Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Welcome to the pre-meeting of the Newark Municipal Council on Tuesday, July 14. Council President, Council Members, we need to start on page 58 because we have an appointment. Item 8A is an appointment to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Advisory Commission. Is Mr. Paul Aponte-Familia Jr. here? Mr. Ponte?

I don't see him. He's not here. Not here. On vacation.

Okay.

On vacation.

Not appearing. Council President, Council Members, we are on page three of the agenda, item five, reports and recommendations of city officers, boards, and commissions.

Okay. Any questions? If there are none, continue.

ORDINANCES ON PUBLIC HEARING, SECOND READING, AND FINAL PASSAGE. 6P-SFA IS AN ORDINANCE RATIFYING AND AUTHORIZING A TEN-YEAR EXTENSION TO THE TAX ABATEMENT GRANTED TO CLARIMONT-NEWARK URBAN RENEWAL LLC FOR A PROJECT TO UNDERTAKE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE FBI BUILDING.

ANY QUESTIONS? SEEING NONE, CONTINUE.

B in ordinance amending special improvement districts to amend various sections, increasing the administrative fee retained by the city tax collector from 1% to 2%. Any questions?

Seeing none, continue.

C is an ordinance granting a 20-year tax abatement to 452 South Orange Avenue Urban Renewal LLC for a project located in the West Ward to construct a five-story mixed-use building consisting of 34 residential units, 27 market rate, and seven affordable. Sponsored by Councilman Kelly, second by Councilman Council.

Any questions?

I just have one quick question. Moving through these ordinances, we need to seriously reconsider the AMI that the city has put out. I love that we're building things, but the average NORCA cannot get into these units when the income is starting at $89,500. Um, I don't know how we do that, but I will be introducing something through motions tomorrow, but we have to change that because there are too many people being evicted from North housing authority that are allegedly low income and even families moving forward. children coming out of the family's home, trying to leave before they get 40. It's impossible because we're not making that income level. So I would love for us to adjust majorly the AMI that we are requiring for tenants to get into these new buildings.

E is an ordinance granting a 25-year tax abatement to Concierge Homes Urban Renewal LLC for a project located in the North Ward to construct a new five-story residential building with 65 residential units consisting of 52 market rate and 13 affordable. My apologies. I skipped D. My apologies. D is an ordinance granting a 20-year tax abatement to 518 South 16th Street Urban Renewal LLC for a project located in the West Ward to construct a new low-rise multifamily building with 20 residential units and 16 market rate units. for rental affordable units as well. Sponsored by Councilman Kelly, second by Councilwoman Scott-Roundtree. Any questions?

Seeing none, continue.

Now E, an ordinance granting a 25 year tax abatement to Concierge Homes Urban Renewal LLC for a project located in the North Ward to construct a new five story residential building with 65 residential unit consisting of 52 market rate and 13 affordable units.

Councilman, do you want to sponsor?

Sure, Councilman. I'll second.

Sponsored and seconded by Councilman Rauchert, by Ramos, over, continue.

F is an ordinance amending stopping, standing, and parking by adding a new section entitled Limitation on Parking of Motor Vehicles by Certain Commercial Establishments, sponsored by Councilman Ramos, seconded by Councilman Silva.

Any questions? Seeing none, continue.

G is an ordinance authorizing amendments to the bylaws of InvestNORC.

Any questions? No questions.

Sorry, Mr. President. Yes, Councilman. I was going to say, I believe at the last meeting we were asking for a list of the amendments and what they are, and I don't think we've gotten that. Can we know that?

I didn't get it. Councilor Ramos?

Yeah, Mr. President, it's not about this ordinance. It's about the previous one. Would it be possible for the clerk's office to make sure that the police division sends out these various ordinances that we've approved over the last six months to the different precinct captains? Because... Last week we had our second precinct monthly meeting and the captains are not aware that some of these ordinances have been passed regarding restricting parking on lawns. The ordinance that Councilman Silva recently sponsored about commercial vehicles. I think it's important that besides us taking action that the individuals who are tasked with enforcing these ordinances are well aware that this is now law so that they have those tools when they go out and help improve some of the quality of life issues that the residents are concerned with. Councilor Misselva.

Yeah, just for the BA, last month when we passed those ordinances regarding commercial vehicles, we sat down with the chief judge and the chief prosecutor and I brought in North Police and the chief judge had mentioned to possibly create some type of committee that we would meet once a month from the council to the police, to the courts, to make sure that we're all on the same page as Councilman Ramos was saying.

Good morning, Eric Pennington, business administrator. I certainly understand the intent of what it is you want to do, but it'd be inappropriate for the chief judge and police to have a meeting about the prosecution of claims without having a public defender and administration be present. And I generally think that that would not be the appropriate approach. I'm happy to talk to you about what the, uh, appropriate way would be to go i'm a little surprised chief judge didn't let me know that she was having these meetings and i would have made myself available to attend and likely would have suggested a an alternate route i think back to councilman ramos's point about making sure that The police captains in the particular precincts are aware. We certainly should have that done. I don't know if the last legislation that Councilman Silva sponsored that went through has gone through the 20-day waiting period. I think it has, but we have to have the 20-day waiting period before it comes to law, and then we can send that information out, and we should do so. We'll follow up on that and make sure. On the court one, hopefully you and I can talk about that a little bit further outside of this, maybe even in an executive session.

It was just more for them to, uh, cause sometimes they don't get the information from here and cases get dismissed and that's what was happening. Uh, and so it was just for us to all be on the same page. That's all it was. There was no ongoing meetings. It was just one meeting just to make sure that everybody was on the same page regarding whenever the commercial vehicles or another ordinance that were passing, um, comes in front of them. They're aware of what the new ordinance changes.

Yeah, I think the intention is absolutely fine. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I don't want there to be a perception that there is inappropriate influence from the legislative body on the court. But I would like to talk to you about that in perhaps an executive session. Councilor Ramos.

Yeah, and I think the clerk's office should take an active role in just making sure that, you know, I've sponsored a number of ordinances that deal with quality of life issues. I think it's great that we can order the council, but You know, it's important that the precinct level, on the police side, know that these ordinances exist because those complaints do come up. And Councilman Quintana has some of his staff there. And, you know, we try the best we can to legislate to address some of the issues that the residents bring up. But the enforcement is key. And for them to know that we're, you know, those issues are not being taken lightly.

That's fine. Can I have the captain address that? Yeah.

Good morning, Council President, Council Members, Captain James George, on behalf of the Department of Public Safety. I can assure you the last two legislative changes that were made, there was memorandum put out to all police division users of our power DMS system that those changes took place, what they entailed. I wrote those things myself. They were distributed. So maybe they just might be remiss of those notifications that went out. But I'll double check to make sure that everything that's current right now, anything that maybe I've missed. But those notifications are sent out that there is a feedback loop there.

Madam Clerk, as noted by Councilor Ramos, the correspondence to the Department of Public Safety regarding his concerns.

Yeah, Council President. So in light of what Councilor Ramos stated, I don't think that the argument should be if the information went out, i think it should be what is the data behind it uh of all of the the ordinance passed what is the execution if it's happening if you can you know forward that information uh to the council because there were several ordinances that went out about the commercial vehicle vehicles that are parking now on sidewalks and grass and you know the enforcement of basic quality of life issues, what is the parameters and significance behind making sure that those things are attended to, and either other ordinance that was passed in the past, like the clear zone ordinance, like where we would that, how many people have been ticketed, to move away from these commercial corridors with the uptick in there like what does the data look like and we collect data about everything else in the police department um and we would just love to know what that data looks like about quality of life issues in preparation for the uh some of the ordinance changes we look back in that data i can get you updated data to see what enforcement looks like after the changes were made yeah appreciate it thank you jenny

H is an ordinance establishing the accessory dwelling unit assistance program and authorizing the use of federal pro housing grant funds.

Any questions?

Yeah, Mr.

Chair.

So I just want to make sure that when we're doing the presentations that we are in alignment with the messaging. When we talked previously about the ADUs and the possible grant to assist and to help individuals that are looking to go through the process, because there still is a process of making sure that you can build an additional dwelling unit in your R1 zone. that we are not talking about helping those who've already offended in the wrong manner. And I think we need to be clear about that, that if anyone has already done something illegally, they should be fine and they should not be able to go into a pool to look for support. to be able to do that. And so it's important because as we go out and have these kind of community conversations, we want to make sure that the messaging is clear to residents so they're not confused about what can happen and what should happen.

that's exactly to my point there have been several presentations done and the community doesn't even know what they're coming to the meeting for because they don't understand what it is um i think that this company needs to come before us and do a presentation if they already have a newcomer i'm going to ask them to come back the second thing i'm going to say is as we're going to allow people to build on their property We better understand that's going to cause additional parking issues. But you're talking about putting another structure. And every time we put a structure, a building, there's at least two cars to everything we put there. And I understand where we have to tell people, stop parking on the lawn, get all of that. But the parking in this city, is atrocious. People have nowhere to park. The people that work in the daytime, when they come home, there's nothing there. The people that leave at night coming home, and I know that's not the issue here, but we are now talking about putting more units on people's property. And there are homeowners that may do that for their college student when they come home, et cetera, et cetera. But we all know that the LLC boys, as they begin to put this stuff on here, this is about getting bodies in that unit. And it'll be a one bedroom and they'll have five people in there. And all five of them will have a car, a truck, an almost commercial truck. And that will need to be absorbed on the streets. So I want us to be cautious just because we think this is something good. We got enough empty units out here. that we don't need to be rushing into letting people put another house because they got a space with the garages i just think that we need to pull back and and i know you probably already don't went through you went and i knew but i'm just telling you this is not a good thing because you're talking about more traffic more parking more bodies more garbage pickup are we considering that when we already having issues that we have now deputy mayor deputy mayor

