the building for summer camp. um and those are all good improvements that we're putting in right and uh i would like to note though that councilman hinn did bring up two architectural issues in the field and we are working through those right now uh but that doesn't hinder our pay app that's more of a response that we're looking for as to why they did it that way we feel that it's too late to to make any of those modifications that were mentioned in terms of uh THE ATTIC ENTRANCE AND WHATNOT, BUT WE ARE LOOKING AT THE STONE RIGHT NOW, SO I WILL LET YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT. OKAY, THANK YOU. BUT THANK YOU.

KAREN MURPHY WOULD BE VERY HAPPY.

YES, SHE WOULD. OKAY, 26-20-214 AND 26-215, CAN I HAVE A MOTION? MOTION. COUNCILMAN CRUZ? SECOND. COUNCILMAN HINTON, ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. AGAINST?

MR. MAYOR, EXCUSE ME, CAN I JUST MAKE A COMMENT? I DIDN'T WANT TO PULL IT, BUT ON 26-212, WE HIRED FOUR and I was going over the applications and I noticed that one of the individuals is a So we have an experienced tree climber and bucket operator. So all we need is the bucket and the chip truck.

And to make them full time.

He's only part time. Well, we can make them full time. Sure, we could do that. But he's experienced in tree work.

Good. That's a plus. OK, audiences list?

in Orders to Amend Chapter 14, Recruits and Recycling, Section 2, Article 2, Recycling Center of the Municipal Code of the Borough of Compton Lake.

Motion to approve Orders 26-16 for introduction. Motion. Second. Councilman Vague, Councilman Cruz. Roll call, please.

Council President Kent.

Yes.

Does that roll?

Yes.

Councilman Vague. Yes. Councilman Cruz.

Yes.

Councilman Kent.

Councilman Hinton has a question on that.

It's just introduction, but OK. OK.

But why were the weights of the containers increased?

If I may. They actually were wrong. They were the wrong amount. So Dan, as part of some sort of work he was doing with the state or whatnot, had a look in our code and uncovered that our code actually had the wrong gallonage in pounds in terms of our recycling pickup. as opposed to what we advertise to the public. So we advertise that the containers must not exceed 45 gallons in size, weighing no more than 60 pounds. That's what's in the calendar, on the website, in all of our mailings. But the code actually says less. And we haven't been practicing that out in the real world in many years. So we felt that we just wanted to revise that.

Just wanted to catch up.

All right, thank you.

Yes on that.

Thank you.

Okay, 26, 17.

26, 17 and .

Motion to approve ordinance 26-17 for introduction. Motion. Councilman Sanders? Second. Council President Kent? Roll call please.

Council President Kent? Yes. Councilman Sanders?

Yes.

Councilman Graves?

Yes.

Councilman Cruz?

Yes. Councilman Hinton. Councilman Hinton has a question on that one also. The question is, I noticed the property maintenance officer has an hourly wage. And from what I understand, he's on salary. Is that a mistake on this form?

I thought he was hourly. Mike, is he?

No, it's actually a mistake. So thank you. We'll fix that for the next meeting.

My vote is yes.

Thank you. Good catch. How would the change be?

Excuse me, he's salary.

No, no, I understand, but I think we should place on the record exactly what we anticipate the change being.

The change will be to amend the salary ordinance to change it from hourly to salary.

And that is?

For the property maintenance office.

For the property maintenance office. What line is that?

Next to last. Okay. Is it $15 an hour?

Right. It's not hourly. I mean, it's a salary. So then what would the salary be? You know what I'm saying? I do. It would be between $10,000 and $20,000. Okay. So the minimum is going to be $10,000. Right. The maximum is going to be $20,000. This is first read, so that change is not an issue. But when we publish it, that's how we ought to publish it. So we ought to be Yes, we're just going to put 10,000 in the minimum column and 20,000 in the maximum column.

Before I publish it?

This is a question. Yes. It has to be published as corrected. Okay. Well, you do have hourly and salary inter-dispersed on the columns. So all we're doing is changing the designation. $15 an hour is going to be changed to $10,000.

$25 an hour is going to be changed to $20,000.

Why was the, Michael, why was four of them in bold print?

Those are the ones that were changed. So the borough administrator, you had an increase because of the shared service agreement with the borough of Emerson. The deputy municipal clerk was given an increase last year, so we had to raise the ranges. And then rec secretary and shade tree secretary must have just been behind the times. How come they didn't get the $1,000? It must have never been updated, so I figured let me take the opportunity to update it. So they're getting paid now? They're paid what everyone else is paid, yeah.

So you have to pay us to be on finance to look at these things.

That's why you're on finance.

Ready?

Yeah, panelists.

2614, an order to amend chapter 10 of the animal control section 12 feeding of animals, subsection 12.2 feeding wild animals of the revised general ordinances of the borough council.

So before I make a motion, I think we're bringing in our animal control person next meeting.

Thank you, Mayor. So Lisa Perry, our animal control officer, did speak to Liz and Council President Kent within the last week. We've decided that given the limited meetings left for the summer and everyone's schedule, I think the Bloomingdale Animal Control is going to table at some of our events such as National Night Out, Pompton Day, the summer strolls through the bid and do it that way. So I think that's the way that we're going to do it and we're looking to set up a schedule at some point.

Motion to open the meeting for public comments on Ordinance 26-14. Motion. Second. Councilman Santers, Councilman Begg, all in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone like to address just this ordinance? Seeing no one, motion to close the meeting for public comments on Ordinance 26-14. Motion. Councilman Hinton? Second. Councilman Begg, all in favor? Aye. Against? Motion to approve Ordinance 26-14 for final adoption. Motion. Councilman Begg? Second. Councilman Hinton, roll call, please.

Council President Kaye?

No.

Councilman Samson?

Yes.

Councilman Zay?

Yes.

Councilman Cruz?

Yes.

Councilman Hinton?

Yes.

2615, an ordinance amending Article 2, Administration, Section 42, Police Department, Subsection 4255, Awards Program of the Municipal Code of the Borough of Compton Lakes.

Just to remind the council before we open this, this is what the chief had brought to us last time about his awards, and how he'd like to add some and change some. I don't know if you want to add anything to that?

No, thank you for the consideration.

Okay, motion to open the meeting for public comment on ordinance 26-15.

Motion.

Council President Kent. Second. Councilman Hinton. All in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone like to address just this motion? Seeing no one, motion to close the meeting for public comments on Ordinance 26-15. Motion. Councilman Hinton. Second. Council President Kent. All in favor? Aye. Against? Motion to approve Ordinance 26-15 for final adoption. Motion. Councilman Hinton. Second. Councilman Santers. Roll call, please. yes yes yes yes yes okay under my report first I have an appointment mayor to appoint with the advice and consent of the Borough Council James Greenfield as an alternate number one commissioner to fill an uninspired term December 31st, 2028, and Jess Palombo is an alternate number two to fill an unexpired term December 31st, 2027 to the Recreation Commission. Can I have a second? Second. Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Against? Okay, under my report. I had an interesting meeting with the DEP commissioners, two of them, assistant commissioners, a bunch of mayors, a bunch of political senators and assemblymen about the flooding. And there was some newer people, newer mayors wanting to know why we don't lower Pompton lake before a flood, and they were wondering that was causing all the issues, which I've known because I've been doing this a while and a lot of us up here know that lowering a 10-foot lake, which is basically what that is, really doesn't make a difference. And they did a slide presentation on it, which was very informative to the new people especially, that explains out of the flood shed area, that lake is 0.04% of the whole flood area. So it's a very, very small percentage. At that same meeting, I brought up, which I've been bringing up for the last five years, that we should be lowering the reservoir, which is 47% of the flood management area. When the reservoir spills at 302, that's when it starts spilling over. And once it spills over, all the water fills up our rivers, and that's where we get our flooding. If the reservoir is already spilling water and we're getting 10 inches of rain, they should be lowering that reservoir five inches at least, so we'd get five inches of time built up in that water. A reservoir that large would take days to get to that five inches. That buys us days, not hours. Of course, when it comes to the DEP and political people, They like to do studies. They like to think about things. They don't make decisions very quickly. They said, well, we might get an Army Corps of Engineers study to do it, which is how the dam was built 20 years ago. So there was good conversation at least about it. The other thing I brought up, which, again, a lot of the mayors were not aware of when I brought it up on the call, When we want to do the cleaning of our rivers, what we call desilting and desnagging, we have to apply for permits to the DEP, which can cost between $30,000 and $50,000 for a permit. And each town has to apply for a separate permit. So we can't do it as a group. I've been pushing for years. I should be able to apply with four other towns that surround me for the same permits. And then Senator Panaccio, who represents us, even came up with a better idea. And he said, Mayor, are you telling me We're paying the state money to clean their rivers, because they own the rivers at the end of the day. And he said, yes. He said, I would go as far as to say it would be permit by rule. And what that means is we can go do it whenever we want. which makes great sense. I can tell you one of the commissioners on the call from the DEP was the licensing person and the permitting person, and she said she would look into this, at least try to group permits so that numerous towns can apply for the same permit, but maybe even take it a step further. Think about it. If we could just go work on these rivers whenever we needed to on a permit by rule, how much better? And I mentioned to all the mayors, I'm not blaming anybody for not knowing because The dam is in our town, so everybody who's flooding from us down assumes we're doing something here in Pompton Lakes to cause the flooding that's going downstream, when I have no control of the dam. The dam is done by a computer model out of Trenton, okay? So it has nothing to do with us. But if every town was to clean their rivers all the way of de-snagging and de-silting, the water would flow all the way to Newark Bay. The problem is one town decides they're not going to do it, and that's where the backup hits. And then the water starts backing up to all the towns backwards. So it is a very important thing. And knock on wood, with all the great work the Flood Advisory Board has done and our town has done, we've put money aside every year to clean our rivers and lakes, every year. If we didn't do that, if people know who've been here a while, we used to flood once a year, at least, sometimes twice. We haven't flooded in a couple years, and that's impressive for a town. I can tell you, I get calls from the major news channels when the heavy rain's coming because they always assume that Palmton Lakes is going to flood. The last five years, I've said, we have no flooding in Palmton Lakes. Call somewhere else. So these things are important, especially this is the time to talk about it. It's not when the flooding happens because nobody's listening when the flooding happens. We have to be preemptive to do this. So I even offered to have the next meeting here in Pompton Lakes, bring all the mayors here, all the politicians here, all the DEP commissioners here. We'll take a walk, we'll go look at the dam, we'll show them everything. And so we'll see where they go. I appreciate the fact that Senator Corrado and some others put this meeting together to try to understand this. But again, I've been doing this a while. We've had meetings like this in the past before. Sometimes they don't go too far, but they have to make some moves. Flooding is becoming a real issue. And I can tell you, the new governor, by the way, flooding is one of her top concerns. So this is where this is coming from, because the governor cares about what's going on. And by the way, the governor, when she was our congresswoman, was here in Pompton Lakes twice checking our flooding and seeing how things were going and understanding why we were flooding here. So I give her credit for doing that. So more to follow on that.

