Township Council - Regular Meeting

website and bulletin boards outside of the municipal building and has remained continuously posted. In addition, a copy of the revised annual notice is and has been available to the public and is on file in the office of our township clerk. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Madame clerk, will you please do the roll call?

Deputy Mayor Anderson, here. Councelor Birmingham absent. Councelor Donado here. Councelor Harrison absent. Councelor Toller. Okay. Councelor Harrison present. Thank you. Councelor Toller. Good evening. Present. Good evening. Council abil present. I'd like to make a motion that we move um into the executive session portion of our meeting, please.

The purpose of the executive session meeting is um personnel matters. Specifically, we will be interviewing individuals for the position of township attorney. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Abstensions. At this point in time, if there are any individuals in the room who are not directly related to the interviewing process, please remove yourselves. And we look forward to returning shortly after 7 uh p.m. this evening.

Good evening and thank you for joining us for the April 7, 2026 meeting, second floor conference room. We have a a packed agenda today. I'm really excited to announce that we are going to have a budget presentation. Um before we move on to that, Madame Clerk, um has everybody received a copy of the minutes of October 21st, 2025, November 12th, 2025, and November 25th, 2025. Yes.

I second that. All in favor of accepting the minutes as as presented, please. Any opposed? Any abstent? Okay, that's terrific. Thank you. And so at this point in time, I'm going to ask manager marks if you would please come forward. Um and we're going to have a presentation pursuant to NJSA 48 4-5. Sorry.

Just a moment. Sorry guys, just give me like one minute and we'll be fine. This way. Oh, thank you.

It should be popping up now.

One more time. Sorry. super slow. Sorry guys, just one second. Very shortly, the manager will uh present about 15 to 20 minutes of presentation in anticipation of the budget um that we are going to vote on this evening. It also has um some um reorganization of some m municipal departments which I believe he's going to share with us this evening as part of this. And so um this is going to be very um for all of us. Many of us here are just hearing about these the first time. So very certainly we're going to have that expected. I don't think that there's going to be an opportunity for the public to discuss this at this point in time.

Correct. The the public hearing will be May 5th. The public hearing will be May 5th. Um but yeah, we we are excited and glad that you're here so that we can all receive this at the same point in time.

So, good evening everybody. My name is Stephen Marks. I'm the town manager. Just u I'll get started while we're waiting for theation to come up. So, at the last council meeting, uh you heard from Joe Monzo, who's the uh the town's interim, uh chief financial officer. He provided at the last meeting. Um members of council were given a copy of it if you need additional copies. Also printed out copies for the general public. Um this year's budget really started about nine months ago. uh with the uh state of New Jersey Department of the Treasury uh came out with the uh premium increases for the state health benefits. So u the township's budget is approximately 100 million $17 million. Employee health benefits is about $10 million of that $und00 million budget. Oh, thank you very much. So, um, so last year, July 9th, uh, 2025, uh, New Jersey Department of Treasury put out their premiums for 2026 plan year uh, for employee health benefits. uh month there like many municipalities and counties across the state of New Jersey uh belong to what's called the state health benefits plan for employee health benefits. Um the state of New Jersey department of surgery came out with a 36.5% increase in premiums for employee health benefits which would be a major driver on approximately $10 million employee health benefits plan. that would be an additional $3.5 million uh give or take um effect on this year's budget, the

2026 budget. Uh that would that single line item if that was just passed along to the taxpayers would equate to a 6.39% tax increase just for that one single line item. That was obviously politically nonstarter. Would not have the support of the mayor and council. Uh we actually shopped for a more coste effective plan. Actually, let me rewind for one second before I go on. Um, the actuaries in the state of New Jersey uh were actually predicting the 36.5% was just for 2026. Um, the actuaries in the state of New Jersey were predicting further plan increases for the state benefits plan of 50% and 60% uh for 2027 or 2028. So what's happened a lot of many actuaries, many people involved in the state of New Jersey called the state health benefits plan um as going into a quote unquote death spiral. Uh anybody who could get out of the state health benefit plan would did uh and anybody could not the highest risk claimants or counties and counties were stuck in the state health benefits plan and face those uh premium increases. So uh our insurance broker uh shopped around for other comparable u we have seven bargaining units many municipal labor unions but public employees covered by the uh health benefits they are negotiated you have to by law provide equal to or better then you can't you can't just impose lesser than um health insurance you have to provide equal to or better coverage. Uh so we shopped around for a comparable health benefit plan. We found that at Napoleon insurance plan there's only about because the state health benefits plan really doesn't give you your your plan history or coverage. It's really in a

black box and you're flying blind with as far as um knowing much about high claimments or your know employee costs. So for this year, there's only about a $300,000 savings between the fully insured plan and the state health benefits plan. But we are anticipating by moving to outside the state health benefits plan, we are avoiding further, you know, we know that the rate increases in 27 and 28 are going to be 50 and 60% respectively. So we're avoiding those additional costs. That's still a major driver of this year's budget is three and a half million dollar increase uh which is significant. So it oh we could go back. So it's not a surprise to anybody in the room I'm sure uh that Montlair has very high taxes. In fact, um, recent articles in the Star Ledger ranks Monontlair as having the 13th highest property tax rent residential property tax bill in the state of New Jersey. Just for the municipal portion, Montlair did a little bit better, but ranked about 22nd among 565 municipalities in the state of New Jersey in terms of having a a average residential uh property tax bill. Um so cost effectiveness uh affordability uh is at the top of many people's minds. Next so uh this is an this presentation is on our website. I don't expect anybody to read the numbers there. Uh this is how the average uh tax dollar is provided. Uh the largest portion of the pie goes to the schools. It's uh approximately uh 57.42%

of our property taxes go for uh support of the schools. About 15 uh% 15.6% of our property tax dollars go to the county. uh about I think it's 24 less than 25 cents out of every property tax dollar goes to the municipality for municipal operations and support. Uh and the library gets about three and a half 3.8 million about 3% of our property tax bill. So the vast majority even though the town collects the tax collector for the municipality collects everybody's taxes it gets aortioned among the local governments the schools the county the town and the library next. So this is just the the news release from the state department of the treasury that I mentioned before. Next. So, in light of the um the increase in the in the state health benefits play plan and employee health benefits, um in September, I wrote a a memo to all the department heads enacting a temporary hiring streams for non-essential positions. By statute, all of the department heads are supposed to present their budget requests uh to the town in November. And I asked each department head to provide three scenarios for the November uh budget presentations. One would be a normal operating request anticipating um you know adjustments to their uh budget usually upward. Uh second a budget that was frozen at 2025 levels and third would be a budget with a 5% reduction from 2025 levels. Next. So we conducted the departmental budget hearings in November. Uh every

department was given an opportunity to present next. So basically uh this is what the municipal organization looks like with the various departments. This this doesn't this is these are the business units of the municipality. Really doesn't relate to the size of their budgets, but this is basically how the municipality is organized. I didn't hear.

So, um, New Jersey highly regulates counties and municipalities in terms of, uh, budget review. Every county and municipality and local authority has to submit their budget to the state of New Jersey. Specifically, Department of Community Affairs, Division of Local Government Services for their respective uh, review and approval. The state of New Jersey also enacted a 2% uh cap on the municipal tax levy and a 2 and a half% cap on uh municipal spending. So those are the guidelines that we have to live by. Next, there are several budget documents that we have to prepare in advance of the municipal budget. uh one is the annual debt statement that has to be uh prepared and submitted to the state uh by the end of the fiscal by the end of the calendar year. Next uh the next is the annual financial statement uh which is due I think by March 10th of every year we basically goes over your cash position how you finished the uh previous budget year uh we we had submitted ours by the statuto deadline. Next, we had I've only been here about a year. Uh, and when I first started, uh, I had heard a lot of, uh, residents and council people ask about what the right size of the fire department would be. I don't know. I I I don't have a background in in fire science or fire department. I do have a background in public administration. Uh so we commissioned a study on the fire department uh about how basically asking what what the right size of the department is and this this study was commissioned before the state of New Jersey came out with their premium increases. So this was budget neutral uh but it was started the endeavor was started before the current budget

situation. So what is the right size of the department and what is the right size of the command structure the table of organization. Um that study was done in conjunction with the fire department. Um it was provided a final draft was sent to the mayor council I think about January 15th because of the findings in that study. Uh we've enacted some which people may have heard about some changes to the fire department. The fire department 10 years ago was had about 87 firefighters. Last year the fire department was at about 70 firefighters. Uh we had budgeted the town had budgeted for 77 but we were holding back and hiring those additional seven firefighters pending the outcome of of this study. Uh one of the things that the study said that we could by it was not it was not recommended. It's not optimal, but basically for budgetary and fiscal uh reasons, we could get by with the department of 70 if we took certain measures. So, some of those some of those measures were um exploring um uh mutual aid or or automatic aid with neighboring jurisdictions as well as creating or recreating an auxiliary program. But back in early February, as a cost-saving measure, um I issued an administrative directive reducing the minimum daily staffing from 16 firefighters per day to 14 firefighters per day. Um and Kathy, the table of organization at 70 uh firefighters, which um should have a savings of between uh $450,000 and about $1.4 $4 million. Um, the reason why it's so broad range is a lot of it is based on overtime. If you have two firefighters, new firefighters are on step one working the overtime shifts.

Uh, it would be the cost savings by by making those changes would be closer to $250,000 versus two senior firefighters who are at top step who potentially work overtime. Um, that would have a much higher cost. Next. Um, so this was a directive that that was issued to the fire department basically cons being conscious of the fiscal constraints that the the uh the town was facing doing everything that I just mentioned. Next, we looked for the 2026 budget. We looked at uh patterns in in revenues um as well as uh appropriations. Next, going back uh to 2020. Next, this is basically looks like this uh is what the revenue uh portion of the budget looks like. It's probably no surprise the vast majority over 60% of revenues come from local taxes. Um other other sources of revenue are pilot payments, uh cable TV franchise agreements, hotel taxes, etc. every year uh you end the year with a surplus. Basically any money that's left over from operating in a given year and then in the following year use a portion of that surplus. So, it's it's always a uh a balancing act to basically our surplus at the end of uh 2025 was about $16 million and we are using about $7 million uh of that surplus as a revenue item in this year's budget. Uh in addition, um we pay we tax for and we pay uh we're still paying a portion of the school debt type one school debt. uh tax. Um and then there are smaller things like

fines, fees, permits, u a library that's a it's a portion. Uh we get about $3 million in state aid uh per year, etc., etc. Next, uh we looked at the appropriations by department, how much each department was spending uh over the six-year period. Next, we looked at things that were statutory, unclassified, or miscellaneous appropriations. How much the town spends on social security, unemployment insurance, um diesel fuel, the electricity, so on and so forth. Next, and this is what this year's budget looks like. It's probably not probably not a surprise. Um public safety constitutes more than half of of municipal spending. Uh the fire department accounts for about 25 21% of departmental spending. Police department about 35%. All the other smaller wedges up top are all the other business units of the municipal government. Uh things like human resources, information technology, um complete streets, sustainability, town clerk, uh elections, town attorney, municipal court, etc., etc. Dozens dozens of smaller business units. The larger are uh for recycling and solid waste pickups. Next, so um this is the 2026 appropriations by category. Again, departmental operations account for about 46% of total uh costs. Um miscellaneous and other issu the various insurance categories. uh we belong to a a joint insurance fund for automobile or workers compensation and um general liability etc. Uh the unclassified section is about 6% that's

for fuel and electricity so on and so forth. The statutory expenditures are for uh pensions for municipal employees. Uh PFRS is police and fire retirement system. Uh Pers is for public employee retirement system. Those are your civilian employees. Um, social security payments by the by the town as a employer fall under this category. And then the Montlair Public Library, their their uh portion of that is about $4 million this year. All told, the statutory expenditures are about 15% of the budget. Capital improvements are 1%. Shared services are 1%. our municipal debt service including that type one school debt service I mentioned before is about 16% and then the reserve for uncollected taxes so we have to account for 100% of our budget we get build actually by the schools and by the county um and it doesn't really matter whether you're never going to collect 100% of taxes any any given year and yet you basically have to raise enough to compensate for uh people who don't pay taxes and We still have to even if we're at I think we're at 98% uh tax collection rate. We have to we we have to create a reserve and this is in law. It's not like we have discretion over it. Uh we have to raise we have to account for um the 2% of people who don't pay their taxes. Um so to fund our services and then to also remit to the schools in the county. notes. What are the biggest changes between 25 and 26? A number one is employee group health benefits. Um employees I mentioned $ three and a half million dollars before. Um that is the the gross increase. Um employees there's a thing called chapter 78 where employees uh pay

towards a portion of their health benefits. U we also have uh three utilities. the water utility, the sewer utility, the parking utility, those utilities uh pay for health insurance for their employees. So they they pay a portion of that. So the prorated net effect on the municipal budget, the property tax portion of the municipal budget is about $2.5 million. Uh we have seven bargaining units that I I mentioned before, each with a labor contract. Those labor contracts have annual cost of living adjustments that are negotiated in advance. Those annual cost of living adjustments come out to about $1.2 million, 1.25. Um the Monontlair Public Library library funding in the state of New Jersey is set by a formula. We don't have any control statutory formula. We don't have any control over it uh because of changes in the in the equalized tax base. Um the additional support of the library is $382,000 sat outside of the municipal uh the 2% property tax cap that I mentioned before, but it's still a number. It's still taxes are going up because of additional support for the library. Uh PSNG last year increased their rates by 17%. We're anticipating that's going to have a $215,000 impact on the town on our operations. We have two new departments. One is complete streets and one is sustainability. You know, the employees in the s sustainability department were pre-existing employees. Um the total uh cost for the for both departments is about $400,000. The net because two of the employees were already here. One one employee salary is paid for out of a grant. The net impact is about $200,000. Um because of everything going on in the the uh the Gulf and the the Middle East

right now, uh we're anticipating increases in gasoline and diesel prices to the tune of about $144,000. Our reserve for uncollected taxes because uh the board of education public question number one was approved for an additional $12.6 million as the tax rate goes up. We also anticipate the reserve for collected taxes to also go up slightly. That's going up by about $55,000 56 $6,000. Um we were ordered by the Essex County Board of Taxation to conduct a property revaluation. That's about a $2 billion endeavor that could be spread out over five years, but the down payment portion of that is due. That's about $400,000. our the town's uh computer and telephone network uh were decrepit. Uh we had 33 devices. Devices being either servers or switches or firewalls or the cores. These aren't just computers. These are the things that um run the computers. Um 29 out of 33 devices were uh in need of being replaced. That's a significant cost. So that impact in this year's budget is about $320,000. Uh prior year's bills, so the town was behind specifically uh with some Verizon bills to the tune of about $274,000 from 2022 and 2023. Um, last year, uh, the town created a utility selfquidating business unit, uh, around Clary Anderson Arena. Uh, that was created last July. Uh, the ice season, it's the hockey season, ice skating season is typically over, it's a winter sport. Uh, typically opens in