Good morning, Council President, Council Members, Alison Ladd, Director of Economic and Housing Development. And I wanted to give a little bit of background on the Accessory Dwelling Unit Program. First, the Mayor and the Council approved the ability to create ADUs when we voted on the Master Plan and then the Newark Land Use and Zoning Ordinance. In that approval, all requests for creating an ADU had to be approved by the central planning board. Also had to meet about a dozen or more criteria regarding bulk standards and height issues and ensuring that the lot size was appropriate. In addition, if the site is in a historic district, the landmarks and historic is also required to approve the application prior to it going to Central Planning Board. Second, the effort that we have before you today is to provide funding to compliant homeowners who want to build an ADU in their backyard. So this is not about the non-compliant ones. This is about someone new. So say, you know, I have a property in the West Ward and I want to build an ADU. They have to come into planning and zoning office, submit an application, have it reviewed by the planning board before it can even be considered as legal and able to be constructed. Second, what we were doing is designing a program using funding, which is these dollars we received competitively from HUD a few years back called Pro Housing. And what we want to do is make sure those units are affordable. So you not only can create an ADU, but then second, if you apply for these funds, then you're able to create an ADU with affordability requirements. And so what we did over the last couple of weeks is we held some community meetings. The meetings were held in the South, West, and North Ward because that's where the R1 zones are. There are no R1 zones in the East. or in the central ward. So I'm happy to today send you the slide deck that we prepared and that we provided to the community. I believe it's posted on the website and I'm also willing to answer any questions now or later. We agree in closing that the illegal ADUs should not exist. The mayor has been firm about that as well. I know he's talking to the engineering department about it. We've been on a few community walks and we've actually seen the illegal ADUs where we've had to close them down. And so I just want you to convey that we know there are some that are done improperly and shouldn't exist. Those are not what we're saying are eligible. What we're saying is any new application.

Okay. Two quick questions, if I can. Councilwoman?

I'm sorry, Council President. Yes.

Are we causing, making, along with the fines, the illegal ADUs to be taken down? And then the second question is, how much money are we giving to the homeowners to put the ADUs up?

sure um so i will defer to engineering about any fees and fines because that's a separate department and i'm sorry i just i know that that it's in the works and maybe the director can answer that question but i'll say second what we're offering is up to forty thousand dollars um that uh would be eligible for a homeowner to access the money to create an affordable accessory dwelling unit

Mr. President. Yes.

Thank you, Mr. President. Deputy Mayor, do we know what the cost is to construct a legal ADU, to go through the planning board approval process, the design work, sewer connection? Do we have an idea of what it costs to build one of these legally?

Council President to the question asked, I would say no ADUs that exist today are legal. If there's an ADU that exists today, it is illegal construction.

But has your department done an assessment of what it would cost for a property owner to build one of these legally?

Oh, and I just wanted to say that so you knew we didn't have any legal ones. The second part is, is that no, we didn't do an analysis, but we can. Because out of curiosity, because we did check to see if anyone filed a permit for the ADU and no one has filed and no one has requested the ability to so the ones that exist today should not exist.

And there's criteria, right, on the grant, meaning that the ADU has to be affordable. Are those criteria going to be part of the agreement with the grant that they're receiving from the city?

Yes, Council President, yes, to Council Member Ramos's question. Any person who, homeowner, who applies to the program will, like similarly to like the Live Newark program or the Facade program, they'll have to sign an agreement with the city for an affordability period based upon the program design. So yes, they will have to execute an agreement and it will be recorded against the property so that ultimately that it'll run with the land. And so they'll have to, if they sell the property, the next owner would have to assume the same affordability requirements.

Councilwoman Roundtree.

Yes. Also, because I've been to all the presentations, I just want you to also put on the record that these funds are limited. I mean, this is not an on and going for the next 20 year availability based on the grants that are the funding. That's available. That's number one. So you can explain that to the public. And the second thing, I think it would be a little probably difficult to you probably give an overall assessment. But based on the materials that are used to build the ADU, we'll be able to really give an honest assessment of what it would cost to build an ADU. I mean, unless you talk to somebody that's done the illegal ones, and then they're not all quality material, they're not all built with the proper materials. And I know you said that they do have to be approved, but again, the funding's limited. And in order to give us an assessment of costs, a contractor would probably have to, based on the materials used, to build a one-bedroom because it's just going to include one bedroom, similar to a studio, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? They can't build a two-bedroom house as an ADU. There's requirements for that as well. Am I correct? Yes.

YES, YOU ARE, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, COUNCIL MEMBER ROUND TWO'S QUESTIONS. SO A COUPLE THINGS. SO YES, THE FUNDS ARE LIMITED. SOME MAY REMEMBER WE GOT $4 MILLION COMPETITIVELY A FEW YEARS BACK. A PORTION OF THAT IS USED FOR THIS PROGRAM. OUR GOAL WAS TO CREATE THE ABILITY TO DO IT BY ZONING AND THEN NOW HELP WITH THE FUNDING SO THAT WE CAN HAVE MORE AFFORDABLE UNITS. Second, there definitely are requirements that have to follow for the Central Planning Board and our zoning ordinance. And then in addition, I know Council Member Jackson asked about parking. You cannot build an ADU without an additional parking space. You have to have parking available so that people cannot have to park on the street.

Okay, so you're saying, so they have to park on the property? Correct. Okay, which would be the driveway? Yes. So homes that don't have a driveway, we don't have to worry about?

Likely, yes, ma'am, unless they decide to add a driveway in their site plan. But correct. Okay, there wasn't one already in existence, then they would not be eligible. But if they were going to modify their site plan to include a driveway, or the ADU, then it would go through the review.

Okay. And one last thing is there a height requirement? So could they do a one bedroom, one bedroom?

Oh, so, um, yes, I understand the question council president. Um, the question is, uh, there is a height limitation. Um, and I will, I believe it's 20 feet, but I will double check and send it to you, but it's not meant to be, um, taller than a regular standard single family house. It's supposed to be the similar size.

So then it's possible if I have a one family, three floors, I could put a double floor. Am I correct or incorrect?

So I understand. So council president, the idea around the ADU is either like an addition, like on the side of your unit. The other idea is to build a garage and they have carriage houses. I know that some are, have housing opportunities there. I think the other idea is to build above a garage. So those are really the thinking behind it, not to build on top of a roof.

Okay.

OF A HOUSE.

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

THANK YOU. YES, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, THE BUSINESS ADMINISTRATOR ASKED ME TO TOUCH ON THE INCOME DISCUSSION THAT WAS PREVIOUS. IF YOU WOULD GIVE ME ANOTHER MOMENT. YES. SO THE MAYOR HAS TALKED WITH US ABOUT HOW TO MODIFY THE INCOME TO BE NEWARK'S INCOME. So if we look at it, we know that the Essex County median income is about $138,400. We also know that in Newark, our median income based on the last census is about $58,000. So what we're looking at is redefining the income and we are preparing for legislation to come forward to the council in which the mayor will be speaking with you about that. But he agrees that we need to look at that as well.

just one quick point when we're looking at that can we please look at the income of those that work in the city and work for the city and see if that 58 000 is even uh plausible because i don't think our dpw guys our clerical staff um many people are not at the 58 000. um you know i don't know want to shine a negative light but that's the purpose of um my bringing that to the attention today because i know that every phone call that every council person and even those non-council is housing affordability I don't use affordability anymore because we got lost in that. We should be continuing to stay low income because unfortunately, that's the community that we live in. And until we get there, I want first-time officers, first-time firefighters, first-time DPW workers who are not making... 25,000 to be able to get into these units, to bring something substantial into their home and stay in that unit. But if I don't have it where it's meeting them, then I'm going to continue to have people couch surfing that don't get counted in the homeless numbers because they can stay on my couch, Councilman Cortana. et cetera, other family members in our homes that aren't counted in this homeless number when they really are because they don't meet the criteria. And we really, you know, that's going to be something, you know, that I'm pushing for us to do better with is to start this at 89.5 like we did. We left the whole city almost out of that affordability process. And I think with the vacant units that we have across the city that are allegedly affordable, we need to do better.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Latt. And this is something that I've been talking about actually for the past two years, even before I was elected a council person. I would just want to ask if we could double check the numbers for the median income for Newark, because the Department of Labor, I believe, has the number closer to 46,000 than 58. But I want to double check that just to make sure that we're looking at the actual Newark municipality, because sometimes even though You're talking about SS County and they do the region, but sometimes they do it and seasonal. And so that seasonal number may be a little higher. So if we could just double check that median income for Newark, because I think Department of Labor has it at 46, closer to 46,000.

No problem.

It was noted by Councilwoman Bay. Madam Clerk.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Resolutions. 7R1A through E are temporary emergency appropriations. A is for Broadway Park. B is for workforce investment opportunity. C is for the operating expenses. D is for women's health. And E is for the summer youth employment program.

Mr. President. Yes, Councilor Ramos. I'd like to move the Broadway Park item. I'd like to stop a second.

Thank you. I HAVE QUESTIONS ON B. COUNCILMAN BAY AND THEN JACKSON.

YES, I WANTED TO MOVE ON B AND C AS WELL.