Mayor, can I make a comment? Sure. No, I wasn't at the meeting. In that conversation, it's not necessarily, I agree with you 100% about the lake. The lake is not deep. It's not a lot of flow. It's when that... dam is closed, and the lake is allowed to rise, and then they open up the dam, then you get the surge. If they opened it up ahead of the storm, and just let the river flow the way it was, when the storm comes, then the water goes at a certain level up through the dam, you wouldn't have that surge. It was the surge that really caused a lot of the damage.

Well, no, they're saying, and they have models to prove all this, that the dam was built to operate open and close, open and close, open and close. And they've refined that in the last couple of years so we don't get as big of a surge, but they can't just leave it open flooding all the time because sometimes the water has nowhere to go because it's already flooded downstream somewhere. So when that water comes out, fast it has nowhere to go and we'll end up flooding because it's not moving you know people know in footing that where the rivers meet sometimes the water starts flowing upstream because the water pressure from one stream is pushing too hard and if that happens we'll start flooding up so that's all done by computer model when that was put in by the army corps of engineers you know that we had no control of that and we had no say on that and they're always going to model that gate to open and close And I remind everybody, we call it a dam, but it is not a dam. It is a floodgate control. It's not a dam made to hold water back. It's an actual floodgate that opens it closest. But the surging, you're right, is a major problem. Thank you. Okay, we had a nice program with the prosecutor's office and the chief of police, which I'm sure he's going to talk about, called ARRIVE, which is going to hook up police officers with mental health professionals when things happen and there's a call for that kind of need. So we can kind of simmer down or close, quietly get down conversation with somebody who's in need or in help. I appreciate the prosecutor, the head prosecutor of Pasadena County came here, made the presentation. It was a nice presentation and I thank him for doing that. I mentioned the meeting I had with a resident about the flooding in his backyard. We had a design standards meeting, which is basically a meeting with the planning board, redevelopment board, some council members about how we'd like the future of our downtown to look. Not how tall or wide, but colors and schemes and windows and things like that. We're going to put it all into one area where people can kind of come to town, pull out this guide to say, oh, this is what they're looking for. So we're in the process of talking about that. I attended a beef steak for Carl Padula. Good or bad, what you say about Carl, this was a man who was always involved in this town from the very beginning. He cared about this town. And the people that make up Pompton Lakes are like Carl Padua. You don't always have to agree. He ran against me twice for mayor. He was a friend of mine. And he always did good for this town. So I'm glad to see there was a nice beef steak for him.

Design centers, replacement, I think.

Oh, I also had another meeting with If you know the wall across from the library there where the sidewalk is and there's a retaining wall that's owned by the county, that wall is going to have to be replaced. It's not doing well. And they've talked to us about how they're going to go about doing that. It is a large project. There will be a street closure of one side or the other or both of Wanaque Avenue for maybe a month, maybe more. There will be some pile drivings to put the piles in to make that stand. So there's more to come on that. That is a county project. They're going to redo that whole wall and then a whole new sidewalk on the side there. But it's a major project for a busy downtown that we have. So more to come on that. And that is my report. Council President Kent.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for sticking up for Palmton Lakes and their flooding. And the flood board did submit, I believe, an email to you supporting exactly what you just said. And so it's good to hear that it's been listened to. And hopefully they're going to take some good action on that because we've been talking about that for years. Thank you very much on that. I'll let the flood board know.

Good.

All right. I want to thank our administrator, Michael Corelli, for putting a very very nicely understandable YouTube presentation on the budget. It was very easy to understand why the numbers are the way they are and where they came from. We didn't have that many, many years ago. It was very difficult to understand and follow, I have to be honest with you. But it was very good, so I want to thank you. If you're not happy with the budget, then you should really be calling the governor's office and asking for some monies to offset some of these costs that we cannot and do not control, such as our health care, not receiving any municipal aid, and on the pensions. There's something that we just can't do, as the mayor said, and that's coming right out of Trenton, so that's where the problem is. We received DuPont quarterly site reports. You know, years ago, just I don't know if some of the newer council people know this, but we used to have someone look at these reports and talk to DuPont about where they're at on their site. And I was just wondering, can we maybe possibly think about resurrecting, having a meeting with them, so understand? I mean, I understand it. That's what I used to do. But I mean, it should be done by a professional.

Yeah, unfortunately, since the EPA left and DEP left out of our office here, they don't really have manpower to come down. We can ask. We can try.

I would just ask that we have someone maybe just once a year to talk about. Because the quarterly report is very complicated if you don't understand it's all about groundwater and everything. And it doesn't really directly impact us, but it does impact a very large parcel that's in . I think it would be nice to be back on top of it again. I would just do that. They used to sit with the folks in, it used to be DuPont, now it's Chemours, but I think that's an important project that we could do. Thank you. I appreciate that. I know we sent a letter. I want to thank our attorney. for sending a follow-up letter regarding the $75 million settlement. I'd like to know when your report is ready, if there's any response to that, because I do believe that we are owed money if somebody's going to be paying out. We were the ones that were damaged. Our residents were damaged. And I'd like to know where we stand with that. But you don't have to do that now. You can do that.

We're not getting any response. But as I had told Mike, we're putting on a monthly tickler. So that letter's going out every 30 days until we get a response. So we're going to at least flood their mailbox.

Okay. All right. And emails. Okay. Well, I thank you because I want to respond. They owe us a response there, an agency that should respond to this.

Well, it would be nice if they at least respond to a letter.

Well, a letter. Exactly. I mean, we're $13,000.

And just for the public's concern, there's money accepted from DuPont to the state for a representation of the damage they did. And I've been fighting for many years, along with a lot of people up here, that we should get a piece of that money somehow. The governor's office is in charge of where that money goes, and it will never come back to Pompton Lakes. They'll go to other projects. Last time we got the money, it went down to dunes down in Wildwood. So, you know, there should be some type of law passed that the towns that are half the polluters in it should get some of that money.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Especially when the state interjects and stands in the position of government to collect the funds.

Exactly, so I just want everybody to know that we're not getting up, not yet, and we shouldn't give up either. So thank you, thank you, Mark. All right, and some later stuff. Our OEM CERT members are training on the HAM radio, and I think they are also doing some additional training. If anybody is interested, they should reach out to Deborah Ross or myself if you're interested in doing any CERT training. Our first responders, just so everyone knows, there's a save the date, June 30th. It looks like Passaic County Community College is doing a training session for first responders and DRCC teams. I believe it's free. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity to update you on some of the latest stuff regarding wellness for first responders and basically some of the things that you I guess that you experience how to handle. So that's always nice to have. And it doesn't cost the borough anything. It's a good resource to have for our responders. I spoke with Lisa Perry. I did on the shears, our animal control in Bloomingdale. And we did discuss the concern about feeding and not feeding. And the reason I did vote no is that because I do feel that we first should have our deer study finalized. We should have a count on the herd. And we should have a more active educational program. The fact that we're waiting until the summer is because it's a very generic educational program. I think it's important that when people also, if there's a fine in the ordinance, I don't want to see neighbors calling up against neighbors because they're doing something, and that does happen. So, and she did agree with that. So, anyway, but it's, it passed, so. But we're still going to train and go through the training for everyone. They should understand the deer population and how that works. And so, oh, and Mike, did we ever get the DEERS study results back yet?

Thank you, Council President. We're still waiting on the State of New Jersey to issue the grant agreement, which is about a year past due, as Councilman Hinton knows. So we are following up with them monthly, but we have not gotten the grant agreement yet okay you did thank you oh okay this involved excuse me council president does this involve the drone footage that they were supposed to yeah yes our forest health canopy survey was completed uh i think in the fall uh but we are waiting on the grant agreement we can't move forward with the project until we get the grant agreement so that's the reason for the hold up okay all right it's not going to be done with a drone

It's going to be done. We're not getting enough money to do a drone account.

No, I think it's a manual.

It's going to be headlights and count at night. That's the amount of money that we got. We didn't get that much money. Okay.

All right, well, thank you for the update. And that is my report.

Okay, thank you. Councilman Begg. Thank you, Mayor. I attended the April Prevention Coalition meeting. They booked Zion Givens from 518 for an assembly with our high school students. That will be presented this Friday. It's about mental health awareness and substance abuse issues. The following day from then, this Saturday, May 16th, is the Walk for Hope and Diamond Classic. These events correlate with Mental Health Awareness Month. Registration for the walk is at 9 o'clock in front of the high school. Please come out and support the cause. I also attended the April historic prevention meeting. The prevention is currently working with the library board to come up with a celebratory event for the country's 250th anniversary, so more to come on that. They have digitalized the Pompton Lakes 1929 directory now. Eventually, they'll have this up as part of the virtual museum, which is on the historic page through the borough website. Recreation didn't meet last month. However, they have several events that they want to need to announce. So summer camp is from June 19th to July 31st from 9 to 12 at Hirschfield Park. Registration is now open. Registration for Camp Go in Oakland is now open and open for our residents in middle school, 6th through 8th grade. The camp runs from June 29th to August 7th. The local PBA 161 5K run walk is on June 6th at 9 o'clock. The race will start at Hirschville Park and registration begins at 8 o'clock. The fourth annual Pompton Lakes Pride Celebration is June 27th from 1 to 4 on the library lawn. Our first concert will be Saturday, May 23rd on the library lawn from 7 to 9. This is the big band concert and they'll be honoring our veterans. And then the town's first summer stroll hosted by the bid will be Thursday, May 21st in our downtown area. There will be food, local vendors, kids, activities, and family fun. Please come out and support our local businesses.

And the road will be closed, right?

And Wanaque will be closed. Wanaque will be closed. And do you know when they're closing Wanaque on Thursday? It's before 4 o'clock, I would assume.