September, October. It doesn't finish until April, May. Um, so the if you think about it in terms of how the sport runs or how the season runs, uh, you you don't make all of your money in a season until uh, you know, more than halfway through through the season. U, the the, um, the town created the utility so to basically protect property taxpayers from having to foot any of the bill uh, for any of the necessary repairs. were significant number of code violations and life health safety repairs that were necessary at Clary Anderson Arena to the tune of about at least a million dollars worth of repairs that were necessary by creating the utility actually insulated property taxpayers. Property taxpayers are not footing the bill for the utility for the Clary Anderson Arena. However, in creating the utility, because it was created mid year in 2025, it didn't get off the ground until October because of more repairs that were necessary. It finished the 2025 calendar year in deficit. The good news is that the ice hockey or ice skating season is still going. It's actually making more money than it's spending. So, it will end this year in a surplus, but because of New Jersey budget laws, we had to account for uh the deficit in the ice um ice arena utility. That's about $270,000. Worst case scenario is we don't spend it, that $270,000 then lapses back as surplus back to the town in next year's budget. But it's just a um a New Jersey budget law requirement that we have to account for. Uh the police department is always going through vehicles. We signed up with a uh

lease purchase program through Enterprise. The impact on this year's budget is about $114,000. The police department and there for anybody who's been to the police department building was the original seat of municipal government. I think opened in about 1893 is not in the best condition. Had there were several emergency repairs that were necessary in 2025 when you create when you uh create an emergency or declare an emergency doesn't magically give you money. You're basically borrowing from a future year's budget. So the emergency in the police department uh costs about $100,000. the net increase in appropriations would have been or is $6.7 million uh to this year's budget. Next, so more good news. Uh the fund balance, our surplus uh at the end of 2024 was about $17 million. U at the end of 2025, it was down uh to $16 million. We did not generate or regenerate um about a million dollars in surplus. What does that mean? That means in 2025's budget, we anticipated we actually used $8 million of the previous year's budget from 2024 to fund the 2025 budget. But because the surplus, the cash balance was down uh from 2025, we can only anticipate using $7 million. That's $1 million less in the revenue that we have for this year's budget. Um, in terms of uh revenue, the uh this year's budget, as Joe Monzo said at the last meeting, uh projects a or proposes a 2.55% tax increase, which is about $1.2 million. The municipal portion of the levy is going from just for

municipal purposes going from about 62.9 million to $64.2 million. The total municipal portion which includes the library and the school debt is going from uh $74 million to uh $76 million. Next. So before we get to the senior freeze, that 5% reduction um that I mentioned before that we had asked each department to prepare in terms of the budget uh translates into about $1.9 million in budget cuts to this year's budget. So, the administration is proposing pretty much 5% across the board um cuts to all of the departments. Uh that will generate almost $2 million worth of savings in this year's budget. the capital program that funds things like uh road resurfacing, park improvements, um any ma any major equipment, machinery or vehicle purchases, anything with a useful life of five years or more. Last year's budget was about $2.8 million and this year's budget is uh one one half million dollars. A significant uh decrease in capital spending. So, we've created a balanced budget with a 2 and a.5% uh tax increase. Uh it gets us through this year. We are hoping u we will be monitoring uh the uh employee health expenditures going back out to market uh with better data uh for next year. And we're we're uh hopeful. Hope is not a strategy, but we are hopeful uh and confident that employee health benefits will be lower next year. This year, because we didn't have that data uh from the state of New Jersey, it put us in a precarious

position. Finally, one way of managing taxes uh to an extent is through the the state of New Jerseyy's um tax relief program, the senior freeze, the anchor program in the state of New Jersey. A lot of people are eligible. I think it's for seniors age 65 and older and disabled residents. Uh from my understanding, there are a lot of people who are eligible who actually haven't signed up and and could have significant tax relief based on that. Um that is all I have part of the 5% reduction, the 5% across the board. So uh the budget the uh budget originally told we've been involved with shuttle uh diplomacy and negotiations with the various department directors. Um the uh a 5% cut to a larger department is obviously going to be a lot more money than 5% cut to a smaller department. the 5% the the single largest department as everybody saw before is the police department uh with a $17 million budget. 5% reduction uh would have been an 8 approximately 875 reduction in the police department's number. Uh we met several times with the police chief. I was anticipating having to do a reduction in force layoff for the police department. uh but through negotiations uh in terms of uh reducing the number of positions through attrition uh by reducing overtime uh and reducing um operating expenses uh we're about we came about $200,000 apart. Uh so instead of a 5% reduction or probably be at a four and a half percent reduction but by eliminating

positions through attrition by reducing overtime uh and by uh reducing operating expenses in cooperation with police department we think we could effectuate about a $675,000 reduction in the police department budget and operations without having to do a layoff for the police department. The second largest department is the fire department. Uh the fire department's budget is about $10 million. 5% reduction would be about a half a million dollars. Because of the administrative changes that we've already enacted in the fire department, uh we could achieve those savings without having to do a reduction of course. um all of the other departments. I've been working with the department heads uh to uh basically go over cost savings, budget cuts uh either through attrition if those departments uh have positions that if people retire or leave where we either don't fill those positions or perhaps we can fill positions um with part- timerrs instead of full-timers which would be a significant cost savings or it may be necessary in some departments It's actually uh create a reduction and force a layoff plan. U so one of the larger departments is department of humanity services. Uh essentially the department of public works function. Um so we met several times with the sorry I'm sorry to be behind you. Um so we met several times with the director of department of community services and um we are recommending in terms of some of the reorganization that the mayor alluded to before consolidating some of the business units in uh the department of community services. Uh for example, sanitation and recycling uh are two different business units, two different

operations, two different sets of supervisors and floormen uh they essentially perform the same function just one division picks up solid waste garbage. Uh the other division picks up recycling very similar programs but by consolidating two we are uh confident that we could um uh basically reduce costs through attrition. Uh we recommend consolidation of the shade tree division with parks division. uh again to um enhance uh staffing uh and reduce overhead uh through attrition of either supervisors or or uh similarly there's there are three or four different business units uh related to the roads function. One is roads maintenance. A second is storm maintenance which is uh typically like um maintenance of catch basins and inlets things of that nature. A lot of that infrastructure is already in the road traffic division that takes care of traffic lights, traffic signals. Uh and there's a fourth that's not coming to me. But by by consolidating those four divisions, uh we we anticipate being able to uh reduce overhead and uh basically middle management. Um, another is the department of code, department of administration, uh, code enforcement and environmental services. Last year, the town by ordinance created a department of sustainability. So, the department of administration, code enforcement, environmental affairs, it became a little bit redundant in that there was already now a new department of sustainability. Um we are proposing to basically do away dismantle that. Um the fire department study that we conducted last year uh highlighted a

significant need. We are far behind on the number of fire inspections that need to take place every year in the town. um the code enforcers. There are several of the code enforcers in the code enforcement division um who are going for their fire official fire inspection licenses with the state of New Jersey. If you work for the fire official, you can conduct uh fire inspections. So by moving code enforcement from department of administration to the fire department, it create it can create one-stop shopping where the code enforcers who may be out doing inspections for uh various reasons anyway can now conduct the inspections for the fire department. uh homeowners and businesses instead of having to get two inspections done uh could basically if if permitted, if uh if these administrators administrative changes are approved by you, the governing body, uh it would consolidate things and allow them to there synergies and economies economies of scale uh where the inspectors would only have to go out to a business or or property once rather than multiple times. Um those are some of the administrative changes that we're proposing that we're uh hoping achieve economies of scale or can reduce operational spending uh through attrition or um consolidation.

That's all I have. So the official official public hearing on the budget is May 5th. Now's not the time for the the uh questions per se. I mean, I I I'm here in case the mayor council need any clarification or or it's a lot to digest. You have an official copy of the uh budget in front of you um which is more than 100 pages on legal size paper. Um so I'm expect people have a lot of comments or questions now but um we have it gives us a little over or just about a month u to go through the to comb through the budget ask questions and you know if necessary

thank you very much um manager I appreciate that I am going to just ask in case a council member here has something that they feel shouldn't wait until May 5th or just need clarification Is everybody okay to move on or does anyone here have any question or anything that they'd like to say? Council member No. Okay. So, seeing none, we're going to move on. Um, thank you very much, manager. We are going to move on to um our meeting where we have We're going to do that right now. Yes.

Okay. That's what's listed there under presentation right under there resolution where it says presentation right underneath

that's meeting there after we can so um I'm sorry you were having us like okay this time we're going to um introduce the resolution resolution including the year 2026 municipal budget pursuant to NASA 4844 plus 4-5.

What do we need to make change to the we want to make? That's the question that I I have the hearing time. So, you're introducing the budget, mayor, and you're also setting forth the date and time of the hearing on the budget. currently it reads as 95 8 p.m. So that's what my question is to the governing body using set the hearing time for 8:00m. What we customarily do for hearings is set it for the start time of the meeting and then we include language that says or as soon thereafter possible. that way 7 p.m. or as soon start at 5:30 now,

but we're going to go into um the executive if there's an executive. Right. So I'm going to say on May 5th, 2026 at 700 p.m. Okay. Or as soon thereafter as possible. Okay. All right. have a movement.

I so move resolution introducing the year 2026 municipal budget. The governing body, the council of bon does hereby approve the foregoing as the approved budget for year 2026. The hearing of the budget and tax resolution will be held at the county of the municipality building on May 5th, 2026 at 700 p.m. or as soon thereafter as possible. Uh which time and place of to budget and tax resolution for the year 2026 may be presented by taxpayers or other interested person. And I so move All in favor?

Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you. Yes. About if if it hasn't been um published already on the website, the 226 budget, when will that be made available?

I'll work on that. I'm to upload it tomorrow if it's not already there. Okay, thank you. That that's that's a pretty big accomplishment. Thank you. Um and so now at this point in time, we're going to move on to um portion of our meeting where we um have proclamations and all the council members were able to sign the proclamation. The third proclamation up is for ArabAmerican Heritage Month. Is anybody interested in presenting the ArabAmerican Heritage Month Proclamation? Councelor Deman, are there individuals here who wish to come um forward, please? Is everyone signed? Council members,

okay, all signed and ready to go. Please come forward.

How are you? uh country proclamation for American heritage whereas the United States sold to more than 3.7 million Americans 250,000 millions out of New Jersey New Jersey the largest Arabic population in the country. Whereas Arab Americans who collectively trace their origins to nearly two dozen Arabic speaking countries in the Middle East and North Africa representing rich diversity of cultures, dialects, religions, and traditions and whereas for over a century, Arab Americans have invaluable contributions to virtually every aspect of American society in medicine, law, business, entrepreneurship, education, technology, government service, culture, And whereas since migrating to America, people of Arab descent share their rich culture and traditions with neighbors in France also set fine examples, model citizens, public servants. Whereas they share with us this their resilient family values, strong work ethic, dedication to education and diversity and faith creed that added strength to our great democracy. They joined all Americans in their desire to see a peaceful and diverse society where every individual is treated equally and feel safe. And whereas the celebration of Arab American history and cultural heritage educates our fellow Americans

stereotypes and therefore be it resolved in keeping with the township of North's commitment to promoting respect and tolerance for all cultures and traditions. The mayor and council of the county of the Montair who hereby recognize the rich heritage of Americans of Arabic descent celebrate their immeasurable contributions to our nation and proclaim April 2026 as Arab American heritage month. We call upon all Americans to learn more about the history of Arab Americans and to observe her for just one to two minutes. Yes, I would.

Thank you.

Well, good evening, mayor and council members. Uh, my name is Marie Cury and I'm honored to be here tonight as the president of FA, the Foundation for ArabAmerican Heritage, a community organization founded right here in Montlair. On behalf of our entire organization, I want to express our deepest gratitude to the mayor and town council for this proclamation recognizing ArabAmerican Heritage Month. This gesture sends a powerful message that Montlair truly values the diversity that makes this town so special. When our children see others embrace the beauty and joy of Arab-American heritage, it pushes back against the misrepresentation and negative stereotypes they so often encounter and fills them with pride and confidence, especially in light of current events. Properations like this one like this one are more important than ever. Giving our whole community the opportunity to celebrate the cultural and professional contributions of Arabameans, a people woven into the fabric of this nation and New Jersey for more than a century. FA was founded to celebrate the joy of Arab-American culture, foster understanding, and advocate for a more just and inclusive community. We are proud to call Monontlair home and this recognition inspires us to continue that work. To celebrate this month, we are collaborating with Monontlair Public Library, Monontlair Art Museum, and Monontlair Mud for hands-on workshops bringing Arab American art, food, and culture to our neighbors. We invite everyone to join us to stay informed. You can follow on Instagram and Facebook at fjorg. And thank you again for this honor. We look forward to a joyful month of celebration together.

Okay, there's another There's two more.

Okay. Um, now we have a proclamation and I'm sure everyone want to stand here. This is the autism acceptance month. Do we have people that are here to receive the proclamation?

No. Okay. Well, that's okay. We will stand together here. I'm sure we're very excited to do this. And I'm just going to read um the highlights here of this Jerry very um special proclamation. Whereas the autistic self advocacy network defined with autism is developmental disability that affects how autistic people experience the world around them. Autism has always existed. Autistic people are born with autis autism and will have autism throughout their entire life. Whereas autism awareness is knowing that someone is autistic. Autism acceptance is knowing someone is autistic and including accepting them for all that they are. Acceptance is an action. And whereas disability is any condition with the body or mind that often makes it more difficult for the person with a condition to do certain activities and interact with the world around them. Whereas most many adult autistic people embrace the infinity symbol. The infinity symbol that can be gold. Um these are things that the autistic um population like it's a chemical symbol for gold. An infinity symbol can also be seen with rainbow colors as rainbow colors um can embody diversity and inclusion within the neurodeivergent community. Whereas the township of Montlair recate recognizes that autistic people have a variety of support needs. Understanding support needs and how Montlair can increase community inclusion is possible by listening to the voices and messaging of autistic

self advocates and neurotypical allies who amplify autistic people. Now therefore, the mayor of the straight township and the council to hereby proclaim April 2nd as autism acceptance day and April as autism acceptance month. One more um proclamation. the um proclamation for sexual assault aware awareness month. Do we have people that wish to come forward and accept this proclamation?