I'LL SECOND. NO, MOVE ON TO SECOND. OF COURSE.

THE STEP CHILD. QUESTIONS? I see that we're talking about $6.5 million in the WIOA program. I'd like to know how many youth we have engaged, how many adults we have engaged, and how many dislocated workers we have engaged. And are these dollars enough to run the programs effectively? And are we having a... DECENT TRACK RECORD WITH PLACEMENT ONCE TRAININGS ARE DONE. DOES ANY OF THIS MONEY IN B, YOUTH, GO TO THE SUMMER YOUTH PROGRAM? JUST WANTED TO KNOW, DOES ANY OF THOSE DOLLARS COVER THE YEAR ROUND YOUTH PROGRAM? AND THEN I'LL GO TO C.

Council President, Council Members, Karen Gaylord, Executive Director for the Newark Workforce Development Board. I think the first, there are two different questions here. One is the WIOA, and the other one is about summer youth employment. I just want to clear that up. So for sure, The WIOA funding is a cut from last year's funding, but last year's funding allocation was a considerable increase over the prior year. We fought for that increase because in the prior year, we saw a surge in training coming out of COVID, and it took us about a year to get the Department of Labor to catch up with us on that. and they increased the allocation to match that surge that we saw. So we're now leveling back to closer to where we were two years prior. But a cut is a cut at a time when we need more because people are losing their jobs and we need to be able to respond to that. People want to pivot to a new economy, to new jobs and opportunities, and we need the funding to help us with that. So to answer your question, no, it's not enough. We're looking for alternate sources of funding through the Department of Labor for strategic opportunities in tech, in construction, in healthcare, in green infrastructure, among others, but those are the primary ones that we're taking a look at. and we'll keep doing that for as long as we can and we're very fortunate to have some new grant resources here in the city to help us pursue non-federal non-state non-governmental funding as well so we're moving in every direction we can to increase funding especially for training our emphasis is on employment so where we can use our funds to help people get started with employment we've made already significant investments in training we want to use funds to give people a chance at employment first so that employers can look at them realize their skills and talent and hopefully hire them permanently with regard to summer youth employment uh we and everybody in the state took a severe cut when summer youth employment was announced this year in particular the work experience program thanks to the mayor and an appeal that he made to the governor. Not only did we have most of our funding restored, not all of it, but most of it, but the rest of the state who received youth employment also saw their funding restored as a result of our mayor's appeal to the governor on that. So this request today is to allow us to insert THE FUNDING THAT WAS RESTORED AFTER WE ALREADY ACCEPTED THE FUNDS WERE GIVEN TO US ORIGINALLY.

JUST ONE MORE THING IF I COULD. IN TERMS OF THE YOUTH AND ADULT TRAINING, WE HAVE CONTINUAL PIPELINE, GASLINE, INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES HERE. I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S POSSIBLE TO PARTNER. I'M NOT ALL THE WAY HAPPY WITH PSNG. if it's possible to partner with the PSE&G and others to start a pipe replacement program to train our children and our young adults and our adults like myself, 25 and over, amen, to train in that so that we don't have to continually outsource and always go to private companies for these things. We'll have folks that are from the city, from maybe a county program with Essex County Vocational to do that because I would like to see our children grandchildren have that story to say i replaced the let the not the water main pipes the sewer main pipes on south orange avenue springfield avenue i think we need to get our workforces ready for that so we don't have to keep on calling on companies who don't always have our best interests at heart we're not down there watching to make sure that all the pipes are put in at the right time we not necessarily have the personnel to make sure that when they're out there i remember being very involved when we had the water main break on 19th Avenue and having to challenge Montana because I didn't see any new pipes out there. So what are you doing? You're going down there patching. No, if we have severe water main breaks, and we had a lot, and yes, we know the system is old, but there's times now for us to start where we can in these contracts, forcing new pipes to be put in versus the continual welding of those pipes. So I would just... you know i've been to the new office you have done a phenomenal job there's no question i'm not questioning you at all i just wanted to know if you needed some more money so that's my job now we'll go out and go fund maybe to your office i don't know is that legal out mr pennington is that legal to go fund to the workforce office you let me know after mr stewart stop shaking your head sir you can have some kind of fundraiser But I'm laughingly but seriously to try to get some funds and to do some more training programs and try to get our people exposed to what's going on and maybe partner with. I know some of the unions did come in, but I think we need to expand that and reach out to more to get into those electricians. People always have work done at their homes. I think we could create something where we could have our people ready to create these companies to do that electrical work, that carpentry work and get some of the young men out there, the 25 year olds like myself who are master masons, et cetera, to come in, possibly volunteer until we get some more money. There you go. And other stuff.

Great question. We need all the friends we can get and we for sure are never going to be exhausted looking for partners. PSE&G is a target of that, absolutely. But in terms of water department, There's a great program already with New Jersey Water working in collaboration with Essex County College. They have produced some graduates in their pre-apprenticeship program for the water department. And one of the things that we aim to do is try and place some of those pre-apprentices from Newark who've already been identified by us in apprenticeship opportunities with the city and others. In terms of construction, you hit a really important area for us because there's a lot of construction in and around Newark, more than any place else in the state. So we are working with the Carpenters, with IBEW. We need people in electrical, um opportunities and welding which is probably the highest paid position aside from operator engineers anywhere we need our people um getting those opportunities so yes we're very focused on it thank you thank you mr mr president yeah just a couple questions one on this and one on a different item um you does your office provide reports of job placements I'm sorry, what kind of placements?

Job placements, like going through the program and then what?

Yes.

Can we receive copies of those so we can kind of get an understanding of how well the program is working?

Absolutely.

Thank you. And I have another question, not on a different item. This is on actually 7R1D. This is for the health department. the 701d talks about the its purpose is to improve the health outcomes of women and i just wanted to get a better understanding of what that means how to improve how are you going to improve what are the benchmarks kpi and whatever the

Thank you for the question. My name is Katelyn Allsburg, Director for the Department of Health. The $109,000 that we are receiving from the state is going to be used to expand our women health practice. The dollars itself will be used to purchase equipment, supplies that support the care and our prenatal program and OBGYN services that we provide to the community.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And I do have one. One more. Just on safe, because it's the time. Um, where do I start? Um, we are in the budget season. I am. not understanding why we are still continuing to do these month-to-month budget emergency appropriation i don't understand it um i think that the budget breakdown that i see um and unfortunately couldn't get this yesterday to have those line items i just i'm very concerned um with the 68 million dollars to be allocated for the month of july um I'M WAITING FOR THE BREAKDOWN TO SEE WHAT THAT'S COVERING BECAUSE I KNOW THAT'S FOR THE BUDGET AS WELL AS TO COVER THE BUDGET IN THE WATER DEPARTMENT. BUT I'M VERY CONCERNED WITH THAT AS I HAVE LOOKED AT THE PREVIOUS THINGS WITH ALL OF THE ITEMS THAT ARE LISTED UNDER REGULAR AND THEN THE THINGS THAT ARE MISCELLANEOUS AND OR UNCLASSIFIED. So I have a very serious concern. I'm not in favor. I understand you guys have to do what you have to do, but I think this is very irresponsible of us to keep allocating millions and millions of dollars to cover the city budget month after month. I think this is how I know this is how we get into the trouble that we are. Mr. Pennington, I know you're going to explain to me why we need to do this, but I just have to express my opposition to this being continually done. I think we need to curve back and I think we need to identify the things that are not identified. I need to know if a million dollars is on paperclips, paper, copy ink, whatever it is. I just don't think that we can be this unspecific in the budget crisis that we're in. Thank you.

Council President, Eric Pennington, Business Administrator, thank you for the question, Councilwoman Jackson. As I have offered in the past, we can discuss whatever your questions are with respect to how the budget process works, why there's a continuing need to adopt temporary appropriations so that we could run the city. As far as I know, you have not taken me up on my offer to come to my office and discuss these. It is still open and available for you to do so. In order for the city to run, we have to have temporary appropriations until the council adopts the budget and goes to the state and they approve it. The administration has introduced the budget. You should have a copy of the introduced budget. If you don't, we'll make sure that you get it. And if you need additional detail, we can sit down and go over that detail with you whenever you want. My office is open. And as I've said to you on numerous occasions, you can come down. You just have to You know, I have a camera outside my office so I can see when people walk by. Yes, sir. And you walk by three or four times and you knock on the door.

Yes, not a problem. But again, my objection is what I have seen, the budget that we posted, the little...

Well, there's a user-friendly budget. There is a summary of a budget. There is a significantly more detailed budget that has hundreds of pages that I can meet with you, with our budget director, the finance director, and address all of your questions. I don't mind if you raise questions. Questions are important. The public needs to know what the answers to those questions are. And I'm happy to address them, but I need to know what they are. And if you ask the question from the dais, which you are absolutely entitled to do, I may not have the answer immediately. But if you and I meet in my office and then you want to come back out and raise those questions anyway, I think that's more fair and appropriate and it will give the public a better opportunity to have a sense of what the budget issues are, your concerns and their concerns and others.

Okay, so we have to continue to do these emergency appropriations.

Not emergency appropriations, but temporary emergency appropriations.

We have to continue to do these until the 2026 budget is submitted and approved by the state, correct?

The budget has been submitted to you, to the council. It has been introduced to you. We will continue to do that until it is adopted by the council and approved by the state.