I wanted to say it was around 4 or 4.30 because of school dismissal.

School dismissal, okay. So, do we close around 4 or 4.30? Yes. Thank you. I attended the Tamale River cleanup hosted by the Popton Lake CPC. It was a great day. We had approximately 55 participants. We collected a lot of garbage and debris from our lands and waterways. So, thank you to all who attended. I also attended the ARRIVE Together presentation held by the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office, our police department, and a member from CBH Care, which is Comprehensive Behavioral Health Care. ARRIVE, I got this down now, stands for Alternative Responses to Reduce Instances of Violence and Escalation. I did look it up. Arrived together. It is a New Jersey initiative that pairs police officers with mental health professionals to respond to 911 behavioral health calls. The program aims to de-escalate crisis, connect individuals to social services, and reduce arrest or use of force. The program operates via co-response, telehealth, or non-law enforcement models. One aspect that I did find remarkable was that 97% of the cases do not result in the use of force and 98% do not result in any arrest. THIS PARTNERSHIP WILL BE A TREMENDOUS ASSET TO OUR COMMUNITY. SO THANKS FOR BRINGING THAT, AJ.

APPRECIATE THAT.

I ATTENDED OUR TRAILS MAINTENANCE DAY THIS PAST SATURDAY. WE HAD A QUICK MEETING BEFOREHAND TO DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF THE ED MERRILL TRAIL AND WHO WOULD BE MAINTAINING THE MORRIS COUNTY GREENWAY IN THE FUTURE. SO THANK YOU TO LAUREN VENNEN FOR HER CONSTANT SUPPORT OF OUR TRAILS. And then lastly, I attended the Chamber of Commerce dinner meeting last night, held at Tony's Pizza. At the meeting, we discussed Shredding Day and the painting of pots for Mother's Day were great successes. They are giving out four $500 scholarships this June to graduating students. And then the next big buck sale will be this Saturday in the high school parking lot from 1030 to 1 o'clock. And that's my report. Wow.

Thank you. And thank you for reminding me about the river cleanup. It was a great event. Thanks to the organization of Environmental Club. A lot of members, a lot of good food, and a lot of garbage picked up. So all good things. So thank you. Councilman Cruz.

Two things before I begin my report. So they're going to have the Big Buck Saturday at the Diamond Classic and everything else. I'll remember that when I talk to them.

Yeah, I just heard that too because you can have the walk at the same time as the… So the feelings at the walk will pretty much conclude right about when Big Buck Sale will start. Parking for Milwaukee will be in the Pond Hall as of now.

Diamond Classic just starts at 10, right?

Diamond Classic, JV starts at 10 and Varsity at 12. And Brother Bruno's Pizza is going to be down there now with the food truck.

There's going to be a lot of rushing around that morning. That's going to be all over the place. And just to add to the river cleanup, that's great, the numbers. Mike, did the owners of Punta Square ever put a garbage can across the street from Starbucks?

Great question. No, I'll follow up with Sal Foley.

Yeah, because I'm pretty sure it was just as bad when you guys were over there, because the kids are constantly throwing the garbage over the wooden fence, that's it. Yeah, thank you. That'll be good if they did that. All right, thank you, Mayor. Good evening, everyone. So I'm going to start off with the Board of Education meeting. It was a regular meeting Tuesday night. It was a usual meeting, nothing really stood out. Finance approved bills, personnel, they had resignation and appointments. And they are down to four superintendents at this point. So they're hoping by at least mid to late June they'll have somebody selected because they need to give them the time to give their 60 day notice to the district they're leaving. There was also discussion on a program called Safe Routes Program. I'm just sharing it here because they do work with the borough and the district and a variety of things from sharing safety tips for bicycles, safe walking. They do a lot of programs. One of the members just discussed it briefly. He wasn't 100% sure of everything, but I thought there was something to look at because everything that they offer is free. All right, moving on. I have a Board of Health report. Okay, so we finally met, you know, for the second time, I think. So I'm just going to go over the numbers for some of the diseases reported. Nobody needs to run out of the building. Okay, so for COVID-19, we had 85. This is Pompton Lakes only. Hepatitis B1, Hepatitis C3, Influenza 18 and over 3, Influenza under 18 2,

Anything here?

Monthly requests, questions. These are public health inquiries. We had 25. Distribution of COVID kits was 10. And the township distribution of services provided by flyers, clinic information, et cetera, is 25. And lastly, blood pressure walk-in screenings, we had seven reported by the Board of Health. And the last item I'm going to discuss is the Board of Adjustments meeting. They approved bills. This is for application BOA 25-08 in the amount of $499.50. This is Collier's Engineering and Design Professional Services. For legal, it is Marzitti Falcone LLP Legal Services. This is also for application BOA 25-08-102 for the amount of $637.50. It was a very short meeting. They had one application, BOA 26-01, which was approved and will be on the resolution for final adoption, and BOA 25-02, which is the only resolution, and that was approved. And that will do it for my report, ma'am. Thank you. Councilman Hinton.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Let's see if I got my dates right. I attended the Little League Parade.

Is that done already?

That was the last time? Yeah. Okay. My date was wrong. But it was a good time. Good time. I attended the river cleanup. That was pretty good. I just walked around Hurstfield Park. Picked up a whole bag of garbage just making the loop through the parking lot. So... And there was quite a few people there, so that was excellent to see that. Attended the PLPD ARRAI program. Now I want to thank Councilman Begg for spelling that all out because I was gonna put the chief on the spot. But that was very informative. And there was a question I had about the blue envelope program and to learn that our police department does implement that also. That's a program where you can probably explain it a little better, Chief.

now you're putting me on the spot no yes so the blue envelope program is a program started uh and initiated by a prosecutor's office but um if uh let's say an individual is uh autistic but highly functional um they are able to carry this blue envelope uh which all our officers know about in the county all officers know about in the county so that this way if they happen to stop them or they encounter them they can then see that the person might have some maybe social anxieties so that the officer knows that this person is not just ignoring them or not. So he understands that there's an issue and that he can better handle the situation and handle it appropriately.

There might be emotional problems. The driver might be acting erratic, which the policeman right off the bat is going to be defensive. So handing the blue envelope... puts the officer at ease and puts the driver both in a safe position.

So if I carry a blue envelope in my car, it's right there, right?

I think the officers in town would recognize you. You have a blue card, man.

You don't need a blue envelope. I'll hide it in the mirror. There you go.

Then we had our seniors meeting of which the mayor attended and he had a nice presentation for the seniors and it was very great of him to come there and seniors had a few questions for him. He was able to answer their questions. Attended the beef steak for Carl Padula. Yes, it was well deserved and he was a great resident of our town. I attended the police hearing on Monday for an issue with the police department and that was taken care of. Had a shade tree meeting. Attended that, we're planting 17 new trees Albany Avenue, where all the new paving was just done. There's quite a few trees going along there. It's a beautiful spot to plant. And we're having three more replacements. Trees that were planted last year have died, and they're going to be replaced also. that I was going to bring up the bid box, but Councilman Banks appeared.

And that is my report. Thank you, Mayor. So those trees are picked by you or residents were requesting trees too? Was it both?

No. Kaylin, our new arborist on our shade tree commission, she picks the trees. We used to give the residents, we do give the residents some idea what they, if they have an idea what they want, but the final selection is done by the chief.

Okay. Councilman Sanders.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. I also attempt the brewery beef steak. It was a sold out event to honor a call. The Bloomingdale Fire Department does a great job with their beef steak. They feed you until you can't eat anymore. It just, the beef just keeps on coming. So they do a great job. I also attended the RIPE program. And then I attended both Board of Ed meetings and the special meeting for the budget. So the budget will be going up 3.2, 3.29%. In the budget, they will be doing out of the capital reserves, they will be doing a $2.6 million project at Hirshfield for upgrades on the bleachers and on the track. They will be doing fencing around Pump Lights High School. Lincoln School has site improvements and total cost of those projects. is $2.621 million. In that 3.29%, their health care also went up $2 million. So there was a big, big trying to cut costs and stuff. So they had fewer retirees. bring back one teacher and they cut the culinary room bid project for this year because the bid went over over the budgeted amount and the generator at the high school was cut out of this year's budget because the until the electrical. Up their upgrade is finished. The date for. The tree ceremony dedication for Carl Padula will be June 2nd at 7 p.m. at the board office. And that is my report.

What time is that?

Seven o'clock. Seven o'clock. Yeah, before their board meeting.

I just want to remind the public, since we did talk about the budget, This council sits up here, which did a great job with the budget. We're only responsible for 22% of every dollar you spend. The school is responsible for about 61% of every dollar you're spending. And what's left over, which is about 18%, 19%, is the county's responsibility. All three groups are independent of each other. They have no say over the other groups. So when you figure out, when you look at your dollar, we do a lot with only 22%. That's our fire, our police, our first aid. That's everybody, our office staff, everybody in that 22%.

This is a quick question. Scott, by any chance, do you know what the generator was? Was that part of the referendum or not?

I believe it was, but they don't want to... They have to get the upgrade of the electric in the high school before that goes, but that was part of the referendum.

So the delay right now, is that for a full school term, full school year that they're delaying it?

Did they mention if that's going to... Well, delay is because they can't get parts. Okay, so it's a supply chain type issue.

Yeah, so that's the reason why I was asking, because I know they're doing a lot of the internal upgrades to support a lot of the equipment, and I know the wiring was a big problem, and the generator was obviously needed to be replaced.