Okay,

please join us. Thank you. So this is sexual assault awareness monthual and health awareness month. indicate that over half of women and more than one experience underscoring the urgent need for education and survivor where studies further indicate that individuals in the LGBTQA plus community are also at an increased risk of experiencing sexual violence. 47 of transgender individuals, two in five gay men and one in eight lesbian women were experiencing sexual and violence in their life. Whereas sexual violence does not discriminate. It affects individuals of all gender and identities, ethnicities, ages and backgrounds. Survive without remaining silence fear of blame, shame, discoloration to foster a culture of belief support where the goal of SAM is to bring visibility to the issue of sexual violence and promote prevention by the teal ribbon which represents trust, devotion and healing. Over time, SAM has expanded to focus on prevention education. encouraging behavior change and to prevent the physical, emotional and social impactful. Whereas the family service league established in 1881

is a nonprofit organization committed to strengthening and supporting individuals who provides trauma in services to survivor the loved ones and the father and whereas standal examiner law enforcement and contractionary team works to provide direct support to survivors while education and advocacy. Now therefore be a resolve of the mayor and council of the mayor to hereby formally recognize April 56 of sexual assault and we commend family service program for it unwavering dedication educating the public and advocating for a future sexual violence. We call on all residents take an active part in prevention and awareness effort. Okay. So

up next um is meeting people who have not yet signed up. Okay. Ruby Ruby Ruby

last comes up this evening and have three minutes. Thank you.

And when you come up, please the podium, please let us know your name, your first and your last name, and make sure that you keep it to the three moments that are allowed, please. Okay. First up is Noam Maxwell. Should I reserve that for the um I'd like to speak on the Montlair Trust Act. Should I reserve it for that portion?

Oh, okay. Is this where I should stand? I'm going to first on the start. We'll swing the podium. And that would be great. Thank you.

My name is Dany Maxwell. I live at 67 Bay Street in Montlair and thank you very much for taking my us today. I'm here to speak on the Montlair implement trust act. Um it is a a daily reality for us that the federal government is engaging in profound lawlessness and uh when it comes to immigration that's that's one of the main ways is directing this lawlessness uh in a violent way towards the American people. So I I thank the members of this body for bringing this resolution forward. Um, this is a a way that for this town to express the will of the people here and to um show the power that local uh governments have, which is considerable power, stands up for our democracy, preserving our democracy, to stand up for the rule of law and for common decency and all the good things that we've heard about supporting rich cultural diversity in uh some of the in rich again some of the resolutions tonight. So, thank you very much for doing that. And I hope um I also want to recognize the Montlair high school students who who walked out and put these resolutions forward and it it it is a way for all of us to stand strong together to stand up for decency. So, thank you. I hope that there's a unanimous approval of this law today. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Our our next guest this evening is Laura Kenny. And I'd also like to mention, please, if you do wish to be heard on um one of the ordinances on second reading, please wait until we get to that portion of the agenda.

Laura Kenny, 51 Tmont Place, Montlair. I'm here tonight representing Monisible. Good evening. Good evening. I come here tonight to thank you for your leadership and to underscore the importance of your role during this difficult period in our country. The adoption of the Monare Trust Act is critical as it is designed to strengthen protections for our immigrant communities by prohibiting township resources from being used for federal civil immigration enforcement as well as limiting access to city property and databases. It mirrors legislation already adopted by the state of New Jersey. Increasingly, Americans are asking their state and local municipal governments to protect us from the federal government. The occupation of Minnesota has ramped up pressure across the country for state and local governments to do more to protect residents from the federal government's violence and violation of civil liberties. Today, the violence of federal agents against immigrants and denters has created an atmosphere of ongoing fear. We now see and understand that there is an alliance of big government and big tech aggregating our data and building an emerging emerging surveillance state. New Jersey has one of the highest immigrant population shares in the United States. Immigrants, mainly from Asia and Latin America, are essential to the workforce and account for over 30% of labor and nearly 37% of

entrepreneurs. We know from community groups and leaders that many immigrant families and children are missing medical appointments and fearful of making their way to food pantries and other sources of support. We have seen our high school students walk out of class demanding protection for our immigrant neighbors and I applaud them. They are continuing a tradition here in Montlair where we welcome all and protect those who come to live and work here. The adoption of the Monare Trust Act is essential to make clear to our federal government and to our immigrant neighbors that we recognize and intend to ensure their right to live in peace and with security. We're turning to our local government for protection. We look to all of you to demonstrate the leadership and courage this moment requires. Adopt the Monlair Trust Act now. Thank you. Next is McGovern, please.

Good evening. My name is Adam McGovern. I live 87 St. John's Avenue in Mount Taber, New Jersey. I also work with the No Ice North Jersey Alliance, abbreviated as Project Ninja, though our faces you can see. I thank you for welcoming and offering an ear to the Native Towner. Welcome is the core of what this ordinance and I know this town is about. We need to be good neighbors across all our towns as well as within them and you definitely be good neighbors to my area by passing this ordinance. The proposed ICE warehouse concentration camp in Oxford is 20 minutes from my house and every layer of protection that every town in the north state can put in place keeps people out of that jail if it opens and keeps thugs off of all our streets looking for ways to fill. We're working to keep them from being to keep there from being another place to put people so they'll be less likely to patrol your streets terrorizing your residents and you can make it harder for them to you've done a good job formulating a strong ordinance that reflects secure values and sound legal principles. You are well within your rights under the 10th amendment to decline cooperation the federal government for federal functions and will be well meeting the responsibilities not to support this reign of terror. Trump sued Ooken over their immigrant trust executive order and they responded by passing their own homework and trust act which hasn't even tried he hasn't even tried to counter and the original suit seems to be going nowhere. We're realizing how weak these threats are just as soon as local officials with competence and conviction stand up to this is solid law and it fills some gaps in what has been passed on train. When beloved neighbors are kidnapped, when families are torn apart, when businesses are put in peril, and civic stability and security are thrown into chaos, Trenton isn't the first to see the consequences and how to handle them. You are. So, you're where the rubber meets the road, so you can help show our state legislators and governor the path they need to take. We know where immigrants really are. They build communities and care for the American values they risk everything to

come or contribute to. And we know who the real current regime is. They're real criminals who have no respect for your job and no place for democratic processes like this one in their claims. By passing this ordinance, you can show them both who you are. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joanne Casper. I live at 98 Bornhurst Avenue. I'm here tonight to speak on the uh snow removal, detritus removal from the area in Essex Parks. First, I just want to say we looked at our phones and found that there's a ceasefire in Iran and the 800 PM scheduled bombing has apparently not gone forward. Um, so my concern about Erie and Essex Park is of course about what is going to be done there to remediate the situation. But that concern is part of a larger issue for me and that issue is the evident profound disregard and lack of understanding of the value of trees and green space in this community. I have just seen so many heartbreaking examples of disregard for the value of this natural environment. Um the substitution of a plastic tarp at watch playground when for shade when all the trees were removed people are sitting under a plastic tarp. That tarp does not provide any environmental benefit to this town and neighborhood at all. There was a

prior environmental benefit there and we cut them down. Um, also numerous street trees were removed as part of the error laden sidewalk replacement program. I personally had a battle with the zoning code officer and the arborist. I paid my own private arborist to come in and have a discussion. We we tried to meet three times and finally we were able to keep our tree. We paid $2,500 to construct a little circle around our tree and then we find out we might not have had to do this at all. Um, but many trees on my street were cut down because of this. Um, I'm sure everyone on the council espouses concern about climate change. Well, this issue is in your purview and your power. You can't change the country's wind power program. You can't change our energy policy. What you can do is on a community level. This is the community level. I would ask that you educate yourselves on the value of trees and green space. Seriously, educate yourselves. According to the US EPA, trees improve air quality because pollutants are deposited on leaves including particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and ozone. It supports wallet water quality. It reduces uh water runoff up to 15 to 27%. Provides wildlife habitat and reduces heat related illness and death.

Thank you very much. Remediate the site properly. Thank you. Thank you for

Good evening, council. I'm Priscilla Kudson. I apologize. That's okay with a name like that. Anything anything close is fine. Um, I live in Ward 2 on Cresmont Road and I too wish to speak about the remediation of the two parks and the concern that I have is that proper sampling of the remaining snow masses be done so that we realize so that we can learn and have actual data about the uh remaining materials after the snow melts. so that it does not tip over into a hazardous waste remediation because that will jack the price up so much more

and I think proper sampling and attention to that detail is critical so that we know how to properly Thank you. Thank you very much.

Next, 279 Park Street. I think that I want to say to you first do no harm and secondly preserve the sanctity of life. The life of deer and animals and the life of people. You have two things ordinances before you that can do that and do it well. So please pass them. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Catherine.

Hi, my name is Katherine Mo. I live at 29 Monontlair Avenue. I'd like to comment very briefly on two topics up for discussion this evening. The Monontlair immigrant trust act and remediation of Erie and Essics courts. I urge the council to pass the immigrant trust act. I have worked closely with local immigrant families for nine years. They like the rest of us should be able to trust and depend on our local police without fear of being detained by ICE and being separated by their families. And regarding Essex and Erie Parks, my family and I have lived on Monontlair Avenue between these two parks for over 40 years. We cherish the green space and mature lifegiving trees that these parks provide. The desecration of these precious spaces with contaminated snow, garbage, road, road salt, and chemicals is heartbreaking. Families picnic and play ball at Erie Park, including our own family, and sled and climb the hill at Essex Park. It's devastating to think that these may be unsafe spaces. Another concern, and I'm not well informed, but is the contamination of groundwater. I urge the town council to move quickly and enlist professionals to remediate the damage done. Thank you.

Thank you very

negi. Thank you. Hey, my name is Carl Negi and I live in the first board on Buckingham Road and I'm here to I see you guys are going to be doing a first reading of an ordinance about um removing the the um redevelopment plan for So I I saw that we're going to be downzoning a big portion of Bloomfield Avenue 3 zone which is further down zone below what it was long ago is my understanding than what the rest of Bloomfield Avenue is I I would hope that we might not go that low for Bloomfield Avenue especially. Um that area is really close to train station. Um and I I think building housing all over Montlair, including my ward, I would love to see one first w too. Um but we have a real affordability crisis in town. We truly don't have enough housing and people that want to move here right now. The only people who can get houses are people with a lot of money who are going to carry them. And people graduating from high school who are in their 20s or 30s aren't able to move back. And even some of these places with high rents, I think the rent's too high and that's why we need more housing. You talk to them and you say, "Oh, the rich people and stuff, but you actually talk to them, they're people that would that grew up in town, love to live here, and cannot afford a house, but that's what they could afford." So, I think the building near transit is a great idea. I think it would be good for us fiscally because it's a lot easier to service buildings that are more dense and already there. And um I think we have a lot of wood to chop on bringing down the cost of housing because there's a lot of problems and it's causing a lot of problems for a lot of people. Um and the last thing is we have inclusionary zoning in that area. So, a lot of the housing that we build is going to have a point. So, I really hope that we can maybe just go to C1 instead of C3 and go

back.

Thank you very much. Um, forgive me if I can't read this properly. Looks like Casim Long Robertson. I apologize. I can't read this clearly. Uh hello, my name is Cassia Lang Robertson and I'm here to speak in support of the M tras road. So yes uh thank there is good news about ice in in New Jersey. The Roxbury facility plans are thankfully shut down but it is still a danger. There are still two facilities left in in New Jersey and I believe the ice still poses enough of a threat that we really need to see action current like right now. So we've all heard horrific stories from bleeding hall and St. Elizabeth facility recent death of this community in conditions no medical care abuse from guards isn't like this is everywhere in the country and these stories we see are a small fraction of what goes on because ICE has been known to cover up the vast majority of abuses that happen sometimes could die and no one will find out for months until months later. So the Mon trust act does everything it can to stop ICE from oppressing Montlair residents and it is vital that we pass that we pass it immediately. We must protect the immigrant community that we have in Mont Clair and make sure that every single resident of Mont Clair regardless of immigration status is protected from ICE. You've all seen what people of Mont Clair think about ICE. They seem to walk out this protest every single Sunday in the heart of Mont Clair. And I'm glad that so far the town council has condemned what ICE has done. But condemning is not enough to stop ICE. Simply saying that ICE is bad won't do anything to protect our citizens and not clear. So we must take action. This is the council's chance to take action and show that it is to protect the immigrants and not clear. So we must pass. Thank you.

Thank you very Jules Deanto please. Hello members of the town council. My name is Jules Benadetto and I live in the third floor. I am one of three organizers of the MHS walkout against ICE that on March. I stand before you today not just as a resident but as a neighbor, a friend, and a fellow human being asking you to choose compassion over fear. The month for Evocant Trust Act is not about politics, it's about people. It's about the mother who walks her child to school every morning wondering if today is the day her family is torn apart. It's about the father who works long hours, pays taxes, and contributes to our community, yet lives in constant fear of being taken from everything he's built. These are not strangers. They are Montlair. When people are afraid to call the police, report crimes, or seek help, we all become less safe. Trust is the foundation of any strong community. And right now, that trust is fragile. This act helps rebuild it. It tells our neighbors, you belong here. You are safe here. We pride ourselves on being a welcoming, inclusive town. Now is the moment to prove it, not just in words, but in action. Choose humanity. I urge you to pass the mocker and your trust act. Choose dignity. Choose the kind of community we all want to live.

Thank you very much.

No. Welcome.

Good evening. My name is Canola Kim. I want to start by thanking deputy deputy mayor Susan Shin Anderson, councelor Alen Buran Cam and William Harrison and apologize if I mispronounce your name and for all of you for sponsoring and supporting the Monther trust town. This ordinance is a real step towards protecting our community and building trust something so many residents believe in. I will speak briefly during public these protections outlined in the advance is very clear and straightforward. Township employees, volunteers, and resources will not be used to enforce civil immigration laws unless required by valid judicial board. It protects non-public errors database and ensures residents won't be asked for their immigration status unnecessarily. Vehicles matter not just on paper but in the daily lives of families who deserve to feel safe in their homes and towns. This is why I'm here tonight. The third because while this or advance is being introduced, it its promise won't mean anything. Election is carried out fully consistently and quickly. Families then students and neighbors are living in fear right now and delay even if unintentional has real consequences. The fact that it has been such a fight to even get this under the agenda with over a month is ridic. Honestly, if you think about it, we could be fighting to be a sanctuary city, but we don't want close history. That's highly unstoppable. But even these changes will make this town so much better and will count. We must act now to try to rebuild our community trust and the belief that Montlair is the town that it says it is. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next guest, Victoria Luna. Good evening everyone. My name is Victoria Luna. I'm going to speak shortly now and again when the immigration trust act is brought forward. I'm here at the town council for the third time to talk about the same issue. I'm coming straight from track practice. I haven't had a chance to shower or change my clothes, but I'm here because I care and because you should too. Immigration and customs enforment has continued to plunder our society. Our people feel unsafe and for good reason too. But you know this for at least a month me my fellow students and fellow residents have been speaking on this topic and here we are the time is right past this. Thank you. Thank you David. David Cor is

how do you spell Good evening H. And uh so two years ago, I actually speak on a completely different topic.

