Council - Special Meeting

welcome to the special meeting conference of the newark municipal council on tuesday october 13th council president the floor is yours yeah i'd like to if we could take a moment of silence can we stand for our colleague uh eddie osborne it would be right to do before we begin this meeting take a moment of silence

No, this is not something else. Do you have a added starter?

So this is consistent with what we normally spend for this treatment, right?

Any other questions? Any other questions from our part?

Yeah, I just want to commend the administration on this. I know my office set up a pilot program with our Special Improvement District where we put up surveillance cameras and 12 illegal dumping hotspots. Sure. What I would say is that i i do acknowledge that the prosecution of some of the cases have been very successful but we do not catch enough people who are committing illegal dumping acts and i would ask through your chair the clerk and the ba under former director ambrose we had a task force that was very very effective at surveying some of these hotspots, like Riverside and the North Wa

Thank you. Just for clarity for me, I know I reported, we have, I mean, it's illegal dumping all over the city. And in the West Ward last year, I had numerous illegal dumping sites and I reported a couple of them. We were able to catch one and it said it went to the task force. So I'm unclear, does the task force still exist?

Yeah. Just, yeah, please. I would ask the BA to, to let's just, you know, just like Councilman Ramos said, let's put some more resources toward that. Also what you were saying, corporate council about, about, The fines will be different for individuals to corporations. Sure. The question I have is, I won't put them on blast, but when we caught the person dumping, it was a neighborhood corner store. Wow. That was dumping. So here it is, our residents, you know, they go and patronize this store every day and they're dumping in our city. What type of fine would they fall under? That would be the

And what about the, as a lot of people in the audience usually say, the LLC boys.

Right, it is. It doesn't limit liability, but yes. Another thing I want to say thank you to Councilman Ramos in what his special improvement district bid did over there in the North Ward because- um the special improvement district in the west ward pwi in my office we will be following suit of what you did councilman ramos and we will be putting up cameras in our hot zones as well um and and i have to say it was needed but it was inspired to see how um councilman ramos did it so we will be also be doing it in the west ward okay

Thank you, council president. Um, again, I want to echo my council colleagues saying, I appreciate this. Um, we know this is legal dumping all over the city. Every time our team goes walking in the central ward, there's always some kind of complaint, um, something going on. My question is, and I don't know if you can answer it today, but if something that we can mull over when we have, uh, people who are doing, um, renovations or construction or, or some type of work on your home or on your business, And then the contractor or whoever, the person that's working, they dump things off or they'll

Councilman Jackson, then councilman Silver.

Good morning. So first of all, I just want to give Valerie Murphy a shout out because they do a great job. They're in constant contact with my office and they do an amazing job in the East Ward. So I just want to give her a shout out. She's here today. I've always said it from the beginning. I've always said it from the beginning that code enforcement needs to be a seven day a week operation. Just like DPW, seven day a week operation. When you're talking about that illegal dumping task force, I worked in it in the 90s for Newark police with a member of code enforcement. Do you know what our ho

Our president counsel in terms of community service. You know, you give somebody a summons, okay. The worst thing is that you tell them that Saturday they have to be in front of the courthouse. There will be a van that will take them to different sites of the city to clean up. Yeah, that's one of the first things. Yeah, I know, but I haven't seen that in years. I mean, a van picking up and people were embarrassed at the time. Embarrassed. The 250 was always the fine. The reward, you're saying?

There was a 250 reward. What I did as a council person at the time, I gave that reward to a nonprofit. I said, give my reward to that nonprofit for whatever use they need. The conference... confiscating their vehicles, there was a towing contract at the time that would be called and those vehicles would be removed and taken down to a site.

And then the other thing with the vehicles, some of the cities around the country, they confiscate your vehicle. That vehicle becomes a property that is utilized for services that that municipality may need. If it's a truck, that's a dumping truck. It becomes a municipal dumping truck facility.

I mean, this is putting that as a... You know, there was years back, there was... With legal dumping, too, there was a group that would take the bags, open them up at Miller Street, and if there was receives from that house... They knew the persons who were doing the legal dumping. And there was a lot of that that took place from the outsiders that came to Newark from Milburn and other cities. And they had their PSE&G bills and all that in the garbage. And we were able back then, before your time, Director Adams, that it was done. And then we found out where they came from. But again, as Counc

And there was some resource. You know, we need some results because, again, giving somebody a fine and just saying, hey, there's a fine, no. Embarrass them, as councilman said, put them on social media, highlight who they are, and they'd be embarrassed. But if you embarrass someone coming here on a Saturday, a Saturday, where they could be out somewhere in their neighborhoods, they're going to be concerned about being embarrassed. So they're not going to try to do this anymore.