Okay, I was just curious. They ran most of their electrical pipes to school for where the generator's going, but the actual generator won't go in until the upgrade, until they know where. Thank you. Hey, Tony, you have a report?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. I know that Mr. Hinton had made an inquiry regarding the railroad crossing maintenance issue. I don't have definitive answers, but I do have a pretty comprehensive history, and I'll be able to explain what we've done so far and what we're doing. I think that everyone knows that the reason why the borough was responsible for maintenance was because the original railroad crossing was at the borough's request. And the railroad said, okay, but you're going to have to maintain it. And there was an agreement that was not very well defined indicating that we were going to maintain it. And at some point in time, approximately 1990, there was a litigation that involved the borough and the railroad company because the borough wasn't really happy with the manner in which the railroad company was notifying us and allowing us to participate in the maintenance issue. That lawsuit settled and we know that that lawsuit settled with an agreement that they would notify us 30 days in advance with an approximate estimate as to what the repair costs were going to, or the maintenance costs were going to be, not because we have records, but because there was a newspaper article, because it was a published litigation matter. Our records may, I haven't found them yet, may end up including the settlement agreement, As you know, back at that point in time, I think Ken Petrie was the borough attorney, and then Joe Ragno obviously succeeded him and passed away. There are a number of files that are off-site, and from what I understand, I'm not to expect that they're going to be in any great order. There are several boxes there that we would have to go through. in order to see if those records, if the settlement agreement is really the key instrument that I would be looking for. We've reached out to the railroad to talk to their attorney. We have not yet established contact with them to see if they have a copy of the settlement agreement. We have been in communication with Liz who has the indexing for the offsite storage. Before we incur those expenses, because we do know I don't think there's a reason to distrust a public newspaper. That's a statement right there. Representation about a settlement, yes. Let me finish the statement. And we are talking about something decades ago, not today's day and age. I have good reason, obviously, to believe that there was a settlement. I wouldn't have anticipated that they would have invalidated the obligation. Of course, the original agreement we do have, and that's relatively clear. I asked Liz to show me, to please show me, what the last maintenance bill was. I don't know how much it was. Maybe someone here has a recollection. But if we're talking about something that's in the hundreds of dollars or if it's something that's in the low thousands, I could see this taking 15, 20 hours of attorney time to go through boxes of information. And I think that we probably should understand what that amount is before you authorize me to spend that money. But we do know and I do agree that that agreement does indicate maintenance. I confess that it's ambiguous, but that's the way things were written years and years ago. I know that the newspaper article had expressed some content about the fact that it was with respect to the mechanisms and the driving surface that we were going to be responsible for, not the rails. And that's where we're at. But we have definitely spent time and rolled up our sleeves on it. And I even spoke to Jessica Sprague, who's Joe Ragnar's daughter, to see if they had any other records that were there. So I certainly tried to pursue a diligent answer, but that's where we're at right now. We're just not at the end.

I can understand what it would cost them attorney fees for you to do that research. But we're talking since then, hundreds of thousands of dollars that we've been paying, the taxpayers paying, for this maintenance agreement on one rail crossing. We have four rail crossings, and just specific for this one. Nothing on the one towards Oakland.

But that was an agreement in 1990 that was made with the counsel and attorney at that time.

Well, I understand that. And it was at our request as opposed to having an obligation imposed upon them by another body of war. So I understand that. I certainly understand what your concern is. I don't anticipate us finding anything to the contrary. But you never know. And if this body wants us to continue working on that we certainly can i would suggest that my office and we also issued an open demand we were in communication with the ombudsman with the superior court to see if the court had filings they should right then i maintain something that long ago i i'm confident of it uh but we're trying And moreover, I don't suspect that they would have a settlement agreement. If it was a court order, they would have it. But settlement agreement is usually between parties outside of court. And very rarely, unless it's in the form of a consent order, would the court maintain a copy of it. But we're seeing that they have a file. And if they do, we're asking them to pull it so that we could see it. So that was another thing that we did that I forgot about. Other than following up with the court and following up with the attorney for the railroad, I would suggest that I refrain from going through any records and having records pulled. Not that it's a lot of money, but the stuff does add up. They'll charge us a couple hundred dollars to pull the files out so that we can go through them. Maybe it makes sense for us to have the last maintenance bill pulled so that we can see how much money we're talking about. Maybe it makes sense to pull maybe the last two years' bills so that we could have an idea as to how it's trending. And then depending on where we're at, we'll share the information that the borough has on the expenses. I'll share any additional information that I acquired from either the court or the railroad. And then I can get further directions on whether or not you want to authorize the additional services.

Mike, we can get those bills, right?

Yes.

I think that's a good point.

Yeah, I just have a question. So here's how MindMind works, okay? Just stop paying. And then if they really want their money, they'll tell us, here's why you need to pay. And they'll let them do the work. and give us all the agreements.

It's tough for a town to break the law.

I have a couple of quotes on that. I don't want to discount the fact that that is a legitimate strategy. That's what I had said to Michael originally. The borough did it once before. We were sued. We incurred illegal fees associated with that. We don't know what the terms of the settlement agreement are. Usually, if an attorney wants to put an end to a dispute, they're going to have a fee-shifting provision in that settlement agreement that says if you breach this and we have to sue you, you're going to pay for our attorney's fees. We may not be saving money because if that provision is in the settlement agreement and we discover the settlement agreement after the litigation, then you're not only going to be paying for your own attorney, but potentially paying for their attorney.

Well, what Council President is talking about, if we stop paying, they have to prove that we're supposed to pay. They would have to come up with a settlement agreement. Or they could just take us to court and sue us. Well, then prove that we have to pay.

In court, they will. And then if there's a settlement that says we have to pay your fees. Well, just show us a settlement agreement. They might not do that. They might just say, we're going to sue you, and then you pay our bills.

Not an attorney.

Or we may end up, if they don't have it either, we may be relitigating a case that was litigated and we lost the first time around. Apparently, I wouldn't say lost, we agreed to settle. That doesn't mean that history has to repeat itself completely. I still think that probably the best thing to do is let's circle back in a council meeting or two, I think would probably be the next one. Let's see how much money we're truly talking about in today's dollars and then, I have the indexing for the boxes. We could start to take a look and see if we could find something. I would think that if Mr. Petrie's files are there, that the settlement agreement should be there somewhere. And, you know, I don't know the total number of boxes, but...

I'm not sure we have Petrie's. I know we have Ragnos.

Yeah, I don't know if we have Petrie's. We have Ragnos. I know because I had the word Ragnos, but...

But they were in the same office, right? So maybe Ragnow inherited Petrie's documents. Okay.

All right, so we're going to move forward, but he's looking into it. Well, Petrie's still with us. We can give him a call.

God bless him. Does he live in town? No. Oh. But he's still alive.

He's still with us.

Okay. If someone knows him and wants to give me the number, I'll be happy to give him a call. Okay. He's still alive.

Anything else?

No, that's it. Administrator's report. Thank you. No problem.

Thank you, Mayor. As you know, the Willow Field Improvement Project is substantially complete. A final change order for irrigation was approved at tonight's council meeting. We are coordinating with the borough engineer in Verizon to relocate the guy wire connected to a standalone tree that's in the field area. So we are working on that. Once Verizon repurposes the guy wire by anchoring it diagonally to the ground, we're going to have downstream service come back and grind the rest of the tree. So we look forward to that. And then, again, in addition, the borough submitted a grant application to the Passaic County Open Space Trust Fund for the proposed Willow Field Playground, which is planned for the area south of the garbage refuse enclosure. So we are waiting on the county. to announce the grant awards for that. You'll see in the capital plan being introduced at the next council meeting, we do have the soft costs for the Lakeside Ave phase one improvements project, which consists of the resurfacing of Lakeside Ave from Jefferson Ave to Van Ave. along with pedestrian improvements curb repairs and the Removal of the existing chain link fence with the installation of new guide rail in the area of the former Muller property So council president Kent was asking about that In addition the borough is working on our capital plan, which will be adopted in late June. We have authorized the borough engineer to prepare the final design and bid specs for the Lakeside AFT project. And we are under a time crunch with the MJDOT in terms of awarding of a contract for that project. As you know, we had Dawes Highway, then we had Albany and Water Villette, now we have Lakeside, and next year we're going to be under a timeframe to award the Albany on Phase 2 project, which is considered as part of the NJDOT Municipal Aid Program application. So we're waiting to hear on that. The replacement of the Hirshfield Park pedestrian bridge is expected to be complete within the next four to five weeks. The county and borough are working on a cost estimate to resurface the remainder of the walking paths within Hirschfield Park. The county is going to be resurfacing to a certain extent beyond the entrances to the pedestrian bridge, but we're going to be responsible for the rest. So we are looking within our capital plan to fund that for this year. So we're working on that with the borough engineer. And lastly, as not mentioned prior, the grand opening ceremony for the Civic Center is scheduled for Monday, June 8th at 4 o'clock. Members of the Meridia Cappadagli team will be in attendance along with various community stakeholders. We will have a new building dedication plaque and light refreshments will be served. So we're going to send an invite out to the governing body at some point in the future. That's all I have. Thank you.

And just to remind the public that we received the, finally got the money for the library, right?

Yes, thank you. So for those of you that don't know, we got what's called the congressionally directed earmark for the Pompton Lakes Library project, which consists of the repairs to the brick facade on the exterior of the library. So to date, we have $750,000 in grants between the federal government and the county. As of last week, the State of New Jersey Office of Historic Preservation Planning Department signed off on the project to move forward. So now we will be considering a proposal from our historical architect for the bid specs and final design at which point we will be able to go out to bid. And I will note that the bid process will be administered through what's called a qualified process where we preemptively select qualified historical contractors to be able to bid on the project and then we further select the winning bid based on our budget and qualifications. So we're looking to narrow down the scope of candidates that are able to do the work because it is a historic building and something that the state of New Jersey pointed out was that the building is not on the nationally register of historic places but could be and they're interested in maybe doing that so I think they're going to be reaching out to us at some point about that.

I think the issue was years ago they didn't want to have to follow all the stringent requirements that go with that

But unfortunately, when you get these grants like we did, you have to follow them anyway. But there's other things to consider, too. OK. Any questions from the administration?

I'm sorry. Michael, what did you say regarding the Linkside Road Because I'm going to open space meeting tomorrow night and I want to just reiterate that date when the project is going to start.

There's no start date. The project needs to be awarded by the fall. By the fall. So realistically, if we're really rushing, it's a late fall project. But in all likelihood, it's going to be a spring project. Okay. But we are doing everything we can.

Okay.

Yeah.

Just on the pedestrian, walking path, the re-paving, is the bridge itself done?

The bridge itself is mostly complete. I think there's a few other items they have to do. But for the most part, it's the... Is it accessible now to the residents or the kids to cross over? No, no. It's still closed. It's more of a reclamation and restoration.

But they're close. And I'm trying to get the county with Mike's help to maybe move there, paving up a little bit to those big holes that are in the front when you first walk in. They can help us with that.

Thank you, Mike. I have a question. Short Street, that was on the paving list. Is that going to be paved?