Uh two years ago, Monair passed a climate action plan. Uh since then, a lot has happened. There's this pretty wild mildly. We've had wars, we've had red wars, ice shootings, threats to democracy. Um I could go on, but you get the picture. Um and yet out in the world, climate change has continued undead. 2024 was the hottest year on record. 2025 was not far behind. and 20 25 becoming El Nino looks to be doozy. We continue to see effects storms, bright weather, uh droughts in Europe, in the Middle East, and flooding in southern Africa, extreme storms in Southeast Asia, and recent reports indicate the climate change may actually be accelerating. Uh there's many important issues you're dealing with. I just like look over the agenda and there's like four different things I wish I had time to talk about between trust act and Erie and Essex Park and the tree orans and so many things but one of the challenges for leaders such as you is to balance immediate needs with long-term planning so do what needs to be done now without losing sight of the long-term strate climate change is an example of a long-term pro problem we can't lose sight of while we're focusing on the important things we look at now uh we passed a climate change plan and I It would be good to make sure we're following through on it. And you asked the sustainability director and the environmental commission for a two-year status update. How much progress have we made? We any of the priority actions have we acted on? Beyond that, it's worth noting that Montair had been pushing for a complete treat for a year, past plans and so on. Nothing happened until institutionally a structure was put in place to center in all structured decisions.

So good news is we don't have to hire a sustainability director like we had to hire a complete use director because we already have one. Um, but I call you to take steps to ensure that climate sustainability are considered to make town decisions. Otherwise, we're selling selling out our children and grandchild. One of the most important things a municipality can do to address climate change is to promote alternative cars, biking, walking, public transit. And by the way, as considered citizens, uh, one of the most important things citizens could do is to drive less, walk, bike. Um, as you know, I'm part of a group looking, as maybe you know, I'm part of a group looking to put bike lane and the traffic calming measures along Grove Street. As you also know, that is a county road and it turns out the county won't act on a bike lane request on a county road unless the town has a bike. So, I'm asking you to have Montclair ad about the bike. Frankly, this would be a good thing to do. Generally speaking, actual mobility has been demonstrated have many good effects. environmental force like air pollution in Paris way down these things people buy more and grow less but also for public health for social trust for children's independence and autonomy for equity for example their census tracks in Montair where there's 10 20 or even 30% of the households don't have cars um in short having a bike plan to develop biking and also walking network over the next 10 years benefit tremendously and also make also the grocery freeway that I'm working on so I ask you to make sure the school based council and thank you for all your work.

Thank you very much. Nextman

Anna Gman Gman followed by Jessica Saltsburg.

Um all right. Um I have been an environmental advocate for about 25 years before moving to Mont Clair and my advocacy focused on getting BPA out of baby bottles out of sofas ballads out of children's products and banning hydraulic tracking in New York. In that work the opposition was clear for profit corporations and the politicians those corporations sponsor and who in turn guarantee that business as usual continues regardless of the public health or environmental cost. The motive, greed. Not a good thing, but it's something you can fight. I got involved in environmental advocacy because it's in my DNA and my family's values. I grew up around people who protect the environment fiercely. My uncle Carl Gman, a veteran investigative journalist, environmentalist, did reporting that led to Feder Island being declared a national seashore protected in perpetuity. Why did it need protection? Because Robert Moses, a parks commissioner, wanted to build a four-lane highway through it um using public funds. Moses was so enraged by my uncle's coverage that he had him fired from his job at a paper. Getting him fired didn't stop him. And if you have been to Fire Island and enjoyed the lack of cars, you can thank the environmental advocates and journalists who brought light to some really shady stuff. Share this story. Um because I never imagined that environmental advocacy and progressive Montlair would feel at times harder than fighting the petrol and chemical industries of poor Robert Moses. that we would need the press to bring light to town environmental problems. So, here we are. The township of Montlair used public funds to damage public parkland by failing to follow public guidelines. Our tax dollars paid for the garbage glacier at Erie in Essex. Our tax dollars paid for every chunk taken out of the oaks at Essex Park. Our tax dollars paid for the oaks at Woodman to be felled and for plastic turf to kill the biodiversity of acres of soil. And our tax dollars will now pay for the cleanup. I want this council to sit with the timeline. We've been calling for

action since February 11th. So have some of the counselors here who did respond to our concerns. Um Rup Cooperative Extension submitted written recommendations advising immediate removal of the snow. Those recommendations were ignored for weeks. The soil is now saturated because the snow is still there. The window did not close on its own. It was closed by inaction. When the administration finally attempted removal today, 56 days after February 11th, they used a 50 15,000 pound pickup truck with a plow. It got stuck in the mud, kind of like using a spoon to cut a steak. This situation is not an isolated mistake. It's a pattern in this town. I expect this council to change that pattern. I expect the shade tree department to operate under leadership that does not unilaterally decide to damage environmentally sensitive parks, does not deploy 47,000 pound equipment over tree root zones, and does not misrepresent NJDP guidelines to the public. I am done watching our tax dollars be used to harm the environment in this town. And I'm done with our lack of strong ordinances to protect the environment. I hope my elected leaders reject business as usual and move this town forward. Hi everyone. Um, similar to Anna Griman, I think many of you know that I have spent countless hours trying to get movement at Erie and Essence Park so that we could accept it material removed and move into repair and that has still not happened. I would like to extend my thanks to councilors Tuler and Harrison

for your proactive approach and your vision that this is possible. Um, so if I seem critical in these remarks, um, that may come later, please know that they are not directed at you. But for right now, I'm going to be reading the words of a member of our community named Troy Weaver. Some of you may know uh, Coach Weaver. He was my son's varsity soccer coach for three years. He was an incredibly important part of my son's life, which made him an important part of our life. And these are his words, Rainbow Hill. I still call this Rainbow Hill. and the park across the street, Rainbow Park. There used to be a large handball and tennis wall in Rainbow Park, with a huge rainbow painted across it. That's where the names came from. That rainbow wasn't just paint. It was identity. It was joy. It was something you could see from a distance, and you know exactly where you were. Rainbow Hill is a place I return to again and again. I teach at the Montlair Cooperative School, one block away, and I often bring my classes to the hill. I'm also the boys varsity coach at Anler High School and every preseason we hold a meditation workshop right there on that hill. It's part of how we prepare, not just physically, but mentally. And it's personal, too. I bring my two kids there, whose children are two and five, I believe. Music classes on summer mornings, sledding in the winter. It's part of our everyday life. Every day I pass that hill, and every day it's discouraging to see the state it's in. My 5-year-old son asks me every time we drive by, "Will it ever be the same again?" And I tell him, "It depends on how the town decides to handle it." I hope a decision is made soon because the next time he asks, I want to be able to tell him, "Yes, it will." And then he included a photograph of the soccer, his current soccer team on that hill. And it made me cry because I knew that my son spent time on that hill and he learned meditation and appreciation of nature on that hill. And my family uses that park. And we walked our dogs to that park. and a dog of mine that was injured went up

and down that hill to become repaired, you know, to improve his legs. And that park has been covered. The hill is just now showing again. And I don't know, manager Marks, if you don't live in Montlair, but maybe there's a park near your home that matters to you. And your dismissal of this park and your staff's dismissal of this park has harmed us and hurt us. And you have actually an excellent reputation. People have mentioned that to me from other places. We need that reputation that you earned to apply to the care of these parks. And now I want to show you something that we've represented. The complete abandonment of these parks and the people who care about them and more than anything public safety.

I I wrote to you originally, next guest, please. I'm sorry. March 10th. This sat on top of the three minutes. Okay. Next guest. I'm sorry. I'm going to finish for 30 seconds. David Henry is guest that is missing this and it was on a jeep garbage. So, I'm sorry, but your time is up.

You can protect the people of Montlair. I know.

Good evening. I'm David Henry, staring Montlair resident. Two weeks ago, a number of taxpayers went over to Essex Park to clean up what had come to look like a nuclear waste dump. with icy black snow covered in garbage reaching over 10 feet up in the air, smothering the old growth trees. Newly planted trees had all been swashed, run over, decimated by equipment used to haul the snow. These young trees that my tax dollars paid for are dead. Yeah, they're dead. Essex Park is usually inhabited by kids, families, their dogs. On the day I showed up, there were kids and families there to help. But instead of playing, these kids wearing plastic gloves holding industrial strength garbage bags. After we gathered dozens of used condoms, drug vials, and other unchild friendly detritus, it was clear that no kid should be anywhere near this site.

Yes. And that burning feeling running up my arms show me that no human or animal should be on this site without protective gear. Let me say a word about the quote unquote snow. My grandfather was a coal miner. The pitchfork and axe I brought with me were the only match for what had become a substance so hard it made coal look like cotton. And yet in two hours I was able to hack away a big chunk of this black iceberg. Obviously putting this snow drenched in chemicals and salt on a public park was a disastrous decision. One that according to Montlair local is against the law in New Jersey. The local also quoted a scientist in Ruckers saying the snow should be re removed immediately so that our residents can go back to enjoying the park and so the old growth trees have a chance to survive. You now have an ordinance in front of you that can make that happen. Despite being hailed as an environmentally friendly town, we seem utterly unable to care for our environment, particularly our trees. Our township should be ali aligned with our taxpayers who do care about the environment, not with individual employees. Vote yes tonight to show us you care about our parks, our trees, and the interests of your constituents. Lastly, as a son of immigrants, I urge you to pass the Immigrant Trust Act. Thank you for your time. Ariel Extlair

resident. Um so now that the council has voted to grant um a generous subsidy to um the developer for Lacana Plaza for a plan that the majority of the council, as I understand it, feels is not the right one. There are still ways we can make Lacalana Plaza a more financially successful and publicforward plan. What I'm here to talk about tonight is traffic and by extension adding small side streets into the plans. The traffic study that was conducted was by all professional standards weak and misleading. Traffic is going to be a major problem which is not good for anyone. Streets make up Montlair's most voluminous public spaces. They are what make us the quote unquote walkable suburb. The only reason there were no streets breaking up the land on either side of Lacawana, is because it was previously a train station, which it obviously is no more. Instead, it should mimic the layout of the rest of downtown with smaller streets, lines of parking that come off the main avenues. These small streets will not just provide walkable public spaces and more parking, but also egress. If there is too much traffic on one street, you can turn off onto another. Small straight streets will benefit retailers, restaurants, and offices that line them. Small streets also slow traffic, whereas the idea to turn Grove into a speedway with no street parking speeds up traffic up. We already have enough traffic accidents in town. We all want safe streets. Adding streets into the current plan is uncomplicated yet big results. Residents have come second throughout this process. Please put us and our safety

first by adding streets. By doing so, you'll make for a much more financially successful project as well. While I'm here to talk about putting residents first, I'd also like to talk about the snow dumping in Essex and Erie Park. Um, in Maplewood they have a law that says it shall be unlawful for any person to cause, authorize or procure any brine water, oil, liquid dye, or other substance delotterious to life to lie, leak, pour, flow, or drip on or into the soil. And it goes on and on. Without the passage of uh I don't actually think it's in the ordinance. I'm not sure exactly who it is tonight. Uh this park will not be usable by residents anytime soon. It is not a park. It is now a dump. There should be caution signs erected for people, children, and dogs. Sadly, we can't prevent wild animals, birds, and insects from traversing these chemical heaps. A mistake was made, a big one. It has sat there without regulation for far too long. Please vote. Yes. And please pass the immigrant. Thank you very much.

It looks like Billy Ho someone. I'm I'm sorry I can't read the writing on the last name. Billy's okay. What's the last name, please? Pushia. Okay. Thank you.

I am a child of immigrants. My parents are both Palestinians. I was born and grew up here in New Jersey in the diaspora in the as we call it in Arabic. I am first generation Arab American first generation Palestinian American at least technically. Although when I introduce myself to others, the American aspect of my so-called identity is never revealed or uttered. I am so proud to call myself Arab and Palestinian. I wouldn't change it for the world. I can't say the same for my American identity. I find it ironic to speak about how to prepare inclusion. Monontlair has given me my fair share of hatred, intimidation, and racism simply for the way that I look as though I am otherred to this town and deserve to be a target and to be harassed for my Palestinian and Muslim identities. Montlair is not the safe, welcoming, and inclusive community many of you claim it to be. This past Friday on April 3rd, while my friends and I were protesting on Bloomfield A against the genocide of scheme and the bombings in Iran, a man from across the street was saying very bile, autoophobic, and islamophobic rhetoric towards me. He mostly fixated on me, stuck his tongue out at me numerous times, telling me my country, Palestine and Palestinians, my very own people, should burn, and told me to go back home. A classic racist statement I've heard many times before. But again, I was born in Jersey, but I'm not supposed to be here, right? After an hour, the man illegally crossed into oncoming traffic, almost getting hit by a car to charge towards me aggressively and to continue hurling very vile language towards me. He got so close to the point that I had to tell him numerous times to back away and get away from me. To the point where my friends and my comrades had to stand in between me and him so that he wouldn't touch me. Now, you're probably wondering why we didn't contact the police. Well, they don't view my community and my community

safety the way they do others. This past fall at 9:20 p.m. as I was walking to my car in the pitch dark, a police, a male, followed me, my mom, and my friend, short women 5 foot three or shorter, um, to my car. Again, he didn't announce himself. He just walked behind us for numerous blocks, reached us until he could look at us, and then walked into the direction he came from. He was not patrolling to ensure our safety, but to intimidate us, make us unsafe, and uneasy. Monontlair, you must do better. I can give so many instances of being harassed and intimidated um from this town, but I'm not here to justify my experiences. There is simply no excuse for this today. I stand before you all to speak out against these injustices because I feel like not doing so would be an injustice of itself. I speak for me, my Arab community, my Palestinian community, and for all minority and marginalized communities who are treated less than simply for the way that we look in the languages that we speak. Jacoben, Jacoben, Loren's son, Stephen M. M A C A W L I

or John?

Yeah, John Zeca. John Zca. Jacob is right here. John, I'll go back. Huh? Right. I'll go back. John. Hi everybody. Good evening. Um, I'm a snow and ice management professional. Please give us your name. Uh, John Zelanka. Thank you.

Yeah, I own a Z tree experts and I also own a professional snow and ice management company. So when I was working in Montlair, I did see snow piles. I took pictures and the big machines that moved it. But as doing both worlds, you know, I knew it's an issue. So I know everybody explained it, but the snow does need to be removed. but with lighter equipment so it doesn't you know cause more ground impact on the root zones. And then it does need um you know soil uh to vertical line trenching of the the roots to take away from the root compaction. And then you need to like mulch around the drip to the drip line of the trees with either like deep water not fertilization but to kind of take away the uh salt. Um, so hopefully that's just a little insight. I just wanted to add to, you know, what you guys already know is, but hopefully a couple things could, you know, help or look in that right direction. So that's it.

Thank you, Jacob. Is there Jacob Luen? Loren San Sansson.