Okay, and I'm just going to insist, as I will again tomorrow, that this budget process be done with the public in mind. We cannot come in here at 10 o'clock, be done with the budget presentation by 12, and not have community homeowner input. It just cannot happen this time. the public has the right to input on whatever we're doing if councilman council for example for the south floor wants to put 50 million dollars in the trees i'm just using an example sir and councilman rain most wants to do 35 million dollars in the south wall in the north for flowerpots the residents have the right not just in those two wards but citywide to look at what we're doing and have some input in that and say hey look council you can get 10 million for the trees you're not getting 30 councilman rainbows you can get five million dollars for the flower pots and i'm just using those as examples because i think that i need us to be open i need us to be transparent with the people in this city and we were not because to have a budget hearing and did not allow residents to come up and question every department because i'm just going to end with this in previous budget hearings Because I attended them, particularly under the James administration, not even so much under Booker. We were able to sit down, every department presented, the council asked their questions of those departments, and then the public was allowed to do that. And so I think that that open transparency needs to happen because I need to see what the court system is bringing in. If they're bringing in $150 million and we were around $150 to $200 million under the James administration just in the courts, And the cost of running the course at that time was about five, six million. I could be off a couple of dollars. So, you know, I'm staying corrected if I'm off. We need to know that we have a surplus there of X, Y, Z. Then we can hire some more people, hire some more people, hire some more people and do better enforcement. Because I think what happens is we get lost in the enforcement. And that's why people are so. reluctant to do the right thing but then those that don't we don't see them being penalized it if that kind of makes sense what i'm saying if you if i'm putting my garbage out when i'm supposed to if Councilman Crump is putting his out, Councilman Quintana, and then my neighbors continue to do the wrong thing. We need proper enforcement and we need to handle it differently. So to understand where the budget is, where we have income coming in and why we don't, AI, the parking authority, does not need to be a separate entity. We need to bring those dollars back in-house. And that's the reason why I'm just going to be so insistent with the public to make sure that these budget hearings don't only happen at 10 o'clock in the morning because people work. There's going to have to be some evening ones. And I'm also going to insist that there be at least one public budget hearing in every ward. And I've already started the process to put the school permits in because this public, with the conditions that this city is in right now, financially, We've had to roll over some things. I'm not blaming anyone, but we rolled over the retro pay. You made it happen, okay? But we need to have input. Some people fully understand what a budget is, and I do too. And I'm just saying that now it's time to let the public know what's going on, hear what they have to say, good, bad, and indifferent. And we may have some people in the community that can help us leverage some things better so that we don't have to keep spending out what we spending out and we can increase the revenue because when you say to somebody they got to pay a hundred dollar fine i need that hundred dollars paid i don't need somebody over there in the court going in there talking about oh i know miss jackson for a long time you know take the prime from 150 nope nope you got to pay it, particularly if we've already warned you several times. So I just want to make sure to, I will come see you when I'm finished doing my little investigation because I did get the paperwork you sent me and I need to get another copy or something from you and I will. But I just, when I picked these up before, And I saw the breakdown when I see stuff that says unclassified, miscellaneous, whatever the caption was in every department in the millions of dollars, I can't tolerate that. And I'm not because I need to know what you're spending the money on. Is it paperclips paper? Is it additional staff? Is it gas? What is it? Because we can't afford to be this ambiguous in this city when we face a financial crisis, and everybody is. So let me just say, it's not just Newark. It's everywhere. But now we need to know where every, not penny, but we need to at least know where every quarter is. So thank you. That's fair. Thank you.

That's fair, I agree. I think I'll take away from that that we need to have more transparency, more participation from the public, we agree.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Virginia.

F through L are purchasing contracts. F is an amendment to increase the contract amount for medical supplies. G is a state contract for communications equipment. H is a state contract for communications equipment. I is to amend the contract, the state contract, and increase the amount for computer equipment. J is to extend an emergency contract for leak repairs. K is a bid contract for concrete, mixed sand, and gravel. And L is a bid contract for fire extinguishers.

Any questions?

Yes, I'll put them all together. It's all love. GH&I is all communication technology. I need to know how we're going to use this and who's going to be supervising. I know that right now we have some things in place. We're bringing in some new communication devices. And as we are doing that, I think about my crossing guards that are out there that have nothing that I think should have at least a walkie talkie and or phone. So if I could just get a little bit of understanding as to how this is going to supplement, I'm sure most of this is for the police department, communication camera type things. Who's going to be watching that and are we going to be doing better monitoring? Because I know what we have right now with all of those cameras on Clinton Avenue, I know it's not being monitored at the level that it should. And I'm very concerned about that. So before this new technology comes in, as we are bringing it in, who can work it? Because I know we have an issue with that right now. Thank you.

Good morning. Anissa, a city purchasing agent. You are correct. These contracts are for the Department of Public Safety. I don't know if there's someone here who can speak to what they will be purchasing, but they are for public safety. So if you need more information, Captain can provide or we can get more information and provide it to you. Okay.

Thank you.

morning council president council members uh james george here captain with the police department on behalf of the department of public safety uh g speaks to uh gold type business machines uh they support and um install and repair many of the alpr uh data machines uh also the mdts the uh computer mobile data terminals that are installed inside of police vehicles. They do the e-ticketing and such. As I understand these amendments, it authorizes a higher level to be spent on these things. We still would need individual authorization for those additional purchases. So I don't think there's an exact plan, but it's looking to raise the allowable upper limit. The second H is speaks to Motorola, and that does touch upon the police radios. So that would allow us to buy more if needed under the contract. But again, we need authorization to do so, to use that money, but just increasing the upper limit. And then Dell, of course, is computers that we use in the Department of Public Safety, police, fire, and OEM.

A quick question. on the motorola are we able to use some of that to equip our crossing guards and i say that because we have the first line of defense we have been talking about this for many years over 15 in terms of we at one time we were asking people to turn in their unused cell phones so that we could turn those on i just think our crossing guards need to be able to communicate to the police department immediately be it a fight be it a car running running over running into a building whatever somebody came through um ran the light didn't disregarded the crossing guard hit the crossing guard hit the child you know there's a plethora of things that are happening at our intersection um some of them being severely unsafe and i know that that's come across your desk a million times i know we looked at south orange and sanford um we looked at maybaum and south orange avenue we looked at clinton avenue some areas where it's really unsafe even for the crossing guard. We saw it on South Orange and Sanford, and I'll finish with this, where the officers were out there and the people were still going through the light. The children were crossing. They're still turning. I just wanted to if portions of this could be used. And if not, can we reconsider the cell phone drop off that we did one time to maybe equip the crossing guards with emergency devices immediately? And what's the quickest way to do that? And if not this, Mr. P and I can write a letter to Motorola and ask them to donate to 300 walkie talkie type cell phones to have come in just for the crossing guard so they can be safe while they're out there.

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. Those are all worthwhile ventures. But again, I believe that the intent of this is just to raise the upper limit, what we can spend those things on, money on, and then what we spend those monies on will be a separate conversation, a separate request. And all those things are definitely worthwhile ventures and would be allowable if we had the extra space there in the budget.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

ANY MORE? OKAY.

I'LL JUST ADD TO WHAT THE CAPTAIN SAID. IF YOU LOOK AT I, FOR EXAMPLE, THE RESOLUTION, AGAIN, IS JUST TO INCREASE THE AMOUNT THAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO SPEND ON THE STATE CONTRACT AND ALSO TO INCLUDE THE DEPARTMENT ON THE PREVIOUS RESOLUTION THAT THEY WERE NOT. SO IT'S JUST EXPANDING THE PREVIOUS RESOLUTION TO ALLOW MORE DEPARTMENTS, SPECIFICALLY PUBLIC SAFETY, TO PARTICIPATE IN THE STATE CONTRACT. SO IT'S NOT TIED TO A SPECIFIC PURCHASE.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

M is a sub-grant agreement to develop, rehabilitate, and improve Lincoln Park.

Any questions? Councilwoman Bay.

I just want to sponsor.

Sponsor. Seconded. Seconded by Councilman Crooks. Virginia.

N is an acceptance of grant funds from the United States Department of Education for the Newark Literacy Initiative.

Any questions? I would like to sponsor this as well. Second by Roundtree. And third by Jackson. Thank you. Second. Continue. Two seconds.

7R2A through P are sale and or redevelopment agreements. A is construction of a new two-family residential dwelling to be sold at market rate in the South Fork.

Yes, Council Member Campbell.

I'm a sponsor of the item.

Is there a second? Second. Second by Kelly.

B is new construction of two three-family dwellings consisting of one ADA-compliant apartment unit and two standard units in each dwelling to be sold at market rate in the South Ward.

Yeah, Mr. Chair, 7R2B, 7R2C, and 7R2D, I'm going to defer.

Sarah, second.

Second.

Second by Roundtree. Continue.

C and D are deferred. E is new construction of two-family home to be sold at market rate in the South Ward.

Yep, Ms. Chair, I want to move that item.

Is there a second?

Second. Second by Kelley.

F is to rehabilitate the existing two-unit property. One unit will be owner-occupied, and one unit will be rented to an income-qualified household at 40% of the area median income in the South Ward.

Ms. Chair, I'd like to move that item.

Second.

Seconded by the clerk and moved by council.

G is new construction of a new mixed-use building consisting of one commercial space and two residential units. Both residential units will be designated for households earning 50% of area medium income in the South Fork.