Well, as the governing body knows, as part of the capital plan and budget process, in lieu of a in lieu of a regular road program that we do cooperative purchasing paving on, we opted, because of the deadlines with DOT, we have to do Lakeside Ave. And this governing body funded the soft costs for the replacement of the DPW facility. So we moved up the DPW facility over some roads. So next year, as part of the budget process, we'll consider additional roads. But no, it was not included. It was supposed to be, but... But we ended up changing that. Yeah, well, we voted up from the township side to do the DPW correction, which you voted on, too, right?

Yes, I voted Russell, but I didn't know that was eliminating Short Street.

Yeah, as part of the budget workshop meeting and the budget presentation.

Also, I got a call from residents about grass cutting in... Shady Coal Park, also DuPont Park. Is there a shortage of manpower? I mean, they've finally gotten taken care of, but I think those residents had to contact you to get that done. Is there an issue here or something, or what's going on?

No, I think the guys were tied up with the Civic Center. And now that that's done, I think they're... The Civic Center is complete. Everything is done that our men were working on. The Civic Center is 100% done. So now they have the focus to do these other projects.

Well, we're waiting on the furniture for the historic committee.

Right, and some signage and stuff. But for the most part, the guys are back out cutting grass. The resident on Howard Street, the grass was cut the next day, and Katie Cole Park, the same thing. But I talked to them and made sure that it's on their radar.

And both of them were very pleased once they contacted you and got it done. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Chief, you got a report? Actually, yes. Just real quick, I just want to question you. Is the bridge expected to be open for the PBA 5K, or is it going to be closed?

No, it'll be closed.

It'll still be closed, correct? Okay.

Because it's June 6th, right? Yeah, that's too early. I don't think it'll be open. I mean, you might get lucky, but I doubt it.

I think they've got to do like a reroute. Okay, I'll let them know. So good evening. Thank you. So during the month of April, the police department remained very active across all our divisions while continuing to maintain our proactive enforcement and community engagement efforts throughout the borough. The department handled 2,106 incidents during the month, while our officers responded to over 1,050 dispatch calls for service. Our investigative activity increased significantly with officers generating 99 investigative and operations reports during the month of April. Patrol operations remain busy throughout the month with officers handling several significant incidents including multiple school related investigations, domestic violence incidents, overdose response calls, Our officers also continued proactive traffic enforcement and quality of life enforcement efforts throughout the borough. Our detective bureau remained highly active, managing both new and ongoing investigations, including theft investigations, domestic violence investigations, attempted motor vehicle theft investigations, and they continue to work a long-term missing persons investigation which involved coordination with state and out-of-state agencies. Our police department also continued several important operational projects during the past month, including communications upgrades, accreditation preparation, and advancement of the next generation 911 conversion project, which is mandated by the state. Our community engagement remained a priority throughout the month. The department participated in the Little League Parade, the DEA National Take Back Day, and also Take Your Child to Work Day. And we continued our outreach efforts with our senior citizens community where we discussed fraud prevention and public safety concerns. As for traffic safety and quality of life enforcement, our efforts also continued throughout the throughout the throughout the borough. We had a directed enforcement in the Pono parking area, which resulted in 58 summonses being issued during the month, and the department completed additional traffic studies throughout the month in response to our residents and complaints. Overall, the department continues to remain proactive while balancing increased operational commands and continuing to provide professional police services to the residents of Pompton Lakes. I'd also like to recognize the men and women of the Pompton Lakes Police Department for their continued professionalism and dedication throughout the month of April. Thank you all for all the councilmen for bringing up the RIE program and for everybody who participated. You got 100% right. It stands for Active Response to Reduce Instances of Violence and Escalation. It's in partnership with the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office and also CDH. I think it's a great program. When I became chief, it was one of the first things I did. I went to the chief of the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office and I asked him, why isn't our town involved? um what what this does it's um it's going to bring a representative on site to our police department on a weekly basis who's going to be able to handle referrals that our officers when they come in contact with a member of the public that's dealing with any of these instances what it also does is in real time if a representative is available and somebody is dealing with an event that they need maybe immediate immediate care or immediate response we will now have that option at our fingertips so I think it's just a great program so I can't wait should be should have some meetings in the next couple of weeks and get my representative assigned. The representative that was here is going to be our long-term representative, but she's having a baby, so she's out on maternity leave, so I'm waiting for the new one to be assigned. And she's local, right? Yeah, she's local. She's already, she's also the representative, I want to say, in Wannekew, Bloomingdale, and West Milford. So even if she's not, so I think if we get assigned like a Monday if she and she'll be here on site every Monday if we have an instance on a Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday she should be at another site where I would be able to contact her or a member of our department contact her to facilitate if we need an immediate response That being said, I just want to shift gears into the New Jersey e-bike law. And the reason why I bring this up is because I want to start pushing the message out to the community. I sent out basically a public safety notice, so to say, throughout our school district. And they sent it out to all the parents, but I thought I'd bring it up so I can advise our residents. That don't have children in the school. We did push it out on social media, but I want to let them know About this new law which takes effect shortly all right, so So this law, it's a New Jersey law regarding electric bicycle e-bikes. So it's going to be a significant shift that will directly impact many of the people in our community. E-bikes are no longer treated as bicycles within the state of New Jersey. They are now regulated similarly to motor vehicles, like mopeds. So some of the changes. Age requirements. Under 15, they are not permitted to operate an e-bike. Ages 15 to 16, they now must have a motorized bicycle license. 17 and older must have a valid New Jersey driver's license to operate one of these vehicles. There is now licensing, registration, and insurance that are going to be required. So all e-bikes in the state of New Jersey must be registered with the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicle. Liability insurance is required and they must be operated by a properly licensed rider. Helmet requirement. All riders must wear a helmet regardless of age. What is required when riding? So if you are operating one of these vehicles, you're required to have a driver's license or a motorized bicycle license. You have to have the vehicle's registration and proof of insurance. Additional restrictions. Any speed modification kits, they're prohibited. Certain online e-bike sales are also restricted. Violations may result in summons and fines. So important deadlines. The grace period for these regulations are July 19th of 2026. After that, full enforcement begins after that date. What that means for our residents. Treat e-bikes like motor vehicles, not bicycles. Ensure your child meets age and licensing requirements. Plan for registration and insurance. And as a parent, you may be held responsible for your child's violations. So getting down to our approach in the police department. Our initial focus is going to be education and outreach, which we started. I've sent this memo to the superintendent, which he put it out to schools. We put it on our social media page. The borough also put it out on our social media page. So we're going to keep pumping this out so that everybody gets the message. You know our initial focus like I said education outreach And then we will once the once the law is in effect We will then transition to full enforcement after the compliance period Our goal is to address safety concerns and high-speed misuses and and to keep our kids safe and prevent avoidable accidents. Unfortunately, as you all know, we've definitely had avoidable accidents with our young children. You know, one of my son's best friends was involved in a very serious accident on one of these motorized bicycles. Thank goodness, by the grace of God, he's okay and doing great. But, you know... These things can be very dangerous and I think the ultimate goal of mine as the Chief of Police and what I want, I'm sure you have the same vision here, is that As long as these vehicles are operated appropriately and properly by the by the laws governing our state and governing this, I'm all for it, but we want them to operate it safely. We don't want our children to be operating in a manner that puts them at risk and puts our residents at risk as well. So we're going to keep getting that message out there and you know. Yeah, that's that.

So let me ask you, Chief, if you see somebody on a bike, can you just stop them for appropriate thinking he's out of age? Is there a reason you can do that? Is it like a motor vehicle stop where you have to have a reason?

Yeah, so if they're operating the vehicle the proper way, where they have their helmet on, and we think they're of age, we would need a reason to stop them.

But if you see a younger child that you think is younger, is that a reason to stop or not stop?

Yes, it would be a reason to stop. And then we could ask, we would ask them then for their, for their proper credentials. But we need a reason to stop.

It's like a motor vehicle. It's like a motor vehicle. Correct. No questions. So, and then.

No questions, no questions. And then, you know, as a fellow parent myself, with young children, you know, Now that these are looked at in motor vehicles, your child is going to be required to have a license. Your child's going to have registration insurance. These penalties become you know, pretty hefty. You're talking about mandatory court appearances. You're talking about your child possibly delaying getting a license if you were to be found guilty of not having a license, registration, or insurance. I can tell you, if you don't have insurance on a motor vehicle, you know, you could be facing significant fines and things of that nature. So, you know, that's why I think the goal is to make the parents aware, because ultimately it's not going to be the child that's going to be paying for, the 13 or 10-year-old child that's going to be paying for this, it's going to be the parents.

But what I'm trying to get at is, if we see a 10-year-old on one of these, you're going to just pull them over, correct?

or not well yes but i think what's going to be hard is if the 10 year old is wearing a helmet and has all the proper and appropriate equipment and i can't tell it's a 10 year old that's the problem then i'm not gonna we're not gonna pull pull them over but uh we have to have some probable cause to believe that they're violating the statute um so again if they're driving above the speed limit, if they're driving on the sidewalk, if they're not driving in the roadway. This is a motor vehicle, just like a motorcycle now.

A lot of complaints I get from downtown are they don't stop at the stop signs.

Yes. Then if our officers observe that, they're going to stop it. If they don't have this, the proper identification, they don't have their proper registration, the vehicles will be impounded. There's going to be costs associated with impounding.

So, you know, just today in New York, I don't know who they saw it. They all the bikes that they had taken in that were illegal. They ran over with a big backhoe and crushed them all. That'd be 500.

Is there any type of like like on a moped? There's a little license plate. Is there anything like that? So you can run a plate or they're just.

Yeah, so DMV should be issuing a plate that's going to have to go on there if they're registered and insured.

So if they see something without a plate, that's justification to pull them over?

Yes. So my understanding too, and I haven't gotten confirmation because this is kind of new, is that there might not be anybody insuring these vehicles to begin with. So effectively, if we do see them on the road, If there's nobody really insuring them, then they might not be on there. I don't know how true that is. I think we're going to hit with it, like I said, on July 19th when it goes into effect.

It's going to be a little bit of on-the-job training on the DMV and what's caught up and things of that nature.

Again, our goal should be education. Even when July 19th comes, You know, I think our officers, I know our officers are going to take the approach of education for a little bit. We're not going to just on July 19th line up and start. No, it's education. Yes, start going after the kids and the parents. We're going to, you know, we might stop them. We might say, hey, call your parents. come get the bike, you're not riding it anymore. It might be a little inconvenience there, but I think that's a better inconvenience than getting a summons and pounding the bike and everybody having to come to court.