Hello council. My name is Lorenzo Sansson. I live at 10 Crest Mont Road and I'm here to speak on multiple things today, but for first I would like to thank the council for their understanding about the wildlife here in Montlair. uh originally being born in San Diego, California, but one of the most amazing things is the fact that we have wildlife here and is extremely important in my eyes and eyes of many Monlair residents to continue to protect that. Uh so thank you for for your workingness towards towards solving that issue of figuring out the deer and especially all Bmont. Uh second off, I would like to address my concerns relating to the park uh that has we've all seen been completely destroyed because of the mismanagement and this seems to be a common factor within um the council and multiple areas of Montlair as a whole. We have to recognize that the management of Montlair is going to be the thing that continues to make us a very thriving town and Montlair citizens and residents continue to feel that the management of Montlair uh is in disarray. So please take that into consideration. Uh next, when it comes to immigration here in Montlair, I think it's extremely important for all of us to recognize that we are all once immigrants and to not recognize that fact is is completely deplorable to me. So, you know, not only is my father an immigrant, but my, you know, my great-grandfather's an immigrant. Immigrants have made not only Montlair, but the United States as a whole. So, being a sanctuary city, um, or in this case, a suburb in one way or another, we should recognize the importance of allowing that. Okay, we have seen the disgusting things that ISO has done in recent time, and I'm not willing and my generation is not willing to stand for these deplorable things that continue to happen. um especially since uh we've just heard from a very uh interesting Palestinian woman that she is not safe and as a as a Jewish man this has been a very conflicting time of

my life uh with both my morals about Israel and my idea of Judaism. So, please understand that not only as me as a Jew are conflicted about these things, uh, but we have to recognize immigrants are what makes America extremely great. And I'm I'm completely disgusted by the fact that she had that that experience here in Montlair. we live in a very um uh hopefully friendly town is like what we would like we would like to think that but not being inviting and not being a sanctuary city is is really going to let that uh that those experiences happen more often than not. Um so please understand that these are things that we are struggling to deal with every day as Montclair residents and we would really like to see you continue to do better as you've promised. So please keep that promise to Montlair residents and thank you very much and have a great rest of your night. And could we get some?

Okay. Uh, Jacob Luen and Stephen McCall.

And your correct name. Hi, Mayor Council. Uh, I'm Stephen Miy. I'm sorry.

No, you're all good. You're all good. Um, I'm a Verona resident. I work in Newark and every Friday on my commute down Bloomfield A home. I participate in a protest on the corner of Bloomfield Avenue and Church Street. It's a protest that began over 20 years ago against wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and continues to this day against the genocide in Palestine and interventions in Venezuela and war in Iran. Um, this council made proclamations today about Arab Heritage Month, and I want to make sure that those proclamations are not vain or performative and and are instead cognizant of the continued harassment that Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim community members continue to face to this day. As my friend Philly mentions, this past Friday, a man launched incendiary and aggressive remarks about Palestinians and Muslims, saying that Palestinians should die and burn and telling Muslim women to shut their mouths because they're because they're women. Um, I think we can all agree that these kinds of remarks and aggression towards our community members are unacceptable and I implore this council to recognize that and do everything that I can to protect our community members. I also want to recognize the many comments uh made today regarding um the immigrant trust act because I think we should all recognize at this time that ICE are nothing but white supremacist Gestapo thugs and they don't belong anywhere in New Jersey, let alone thank you for your time.

Jacob. Jacob Luen. Hey, is there anyone here that I did not call, but I don't see their name? Yeah, there must be another page with John on there somewhere. I don't see her. Okay, John Osborne, come forward, please. And no, I I don't have that on here, but here, please sign a page from where we were waiting over there. I I got a few copies of drawings. Anyone else?

You handed me.

Okay. John Osborne is the last guest that I have on here. Save the best for last, there. Okay, let's go. Your 30 minutes is I I um I'm glad that I live in Marclair. I've lived here since I was seven years old. I came here to sleep. Uh I I had a very easy relatively easy immigrant experience because I came from England. I was British. Montlair in his 60s was very accepting of British people.

So still got bullied, still lost the accent as quickly as possible. My brother and I stopped wearing sandals with shoes until they became back in style. But uh Monontlair is a lovely town. I've been here since I was seven. So I thank you for your service. But Monontlair can do better. I think we have to have to pass that. People have to feel safe. That's very important. The other thing that needs to be saved is our environment. I live on Essex Avenue. My kids sledded on that hill when they were little all grown out of state. Now that's that's a park. That's not a dump. When the baseball field was put in in the middle of the night, um the drawings were never reviewed by the clan board, as you know. But they did have one good thing in them. They had a detail that showed that you should protect the trees existing trees to the tree line with a net with with a fence. And if you have ever seen work being done in New York City in parks when they put actual wooden barricades around, if you followed this detail on the drawings and you went to the drip line of every one of those trees, you would have been able to put one bucket of snow into that park. So, I suggest that the shade tree and the Department of Public Works and whoever the midnight contractors were all retrained and I encourage you to pass a law that doesn't allow for dumping of material into our parks, your parks. Thank you. So, I've been calling. Is it Carlen Juna Sappla? Is that you? Madam,

is there someone here named K A R L E N U N I S E T L A or I just can't read the right. Who is your name, please? No. No. Is this you? You're somebody's at 25 Madison. Oh, okay. It it looks like Ununice set. Kaylin. Okay. Thank you. I I have no other. Does that look like Do I have my time?

Well, I'm finally up here. Um I just like to start off by saying I go to meetings. I do my part. I get told I would I participated in the walk out with my fellow students. Um, there were comments berating us online about how we are just a bunch we are just a bunch of cryb babies who whine all day. We just wanted to skip class. Um, but and we we don't have any energy or anything else. We just want to do reformative activism. That's just not true. I go to meetings. You see me at meetings. You see meetings. You all see me at meetings. I come here and I I learn. I engage in hyper local politics. I do my part. Please do yours. Pass the Montlair Trust Act. And also, additionally, there's an ordinance tonight about about promoting non-lethal methods or Yeah. Well, just basically not killing native wildlife here in Montlair. Specifically, it was originally deer meant for deer calling, but we've expanded it to native wildlife as per an amendment made by the council. Uh we were nervous that deer being surveyed in Montlair was a telltale sign that something bad was going to happen because a lot of people were bringing up complaints about biodiversity, possible biodiversity uh concerns. The issue is that there is deer crawling that occurs in Essex. It's not great when you have deer with arrows in their heads still running around. It's not great when you lure deer into bushes with food and shoot them with boltaction rifles. It's a stain. It's It's a shameful practice. And I think that everyone in this room can agree with me that we

shouldn't be fostering it here in my town that I'm proud to call home the last 15 that I've been proud to call home for the last 15 years to be able to well that we shouldn't be fostering that here.

Thank you very much. Pending ordinances on second reading. There are two for the evening. Since the these are pending ordinances, that means that um residents who are our guests this evening will have an opportunity if you wish to be heard on these. I'm going to ask uh councelor toler please if you would read pending ordinance. I'm going to open the public hearing without objection. Is there anyone present who wishes to be heard in relation to the proposed ordinance which councelor Cole is going to read pending ordinance 026-07

okay so she's going to read it first and then Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, if you can stay up there. She's just going to read it and Yeah, sure. Pending ordinance 026-07 Township of Monlair ordinance to amend chapter 82 animals of the code of the township of Montlair and County, New Jersey to prohibit the use of lethal methods of native wildlife management within the township of Mont Clair.

Okay. Hi um mayor and council members. I'm Karen Saxs of a monster resident running at 101 Avenue and president of the friends of the Montlair Township Animal Shelter. Um this is the second time I'm speaking to you on this topic and you have twice voted now unanimously in support of the non-lethal wildlife management ordinance. So I can go hopefully make this commitment final. I want to thank you very much for the leadership, compassion, and care you brought into this process. How you're choosing to solve problems matters just as much as the outcome. Lethal management is often framed as a practical and efficient answer to a complicated problem. But you have listened to residents weigh the evidence and chose a different approach. That choice, non-unful wildlife management, doesn't mean ignoring problems. It means holding ourselves to a higher standard in how we respond to them. This has truly been a collective effort shaped by passionate residence and thoughtful deliberation by an engaged council. I look forward to your sending a final clear message tonight that we can address challenges without defaulting to violence and that coexistence is not naive. It is necessary. Thank you again for continuing to make Monontlair more humane place to live for all who call it home. Thank you very much. There. Anyone else from the public who wishes to be heard on this pending ordinance 026-027, please come forward.

Hello everybody. My name is Stockhhammer. We're hearing a lot and we really should be proud of our town and who we are because everybody has been talking about the safety, protection and betterment of our as of our people and of our animals in this case wildlife. Um, basically, um, I really wanted to passing this ordinance, um, and beg you to and thank everyone who authored the Montlair immigrant trust act, um, and who is supporting it, but also for passing this audience or ordinance and working on all of it so hard um, for protecting wildlife in our community. And just as with the your passage of the immigrant trust act, everyone and every being deserves to feel safe from harm and welfare. And this is the right thing to do for us as as people who without each other. I mean, we're going through in our own lifetimes, you know, whether we're one year old right now or 97. Um, an experience that um is Sue Janeer, as they call it, is is beyond um recognition for many of us, even from what we've read um or have had parents who have gone through. So, let's stick together and thank you for passing things that I hope we will that protects all of us and values all of us and loves all of us. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I wanted to add to that and say thank you again because in this world where chaos seems to be rampant this small thing that we can do to protect the animals the wildlife to not use violence against them. That gives me a little bit of hope. Thank you. Thank you very much. There are another wishes to be heard on pending ordinance 026-07. Hi Susanna.

I think of Montlair as a yes and town, not a yes but town. We don't say we appreciate our wildlife, but they can be a nuisance. We say we appreciate our wildlife and can tolerate the nuisance and find ways to minimize it. We don't say we need to protect our green spaces, but we can't due to wildlife challenges. We say we need to protect our green spaces and develop strategies so wildlife can be a part of them with minimal damage. We don't stay We don't say we stand for nonviolence, but sometimes it's okay. We say we stand for nonviolence and that applies to every facet of our life here in Montlair. Montlair is a yes and town and this ordinance reflects that. with lethal options off the table. It removes the butt and and allows us to fully commit to yes and plus all the creative problem solving that this principle inspires. And and I just want to say how meaningful it's been to see such a broad cross-section of Montlair residents come out in support of this young people, longtime residents, leaders from different backgrounds and faiths, environmental advocates, and fiscally minded neighbors alike. It shows how much this matters across our community. It was even more meaningful to witness your humane forwardinking leadership with unanimous support for this ordinance at first reading. Monontlair is a yes and town and tonight is a chance to help codify that. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there another vote of motions to be heard on pending ordinance 0-2607? Please come out. Seeing none, um I will uh without objection, I'm going to close the public hearing portion. There's been a movement councelor Toller for this. There was a second Mayor Baskerville. Is there um council members who wish to be heard on this?

Yeah, I would like to say that um I appreciate everybody who comes out and supports this. We have two readings of these things so that we can, you know, deliberate ourselves. Um, I spent some time in the last week at our soul wildlife preserve in town. I know the deputy mayor was there. Has anybody anybody else on the council been to our soul wildlife preserve recently? Yes, absolutely. Many times.

Was there any wildlife there? Did you talk to the people who are in charge of stewarding that because I've talked to several people and what they said was we have a wildlife preserve a single wildlife preserve in m and there's no wildlife left there's only only deer and that means no other mammals basically no birds no insects no nothing and what we have done now I understand I have the buzz with the desire here. I totally do. But it is a choice and there are tradeoffs. And the trade-off that we have now is that we are calling through our inaction or what our the path that we are on right now. We are culling all the love all the other love and it is a fact and like it is very troubling. So, you know, I'm I don't have a lot of energy around this, but I want to say also a lot of the people who are very serious, who do the spade work here, who are out up to the, you know, every weekends um are very troubled and they're also afraid of speaking their mind. They don't want to be bullied. People, multiple people, and you can roll your eyes, but it's the truth.

Yeah, I will.

People feel bullied and they don't want to speak their mind. They don't want to say what they know is true. And these are the people who do the work. They're people who are environmentalists who are out there all the time working for the state. I met people who work for South Mountain Reservation. Yes, it's the truth. So, this is a very, very big trade-off. And what I will say is that I'm going to vote no for them. I'm going to vote no for the people who do the hard work and who know that this feel-good thing is has it has negative unintended consequences that's very very serious and I'm willing to take you can shoot the bows at me I don't care

roll call please okay can you set the um clock the council members are going to get three members off of these Huh? Can't do what? Council members discuss why? Yeah. On anything. Yeah. Why? Can you show me that please? So they can go on for hours and hours and hours and we just have the city. I don't believe that that's accurate, but I'll respect what you call that this evening and then I'll look it up. in Robert was

Yeah. Okay. No, I I please send that to me. There's no limit. I I'd like to see that. Please, if you would send that to me, council Shen Anderson. Uh, you know, I am going to vote for this because of the

However, um, I would like to say that, you know, um, I did speak with people who first And you know I I'm very still very adamant that we need to take this account. Um we need the data despite this the revisions um and I appreciate my colleagues you know making revisions that I had asked for wildlife. Um this unfortunately the declared public health emergency would not cover other wild other native wildlife would be their survival would be found and that does concern. So um I am going to I am going to vote yes but that you know could indicate that there is a haunt other than wildlife. we need to know how you know how to do it. So that is what any other council person.

Sure. So um I just want to thank Council Harrison, Council Birmingham, some of the residents that we've been working with. Council Harrison did pretty much the heavy lifting on this. Um experts are experts. Data is data. Um, I don't think there's one environmental expert better than the next expert. Um, this is a well-written document. I plan to vote for it. Um, we have to learn how to respect um, whomever brings information to the table. I'm not going to put a hierarchy on what environment the person or persons has worked out. Um, this did go through the NBC. I asked them to review it for a glance and we did the best that we could and we believe that we came up with a pretty strong ordinance. So the ladies in the back um I'd like to thank them for their expertise in their opinions and helping us formulate this. We just can't have any children in our town here. I would just correct you.

Councelor Birmingham Birmingham, please. Counselor Birmingham. Excuse me. Councelor Birmingham, please. She tried to prevent them from having I'd like to have counselor Birmingham. That's not true. That's not true. I sent it I sent it to him and you sent it to him, but that's not Birmingham. Um, yeah. I mean, I I just want to say I I think we should commit to the non to promoting the non-lethal methods and see like really commit like coming here and out of the blue saying I went to Bonsel last week

and somebody told me and which I'm not denying and I'm I really respect the work but we need to that's a if that's a problem we should investigate it in a way that is scientific and if it is it is and And as you said, if that is our wildlife preserve, we should be looking to protect that wildlife preserve. This ordinance, you know, is establishing that we are not going to use lethal methods at this, you know, in our town at this moment. And which, you know, again, ordinances can change. I just want to be clear that there's not an attempt to change it, but it is, you know, um, but we need to really commit to the non-lethal

and do it in a serious way because it nobody I mean I don't think it's fair to deny that deer are not an issue at all. like nobody is saying that but we have to we have to commit to managing in a non-lethal way and I think we should look and if Bonsil preserve it should be our pilot then let's let's do it but I mean we have had offers from organizations that can may be able to help us in a in a work in a humane way and I think we should do it in a serious make a serious effort to do it. Thank you. Um, any any other council member? Okay. Roll call, please. Deputy Mayor Anderson,

yes. Birmingham, yes. Councelor Damato, no. Councelor Harrison, yes. Councelor Toler, yes. Councelor Williams, yes. Mayor Baskerville, yes. Okay. Now we're going to move on to um the public open the public hearing without objection. Um and I'm going to ask councelor Birmingham please if you've agreed pending ordinance 0-26-10.