Mr. Chair, 7R2G and 7R2H, I would like to move those items, but the concern that I have here is the amount of time that these items have taken to get to the agenda. This has been back in 2025, and now we're going on 2026. We, you know, have to be expedient. I mean, we can be prudent and urgent at the same time when we're trying to move projects and get things done in this city. And I just want us to, you know, work to advance that, you know, in a more prudent and efficient way. But 7R2G and 7R2H, I would like to move both of those items.

Is there a second? Second. Okay. Continue.

i is new construction of a two-family home to be sold at an affordable rate of 80 of the area medium income in the south ward yeah mr j will defer that item second jackson jackson j is to build a new construction of a two-family home to sell at an affordable rate in the west ward um

THANK YOU, MADAM CLERK. I'M GOING TO WAIT TO MOVE THIS UNTIL TOMORROW. OKAY.

KAY, IS CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW TWO-FAMILY HOME TO BE SOLD AT MARKET RATE IN THE WEST WARD?

I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS, SO I'M GOING TO WAIT FOR THIS ONE AS WELL.

l is to rehabilitate a two-family home and rent at an affordable rate of 60 percent of area medium income in the west ward um quick question i want i would like to uh get a get a question answered from deputy mayor ladd my question is that um for most of these

Most of the property that's on the agenda for today, whether it's in my ward or other wards, specifically in the West Ward, except all but one, the assessed amount value is way over the sale amount value. And just comparing it to the South Ward, the South Ward assessed value is less. And the sale amount is higher than the assessed amount. I'm just kind of wondering why in the West Ward that the assessed amount value for all except one is way over the amount of the sale amount value. And, you know, is there any particular reason that we're selling it for less than what it's worth?

Good morning, Council President, Council Members, Alison Ladd, Director of Economic and Housing Development. As you'll see, just a global statement, and I'll also answer the Council Members' questions. There are 16 private sales on the agenda today for sale. um in different wards um they have been going through various processes of approval um we understand the sense of urgency i will note that as you may recall it is a partnership with whoever's buying the property and so we move also as quickly as someone's able to submit paperwork to us I will add, though, that going forward, especially in this term, we are going to be very clear about timelines. So if you have not submitted paperwork within the period of time in which we've asked you to, we're actually going to take the property back or we're going to redistribute it. So that's just first on a global second. Nine of the sites are market. Seven are affordable housing. And all of them are greater price per square foot than when we started selling land under this administration. In closing, I'll say that the pricing is based upon the type of housing or development that they're going to do. So for the market rate, the prices are generally between $20 a square foot and $25 a square foot. And then for affordable, they're $14 to $17 a square foot. Now, I know many of you remember this is a lot more price per square foot than when I first met you about eight years ago, when we were doing it at $4 and $6 a square foot. So we are working to get more affordable REVENUE BACK INTO BASED UPON OUR LAND. AND THEN JUST IN CONCLUSION, THE PART OF THE THOUGHT IS THAT FOR AFFORDABLE, WE NEED TO PROVIDE SOME LAND SUBSIDY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT SO THAT THE PROJECT CAN BE SUPPORTED BY SOURCES AND USES. The last piece is I understand the question about the assessed value. That is really done by the tax assessor through the finance department. I know that these assessments are old often as well as we're going through the reval. So we'll definitely mention that to the finance department who may be present today.

Yeah, I would love to hear. You said that it's present, right?

Well, I'm not sure.

I just want to, I'm just curious about, and I keep using a South Florida because it's on this agenda. The assessed amount of value is low, but the sell amount is higher. But in the West, it's higher, and then there's a low amount that we're selling it for. And I know we say that some of it is for affordable rates, like this particular one that I'm talking about is 60% AMI. How do we know that once they have the property that they're going to give that apartment for 60% AMI? And I'm asking these questions specifically because things I voted on, I tried to get people in those apartments and they did not make it to get in those apartments.

SO, COUNCIL PRESIDENT, TO THE QUESTION, I'M JUST GOING TO SPEAK TO HOW DO WE MAKE SURE THEY'RE AFFORDABLE. AND THAT IS THERE'S A DEED RESTRICTION THAT FOLLOWS WITH THE PROPERTY. AND THEN WE DO COMPLIANCE ON WHO'S IN THE UNIT. BUT AS FAR AS HOW PEOPLE ACCESS THE UNITS, I WON'T SPEAK TO THAT.

Yeah, Mr. President, to Councilman Kelly's point, I mean, at the last council meeting, I mentioned the property on Verona Avenue that the city had sold to an adjacent property owner with the intentions of that individual developing project. And he essentially combined the two lots and then sold them for a ridiculous amount of money. So realistically, like what kind of controls does your department have to ensure the affordability on the deed restriction, but also to follow through and make sure that these folks that are buying property from the city at discounted rates, even at $25 a square foot, you're still selling property well below market value because we know a lot in north whether it's in the southward westward northward um is selling for a considerable amount of money in the private marketplace so how does you how does your team make sure that if you sell a lot and that person is going to build a two-family home that that actually does happen that that person doesn't go ahead and flip the property or combine it with a lot next to them and then sell it for five times the amount of money that they bought it from the city

Council President, to the question, I'll work to be succinct. It might seem long, but I'll try to be succinct. Before Mayor Baraka became in office, there were no reverter clauses and little to no deed restrictions on property. So when the mayor took office, the process started to have deed restrictions around affordability, as well as reverter clauses that allow us to take property back. So that was the first step. The second part is the mayor really focused on compliance work. Sorry, it's kind of loud. compliance work. So we have multiple ways. We have a compliance office that we've expanded. At one time it was only one person, then now we have five. We also have outside counsel that send out legal default letters for people who are non-compliant on tax abatements, on sales, as well as anything regarding site plans. The third part is that we do send out administrative notices, but we are more focused as we go into this year on the legal notices to be sent. Administrative notices are a good notice to tell people to get into compliance, but a legal notice is actually enforced. And I think that that's been helpful. the last part to say is is i think that it is um it's newer for us so i don't disagree but i do think that the compliance aspect we are working to do better at some point um if the council would like i'm happy to talk to you more about just our method of compliance we have checklists we have lawyers we have administrative staff We have processes that I'm happy to go through for each type of agreement that we have in place under economic and housing development.

Mr. President, I would strongly suggest, I mean, you listed a whole bunch of different tools that you have. You need to go after that property owner on Verona Avenue. Councilman Quintana raised the issue about a guy that purchased a lot on Summer and 3rd Avenue some years ago and essentially converted it into like a junkyard, right? This was a city-owned property. This person went through the approval process. Another site that I don't believe it was city-owned, but brings up another issue. This developer got zoning board approval to put up a small apartment building on Mont Prospect. and Third Avenue. And it's every week DPW is cleaning that site up for illegal dumping because the site is, you know, the grass is like 10 feet high. It looks like an abandoned property. And this guy has approvals to build a small apartment building. And, you know, we need to start holding some of those folks accountable because it's not fair that DPW has to invest resources every single week to clean up this site. But we need to go after these folks that we sold property to, discount rates. It's been years that some of them have owned these properties and you drive by and they're still empty. A lot of them are being dumped on illegally and some of them are being flipped and sold.

WE UNDERSTAND AND IT'S DEFINITELY A PRIORITY FOR THE MAYOR. SO UNDERSTOOD. JUST A QUESTION.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL PRESIDENT. JUST TO ADD ON TO WHAT COUNCILMAN RAMOS WAS TALKING, PAP'S BLUE RIBBON SITE, I'M HEARING THAT WE SOLD THAT TO SOMEBODY ELSE NOW. IT'S NOT THE OWNER WHEN I FIRST CAME INTO OFFICE. IT'S SOMEBODY DIFFERENT NOW. I JUST FOUND THAT OUT FROM SOMEBODY. But the property is overgrown grass. It looks crazy on South French Avenue right now. And just to go off of what councilman Ramos said, we have to hold these owners. That's the area that I grew up in and that land has not been, you know fulfilled yet and i don't know how many times we've sold it so i really would like to see us really leaning on on these owners these these uh these developers a little more just to make them develop the property um and it's making our corridor look crazy And another thing that is now all over social media and people are calling my office about, because the weeds and the grass is so overgrown, you know, they have a picture. They tried to put art on a billboard there. And it's a little, it's a black boy who's playing in a field. But now with the overgrown grass, you're attracted, your eyesight is drawn right to this picture. And it looks like the little boy is picking cotton. You know, and I don't think that that's a great picture to, you know, have in the West ward, have in the city of North have a long, uh, one of our main veins, uh, like South orange Avenue. And, and I really would love to, for the owners, whoever the new owners are to really remove the picture and actually landscape the property.

Um, so council president on this, uh, the city doesn't own perhaps Bluebirdman site, uh, was private property. And so. What the city has done is over the last few years, we've worked on site plan approvals and we've worked on pilots in which the council approved as well. I agree that when I heard that the property was going to be sold, I was more than upset. Because we went through about five years of entitlement work with the current owner, and now they don't want to move forward. So it is a strong point of contention, I believe, for the administration to that when developers, and I remember Council Member Ramos has talked about this in the past as well, when developers get entitlements and then they sell the property, they're selling the entitlement and somehow they are added value to that and that is an absolute frustration. I'll close by saying sometimes it's not a city choice. The state laws govern how we allow these entitlements to happen. But when we can, we will be putting stronger rules. One example in particular that you might remember, there's a site on William and william and halsey it was called the vibe at one point in my short tenure i looked at the project three times you all looked at the project as in addition three times so the last time you saw it we put a one year timeline on it that said if you do not get financing in one year then the pilot terms were sunsetting And so we have looked at that, but I understand the issue. The piece about the art I'll say is that it was a collaboration between the administration and the owner then. And I will take a look at that as well.