Back then, the late Hank Barnes came up with this. We had T-shirts made that he designed at the time with the design, I love Newark, keep Newark clean. When these individuals came to that Saturday, they had to wear that T-shirt again. they had to wear that T-shirt to go out and work so that they understand to keep the city clean. Those were blue shirts. As a matter of fact, I'll send you a copy of one that I have. And it was not a lot of money. It was the council who loved Newark T-shirts. And those shirts were given to those individuals, and then we took pictures of, you know, at the end of t

I got your shirt, don't worry. What size do you want?

Do you know other speakers, Madam Clerk?

Anything else? Any questions? Yeah, I have a question. Yeah. Silver and then council, five councillors.

yeah about i know councilman council had mentioned at the last meeting um about the 10 days it's still showing up on the letter when we pass the ordinance uh along with the the business administrator in the administration for 48 hours why is why is that 10 days still showing up on the letter that the person's receiving

But you are aware that it's not 10 days anymore. It's two days. Okay.

I appreciate it. Councilman Kelly and Councilman Jackson.

Thank you, Council President. How you doing? Officer Murphy, excuse me, Manager Murphy. My question is a two part question. It's about what happens when First of all, let me, let me take it back to prior council meeting where I asked a director about the new system. I guess it's the input system. Council, excuse me, the director said that you guys are training on it, I believe two to three times a week or I got calls from several officers that said they'd never trained on it and that they weren't training on it. And that was kind of confusing to me, you know, because the director, and I know y

Well, it's kind of concerning because it's not just one officer. It's a number of officers out of you guys' office that are saying they haven't been trained and that they're not training. And that's alarming to me. And just to go back to what you just said, the blast, you sent a blast email and asked if anybody needs... All inspectors.

So is it mandatory that they it's mandatory for them to get training?

And what happens when you have absence? They don't come.

But what happens when the officers don't show up? Do they do they get relieved for that day?

So how many trainings does an officer need to be efficient in the new system?

I really think that because of the number of violations that have been being pushed out of court, I think that calls for a new overhaul or oversight of how the officers are being trained. I don't know if it's a cert or whatever it is.

Now, I know it was before you, but it's still alarming, right? Because we still have these code violations in these buildings, in these businesses, in these homes that still are unsafe. I know when I came in in 2022, there was a UCC incident. that was supposed to be taken down and it was considered inhabitable and it was condemned. And then it was taken back over a while by another organization, which still was unsafe. And then the part of the building attached to the barbershop next door, the ceiling fell in and could have really hurt somebody on the streets. So if that building would have be

Right. Can you do one thing? Can you please walk us through like the illegal conversion complaint from like how it happens from first report? No, we can't do that. Oh, I'm sorry. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, when we start talking about UCC, it gets me excited because I'm here with Councilman Council, you know, and thank you, Councilman Council, because early on he schooled me on my ward. A lot of things that was happening in the South and in the West was similar when it comes to UCC. But back to Cole, once again, you are very responsive. I appreciate how when I call you, you make su

Yeah, this wasn't one that was closed down.

So I don't want to alarm them so they go get straight. I want to talk to you off camera so you know what it is.

Councilwoman Jackson, then Councilman Roundtree.

For the sake of time, I'm not going to go through every story and every resident and every constituent that have come. When I was in the mayor's office, all four of them are as a council person. But I do know that we have ordinances already in place to address some of these issues. I think that some of our issues are enforcement and communication. There's some things that Councilwoman Jackson just mentioned that I don't believe have been maybe properly enforced. Let me just start with customer service, constituent service. Code enforcement, police, I don't care what your position is, your pers

Okay, so how soon will that be? Because there's some reports.

Thank you. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Manager Murphy. We just want to get the... a concise, clear process of how council members or our aides or members of our team can report violations, get information, and also get training on having access to the system so we can see what's going on. Because everybody does things differently. If we have a relationship with you, we can call, we can text. People send an email. It's all different. So we just need to know what the direct process is to report, whether it's for the council members, for aides, and get training for our aides as far a

Okay. So what about the process to report violations?