Uh okay this is pending ordinance 02610. This is a calendar year 2026 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriate appropriation limits and to establish a capay for NJSA 48 um 4-45.1 and I so moved second. Um I'm I'm going to um open the public hearing. Is there anyone present who wishes to be heard in relation to the proposed ordinance 0-26-10? If so, please come forward. Seeing none, without objection, I'm going to move to close the ordinance, the pending ordinance 0-26-10. There's a movement. Council Birmingham. There's a sec. Second, Mayor Baskerville. Council members, is there someone that wishes to be heard on pending ordinance 0-26-10? Seeing none, madam uh clerk,

Stephanie Mayor Anderson, yes. Council Birmingham, yes. Council Damato, yes. Councelor Harrison, yes. Council, yes. Councelor Williams, yes. Mayor, yes. Okay, now we're going to move on to business ordinance status. And councelor Williams, would you please do C? Sure.

New business ordinance, an ordinance establishing a new chapter 212 of the code of ordinances of the township of Monontlair entitled Monontlair IM immigrant trust act sponsored by Deputy Mayor Susan Shen Anderson, councelor Eileen Birmingham, and councelor William Harrison. So move second. discussion council this is um new business and this is the first reading so we don't have public but I am going to ask council members if they have any discussion please so I'll I'll start um deputy mayor Shen Anderson

yeah thank you so um first of all I do want to say that I had asked this the title to be amended to Mont Trust Act rather than immigration trust act that's the version that council members had group. Um, and you know, that's actually that was a deliberate success because it did not thank all of the people who I'm very such as the mayor and Harrison and councelor. Um the reason why I I had wanted this to be on this is not just about obviously you know we have a huge problem with um the federal administration and ICE um terrorizing communities um all over the country including New Jersey. Um and we want that uh but this isn't just about protecting immigrants. Um it's it's really about protecting us all of us making us all citizens because um even those who are citizens they're not you don't feel safe. Okay. Um this is this is about making all of us feel safe and even though we as a community we as a governing body are not going to be able to stop um ICE officials um and the government from trying to intimidate us and bull us and scare us. uh we're not going to be able to stop that because we already know how lawless they are talked about that this is something statement that we as a council can make that this is our policy that if you're on our property in our parks in the library wherever you're not going to be able to come there and try to detain people and get us to cooperate with you unless you have a judicial that is well consistent with the the um

the governor who recently but it applies to us and our property um the state law to uh our property. Um it's also saying that we are not going to um just hand over information about our residence unless you have a judicial war. And uh you know this is something that I wanted to um make sure there was is um you know there's some documentation and administrative review because um me personally I I really didn't want this to just feel like a performative um ordinance. Um so um part of this ordinance is also you know that the requirement that anyone um anyone that this this volunteer commission anyone who um you know is asked for information and has to report those incidents to the conflict manager attorney in some cases that the council can request periodic reports not where we are. So um I mean this is we think that we live in a bubble and you said there are so many things to love about being talent and people hear about it. I I know that it's there. Um I've experienced it. there's a lot of other language that happens in this town um and and um and it so um I wanted to support this his ordinance in light of that with people who don't know that they can come forward and also for our businesses that are really suffering recently in another county in New Jersey where you have a daily rate um and

people are afraid to go to work they're afraid to send their kids to school, they're afraid to jump on their phone. So, it's happening here. Thank you. Are there any other council people um here that need to say something? Otherwise, madam clerk, please.

Yes. Council Birmingham. Yes. Council, yes. Council Harrison, yes. Council, yes. Council Williams,

yes. Okay, we're gonna move on to Will you please do uh new business ordinance D an ordinance of the town square county letter this is ordinance 026-s township of Montlair An ordinance of the township of Monontlair County of Essex, New Jersey, rescending ordinance 07-43 and the Elm New Area redevelopment plan and amending the zoning map in section 347 zoning of the code of the township of Montclair, New Jersey. I so move.

Second discussion. I have a question that this be deputy deputy mayor. Thank you. Um I had requested that table. Um primary reason being the felt ordinance um is actually different from what um here. Thank you. Would you finish what you were saying? Okay.

So, because the language was different, you had some concerns about my understanding is that the language is different from the current. So, I thought that we should table it until they have it here.

Okay. Council Harris under the normal procedures of the municipal land use law once the zoning ordinance is introduced it would be referred to the planning board for their comments. So that would be doing the normal procedure of we introduce it goes to them we get the recommendations and then we do whatever on second read. Well, again, a lot of Okay. I'm sorry, Council Harrison. We're we're reinvented. Yes. Okay. Council Demato.

Yeah. I mean, the process to bring this to the agenda tonight is completely wrong because fundamentally, um, there was an EDC meeting which one of the two members was not there because they're not three members. See, they're only two because you've never been appointed to it. that changed it unilaterally. One person changing a recommendation from the planning board to radically change the zoning and in a part of town week before we have a re-examination of the master plan. So, this was like a stealth middle of the night thing. No, it wasn't

to to change it to change it and and we should be having a discussion about zone townwide. going to have it because of the re-examination of the master plan. This would singlehandedly dramatically change one of the most sort of core things as one of the comments said that you that transit oriented development is a keystone progressive urban planning and this would severely impact it. So I'm not saying that it won't end that way. that's fine, you know, to to make a much lower height limit on buildings in a particular part. We can do that in other places, but I would like for it to wait until after the process begins the planning or at least to have the memo be corrected so that it doesn't say something that did that. The memo doesn't even say, and I'm not putting this on plan because I think this should, you know, juggling a lot of personalities here at this table, that it should reflect the work that the planning board has done and the fact that the planning department actually recommended a new zone, CD, a new zone that would be, you know, hybrid of the existing zones that was four four stories tall and that that wasn't even part of the package. And nobody has been given the benefit of the memos of that original work that the planning department did. Probably I don't think anybody at the table here other than the mayor myself has watched the meeting that happened on February 9th where this was discussed and there were no objections made by that body to the recommendations of the planning department. The mayor watched the tape today. the mayor never at any point expressed any disagreement with the the uh the proposed zoning of that area. So

and instead it ends up as a completely different thing here based I don't know on what so again coming from the fact that EDC which is not does not have three members one member of the EDC says that they were not recommending it then then if so facto it is not correct what what it is is being introduced that is not true and I just think I can put it off for

I'm going to ask um planner tally please you would come forward and talk about any time sensitivities here. But I'm also going to just um share the fact that um there were quite a few things that we have done with two members of an economic development committee for months now while I have been constantly repeatedly trying to get on the economic development committee because there were two people and for whatever reason the meetings continued and we've gotten so many things that have gone through with two individuals of a economic development committee. So I just don't even think that should be considered here. I I would really like to hear planner talent if you can

I just want to speak before Miss Sally does but I I want to ask you about time sensitivity and I'm going to ask you um are there any time sensitivities regarding this particular um ordinance? No, we're not under any any timing requirements to get this this ordinance in place. Okay. Thank you. Um, so councelor Toller, I'm going to recognize you and then council Williams.

So when this was originally presented to us as two meetings ago, I tabled then because I had some questions and concerns. The person that I brought questions and concerns up to probably the only person at this table with the most experienced and that was councelor Harrison. Um, we talked about what some of this language meant and um, I'm glad I did take it because the density numbers had changed. This particular resolution, I'm sorry, ordinance presentation for a very specific area of Bloomfield Avenue, not the entire Bloomfield Avenue, um, Bloomfield and only if you will. Um, the reason that I recommended that we step with Miss Townley, who requested a meeting with Bill Harrison, uh, she did not request a meeting with me. Okay, so Mr. Harrison invited me to the meeting. That's how that went. So, there's that. Um, with Lacawana coming across the street, the density already on Bloomfield Avenue is very, very thick. It's going to be a lot there. We're looking at the Firestone station across the street. Um, currently our zoning ordinance allow Street to go up to six feet and the planning board said their hands were tied. Then the planning board's hands were tied with other projects and didn't get approved. So, this is protecting the character of the neighborhood, keeping the buildings at the heights that they should be at, three or four stories. Um, I asked Planet Talia during that walk. We did a walk when we met in her office. Um, what other options were, okay? Because with Blackana directly across the street, the fourth floor is at a apex. Okay. You may not care and you may not care, but I care. Residents that I represent care. All right. We're very concerned about what's going to happen behind Bloomfield Avenue Mission New Elm Hartley FY Street if something is a change and that's what this is about protecting and preserving very particular part of town that you don't live in that you don't live in but I live in and I hear from my constituents.

So what's the principle here? Is that a war counselor? No no it's not about a principle sir. It's about doing what my constituents want me to do. Okay. As well as protecting the character of the neighborhood. six doors. So I get to decide the in the first floor. I like this. That's great. You can do that model, but stop interrupting me. Nobody interrupted you when you were speaking. No one. Right. So whatever you're trying to make this, it's not that it's not that. Can you just explain for those of us again? This is making it a C3. So that is retail on the bottom like it is two or three stories for apartments. So is it a lower one story? One store

one people that are on watching TV for a very particular corner not the entire bull. All right. It's multiple. Anyone else? Councelor Williams. I counselor Williams.

Yes. My only concern with looking at this is that if and I only own one house or whatever the case may be. But if I'm a if I own property in this area and right now I have the ability to build up, you know, such and such amount, six stories, the value of my property, not the assessed value because I went through this with the tax assessor, not the assessed value, but the value of my property is going to be decreased by this downzoning. Sometimes we have to save money and not have people make money off the backs of other people. Let's

But if you own But if you own some people don't we're talking about what was he going to let him finish what he was going to say. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. You're right. I should not have interrupted you. My bad. I appreciate you and I apologize for interrupting you. Council Williams, please.

No. And in in all seriousness here, I'm just concerned here that whoever these folks are that own property and we're actually the town is a property owner in this district on New Street, right? So that potential property right there could could be sold, right? Revenue could be generated to do whatever we need to do in town. But with this, it will decrease the value. Not the assessed value because it's a property owned by the town right now and it's not assessed any value. But if we chose to sell it at some point in the future, we that the sale of that property would generate less revenue.

So I thought I thought that I heard um councelor Toller say it was just for the I'm sorry. partly wet street new

and perhaps yeah somebody doesn't make as much money or the town doesn't make as much money if we sold a piece of land on new street we've been on new street it's tight areas changed the residents are tired they just don't want any more development in that period what's wrong with that why can't that be our diversity has declined from 2000 African-Americans being 39% 2002 down to 19%. And it's primarily because of development in board four. And you're going to sit here and tell me that somebody can't make some money off of what and for what reason? If we continue at this pace, we can take the word diversity off of our township website because projects in redevelopment days in Ward 4 is actually killing diversity. Now, I know you believe in income diversity and not color diversity because you said that at the last meeting.

Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna Okay, very real. I'm gonna move on and let Harrison. Okay. Just one one second. I don't I don't want to I don't want to get personal and I don't like So that's why I don't want to.

Right. Right. Right. I'm not I'm me and I can only control myself like me. So that's what I'm going to do. So you you bring up you you bring up a very good point and I I think that you know maybe this isn't the proper for it but income you you cannot align Africanameans with one income ban right saying hey we need affordable housing because it's going to be just for African-Americans African-Americans can be billionaires they can they can be all over the place right so I I don't you know I don't I I think that's that's income diversity that we're talking about here. You you when we're talking about you want affordable housing, I don't think we're just talking about one ethnicity. We're talking about people that are in a certain income level. That's what we're talking about here. If if you're talking about the African-American uh community, of course, that's the reason why I moved here, so that we so I can live in the town. My kids can grow up in a town where there is ethnic diversity. But when you're talking about affordability, when you're talking about affordability, that's not necessarily, you know, completely aligning with ethnic diversity.

Point that out. Planetally, and then councelor Harrison,

I I just I just want to um emphasize that this is not affecting the properties on New Street. The proposed zone is largely for the properties that front on Bloomfield Avenue between Elm Street and Maple Avenue. Previously, we were proposing a a zone that permitted four stories at a density of 55 units per acre. The C3 right now, this proposal is to put it in the C3 zone, which permits three stories and I believe the density is about 40 units per acre. So, there's a reduction in density as well. It does not affect the town to own property on New Street which is right now in an R2 zone. That will remain the same.

And there's no other open lot where anything could be purchased or built on Bloomville Avenue in the area you just mentioned. Well, no, there's the vac, right? There's one spot that one and possibly Firestone. So, those are two areas that we're talking about are very they're very small place. So many of the buildings that are already there are there. Okay. Councelor Harrison has been waiting for councelor Harrison

one director Tally made the point of the new street property the township owns is are to today not being changed by this. It's the this stemmed from the application on Bartley Street to build a building that was consistent with the redevelopment plan but was totally out of character with the neighborhood. planning board properly said we should revert to the R2 zoning along the side streets

and just keep the properties running onfield Avenue and those and recommended that those be down. So either way those are being downzone

those buildings like have never changed. I mean, it's it the concerns I raised when this first came up were one, it was allowing residential on the first floor, which only two buildings in the area have residential on the first floor, which is inconsistent with the zoning in most of the commercial districts. And I did not see any reason to bring in residential there, breaking up what is a persistent group of stores, but not doing overwhelmingly well, but you know, some like Rockets have been there literally forever. And the and suddenly letting people go taller. When we met with director Tally, she had the thought councelor Toller was concerned about the density in the area. The R2 zoning is very dense as with the given the lot sizes in the area.

The R3 lowering the building height which would be more compatible with the buildings that are literally a few feet away. The another concern, the zone line was not brought in well exactly follow the lot line, but it made a lot more sense to not have a 37 foot building backing up to a building that could be 35 ft versus a 47 foot building backing up to a building that in some instances would be like five feet away. And so that that is why I made the recommendations when this first came up. I will not discuss And I let you people fight as to how it should happen, why I'm not on the planning board, which is not a wise decision. But when zoning ordinances come up, I'm going to give you my opinion on them because I think that's my responsibility because I've been doing land use law for 45 years.

Are you? I'm done. Okay. Council council members did first of all I want to thank councelor for explaining that and I just want to put it on the record that none of these concerns were raised at an easy the last thing that we talked about and I agree with this that the density that the the number of stories should be reduced I agree with that so this idea that certain people don't care about other areas I've never heard. I'm sorry. Please counselor to go ahead. So, I put it in the minutes.

Um, but none of this was raised. And so my only reason for you know requesting that this be this this vote be this table was so that we could have I want to better understand why the planning board made the recommendation that it did and that was to reduce the hype from the maximum height from six stories to four stories and create a new zone rather than you know reverting that to the original. So, I just wanted And so, now that um your honor was kind enough to take the time to explain explain that to you, um how are you feeling about the recommendation?