Councilman Roundtree?

I want to say I'm hearing that entitlement, I know all of that goes with the transfer of property, but they're not entitled to have what Councilman Kelly is saying about grass. And I mean, we did, I know it's a lot of land to do a clean and lean on, but they wouldn't even be able to transfer or sell the property if we had to go and make sure rats and animals and Jungle Kingdom is not running around on South Orange Avenue because they've let the grass grow so tall and I'm not that tall, so as tall as I am. And that's not a good thing. So I'm just saying that a clean and lean, I know it's a lot. It's a lot. But when we do it, it's a lean against the property owner. So they couldn't just keep flipping it without paying the city for us doing what they should have done in the first place. So enforcing that, and that's throughout the entire city with all of these lots. I don't know what Councilwoman Jackson and my other colleagues have said about enforcement, but that is something that we really need to look into because that also affects the homeowners that are keeping their property, that are trying to abate issues with rodents and other things that that attracts and in reference to the artwork the new owner should probably have a conversation with you regarding what he's saying so they're either going to cut the grass and do that or they're going to be fined and whatever needs to happen with that needs to happen because that's a lot of land a lot of land and to have greeneries and all of that, you know, unless we want to make it a park. We should have went on and let Walmart go there 20 years ago, but that didn't happen. So let's move forward and see what we can do regarding the clean and leave on the property if possible, or getting the owner to at least upkeep the property before they flip it again. Thank you so much.

and just just to add real quick um just i agree with with councilwoman roundtree um you know i know it's a lot it's our main corridor and it makes the west ward and our city look don't look great along the corridor but just one thing about the art too when the art was happening They said I was notified that there would be art and that they would notify my office so they can allow me to see what they were doing. Nobody ever contacted me. It was just put up there. And now we have social media and people in the area looking at the art like, why did you allow this? And I didn't allow it.

Uh, understood. I'll say that I'm a council president. I'm happy to work with my other directors to handle the matters that have been discussed, uh, economic and housing development. Um, we play a role and we can do what we can do, but we'll also work with our other directors to address the issues.

And so the other concern on all of the vacant property around this city is DEP violations. I am not going to harbor on it long, but I know on South Orange Avenue and Grove, there's still gas emissions and we're not paying attention to that at all. When they were supposed to put two foot of filling, that's when they put the wall up and then they put the dirt there. We don't even know if that's clean dirt. So again, we're talking about environmental, and allowing these buildings and properties and lots to be sold without checking what's going on. We got the schools around. We have data center. We used to be Ivy Annex on Sanford and Ivy. They still have the gas pipes coming out. Central High School, same thing. We just built a little house, put the gas pipes. We have got to ensure that the stuff that's going up in this city it's safe and it's not the children can't even use the playground at belmont running because that still hasn't been fully abated we have to be careful even when we're building that what we're building is safe and these issues that we're talking about now on the lot transform into a whole bunch of other stuff I'm not even going to get into, but it's conditions. And we have got to put something in place in law, and I guess we all going to write it, that we can't keep, you know, they say they're private sales, but we need to have something in place in this city That when the owner decides they don't want to do what they contracted with us to do, that's one thing. And then when a person gets the land and doesn't do what they're supposed to do, that's supposed to be something else. When we give it to them and they put in 30 and 40 units in there and then don't maintain it, all of that needs to be upgraded. Those fines need to be greater because it just has to be that way. because folks are just doing what they want to do and this constant flipping the land i know if i sold like five properties in three months uh somebody be looking fmbi cnia and u.s department of treasury we have got to be careful what we allowing to happen here and what we are allowing these owners to do and so um again to the councilman's point because i'm a west border too um i remember when they were putting the placards up to put the art on. And I asked the young man, what's going on? Oh, no, we're just putting these up. They're going to put advertising on it. That's what he told me. So I'm thinking, you know, festivals, that kind of thing will go on there. But then when they paint it, and again, to not contact the councilman's office to let them know what they're going to put there is the other part. But we have got to be stronger. And we have got to be no nonsense when it comes to people cleaning their property. I'm just sorry. We're going to be calling this owner again as we had to call the previous owner to take that stuff down. And then we need to be working with Irvington to make it happen because the back half of the lot is Irvington. So we have got to hold people accountable. It does. Our car looks horrible. And then the next thing is, can we build on that land? So let's just be honest. Can anything be built there? And if it can, what do we need to do? And if we're not going to build anything, we could put a rec center there, sir. We lost the Boys and Girls Club on Littleton. We could put a rec center right there. Clean it up. We need recreation. We need safe spaces. So let's do a city of Newark. young people's club, because we won't use the other acronym because they've left us and have our own recreational centers because we do need more of those. So if they can't build something there, Councilman Kelly and the rest of my council colleagues, we'll put a North play center. I'll come up with a better name of school too. Okay. Then you're going to new West side high school. Amen. See, that's what I'm talking about. Then we can put it inside the old West side.

Amen. We solved it.

I'll call the owner when we finish. Any other questions? Thank you, Madam. Thank you, Council President. Thank you all. And Claire, can you note all the questions that were raised and forward them to the business administrator's office?

Absolutely.

It's noted. Thank you.

I'm sorry, Council President. I forgot one item. On the private sales, the representatives who are buying the property are present. um there or they were present um we had about 10 of them here some were out of town or out of the country but there were about 10 of the groups that were buying the property present so if any council member would like to talk to them after i'm sure we could get them to speak with you um if there was interest in that so thank you continue

M is new construction of a three-family home to be sold at market rate in the West Ward.

Sorry, is that 7R2M, Madam Clerk?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. You're moving it. I'm moving it. Second. Any second? Second. Second by Jackson. Continue.

And is new construction of a three-family home to be sold at market rate in the West Ward also?

I have some questions, not moving it.

okay continue oh it's new construction of a two-family home and a four-family home both to be sold at market rate in the central ward uh council president uh i have not met with this developer and i have too many questions to go over right now so i'm going to defer defer move to the first second second by chrome P is construction of a mixed-use building consisting of 32 residential apartments with 20% of the residential units designated as affordable housing in the Central Ward.

Council President, again, I have not met with this developer. I have too many questions to go over right now. I move to defer.

Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second.

Q and R are acceptance of grant funds. Q is for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and R is for the Summer Youth Work Experience. Any questions?

Yes, I would like to sponsor R. I'll second it.

Second, buddy.

And I'd like to sponsor Q.

sponsor, which Q as your second second by Jackson. Okay.

S is a subordination agreement in order to permit the redeveloper to obtain the financing necessary for the development of three, two family homes for sale in the South ward.

Awesome. You're good? Okay. You're sponsoring it? Are you a sponsor? You're a sponsor? Sponsor is second. Second. Second by Kelly. Okay, continue.

T is an investigation for an area in need of redevelopment in the South Ward.

Mr. Chair, a question. There were some other listed items that was in need of redevelopment that was supposed to go to the planning board outside of these other addresses that are listed on the document. It was the entire Friedland-Heisen Avenue area. Did we ever get any information or word back if that ever reached the planning board and if it was approved or not? We were waiting for information for that as well, because I know it's critical for what needs to happen in that corridor.

Council President Allison Ladd, Director of Economic and Housing Development. If I may just ask the council member a clarification question. Sir, so were you thinking about the airport redevelopment plan or are you thinking about a different plan?

So we had on the agenda the entire Freeland-Heisen Avenue area and need a redevelopment. I don't know if part of it was the... I don't know if part of it was the airport piece, but it was the entire Freeland-Heisen Avenue, along with all of the streets corresponding around it. And it should have been appointed a long time ago. And we're just still trying to wait to see what was the outcome of that, that we can try to have some kind of conversation moving forward about what that means for us and how the administration is going to move on what is happening on that corridor.

No problem. Council President, I'll follow up and let the council member and council know. Thank you.

As noted.

Continue. 7R3A and B are change orders. A is for the Ironbound Roundabout Safety Project, and B is a change order to change the city's matching funds.

Any questions? Can we continue?

C through G are professional service contracts for engineering services on an as-needed basis. C is GZA Geo-Environmental. D is CME Associates. E is Suburban Consulting Engineers. F is Cristera, Bernard, and Fox Engineering. And G is OCA Architect.

Any questions? They are non-continuous.

H through K are applications and or acceptance of grant funds. H is for the Safe Streets to Transit Program. I is for the Sub-Regional Transportation Program. J is for the Street Resurfacing Paving Project. And K is the Five Ward Paving Project.

Any questions? Yes. Yes, Councilman Kellogg. I'd like to sponsor J and K. Second. Yes.

And okay, can we have a list of what that includes? And when we're doing this paving, in communication with the county and not paving county rules that we should not be paving i'm you know very concerned when they do deny avenue clinton avenue south orange avenue bloomfield avenue sometimes they come down and they stop they stop at the border and they don't continue down um so i just want to make sure that uh we are tandem hand in hand with the county uh and just You know, we have enough to do that we're not paving streets that we shouldn't pave. And then one other word of caution, sometimes they come out to the main thoroughfare and stop. Sometimes they come out to the main thoroughfare and continue. And it's just not looking uniform. One other thing is I would like to know what the plan was when we are paving one side of the street. I don't understand that. how one side gets paved and the other side doesn't. Was that a cost savings? Did we go out and do an analysis to say it's less bumps on this side, more on this side? I'm just trying to understand how we only... I'm sorry.