So is that going to be on our website also?

We can put it on if it's not.

And maybe we should put it on town sign saying new e-bike... rules are going in effect to visit the website to...

I know they just put this exact thing on social media just the other day.

Okay, any other questions?

So I just wanted to highlight, so I see that fraud, substantial increase on fraud. As far as the NIBRS code, Fraud is 26A-26F. So going from March to April, and I'm just curious to know what type of fraud are we seeing specifically here? Is it phishing phone calls? I would imagine for credit cards, they're trying to get that information over the phone. Is there a target age group? that they're focused on?

So a lot of the fraud that we deal with in Compton Lakes is we have a lot of the scam calls. There are a lot of the scams with the elderly. Our detective bureau, that's one of the reasons why we went to meet with the seniors and we did a presentation for them on what we're looking at. So that's a large, large amount of what we get. The kind of scams where It's an emergency. We need you to give money. And then all of a sudden they pass the money. Hey, you gave too much. And they do like a bait and switch. The next thing you know, they're out of the money. um it's just a big jump that's the only reason why it caught my attention from three in march to yeah 10 in april yes yes i i think it's just the time of the year too i don't know about everybody else but lately i've seemed to be getting a significant amount of extra like phony calls uh in the last like month or two two um so it's just that it's that it's it's that uh i feel like it's that time of the year taxes We're just due in April, so I feel around that time too. It's like an uptick because then you start getting the phone calls where you violated your taxes and if you don't make some type of immediate payment, they're going to come arrest you type call.

I know the one going around right now is the Easy Pass.

Your Easy Pass has been violated.

Call and give us your permission.

Yes. And they make it look pretty professional. Now they're doing text messages where they're saying this and you have to contact us immediately. So it's like right now.

Yeah, I just wanted to ask you, on the e-bikes, are the kids going to have to take a motorcycle test? When you get a motorcycle license, you go down to, say, Wayne and do an actual road test. Do they have to do that test also?

I'm not versed in what the DMV is requiring in order to get that motorized license, but I'm sure it has to be some type of written test, especially since it's You have to be 15 to 16, and if my memory serves me right, I think the moped license is around the same age. You have to take a written test to get that license. I assume it's going to be somewhat similar to that moped license test.

And e-bikes not on sidewalks anymore, or? Never. Never. I mean, we see that.

Bicycles aren't supposed to be.

Bicycles aren't even supposed to be after eight years old, right?

Yes.

So they would be in the bike lanes then, or they could be in regular traffic?

There is no bike lanes. It's traffic. It's regular traffic.

Regular traffic. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions? Nope. Okay. What do we have to do? Workshop.

Welcome. Thank you, Mayor. So as a follow-up from the April 22nd council meeting, we took some of the feedback that the governing body had imposed on the Civic Center rental agreement. So I did talk to our insurance provider, our police chief, who will provide some input today, and our DPW. So we went back, we looked at some of the fees. So to go through some of the changes, We're implementing or we're recommending to implement a four-hour minimum for rentals. There's a flat fee for the four-hour minimum of $350. Then the renter, as proposed, can rent for an additional up to six additional hours at the Civic Center, and that rate is at $50 per additional hour.

So it's a total of 10?

You could rent it for 10 hours. And that includes set up and clean up, too. You can't go beyond the 10 hours. So that's the first recommendation. We did keep the hours between 10 AM and 8 PM. Again, there's a four hour minimum. So if you want to have a party from 2 o'clock to 6 o'clock, that would be sufficient enough. I did talk to the DPW because they are going to be the folks that are going to be helping us clean up the building. We're recommending kind of a soft launch. We don't want to have two parties during the day or two parties per day. So we're recommending to maybe phase that in over time as we do this. So that was something that came up at the last council meeting. We also are recommending to reduce the security deposit from $500 to $300. And the reason for that is the fee can grow with those up to additional six hours. So we felt we didn't want to place an extra burden on the resident. So we did recommend lowering that fee. We looked at some of the provisions about pets and smoking. We included prohibitions on vaping in the building. I did talk to the DPW. We are going to be installing signage on the building regarding smoking and vaping. So we did look at that. At the last meeting, we talked about the insurance requirements and the requirement of providing a certificate of insurance. uh the question came up of what if you don't own a home i'm told by our risk manager there's a website that you can go to and we're actually going to put that on the application that you can go and get this certificate that you need to be compliant so that's something that came up i did talk to the borough clerk we talked about the alcoholic beverages whether or not hard alcohol could be uh implemented, we did call the alcoholic beverage control down at the state of New Jersey and they did confirm that only beer and wine are allowed. And furthermore, if there is some sort of event such as a wine tasting event or, you know, a fundraiser for a local nonprofit, they would have to get a wine festival permit by the state. But a BYOB, regular wine and beer, is allowed. And we don't need to do anything other than codify that in our ordinance to be able to do that. But no hard alcohol.

So if we have a community group, I'll just pick on Little League for example, they have an event. They can have beer and wine or they can't have beer and wine?

They can have a BYOB if it's a fundraiser. However, as stated in the agreement, you can't have catered alcohol. So you can't have a vendor come in and cater the event or bring food and alcohol. It only needs to be a BYOB. And that's in accordance with the ABC.

All right. I just don't want to have town-sponsored groups having parties with children there that are sponsored by the town.

Well, it would be a fundraiser that, you know, they normally would do.

Yeah, you know, that's a gray area. Say they have a meeting, and what happens for a meeting on a Thursday?

We don't allow that. Well, what's the distinction? How do you distinguish? There's a distinction between a meeting and a party.

Okay, so if they said we were having a meeting on Saturday from 2 to 6.

Well, we would use our discretion on what that exactly looks like. But that's something that maybe we'll have to deal with.

But you would permit a BYOB for a family party, right?

Yeah, like a baby shower.

And a family party would have children present. I'm not sure that you'd be able to.

But that's not a town event where Little League is us.

Yeah, Little League would schedule to have it for a meeting, not through disagreement. Correct.

Well, yeah, I just want to verify. It could be any group. Say any group says, we're having a meeting on Saturday from 2 to 6. We're going to bring your own apple. And party.

Anytime you've got alcohol, it's a party. It's a party. And they need to classify it. We're not getting meetings where everybody's getting hammered.

But I'm not understanding the need for the state.

If they say it's a party and they're having a fundraiser, I got no issues with it. If they're having a weekly meeting every week on a Saturday and they don't mind paying, they're going to have alcohol every meeting. That's a town event by us.

When you say town event, how is it a town event?

Say they're having a regular monthly meeting in our building.

Okay.

That's not a party.

If they sign the agreement, I understand that there's a distinction, but I don't understand why we are focusing on the distinction.

Only because then, you know, I've been involved in these groups where it becomes a drinking festival meeting instead of a party festival meeting. And now they're saying, well, we'll just go to the Civic Center every Thursday and we can drink there.

But my understanding was is that we were, and I don't know if the language is still there, but we were looking to have someone here... that would monitor what is going on. So I think that would cover, you know, based on what was found. If you're meeting and there's alcohol present, I think that's something they would report back. And then we would have to address that with the president.

And then we're focusing on the behavior. On the behavior, exactly.

And then you can only, the agreements are only for Saturdays and Sundays. That's correct. So any meeting during the week, you couldn't have any type of alcohol.

I'm saying if they switched your meetings this Saturday. And I'm figuring out a little, it could be every day.

That person, whoever's going to monitor that, they will report back if such activities occurred that didn't...

But I like the word party. All I'm saying is if they're saying we'd like to have a meeting, then that should be a different set standard. It's not a party.

Well, the alcohol, the beer and wine is only allowed on Saturday and Sundays. But to go to Councilman Cruz's point, we were thinking with the DPW and the borough clerk and I, about this monitor and how we're going to do it. All of the meantime, we were working with the police department to put in cameras. And we felt that with this camera system, which can be easily accessible via app on your phone, which we have all throughout the town and our parks and whatnot, we felt that it could be monitored offsite. while not incurring extra costs while also realizing that the police department's right next door and if there's an issue that we see on the camera or someone reports the police department will be able to go right over there so that's something that we look at to maybe save costs there's going to be an upfront cost to that but in the long run it's a savings and so that's on the form that they fill out they have to acknowledge whether or not they're going to be

bringing their own alcohol, correct?

It's on the first page.

Okay, so regardless of what they classify the gathering as, they're going to have to indicate when there's going to be alcohol there.

And if they say they're not, and they do, that's a problem, and we will keep the security deposit, and they'll probably be banned from using the facility in the future.

And it's still at the discretion of the borough at the end of the day.

Right. And the police department is going to be aware as the process is going to be. They're going to have to come to the PD. They're going to have to get the key. They're going to have to sign it out. So we will always be aware that someone's in there, even with the cameras there. So it's not going to be like a surprise. Someone's just going in. So if during the week we see people having a party...

I know that Mike and my office has been in communication. My initial thoughts, I'm not sure if I can express this to you. I thought that the ordinance should make reference to adherence to rules and regulations that would be implemented by the administration. so that you could actually change them and modify them as time goes on without having to go through the cumbersome process of the governing body either passing an ordinance or a resolution. And we have to make sure that whatever rules we enforce, that we're enforcing them universally, equally, and objectively so that If someone gets offended, they don't really have a legitimate claim to make of any sort of bias.

And then the only other concern that came up was parking. I'll let the chief maybe talk about that. But as mentioned at the last meeting, if the maximum occupancy of the building is only 60 people, studies have shown and in all likelihood, it's usually a one for two or one for three or one for four carpool. So you're only going to have about 20 to 30 vehicles at the most. It depends on what kind of gathering it is. But it's on the weekend, the lot is in all likelihood not used, and the police chief and I are going to work on assigned spots for the police department because our fear is that these vehicles attending these gatherings would block our police department from doing their daily tasks.

Yeah, so for many, many, many years we've had a lot of groups that were assigned during the weekends. We work 12-hour shifts, 7 to 7, 7 a.m. That's predominantly where our patrol shifts come in. So sometimes during the weekends when these groups were here, you come into work and there's no spots to park. So like the Bar Administrator was saying, I've reached out to Dan and Mickey as well. We're going to be labeling the spots, so hopefully it's... It's going to be very self-explanatory. There's going to be a fence that should be going up around the parking lot, about the meridian parking lot, so where we park our cars now. People won't confuse that for regular parking. It'll be labeled police parking. And then the hope is we'll identify our specific police spots that'll be labeled police spots, police personnel. So in this way, there's no confusion. And then, you know, my officers will know that's where you need to park. And then same, you know, the public, when they come, they'll see that and they won't park in those spots.