Well, I still would like to understand I would like for the planning board to discuss it, which um I understand is going to be the process. And so, um I am going to be, you know, I'm I'm if that happens, then I hope it does happen soon. Um I I think I would be feel better about you know um going forward but I do want to put it on the record what actually happened and what my actual stance was and I do want the court they I understand they did a lot of work and thought into the plan with the recommendation that it did. Um and I would like for them to be able to and bring their recommendation. So I I I I have a question then, right? And um I've been on the planning board for a while, not just since this council, but previously. And my understanding was that the planning board makes recommendations to the council and that the council may choose to accept those recommendations or that may not. So is that not not correct? I'm just trying to find out. I don't I don't get when we say that they're making a recommendation when it comes to us, we have an option, right?

Is that correct or it's not correct? We we have no option to discuss it as a group and then decide to change it.

Absolutely. But my objection here and why I think we should just wait a meeting is two things is that the planning board's work and recommendation and the planning department's early hard work and the memo of December 9th which I regret today was just not brought to us as part of the background. That's all. And so if we just and then there's a master plan re-examination that is going to begin. I think that we need to I'm not against the the end result potentially here like I think it's needs to be weighed. I think we should probably be down zoning definitely in the C1 corridor as well, right? Because six stories is probably too high. If there's a single lot that really is calling up or they can get a barrier. It's not the end of the world. My point is that we should do it as as one and and with the help of the planning board. there the meeting is on next Monday and then we can come back to it and we come back to it with with you know just more background and insight and the last really important thing and again not saying we don't do it

but the absolute core element of progressive urban design now is to upzone around transit nodes and we have one central transit node in Montlair there and it is the Bay Street station. It's the only 7 day a week link to New York City. So, so our peer communities by which I mean Cambridge and New Berkeley and whoever else would look at us right now they're deciding whether to upzone and a lot of them are upzoning around the transit things. I'm not saying we should necessarily upzone, but to down zone would be like a big shopper and then to do it quickly without a lot of deliberation seems like a reach too far. So, let's just put it out for a meeting.

All right.

Yeah. can I um I'd also just like to ask that um there's been many times when we have um shown respect for um the council person that that does represent an area because I heard some people talking about okay so now um because you're in the board or whatever the conversation well I don't think that that that that's like a given but I do think that we have um historically when somebody is in the ward and they come in and they say well the residents in my ward and so on. So, we have given them an opportunity to do that and we tried at least it appeared to me when we were trying to work with each other that we were giving respect to, you know, the council person of of an area to represent um especially, you know, people you all are spending a great deal of time with with the residents in your area. I agree. And so I don't think that that's like something that is just farfetched when um counselor says that you know that they wish to have less less density. I can also speak as someone who was a 12year representative of the fourth board and someone today if you ask me about any density anywhere and I respect what you said I would definitely choose to downsize because I'm just not a big density person. I know that about myself. we had an opportunity to discuss um some things that were were more intricately involved in terms of people that own property and different things like that at that time. And so I realized that was a little different thing, but I I don't have a problem with voting on this at this point in time. And I think it's great when the council realizes that we have opportunities to either go along with the planning board or or say no, they didn't get it get it right this time and and make a decision of our own. I just wanted to add that um this was put on by the planning and zoning. So the memo you're looking for I don't know who get that to you and this particular

location is not Bay F Street train station that's down by Pine Street. So that's down Bfield Avenue. No that's not true. No no what I'm saying is this particular corner I'm referring to Bay Street is already built up. There's no place to put anything. There's actually no going when you're talking about urban. a patch grass that's owned by Mr. Murphy and I don't know what could possibly go there and see

the point is that the C the proposed C1 C3 zone stretches all the way down. In any case, look, there's just we're going to do the re-examination. I think we're in agreement that probably we we all talk to the residents and we what we want is to is to deliberately look at zoning as a whole. We probably and want it to fit what the normal what the middle opinion, you know, the consensus opinion of of the township is, which is probably the down zone a little bit. Like, let's do I'm sure council Williams probably over there telling me to call the vote. So, was there a movement and second on this? There was.

There was. Who was the movement?

There was a motion table. Can I make one? Sorry. Yeah, sure. No, I'm sorry. Um, council Harrison, I know you know you've said that you left it so or you you thought it was good to have um require commercial space in the bottom floor. And I'm wondering, and perhaps this can be part of her master plan conversation, but I'm wondering given sort of how the nature of retail has changed, how the nature of like and how housing is in such great need, if that's something that we should be reconsidering for some of these zones because I know in my word, especially where there's transition between um residential and commercial, you know, commercial space, that that's that's requiring that um bottom floor which you know a commercial space is not always something that people desire. So I just wanted

I talked to the chair and the vice chair and another member of the planning board over the last 20 48 hours and that is the recommendation instead the border properties buffer properties would it would be it would be just you know an optional thing to make it all residential so that it smooths the transition but we haven't did nothing in writing of right but that would be part of the yes um councelor Harris Okay. So, I I certainly think there are places I mean at 260 Park Street was the obvious example where

requiring commercial on the first floor doesn't make sense. I don't think this stretch of Avenue that really applies to. I think the other part that we shouldn't lose sight of is the real driving force for the change in the zoning was to revert back to side street star R2 and tomorrow someone could walk in with an application to build based on the redevelopment plan. It's a nice vacant lot next to the property on Hartley that was approved. It's basically same size come in and if it's deemed complete before we pass an ordinance, they get to build the duplicate of the building that was approved on Hartley. I think that's highly undesirable and I think the planning planning board recognized that when they approved building on Bartley and I don't want that part that part of this is far more important I to do it and that still leaves the need and I I don't think and I'm big on transit work for was a smart group three years and it's pushed them um and

I don't it does not mean every square inch I would not street may be bigger upper Montclair is a very active train station and I would not advocate high density development I wouldn't say oh let's zone north mountain across the street from the train station let's zone that for family I wouldn't say that I don't think that's appropriate Even though it's easy walking distance to the train station far closer to the train station that these properties only feel out here are to the main street station. It's yes in a lot of places near train stations there should be high densities only but not every single property and doing keeping the currents only six stories would be grossly destroying what is behind them on the side streets. Well, counselor, I'm glad that you said that because I was sitting over here thinking the same thing. If we're talking about transit, why does it always seem like when it's in the fourth ward, people want to talk about increasing the density in the fourth ward transit village? Let's look at Belleview AB. Let's look at like what you just called out, North Mountain Train Station. There's no increased density there and no desire, and I know this from speaking to the residents, to have increased density there. Look at what we just did in the um Guaton Plaza area. None of those residents want to have increased density. They're all transit transit villages around there. And so I have a hard time understanding why we talk about the increased density around transit villages when we're in the fourth floor. I don't see it even happening on the Walnut Street to be quite honest with you. But if we're going to do transit village increased density, we ought to start at the W Avenue train station and work our way up because it's been but this isn't just happening here. This has been happening over the years. So since we're not talking about increasing debt.

Well, you mentioned transit villages and I'm just going on excuse me downtown because I was um complimenting your honor there for bringing up the fact that we don't want increased density around every transit village and certainly we don't want it only in the fourth floor. We're not going to touch all of the other transit villages. And so I think we really ought to just consider what people want in their neighborhood. same thing they want in Upper M clear is the same thing they want down the for nobody wants you know about high density in their areas. So we ought to consider that,

right? But nobody But the point here is that I'm not saying I'm not suggesting that we upzone. I'm saying in other places, every other progressive community in America, that's the discussion is how much you're going to upzone. We're not we're downzone. And I agree with and what we No, because other people wanted to talk when we said vote. So I said, "Okay, then go ahead. You agreed with four stories. You sat there for an hour and agreed with this. I said there were other circumstances regarding the properties. These particular properties two months ago. It's not these particular properties. She's talking about along the um Bloomfield Avenue quarter up away. No, I'm

saying you agreed. You agreed with the rest of the planning board. Correct. I said there were other considerations. The people that were there that owned the properties and explained a totally different. They weren't empty, just lots waiting to be zoned. And to be quite honest with you, if it would not be a violation of our planning board regulations for me to not have a voted for it, then I would have definitely downzone it first. Any opportunity I have know that I'm going to try to do less density, less is more, plant some trees. Anyway, does anybody else want to talk? Because I would be happy to go back to roll call again. May I just clarify? Was there

certain motion? Is there a motion to table that we have to have? No, she passed a motion to pass this and there was a second and so we're doing a roll call on that. I understand. I'm just asking if there was table. No, there was a motion to pass this and then there was a second. A motion to move this and there was a second. I heard that. I had Okay. Roll call, please. Deputy Mayor Anderson. Yes. Council Bington. Yes. Council. No. Councelor Harrison. Yes. Councelor Toller. Yes. Councelor Lawren. Yes. Mayor Baskerville. Yes. May I just clarify with Miss? Yes. Please.

Will this be? Yes. Please come forward for this coming Monday. Oh, we finished. Yes. I will add this to the uh agenda for Monday. Um so they'll have the opportunity to review the referral and when it comes back for the public hearing here at the second reading, we will have to notify all of the property owners.

Okay. Just for the rapid plan, when I met with you in the office with councelor Harrison, you actually said that you've been trying to get this particular area down to this type of zoning and past administrations did not really want to do that. The master plan calls for reducing the height and down zoning. All of the properties along you were managed to do it for some of them, not all of them. So, it's well some um okay to to move along, please. And I'd like to go to the consent agenda. Please.

Thank you. I appreciate you. So, um, we have consent agenda items, please, that need to be removed. Number one and number eight. Number one, of course, the bills with number eight. Anything else, please? Count mayor, your honor. Number 10. Number 10. Number 11. 11. 10 and 11. Anyone else, please? We have 1, 8, 10, 11. Okay. Can somebody want to move um items two, three, four, five, six, seven quickly and nine before somebody wants to pull something else? I'll move that. Okay.

Wait. No, too late. It was fixed. Okay. Very good. So, there was a movement on two, three, four, five, six, seven, and uh nine. And there was a second. Yes, ma'am. Oh, wait a second. The new business is listed separately. I saw that, too. Okay. All right. Thank you. So, there's a second. Yes, ma'am. Roll call, please. Deputy Mayor Anderson. Council, yes. Council, yes. Councelor Harrison, yes. Council, I'm sorry. What do we call? This is the consent. Accept the consent. You said you wanted out. Yes. Councilor Williams.

Yes. Mayor. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Council Toller, we're going to begin with the bills list, please. Yes. Well, you had some concern concerns. Are the people that have the bills?

Yeah, I have one concern, but whereas invoices perform clear in favor of the following persons for the amount set opposite their respective name have been received and audited and found correct. Now therefore it be resolved by the council of the township of Montlair in the county of Essex that said invoices be are hereby ordered paid in a check by the finance department to the order of such persons for the amount respectively and hearing stated on the schedule here to made a part here total amount,980.

Okay. Discussion on any um items please. Yeah,

I'll move it. Um, now we're having a discussion. I'm sorry. I see Mr. Austin Ashley is here. I did not get a chance to check that second email that you sent me, sir. Um, but if you'd like to talk about sher and snow and removal, I would like to table that one. Um, I think we might have some other reasons why to table it, but you I did email you about why was it in the dedicated trust line. I am pulling it to table it, but I just need clarification as why it's there. And I'm sorry, I know you emailed me, but I didn't have a chance to read that.

Yes, that is the line where those bills are paid from. That is the dedicated trust that pays for the supplemental bill. So, this is supplemental. That's very different than just the invoice, right? That's that is what the contract okay because the last time they weren't under a dedicated trust line I can't speak for how the bill's list is prepared or I can only tell you what we how we charge that through when we do the representative.

So I have a problem with this item. This is for work that was done February 22nd, February 23rd, which was two weeks after the first snowstorm, and before the second snowstorm. I have whole issues with that, which I'll do later on when we get to 10. But my concern is when we were at the property today, there was a fair amount of debris that clearly was not picked up off of the streets. look like stuff that would have been in the back of a dump truck that wasn't removed prior to that dump truck being used picking up the snow and dumping it at Yuri Park. And I would like a determination made if it was Schwer who did that and if so they should be responsible for removing the you know demolition debris construction debris that clearly was not part of any snow removal.

Madam clerk I just want to table that check. Can you please give me the purchase number? Sure. C107 under dedicated. That's the vendor. One person is 2601518

and I'm just Well, manager Mark, am I able to talk to the CFO or Miss Rabona tomorrow? Sure. Because this purchase order, I don't know what the grand total of that purchase order was for. We just paid off of it 5003,000. How much was it for all together? I know you don't have the answer, but I'm just curious. What was the original purchase order to create for? Was it a million 800,000? The same number that we're seeing on bill. Absolutely. The 21st. Is that correct?

Yeah. So, well, the shorter one is a deeper discussion, a longer discussion. Um, that's the only question I have on the bill list tonight. Someone else has I move to amend the bill list to delete that item and otherwise approve. Second. Okay. And we have Birmingham. Yes. Council Damato. Yes. Harrison. Yes. Councelor Ter. Yes. Councelor Williams. Yes. Okay. Okay. Moving moving right along.

Yeah. I requested this to be table just to not table but to be pulled. Um I was trying to get in touch with the president of the South Business District. It's the EV chargers for the South End Municipal Parking lot. I'm just checking my phone to see if she was able to get back to me before I up. Um, I did have an email communication with Lisa Johnson. Um, no, it's okay. I'm just saying because I'm having a meeting with these business owners on April 20th and they want to talk about some other ideas for the South and I don't know where it's going to lead. I'm just asking them to table this and start next evening which will be uh the 21st. I'm meeting with them on the 20th in the evening. So, I'm just tableing it for one meeting so I can talk to the business owners um on another subject and reminder that this is on the table for the 21st and they have to give me the finance.

But I thought we already we did so it's just a change order because Well, I don't know that is this a change order? Yes. Yeah. Well, then I guess we just go ahead and approve it then, right? It's going. It's gone. I know. So, that's good. So, we're just going to go back and we're going to put that in the consent um agenda. So, but you what was your you just moved something um your honor. What was that? So, that that you pass. Okay. So, now this is the change order. Yeah, we can go ahead and vote on it. I move it. I'll mad clerk. Deputy Mayor Anderson. Council Birmingham. Yes. Councilor Damato. Yes. Councelor Harrison.

Yes. Councelor Fer. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Moving on on to number 10, please. Resolution for the council directing immediate snow removal. Okay. I handed out an ultimate resolution. I spent So, you're not moving this one? I'm moving the alternate resolution. Second here. Yes, I'll second. I want I want to give what will be a longer than I'd like explanation. Oh, no. You're getting famous for that because we're not getting these things like in a timely fashion. So even

number we asked for it.