Director Adams? Good morning, James Adams, Acting Director of Engineering. There was a whole bunch of questions, so hopefully I get them all. As far as the item 7R3K, that is our Municipal Aid 2027 paving program. if the council remembers that was sent out to all council members a few weeks ago and i have to apologize because you would have gotten it a week earlier but i had to review it and digest it and understand how the plan works before i sent it to the council which in order it was sent to the mayor so specifically there are two streets in each ward the central east north south and west that will be paved under that program um councilwoman jackson you don't have to write anything we can give you a copy of all the streets so you don't have you don't have to write um and the way we do it is every year we analyze all the streets we come up with a list of maybe 10 or 15 streets per ward that are in need of paving we rate the streets and then we send it through for the approval process understand it'll probably be two or three years before you see these streets to be paved the other question i think you asked was and i think it relates to pseng and you utility companies and work that they do in our streets where before we had allowed them to pave half the street. Now, based on a current municipal ordinance, they have to pave from curb to curb depending on the number of utility cuts or the amount of work that they do in the streets. And as a matter of fact, we recently had a meeting with PSE&G. We're going to follow up with them to make sure that they do remember that ordinance and that they understand it. just one more thing if i could oh let me go let me go back okay you asked a question of deputy mayor ladd about um illegal construction um the the legal construction ordinance from the state of new jersey allows the construction official to a fine up to two thousand dollars for ordinance per violation, and that fine is set by the state of New Jersey. It could be from zero to 2,000, and the construction official has latitude within that amount to find the property if there was what we would consider a legal construction.

Okay.

I'm sorry. Now you had another question.

Yeah, just really quick. How many construction officials do we have? That wasn't a part of my original, but I'm going to ask that now. How many of those people do we have, if we have any? And then the second thing is monitoring the paving and the landfill and the refilling of the hole. Okay. So when we taking up the ground, be it for PSNG or whoever. I've noticed lately when they're doing this work, some contractors are throwing sandbags in those holes and then putting dirt on top of it. I know in the limited construction experiments that I do have, because I took a turn to construction class, so I'm an expert unofficially, that that's not supposed to happen. Because when the weather comes and that asphalt burns, that water is getting in and it's now going to where that sandbag is that normally would have been some dirt. um so that's the reason why i'm asking who are the construction officials and where are they because there's a lot of work being done out here but it's not being refilled properly um on my block alone my neighbors on the telfer street side in front of their driveways they have a significant dip and i mean significant so that when it rains it fills up as if it's a puddle because when they put the dirt back the mortar back in the ground they didn't do it properly so i just noticed that we need to be a little more vigilant and i know you just got here sir so thank you but we need to be a little more vigilant and watching when these construction projects are going on in terms of what they are doing um i take the pictures i send them I know we limited on staff, but if we watch better what's going on with these folks and make sure that the pavement is quality pavement, because we don't need them to just put it on top of the street that is already bumped up. Some of this stuff needs to be taken down and we need to make sure that it's taken down far enough that the sewer holes are in line with the street, because how do we pave? And then I'm going to move down my street. Shouldn't be happening. Thank you, sir.

so councilwoman um you you've hit on a um probably a sore spot in engineering and trafficking we do we do not do a good enough job in watching the paving it is due to staffing which i know people don't like to hear at one time we did have somebody who worked for traffic and signals whose only job was to follow around utilities, PSE&G, contractors to make sure they were patching the trenches properly, they were compacting it properly. Unfortunately, we do not have that person. We're looking into that, and that's something we are going to pursue based on the amount of paving work that's happening. But right now, we manage it. Our traffic and signals division is probably at least two engineers short of where I think they should be. um let me answer another question you mentioned construction official and i understood what you said however in our vernacular the construction official is the person who's responsible for the ucc office he manages the electrical building plumbing elevator and fire inspectors the state allows us to designate one person as construction official, which is George Perdon. However, there are a few people in our office that have construction official license, which is issued by the state of New Jersey.

Okay. Okay, so we have about four people.

It might be about four. And one of your previous questions was on the qualifications of the people in the UCC office. Yes. The state of New Jersey issues their license. Anybody who works in our UCC office, you can go to the state of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, look up their name, and it will list their license, what their license to do, and when their license expires. Okay.

So then we need to do two things. We need to open up the request for that position, correct? So that we can have more people because we're short staffed.

I'm currently short staffed in the building for the building trades of at least two people. Okay.

So I'll help you and I'll speak to the administration and we'll get that open because we need to have these things in place. There's a lot of, as I ride around and my council colleagues and the people in the community, These buildings, like the one on South Orange Avenue and Cedar, right? Cedar, Chelsea, Chelsea. Right now, that wood has buckled three and four times. And my concern is that as these buildings are going up, when water hits wood, mold forms within 48 hours. then you turn around soon as it stops raining and they're putting up the uh piece of paper alleged insulation on top of the wet wood i have a problem with that but i don't see enough construction officials out here watching what's going on do i want us to build absolutely but i'm very concerned about the rapidness of it and us watching what's going on with that and then you know, once we get to that point. So I'll just personally ask right now if you could send someone by for us in the West Ward to check on because they're not finished. They have not put the installation layer up yet on that building on the corner of Chelsea. Am I correct? Council Chelsea and South Orange Avenue. Um, They have replaced the wood several times, but in riding down today, I see that wood buckling on the front side. And because they don't have that installation up, if we could send someone to look at that before that's complete, because we want to have successful projects across the city, but definitely in the ward that I and Councilman Kelly live in. So we're a dual tag team, sir. So we could get somebody there today because if it's not right, please have them fix it. Thank you so much.

And just if I can, I'm glad that Councilwoman said that. But we have just so you know, we have sent people there, like you said, to change the wood. We spoke to them that they actually treat the wood for when it's raining. So I've been on that. We've sent people. So they've treated the wood. They've changed the wood. Now she sees a new thing that's happening. Yes. Then we need to send somebody back out. But we have been doing that. Okay. Right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair. Yeah, real quickly. Director Adams.

19th Avenue.

Thank you. When is it going to get paved? It was on a list to be paved and it hasn't been paved.

Councilman, I'll have to get back to you on exactly when it's going to get paved. Appreciate it. No problem.

Madam Clerk, that's noted. And that's continued.

Thank you. L is an exception of public bidding to provide the services of a municipal engineer.

Mr. President, for the BA, I know we used to use this contract before to have Mr. Adams assist the previous engineering director. So explain to me why we still need this contract.

Eric Pennington, Business Administrator, I will explain to you. The need for the contract is to pay the outstanding balance due to KS Engineering. And they also do, in addition to providing municipal services, other services that this contract allows for, you should have received in your email by now. the notice that we are appointing Mr. Adams permanently. So we won't need it going forward, but we certainly will need it to address the outstanding and prior invoices from KS Engineering. Director Adams has been working for us under this contract, and he will now become a permanent employee.

So he will no longer be employed by KS? That is correct.

Thank you.

7R5A and B are application acceptance of grant funds in the health department. A is for women's health outcomes and B is health resources and services for the administration. I'm sorry, HRSA, Health Resources and Services Administration.

Any questions?

And D are acceptance of a gift. C is the implementation of the electronic medical record system in the health department, and D is the maintenance of the electronic medical record system.

Ms. Chair, I'd like to sponsor C and D. Noted and second. I'll second it.

Second by the club.

Okay, continue. 7R6A is a pre-litigation settlement for executive session. seminar 8a is authorizing the reading of the city of newark's 2026 municipal budget with a public hearing at tomorrow's council meeting any questions b is an appointment to the reappointment of the joint meeting of council member anibal ramos jr thank you C is a ceremonial street designation to honor Frederica Bay, sponsored by Councilmember Amina Bay.

I'll second that. I'll third it. Fourth.

D is a ceremonial street designation for Deacon Eugene Vick Jr., sponsored by Councilman Council.

Is there a second? Second. Second by Brown Tree.

E is a ceremonial street designation for Ryan and Charity Haygood, sponsored by Councilman Council.

Second. Second, second, everybody. I heard it first. Kelly first.

Duly noted. F is a whole harmless agreement for movie Under the Stars Back to School Night, sponsored by Councilmember Ramos. Second.

Second.

G is being returned to council. H is waiving the special event application permit fees for the Clinton Hill Community Action Farmers Market, sponsored by Councilman Council.

Second.

I is waiving special event application permit fees for the Meeker Avenue Block Party, sponsored by Councilman Council.

I'll second that. We'll run a second, then we'll continue.

J is a resolution supporting Sebastian's Law for Window Guards, sponsored by Councilmember Bay. Second. Second. All right.

Move on to the second bill.

K is recognizing and commending resolutions. And J is expressing profound sorrow and regret. OK. 7R11A is recreation center program for the STEM program, science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics summer enrichment program.

I'll sponsor.

Is there a second? I'll second.

Continue. 7R12A is a change order for the expansion of the water treatment plant.

Any questions? Yes. Councilwoman Jackson.