And I'm assuming we have written into this agreement, especially in the wintertime, we have the ability to cancel the meeting at any time or party at any time.

Right, for a snow event or whatnot. Because let's not forget that the building, as renovated, is intended to be used as a sheltering place.

So like a flood emergency, if there's a party plane that Saturday, we might have to say no to that party.

Right, and we have the discretion anyway if it's not in the agreement. So pending no objections or questions, we have an ordinance on for the next meeting, and we'll hopefully be launching this sometime in mid-June. So thank you for your time.

My question the last time was about the cancellation policy. and i'm reading the cancellation policy here and on the first line is a little confusing if you want to see where i underline on the first line it says less 50 but in parentheses it says 25 will be returned on if cancellation is made at least 30 days prior.

It's meant to be 25%, right?

And that goes to the- So the wording in front of 25% was wrong, it says 50%. Right, correct.

So actually the mayor brought that up last time. The cancellation policy as proposed, if a cancellation is made at least 30 days prior to the scheduled event, the rental fee less 25% of your application fee will be returned. If a cancellation is made at least 15 days prior to the scheduled event, the rental fee less 50% will be returned. And then all fees are non-refundable if a cancellation is made less than 15 days prior to the scheduled event. And that's a standard clause. I found that in many towns. So that was something that was brought up last time. All right. So that's just a typo on the first one. Yeah. And I'll fix that. Thank you.

Thank you. Are we talking about the solicitor or not?

Yes. Yes. So thank you, Mayor.

It will be in ordinance on the next one.

Thank you. And we'll talk about how to structure it. It may be too ordnance as I'm thinking, but we'll show and develop it.

Perfect. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, so the next item for tonight is a memo from the borough attorney regarding the solicitor discussion that we had at several council meetings. So we have attached draft ordinances amending the borough code to both restrict the permissible hours of operation for both charitable and commercial door-to-door solicitation. The proposed amendments restrict those hours of operation to 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and prohibit solicitation entirely on Sundays and national holidays. So I'm just going to let the borough attorney finalize that for everyone. So Mark, if you want to.

So as we had indicated, we know that ordinances have been upheld with... less restrictive timelines than what we're proposing. We know that some ordinances have been struck down by the court as being unconstitutional for being a little bit more restrictive than what we're proposing. And we discussed and bantered around what restriction you'd feel comfortable with. There is no reportable decision. We were able to locate that prohibited the solicitation on the Sundays and the federal holidays. However, we are aware of the fact that there are a number of towns around us that do prohibit it on Sundays. And the court did talk about providing some measure of privacy to the public. But First Amendment rights are the most sacred rights in our Constitution. I can't predict whether the court's going to agree with our version being constitutional or not. It's not a bright line. It has varied. It obviously varied across different states because of different time zones and lighting conditions. That does play a role too, obviously. Time conditions play a role, potentially, at different times of the year. But I know that we strive to a balance of privacy with the rights of free speech, and I understand that that's where you'd like to go. I don't think there's anything unreasonable about it, but I can't guarantee that a court's going to agree with us.

So we start there and see what happens.

Fair enough.

The only question I had is I'm seeing a lot more of this. If someone's trying to sell you something and you're in your front yard and they say, can I come speak to you? Does that mean they need to have a license? If you say yes, you can come speak to me?

If they're going door to door?

They're not going door to door. What I'm noticing is say they're a roofing company. They see you outside in your front yard, and they come up to you and say, can I come speak to you? and you say yes, then they say, oh, you needed a roof, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, but I think by that point, if they're out there, they're not just randomly... Well, they'll say I'm working on a roof around the corner. Yeah, but it's still soliciting service.

I mean, that's going to be a very fact-sensitive determination. If it's someone that's putting a roof on next door, I don't think any of us would think that there's anything soliciting about it, per se.

Around the corner, down the street.

If I was at your house and I saw someone wearing a neck brace, I may do the cousin bidding thing. I don't know. That would be soliciting.

They say, can I ask you a question? Mark, sometimes I get this. For instance, they're working on a big project at somebody's house and they've got asphalt and now they've got extra asphalt. So now they start going door-to-door asking people, do you want me to pave your driveway? I had it happen with the roof the other day. I've had it with asphalt.

I don't think that they certainly should be doing that, but by the time that even is brought to anyone's attention, it's probably going to be an evaporator, right?

I'd say my neighbor wants it really bad.

Yeah, I don't think that we could... predict all the circumstances that we could potentially address.

All right, so we're all good with that? Yep.

We're going to try it.

If something happens, then we're going against it.

OK. So then, Mike, you have the ordinance or something?

Right, so we'll have both draft ordinances on for the May 27th meeting. Thank you.

All right, before we go to open session, Liz was kind enough to put together a list of a lot of things going on. Walk for Hope this Saturday, May 16th from 9 o'clock at the Pompton Lakes High School. The Diamond Classic, which was mentioned, Saturday, May 16th at 10 o'clock. Memorial Day Parade, Sunday, May 24th, 12th, noon, at the ceremony at the bridge, starting there and then a parade down through town, ending at the VFW where there will be free hot dogs and beer and drinks for the kids. Civic Center Grand Opening, we mentioned Monday, June 8th. Police Awards Ceremony, Tuesday, June 9th, 6 p.m. at St. Mary's Carnival across the street. National Night Out, Tuesday, August 4th, 2026, off the Lakes High School. Summer Stroll, this is a new thing happening in town that they're trying this year. They're going to close down parts of Wanaque Avenue. I think Councilman Begg mentioned it, and they'll have vendors, and the restaurants will come out. You can eat dinner in the streets. There'll be music. The first one will be May 21st. The next one will be June 11th. The third one will be July 16th. And then the Summer Concert Series, which is open to the public free. You bring a lawn chair, sit at the library, you hear the music with all different types of bands. June 25th, July 9th, July 23rd, August 6th, and August 20th.

Okay. Can I just add one thing? Sure. Ponton Lakes Junior Police Academy, July 13th to July 17th, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., applications are available in the police headquarters if anybody wants to send their child there.

Great. Is that on the slide? The library slide?

Yeah. I'm not sure. I don't know if there's a camera for you to put up. Or Mike or Liz can do that, right?

No.

No. No? You guys are not locked out?

But for the record, our sign is reaching its end. It is. It's getting old, man. It's getting old. Maybe next year's capital.

I'm just going to go steal Oakwood. I love their sign, so I like their sign. You know, their signs are not cheap anymore. How much did Oakwood pay for theirs? $100,000. Yeah, $100,000. Wow. Wow.

$100,000.

Okay, motion to open the meeting for public comments. So moved. Councilman Cruz. Second. Council President Kent, all in favor? Aye. Again, anyone from the public like to address? I see a hand in the back. Okay.

He's closer. Go ahead, sir. I'll be quick.

Go.

There you go.

Sandra Mancini, Dorm Street. He was talking about making the license for the bikes and all. What about these... These other things that, well, they call it the scooters. And also, they have skateboards that motorize. So, I mean, you know, how are you going to do that?

Yeah, I'll answer at the end, but yeah.

Okay, so that's the only question I had. Okay. Because you were talking about it. I figured, let me ask him.

All right?

I don't have one of those bikes, though. Okay.

I think there was nothing to say, but there were a couple of things that came up.

Just came up in the last minute?

Which I'm trying to help out with. Alvin's a list of ringwood court. On the civic center occupancy, I know you mentioned 60. Now, was that performed by the Fire Inspection Bureau?

Construction official.

The construction official, right, because depending on what kind of party it is and depending on what kind of seating arrangement, okay, Fiber Venture Code in New Jersey governs that. For example, you have a setup like this, you're going to have a greater amount of people allowed in the room than you would if you have rectangular tables. And if you don't have rectangular tables and have round tables, it's even less of a per person occupancy of the room. So really what they've got to do, and they did it even at the firehouse, they did an evaluation of the room in three different settings, round tables, rectangular tables, and seating like this that you would have for a meeting where all the chairs are lined up. So I would suggest we get them involved as well with the construction and take care of that before that becomes an issue. On the scholarship, thank you. You know, the Rotary ran that beefsteak for, in honor of Carl, to establish a scholarship. And that was not mentioned tonight, and I think that's very important. Okay, it was to establish a scholarship in his name, as we did for former Councilman Bay, who was a Rotary member as well, years ago. And that will be given to a high school senior every year. Okay, the proceeds of whatever is allotted to that scholarship. The other thing on the railroad for a borough attorney, as you were speaking, you mentioned something about a litigation that happened over there. We had a very serious accident there around that time of 1990. It was a car, and I don't remember the mechanics of the accident. I don't think it involved a train. But we ended up, I think, doing an extrication for one of the persons in the car. And I don't know if that figured into this litigation that you were talking about. But it could happen. I just wanted to bring that to your attention. Because I do think I remember it was Petrie was the attorney. We're trying to figure out who the mayor was in 1990. I think it might have been John Murray. I'm not sure. The last thing is the town white cleanup. It went very, very well. I did mention to Councilman Bake that perhaps next year, and it's not my idea, I've seen other towns doing it now, don't just make it a river cleanup, make it a town-wide cleanup. Because there's areas of our parking lots like you and that west side lot along the railroad tracks. It's just, you know, it's covered with litter. The railroad tracks in Kenmore are covered with litter. We could get the whole town involved. get the bid involved for the businesses to get out there and clean up behind their stores and around their businesses might even make it a better cleanup. I had this year the ability to work with Mr. and Mrs. Joe Jennings. I usually do the stretch of the river cleanup from the Wannakee Borough line down to Carr Street. And this year I had their help, and we turned out eight bags of debris along that with a set of license plates, which I retrieved and I brought to our police department. And I understand that the owner was called to come in and get the plates, and he admitted to throwing the plates there in the woods, and the police department wrote him a summons for littering. So we not only did a great clean-up, but we also brought revenue into the borough. So thank you to the police department again. Thank you very much.

Have a good day. Anyone else would like to address? Just step up.

I'll be 120 roaming out. Al, thank you.

comments about the rotary away, but that's good.