So is that what it is across the board? Because whatever the process is, we need to have something in writing that's sent to all of the council members so everybody can be clear. So we're all doing the same thing the same way. Because what happens is, is that sometimes people say, well, they respond to you, but they don't respond to me. Well, this gets through, but this doesn't. And so if there's not a set process and it's not clear and concise and something that's official in writing, things may get lost and fall through the cracks. And right now with everything that's going on, we can't affo

THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT. JUST ONE MORE QUESTION. JUST SO I UNDERSTAND FOR CLARIFICATION, ILLEGAL CONVERSIONS. We send code. Hang on. Because I've called him before. So that's why I'm saying this is for clarification purposes. So I understand. We call your office. You went out to a location, but then you notified UCC to go out and put the orange sticker, red sticker, whatever it is. So when it comes to your conversion, just go directly to UCC? Or do you guys have to go out there first to determine what's going on and then you notify UCC? we both can go out it depends on what the circumstances

Thank you, Council President. Thank you so much, Director. Really appreciate it. Thank you for the time that you're taking with me and my team, you and Manager Murphy, really trying to help us get through some things. I just want to just follow up on what I mentioned before when Manager Murphy was at the mic. I know that we have to go through, IT has to set it up, but they need to get it from you that it's okay to provide read-only access to ClickFix and the Fast Track Gov so we can follow up on violations because we file a report or we make a complaint or we send out information on behalf of

She just told me something that just threw me off. This isn't really a complaint before you bring UCC up. I just want to, I really want to shout out one of the people in the audience because over the years and to Councilwoman Bay's point, we do need a way to track our complaints. But I don't know if it's a system from 4311 or another system that they normally respond and say it's abated. They used to. They would say it's abated when we deal directly with the actual department. But I have to shout out one person in that department that is abated and not in engineering. I mean, not in engineerin

Thank you. Thank you. Next person. Okay.

questions councilman thank you i don't know that i missed something did you say i know conclusion here says eight did you say in conclusion nine did i miss conclusion nine was a nine point right but there's no ninth point on my paper okay but that's it's the conclusion of it for the record for the record just for the record because that thank you just me it is everybody just went to eight

The other thing that I want to thank you, Council President, is address. I know we want to get out before dinner. There's so many issues. And I do want to shout out Bruno. I see Bruno here as well in the audience because we communicate as elected officials with all of these departments on the flaws as well as the successes. And I don't have a whole lot with that area of engineering, Brother George. You know what, I'm going to defer to Councilman Council because before I got on to Council and I know that if it's okay, Council President, that he has a whole list of issues and questions I'm sure

HOW ARE YOU DOING, MR. GEORGE? COUNCIL PRESIDENT, I GOT SO MANY QUESTIONS. A LOT. I guess one is I'm trying to figure out, I know that this presentation describes the process, but I'm trying to figure out how does that work? How does the process actually work when a resident calls my office? Who responds and how quickly does that response happen? you know, just to make sure that the problem is resolved. And I'm talking just from prior experience, you know, since I've been in office since 22, UCC is like one of the departments that I have not been able to figure out because when I have issues,

Um, just one quick question. So, like I said, I'm talking from experience. I'll give you one, one example. Uh, the office did all of that. They came, they sent inspectors, they deemed it, um, inhabitable and needs to be condemned. when those things do not happen, what is the process from there?

How is somebody else able to come and reopen the building and occupy the building before you guys do what you suppose, everything that you just said, you did all of that process work, those procedures, but it wasn't finite, right? You didn't finish it. So is the records lost? What can delay the process of doing what you said you were gonna do?

So you're saying that your inspectors haven't really been doing follow-ups properly?

Thank you, because I have about three properties in the West Ward since 2022 that no follow-up. My office hasn't been notified about it. and I keep calling and keep calling. Why? Because the residents keep calling me. And then they'll initially say, Councilman Kelly, you didn't do what you were supposed to do, but I can't do it if you guys don't do it, right? And I guess the last question I wanted to ask, can we get... I want to know how many open cases do we have in the West ward? I want to know what, as far as violations. Yes. I want to know, um, how many, how many, uh, conversions are, are

Corporation council. Would you like to wave in? Please.

Thank you, Corporation Councilman George, Council President. I was listening to Councilman Council, and that's why I didn't want to, because I know he had his whole report. However, there are five boards in this city, and as an at-large and large council people, I am sure that all of the council people that have illegal conversions in their wards, West, Central, East, would like a report of what you have on record as an illegal conversion. So Madam Clerk, if that can be incorporated on what you have on record to see whether it matches what Councilwoman Bay might see in her ward and it might no

And we, as noted by the Councilman and by Corporation Council, that as individual council folks, that we should put everything towards you, to the business administrator and Corporation Council, so that we can get- Thank you, Madam Clerk. of where and what affects the Central Ward, the North Ward, the East Ward, South Ward, or the West Ward. So if all of us collectively could do that, and then we should get a quick response, not a year, not two years, maybe within the next couple of weeks.

Corporation Council, I think we're going to look into two weeks, you said, right? And if all of us have concerns that we will address it to the clerk, Madam Clerk, you will address it, and then you will address to the business administrator and to the Corporation Council our concerns. And then within two weeks, we should have some correspondence. Okay.

Thank you. I'm clerk. I recess. I mean, we can't, I mean, we're adjourned. We're adjourned. Okay. We're done. Thank you.