Oh, go ahead. Um, your honor, you you have before So my original thought based on what Amy Row recommended based on the conditions of the park number of weeks ago that it was feasible given that to run a small vehicle over the top of the ice because that's what's there. you move down to say 6 in and get as much of it off as happening since that what I'll call erratic melting has occurred. So there is bare ground between piles of ice that any light equipment would have to run over repeatedly in order to remove the ice piles that remain. Um, one of the residents sent me what she thought was going to be a helpful picture of um, one of these small vehicles moving what the narrator described as ice, but clearly was closer to snow than what's out there now, which is closer to concrete than it is to snow. Um, and clearly it would have to run over bare grounded multiple times in order to remove any significant amount of the ice that remains. And I just think that that would cause far more damage to the roots. It's undesirable to leave the snow there, but it will cause much more damage removing it than will occur by letting the remaining snow melt. The revised resolution is um one we we talked I talked to our bar arborist talked to Dr. I I've been dealing with state for deal

with state foresters for many years and many meetings and I don't know you accept what they say totally at the side of me but it is clear and based on my observations that there would be significant roof damage trying to use even light vehicles going over the bare ground. I think the concern that Dr. Bowski raised was the potential for um if no remain piled up against the trunks of trees, which did not appear to be the case at Erie Clark, but may be the case at Essex and that that could damage the trunks. Normally the sun will melt the snow around the trunks just reflection of the snow sun against the snow in the trunk. Uh if that hadn't occurred you thought that should be removed by hand and that is the only if that situation exists that's the only thing the resolution is doing with doing that. It is requiring the prompt removal of the garbage. It's I see people out there picking it up and I drive by the next day and there's as much garbage as there was. I'm not saying they didn't pick it up. It's just as it's uncovered and it is terribly unsightly. Um the the rest of this is going to be a function of requiring testing. If based on the test results there's high level of chlorides that there'll be flushing. Um and the main part of this is that the um the trees be assessed and that we come up with a remediation plan based on the test results and that most importantly

we come up with a policy so this never occurs again. this was unacceptable and I emailed day one and sent repeated emails and the snow kept getting higher and putting that amount of snow in public parks is unacceptable and we need to come up with a better policy long before next winter. Madam clerk, roll call. No, no, I just may add one. Yes. finish talking about.

Okay. I just wanted to add that attorney the attorney just told me that she thinks it's very problematic. Okay. Attorney, please. The new one. I I haven't seen this one. Um there's many many issues with this what is written on here. So, what what can we do legally to make it? was there was a resolution that was already on the agenda. This particular one, I don't know if it's been published, but the wording on here is problematic. I don't want to be specific because I don't want to reveal

what is contained in here or what I what my opinion is. But also, there's I was just informed by the clerk there's no certification of funds attached for the res. Right. Well, that was a question that I've had going back and forth with your honor for for a while. So, and it also by you want to talk about process, it also didn't go through the finance committee, but I accepted this was an emergency. I accepted this as an emergency.

Let me had multiple discussions with the manager. He had already he had already authorized over time to remove the debris. Was reflecting that he recommended we put something in the resolution to do that. The reality is it's been authorized and this is just giving the council's blessing to what the manager verified funding with the chief financial officer. Did that happen? I'm just trying to find out is that that's what happened. I I spoke with the chief financial officer. I also spoke with Austin Ashley about authorizing overtime.

Okay. And so they they verify that we have the 20,000 funds coming from where? from the snow trust from the snow trust. So that's that we have the money. Do you if I can ask the manager because I know the dispute was over let's not disturb but the rest of it it's the administration is is on board with the mediation and testing and in other words like we don't need to pass a resolution if the administration is on board with something why force something that's already

well because this is going to move forward I think and it's good to have because then people that may come after us we I don't know. The public is massively concerned about what the look like and their perception is we're sitting here doing nothing. Sorry, Council Birmingham. Go ahead.

All right. So, first I just wanted to say council Birmingham had, you know, was with myself and councelor Harrison. I don't know why her name didn't make it onto this agenda. So, I'm just putting that on the record and for the people at home. The other thing is this has to be a resolution of some sort. This council is getting yelled at for act that we did not do. It's just that simple and something has to be put in place today to ensure that we get this snow out.

Um this is perfect. I think this work uh myself, councelor Birmingham, councelor Harrison, we met with Ashley manager, forgot who else was on the zoom and then the three of us met later on. Um, we all agree that we have to have a deep dive into snow removal going on in this town. Uh, plan of action. We need to figure out where our trucks are, our vendors are, when it snows, who's doing what area. There's a whole bunch of things that came out of a zoom. So, I'm just saying that this is the start of putting some guard rails in place for the future, okay? Because we really don't understand how we got here. We should not have gotten here with a iceb in either park. And Mr. Mayor, were you able to get the report that I asked for from Mr. Parks and Red? Because we need to know which parks will be open and which ones will be

I I asked for it. I don't have it. That was I think really Well, we were concerned about summer programs happening this summer if the soil and things are not going to be ready because the other part of that is we believe I think Mountainside and Wayne are having construction work done. So now our parks for people to use and summer programs are very very limited. So that's why we were trying to Well, Essex has a bunch of snow in it right now. So that's why we needed the report so we can have a gander at what we're looking at parkwise for the summer. Yes. Um Council Williams.

So I don't think we should vote on this, but if it's going to come up for a vote, I'm going to vote no. And the reason being here is, you know, this was just put in front of us and we're we're always told to be diligent and things of that nature. I was going to build note for this in the beginning, not because of the spirit of it. I went by Essex and area and it looks awful and it probably wasn't the best place to put the snow and the trash there. I'm sure that the town was already working on removing the trash, but my original problem here was there was no cost in here and there was no location where snow was going to be moved. I I see in subsequent

revisions there is a cost associated with a C person was 50 then it dropped down to 20 and things of that nature and to be honest with you I haven't really had an opportunity to read this. who just got this today and I don't I don't I don't think that we I mean we're we're always talking looking at line items and and stuff like that. I mean this is $20,000 and and I didn't even read it. I'd like to um just respond to you because I I wholeheartedly agree what you're saying and when I first got the other 50 thou could be 5,000 could be 50,000 I was ast,000 or even $5,000 there's a there's a process but then you know I understand this was an emergency but still the fact that we didn't know what we're talking about between 5,000 and 15,000. There's no way I can vote on that because it's just a huge thing. Then I asked for a line item budget. I said then, you know, do like counselor Toller likes to do. I want line item everything and tell me if we're going to 50,000. Tell me what we're spending the 50,000. I got nothing. So, I was with you. I was going to vote no. Tonight I see this and this pretty much is discussing you know stuff that that we already read about you know the different studies and everything. So page one and page two pretty much were already there from before that's not a change and now the fact that I see and I and I heard from our manager that he has discussed with the appropriate people that they're going to get the $20,000 out of the storm fund vector the snow fund. Um then I feel very comfortable that we verified that yes the process was totally flowed. We didn't go to finance. We didn't go to human services because definitely plowing snow and that type of thing. Yeah. We go under the park and recre human services. But this

was an emergency. So I personally feel comfortable now that we know where the money's coming from and we're just saying what we're going to do in the future and make sure we clean it up. It can't get any easier than that. Our town council just said that I mean I don't know what I was gonna ask. Okay. Our town council said that it's problematic. So why she said she won't say why. So I I I know but if if the town council says that it's problematic, why will we just go and vote on it anyway?

We won't we're going to listen to our manager. We need to get the snow up. It's killing the trees. I mean, is it a situ? So, manager, go ahead. If the town attorney has a concern, perhaps we could adjourn into uh executive session to discuss the concerns. Yes. I'd like to make a motion that we move into executive session for the purposes of what do we call this purposes? Should we Can I just ask the rest of the meeting though? And like and then like I don't know, could this be the last thing and then Start. I did start. Councelor Fer want to withdraw her motion.

No, we're going to do everything else. Yeah, I'm happy to withdraw my motion so that we can hear from the public. Okay. All right. So, now we are then. Okay. We're on 11. 11. Tree King. Um, somebody wanted to pull tree number 11, please. Council member who wanted to talk about number 11.

The I have the same concern I had last time of the tree trimming only the other company, not King. It's listed. Who are we hiring to do tree? It would just be tree. So I don't know the uh the bid for the Morris County co-op lists an alternate. Um I don't know if that will also need to be named in that or if it's just okay to have tree isn't listed anyway in doing tree trimming on you got

correct. It was awarded to the other would have to be amended in order to award for tree trimming but for removals and stump grindings that would be treated. Then the resolution needs to be amended. What about I'm sorry. What about

I heard you. I would recommend adding the the other contract any other vendor in order to utilize Morris County Co-op than $250 per hour for May I suggest we just delete trimming for this another resolution for the alternate forming. Okay, might be easier. So

I'm gonna move to amend there two place to amend the ribbon. So the title deletes the word trimming and the first square deletes um pruning and

someone needs a second. Mayor Anderson Birmingham. Yes. Yes. Harrison. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you.

We have new on business resolutions. Um someone want to take number 12. Resolution appointing Peter C. George to position of chief financial officer and director of the department of finance uh township. Oh, the township manager bringing this. So, I move this discussion. This is the gentleman that we interviewed the other day. Madam clerk, please. Deputy Mayor Anderson. Yes. Council Birmingham. Yes.

Councelor Tomato. Yes. Council Harrison. Yes. Councelor Fer. No. Councelor Williams. Yes. Mayor B. Yes. Thank you. Number 13. Number 15. Resolution awarding award of emergency contract to Mark Vero. Second. It was a revised resolution handed out. So Okay. Was that was this one? Yes. Okay. Yes.

Previously not 80,000 and change to 77,000 $337. Thank you. And again, this is a company that we're paying to go pick up salt that we're paying for. Is that correct? Yes. The supplemental truck. Yes. And we don't have any trucks in town that can go pick up our $51,000 worth of soft. We got to pay this guy 77 to go. We do not have the truck. Roll call, please. Yes. Can I Anderson? Yes. Thank you. Council, yes. Harris,

yes. Council, yes. Council Williams. Yes. Mayor. Yes. Thank you. Number 14, please. Can I read it? I'm sorry. resolution authorizing notice of intent intention to issue one new theater exception uh plenary retail consumption license in accordance with NJSA uh 331 uh 1908 by the historical method pursuant to NJSA 31 191 and 192 second discussion

what What's the location? This is to authorize us so we can do the license, right? Did it come at the request of the nonprofit or just to fill it out like what's it? It came from the the request of I'm sorry. I didn't do a memo. memo. No memo. Okay, please do your answer.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Number 15 is a resolution of the council of Montair authorizing the pack refund for tax courts of New Jersey. Order and final judgment block 3201 lot 4 and I so move second discussion mayor yes yes yes thank you

all right so then we're going to come back to sun and we're going to come No, we're going to go into the Yeah, he does. But no, we're going to go into executive first and then come back and talk about that.

We're not going to vote on anything the sidewalk thing. I just want to open the conversation and there's not, you know, public comment. We actually have some Mr. Okay, that'll be great. We'll have time to do that. You want you want to I want to go into executive session and then I want to do this afterward. Anybody wants to stay like to make a motion that we adjourn into the executive session for the purposes of legal advice? legal advice.

I would move it. Okay. Look, I'm just

I'd like to make a motion that we exit the executive session, please, and go into a regular session of an executive. I'd like to call on council Harrison. Okay. I'd like to call on council Birmingham. Um, do I explain first or I just say give it give it what you think? You can make a motion and I explain why. Okay. I would like to make a motion to table the resolution. Second.

Um, I would like to now have a short opportunity to explain why we are tableabling the resolution or I am proposing for a vote to table the resolution based on advice of our municipal attorney. Um, I do I think we all want to make clear that we understand this um situation is troubling. I I I think I've heard the word heartbreaking, troubling. It is very distressing and mayor, I believe you know this term in medicine. We would call this a sentinel event.

Absolutely. And a sentinel event and and counselor help I think you were describing this. A sentinel event sentinel event is a serious unexpected occurrence that signals a systemic problem that needs serious investigation and corrective action.

I think we all agree that this is something that we never want to have happen again. We want and we want to decom commit I think to the community the protection of our green faces in the future. Um this and just by tableabling this resolution it does not delay the action that h we have discussed with the manager our staff outside experts. does not delay in any way the plan. Um and so we will come back at our next meeting with a resolution um a relevant resolution with policy um for the relevant to this situation. But for this evening, I propose to table again with full recognition that we have a plan in place. We will be releasing more information to the public within the next days come very soon including detailed information on um the plan and the evidence behind that plan. Um so I'm going to stop talking now and I again I I motion to table and I believe

can I mayor second and I just copy and paste everything Birmingham has said. Um, I don't know if it's appropriate if you can ask the manager to share anything with us at this point in time if he'd like to. Um, if not like to share, we will call this discussion. Um, if anyone just having discussion, there was a movement. There was a second.

Um, so um, I agree with everything that was said. uh we will work with the Department of Community Services, Department of Sustainability to put together a plan that I think we can all be proud of and and I I think everybody agrees uh this can never happen again and and we can and will do better. So, thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Mayor Anderson, yes. Council Birmingham, yes. Councelor Gamato, yes. Councilor Harrison, no. Councelor Toler, yes. Council Williams,

yes. Mayor Baskerville. Yes. Thank you. Okay. And um for the the final thing on our agenda tonight is um Council Damato has a discussion that's here on the proposed sidewalk street dated amendment.

So uh I don't know if everybody got to read the amendments. This is not has not been in the law of parking. So it did not go to the um published agenda and which was purposeful just because we need to have initial discussions about it and I would just say it's 11:20 if people do not feel like they want to have the discussion right now but instead would would uh just as we're all working and work hard on this uh topic that if everybody would spend some time over the next few weeks digging in, maybe talking to their constituents, you know, reading this, maybe looking at some of the examples of other work that's being done.

I would also share some feedback that I've gotten since from some people. Um, uh, we could have a couple of words about it now or I I I just want to let you guys know that I'm I'm fine if you wanted to not continue at 11:20. You're you were the co.

First of all, I just like to thank you for your hard work on this and um, let you know how much appreciated. I know when we first started this out long time ago, you and I both were doing this and then things shifted as they often do and different people I guess councelor Harrison came in on on the end now with you and you created something. So I'd like to thank you and whoever else has worked this along the way. I'd also like to make a motion that we adjourn for the evening and that we do, you know, come back and and have a full discussion, put it up higher and just people have an opportunity because I haven't even seen all the pages that you have are talking about there yet. But um since you're you're fine with that, I would like to make

it's not it's a page and a we should be fresh when we're talking about it. But let us please let's let's and I sent you an email already on that.

All we got to do is get a second. Okay. Okay. Um, man, please do the roll call. Deputy Mayor Anderson, this is Council Birming. Council Damato. Yes. Council Harrison. Yes. Councilman. Yes. Council Williams. basketball. Thank you.

Okay, I'm ready.

You know, very aggressive, right? It it it is getting more and more aggressive every meeting. Yes, she is. The battle.