I just wanted to make sure that people were aware that the beefsteak for Carl was sponsored by the Rotary. By the way, if anybody's listening, we're always looking for new members. Just a further clarification on the issue with the Elks. There are one, two, three, there are five different fees associated with our application for the electric sign. The first two are The first three are minor. They're for an owner's list, a permit application. The lien certs are $10 apiece, no big deal. There's an application fee of $350, and then the $2,000 permit application. And I'm not quite sure the difference between the two, but it's the $2,000 that we're looking to have waived. So just for clarification. Thanks.

Okay, thank you. Anyone else want to step up?

David Byron at 107 Federal Hill Road. For the Walk of Hope, as we were talking about a million times, you probably saw on the main drag the flowers for it. So last Tuesday, Ryan Gosker and I put up the flyers in the stores, restaurants, and whatnot. So Chief and Dan can't say, Ryan and I didn't do anything around here, so that saves us a lockup. And also... For the Civic Center, I was just thinking, as you said, that beer and wine are only allowed on the weekends. Then as you were finishing up, and I just thought of it last minute, then suppose if you had a small Friday night wedding, then why can't beer and wine be allowed in there. If he had a Friday night wedding, for instance, and for the truce I'm on for Mr. Padula, it's going to be at the Board of Ed office, Chief? Yes. Okay, yeah, I wasn't sure if it was here or somewhere else in town. And also, the beefsteak we had Saturday night, and so a bunch of us here were there, and I was sitting next to Scott and Steve, and I said to Scott, If this was a Phillies game, he's a Phillies fan, Mike. So if this was a Phillies game and you had two box seats for the game, Kelly, right now you'd be having a lot of steak. So you don't have to. go to a bar for dinner or late night drinks or midnight snacks or whatever. And... What else did I have? And the... This ceremony for the Civic Center, if I heard right, is June 8th, 4 o'clock?

June 8th, 4 to 6, yes.

Oh, 4 to 6, okay. And... And... I think that covers everything.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else from the public would like to address?

Seeing no one, motion to close the public session. Councilman Hinton, Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Talking about the scooters, so I think, and I'll let the Chief respond too, but I think it's only the state guidance that we've gotten so far is on the e-bikes. It's not on scooters and all those things, but if you want to add anything to that.

see if there's going to be more guidance on that, on if they're going to be even included.

Just to understand that even the scooters themselves cannot be on the sidewalks either, right? Correct. Nothing can be on the sidewalks. I think that needs to be clarified as well, that although you don't have that, I see them on the sidewalks. They're on the sidewalks. They're all over the place, but they can't be there either.

To his point, some of those scooters When they're souped up, they go very quickly.

Okay. Al, thank you for all the comments there. I think the reason that we only do the rivers, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but we can get on that property. It's not private property. If we start going on private, we're going to have to ask people. Like, I know what you're talking about. That railroad's a mess over there. And I'm sure the landlord would say yes to it, but that's a process that we'd have to talk to the landlord, get the written permission to go on the property, blah, blah, blah. Is that right? Sure.

I mean, a few years ago, Maria and I started calling it the town-wide river cleanup. We did. And got the bid involved, and they cleaned the pond hole in different areas like that. So we're trying to keep it as a town-wide event.

Yeah, and I think that's great news. You know, I'm glad to hear you picked up all that garbage. And, you know, maybe that's why we had the lawsuit was because of the accident that happened there. Who knows? That might be part of it. And I'll have Mike look into the whole fire marshal, talk to the fire marshal also. Okay. David, thank you for all those comments. I think Scott's eating steak either way. That's all I'm going to say. Because I sat right next to him eating a lot of steak myself. Did I get everybody? Okay. Oh, on the Rotary, yes. Thank you guys for mentioning what the Rotary is for and what they do. We have another great organization in town that's a volunteer group that does good work. And everybody who's been through graduations, we have a lot of scholarships here in town, and they're all because of the volunteer groups raising money to give out those scholarships. So I go to some other communities. They have the corporate ones, and then that's it. We have probably less corporate, but so many local ones. It's amazing to hear, so it's nice to see. Okay, with that... Mayor, if I may just make a comment.

I would ask that Mr. Bowlby have the Elks Lodge send a letter to Liz requesting the waiver of the permit. Yep. So we need that letter. Thank you. Yes, we need that letter. Yes, I think I mentioned that to him.

Provision 4, any Provision 4?

Yes, I have a few things.

How would I know you had Provision 4?

Well, it's early. We start these meetings early, so. Number one, I just want to thank the chief. Recently, the MUA had water problems on Ringwood Avenue, and the truck traffic from Tilcon was rerouted down Montclair Ave. There was a lot of speeding going on. The chief put the sign there. The chief put an officer there with radar, and I just want to personally thank him for doing that for the Montclair Ave and the neighbors. Welcome. Also, on the... Joe Grillfield, on that guy wire, Pete from the Sage Street Commission who did work for Verizon. has also been working trying to get that guy wire removed along with Michael working through the engineer. So I want to thank Pete for that. During that time that MUA was working on the water and the trucks were coming down, I called Tilcon and I spoke to the assistant plant manager Addison Marciano and I want to thank him I asked him if he could clean Montclair Ave with the street sweeper, and within 10 minutes that sweeper went up and down Montclair Ave. So I want to shout out to Addison and thank him and Tilcon for doing that. Question on Meridian. They got the signs that are put up.

Were they approved by bid or they were just... They were approved by redevelopment. And the bid, I didn't notice that they were doing it, but the bid has no say really on the signage.

The bid has no authority in the matter. It's a zoning. It's both redevelopment, right, site plan or whatever it is, and also the zoning officer.

I'm not sure what signage we're talking about.

Just the signage for the building.

The store signage.

Oh, okay. Yeah, no, that would have been approved by site plan approval.

It's a plan of redevelopment. Okay, so a bid really has nothing to do with that. No. No. Okay.

But compliance from what, the zoning officer? Well, they have to follow our ordinances, right? But who checks it?

Well, I would think that actually the resolution for the site plan approval had a signage plan, and that would have been approved.

The answer to your question, Councilman, is the borough engineer is responsible for the site plan, so he would be the one to verify the sign. It's compliant with the original site plan. So I'll follow up with that.

So really, BID has nothing to do with that?

No. BID has no... Keith, in any ordinance, we write the ordinances. The bid kind of just gives us input. Overseas? Yeah. It wasn't even overseas, though. They kind of just reach out to us and say, is this right or is this wrong?

All right, and another question I had with that site, they just did the sidewalks along Walnut QF, and I see five different openings. It looks like it appears they're going to plant trees.

is uh again that's part of the redevelopment agreement that was written into the redevelopment agreement so that was voted on by redevelopment and we voted on the agreement so whatever's in that agreement they have to do all right so shade tree has no shade tree was part of the conversation when they did it but then the agreement is made by redevelopment and voted on by the council okay um lastly i just want to say from 2008 to 2026

your approval, and even before, I guess. You were not mayor in 2008, correct? I don't think so. We were adding geese eggs along the river. And so far, over that time period, 361 nests and over 1,865 geese eggs adult. So that's almost 2,000 less geese in the town of Pump the Lakes over that time period.

And Mr. Hinton, Councilman Hinton is part of that, been part of it for a while.

And the mayor has been part of that also. And it's an important group, I will say that. So I just want to thank all the volunteers for... had one of those geese eggs. Almost 2,000 geese is a victim. And that's all I have. Thank you.

I just want to add, there was a little mix-up with the water main break on who's responsible for closing down the roads. And the first day, it was a little scattered, I will say. And I think after the chief and myself and the administrator kind of all talked, They narrowed it down. They got the road closure much better, and it worked for everybody at that point. The way I understand it, the contractor, whoever's doing the work on any road, is supposed to bring the equipment needed to close down the roads, the signage, all these things, and the first day, it was a little hazard coming in. You had traffic going in one way and coming out the same way, but it wasn't all police department that did that. It was the... Thank you.

Just one last question. Oh, it was one more. Do you have any information from Tilcon as to when they're going to open up the road out to Union Avenue?

They keep telling me this year, this year, this year. That's what I thought it was this year. That's what they keep telling me. All right, but you have no information? I can reach out. They would reach out if they were not doing it. I appreciate that.

Thank you. So I just want to, we talk about the town and, you know, about the condition of the town. And I just, I don't know if anybody watches the real estate, but I like to watch how many houses are sold, you know, and the prices. Prices are high. We have homes now over a million dollars, over a million dollars, one house on my street, one for 1.30. And, you know, about five years ago, you couldn't give them away. So we're doing something right up here, is what I'm saying. And I want to thank the school system, because I think if you have a wonderful school system, you are definitely going to have a very solid town. And with the downtown items that we've been doing, with our river cleanups, with the participation, we have a solid police department. I'm very proud of our police department. And all they do, they're very community-minded. You know, when you watch Channel 12, sometimes you panic at some of the things that happen to people when they're walking down the street. I don't hear that kind of thing. So all in all, I'm very happy that the town, I think, is doing really, really well. And I want to thank the chief on all that you do with us and I think

have to say i think we're doing we're doing the job that we need to do and we have to continue to do when we don't stop so thank you also if i can add to that and the mayor the mayor brought this up plenty of times adding to that is the volunteers for all our committees and commissions we have a great time to volunteer volunteers

I have one thing. The traffic study, how many accidents do we have by Ramapo and Hamburg at that traffic? Would it be a good idea to have alternate signals for when you make that left-hand turn from Ramapo on to Hamburg?

Yeah, so I know the county gets involved because they're county roads. So I think when they put those lights there, they're the ones that do the study and make the recommendation of what needs to be in there. I can certainly find out the answer to your question and get back to you if they come out and do some type of re-evaluation in that instance. And then I can follow up.

Years ago, we brought that up years ago. And they said there wasn't enough traffic making the right to warrant that. But we can re-look at it.

Yeah, I can certainly make a phone call down there and find out what the process is, and I can email you and the rest of the council. Thank you.

Okay. Motion to adjourn into closed session. Motion. Councilman Begg, Councilman Sanders. Who made it? Councilman Sanders, Councilman Begg, all in favor? Aye. Against? In closed session, we discussed personnel and contract, no, not, did we do contract? Contract negotiations. Litigation. Litigation, okay, and litigation. Motion to adjourn.

It was litigation, not personnel. Oh, no, it was personnel. Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay. Sorry, ma'am.

Motion to adjourn. Motion. Councilman Begg, Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye.

Okay. Good night, everybody. Good night, everyone.