Um, can we just have some history given to the council, not at this moment in paperwork on how long this has been going on and how many change orders have been submitted by these companies? Um, Does things need to be fixed and repaired? Absolutely. But when I continually see 12, 15, $20 million for the same treatment plant, I have concerns. And if it's not the same, then break them down for me because I'm just trying to figure out if you came up with a plan to pick something for 12 million in 2025 here we are in 2026 almost a year later and you're asking for a change order and they'll ask for another one because as i look through some of the resolutions from the water department some of this stuff is going back to 2020 So if they're not gonna do the work and we're not monitoring them doing the work, who from engineering is up there even watching what's going on? We spend a lot of money on these treatment plants and I think we need to have better accountability. Somebody needs to give us some answers. I think this company needs to come before us and they need to tell us what they have done. They need to tell us what's the problems and why they continue to need these extensions of time for one, And then they're going to increase the money too because these folks don't do anything for free, particularly when they come in here. So I know there's going to be a change order for some more money as well as extended days because I've looked at some of these resolutions and it's just beginning to be too much. We're spending millions of dollars. We should have a perfect water system with all the money that we've paid for these repairs, filters, and all this other stuff. So I just need them to, at some point, come before us Explain to us why they need these change orders. Explain to us why they need the extension of time. I'm sure they'll say the fire had something to do with it and the weather, but these companies know how to work with those kind of conditions, and I think they need to come before us now and explain. It's just a lot of money. We should invest. We should reinvest, but these companies cannot just blindly keep asking for extensions in time and not do what we're paying them to do. Thank you.

Clerk, if we can invite the director and maybe the company to do a presentation as noted by Councilman Jackson.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. Thank you.

B is a professional service contract for engineering services communications. Item eight A will be deferred. B is a reappointment to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, Pedro Nieves. C is a reappointment to the Affirmative Action Review Council, Mr. David Carter. D is a reappointment to the Central Planning Board, Ms. Solana Miles. E is an ordinance establishing a salary for the department head serving in dual positions of Director of Water and Soil Utilities and Director of Public Works.

Any questions?

Yeah. Madam Clerk, did you say you were deferring 8C?

A is going to be deferred only because Mr. Familiar didn't appear before the council. Mr. Carter, 8C as in? No, they're reappointments. Reappointments don't have to appear. They're going forward. All of those are going forward. They're all reappointments. Yeah.

They serve directly.

I want to sponsor AC. And I just have a question on E. Go ahead, Councilman. And it's not a personal.

Go ahead. The sponsorship for AC, you indicated it was Councilman Kelly.

And I think they said second. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Okay, just in regards to 8E.

Excuse me, Council President, Council Member Jackson, it's a personal item we'll discuss in the executive session.

Oh, okay. Okay, yes, sir.

F is an ordinance amending and supplementing cannabis by amending chapter two, cannabis establishment to add subsection micro consumption, amending chapter two, manner of operation, and armed security and Chapter 14 license fees.

I'll sponsor. Sure, second. Second by Ramos.

Excuse me, Mr. Terry, uh, council president, um, I just wanted to go back to eight D I wanted to be a sponsor of that.

Is there a second, second, second by Jackson and Jackson, Mr. Mr. President for eight F can we, um, get an explanation of what the amendment is or are. I think I know it deals with, I think armed guards, but I just want to clarify to make sure that I'm sorry.

I started by Councilman Crump.

Good morning, Council President, Council Members, Vinaya Walker from the Office of Cannabis and Special Taxes. So regarding the amendments that are being done for the armed security, we currently have 24 hour security for all the dispensaries running. We're going to be dropping the 24 hour security to just have them there for when they're operating. So because it's killing the businesses. with the 24 hours. So moving forward, everybody's just going to be having the armed guards for when they're operating, and then they're just going to have their locks and cages for when they're closed. The other question, did I answer?

That answers the question. I do have a second question, I guess, because I thought there was more to it. Does it change the fee structure, but fees are now every two years instead of every year? Is that what this does, too?

Yes, we're also going to be changing the fee structure, too. mimic the rest of the business licenses downstairs in B-17. Everybody is every two years. As of right now, we're currently being paid out every year. So I believe it's by annual.

Yeah.

That's what it's going to be. So every two years, everybody has to make their payment. So if you're a micro business, you originally pay your $1,500 every year. It's going to be $3,000 every two years.

So that just conforms with everything else that's going on?

Yes, just to match the rest of the business office.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

A question, a question. Are these armed guards, are they in compliance with, are they registered with the City of Newark as an entity? I mean, are they, how do we know who these individuals are? I mean, are they specials or who are they?

As far as I know, it is.

What training, I mean, what training do they have in this area? Because this is very important. I mean, this is the question.

They're just going to be SORA certified, just like everybody else's downstairs or in our building that comes in and out.

Just wanted to know.

Oh, okay. Okay.

G is an ordinance authorizing the mayor and or his designee to execute the sale and transfer of city properties.

Any questions? Mr. President, I'm waiting for... Deputy Director Ladd, she's walking around. So here's the intent, you know, so we approved this ordinance earlier on and I helped to sponsor it. I believe it's a win-win ordinance in terms of ensuring that we are allowing local developers to come in and develop property. and be able to either sell it at 50% AMI or rent it out at 50% AMI. Some of the issues that I have around it, I think it should be very intentional about local developers and making sure that these properties do get in local developers' hands so that we can have proven track record that we're supporting local developers. We are also supporting low and moderate areas for rent and ensuring that we're building capacity for home ownership. And so in the document, there's one item, and I don't know about my other council colleagues, but there's 650 South 11th Street. that i have concerns about um and because you know some of my other colleagues may have some um addresses on that place i don't know necessarily if if we want to defer it but i would like to have deputy mayor come up because in good faith i would like to defer 650 south 11th street but have some kind of you know a long-range conversation about this to ensure that we are spot dead with making sure that local developers are getting these projects to redevelop and put back online, especially because of the minimal cost that's attached and the work that's going to be engaged with it.

Mr. President, if I could piggyback on that. Also, Can we get the actual principles of the developers? At least what I saw only has listed the name of the company. But like we do when we do private sales, we usually have the disclosure forms that would provide who the actual principles are of the company. So if we could also have that.

Got it.

um and and what what process did the city follow to let local developers know about these opportunities because i didn't see that in the attachment i mean one of the buyers is um developer address is listed as 224 ballantyne parkway which is neighbor of ours in the historic district but i don't i'm not aware of a kind of company that operates out of there but maybe they have their llc registered out of that address

Good morning, Council President, Council Members, Alison Ladd, Director of Economic and Housing Development. So this initiative called the Community Revitalization Initiative was publicly approved by the mayor and the council. We then posted information about the community revitalization effort. We also held an information session, which there are probably about 100 people in council chambers. AND THEN WE RECEIVED 50 APPLICATIONS FOR SIX SITES. AND TO ANSWER A COUPLE OF THE QUESTIONS, TO COUNCIL MEMBER COUNSEL'S QUESTION, YES, THE SITE THAT'S IN THE SOUTH WARD THAT WAS REFERENCED, THERE WERE THREE APPLICATIONS FOR THAT SITE. And unfortunately, the the Newark based company was one of three and they were not the highest scoring in that case. But again, we're happy to look at it given guidance. The second I will look at the address that Council Member Ramos mentioned about the about that information for that address. And last, I'll verify disclosures were requested and they should be in the file. I'll make sure they are. I did bring more for illustrative purposes. This is the package I have for all of them. So I was expecting that you would have this too. So I will verify it and make sure you have what you asked for.

Any other questions?

Yeah. Can you give us an insight that the first six properties that I know that was part of this trench that that went out to the other individuals? Did we have any update on that? So when we have initiatives like this, I think we should move quickly to make sure that everything is in alignment with some of these folks so that one, it could be something that is very tangible. to the community and the individuals who are building and developing. So some of these things should be fast tracked to show that we're even making sure that we're providing for low and moderate rental assistance or lifting up home ownership opportunities when we're doing this, not to just be in favor of the entire document, which I am. That's why I supported it. But I'm also in favor of trying to make sure that we expedite special programs like this so that the impact can be felt immediately in the community, as well as with the individuals who are participating in it. So I know we did when you had the initial meetings here and there was I think it was six of them that were initially. went through i don't know where we are in the process with them yet have they closed are any of them working on any of these uh properties and just to just get some background on that that's all sure council president uh to answer the question um these are the six sites that we are selecting the people for so they're the sites council member that you're remembering

These are the six sites that we talked about during the informational session. And then we received the applications from about 50 groups and then they were scored. And that's how we're presenting these six purchasers to do the effort about affordable housing. I'LL JUST END BY SAYING THESE PROPERTIES WERE WE DID HAVE TO RELOCATE SOME FAMILIES AND SO WE ACTUALLY FOUND THEM BETTER HOUSING THAN THE PROPERTIES THAT THEY WERE LIVING IN.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

H is an ordinance granting a 25 year tax abatement to 636 MLK Urban Renewal LLC for a project located in the central ward to construct three new buildings, each a four story low rise multifamily dwelling consisting of a total of 42 residential units. 33 will be market rate and nine will be affordable.

ANY QUESTIONS? NONE, CONTINUE.

ITEM 10 IS MISCELLANEOUS APPROVAL OF THE RAFFLE LICENSE.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT, COUNCIL MEMBERS, THEIR PEERS AT THE ADMINISTRATION HAVE THREE ADDED STARS.

HOW MANY? THREE.

GOOD AFTERNOON. SO ESSENTIALLY THE THREE ADDED STARTERS ARE AS FOLLOWS. THE FIRST ONE, THE LETTER START NUMBER IS 26-1053. IT'S ESSENTIALLY A SETTLEMENT FOR $54,000 TO PAY THE COST. THE NAME OF THE COMPANY IS Jack Dohan, which is essentially the company that helps us with our sewage, clearing the sewage when it comes to sewer trucks. It's a vendor that we've used, I don't know the original amount, but they went over about 54,000 for work that they've already done. I can get you the details about what the original contract was later today. The second one is 26-1052. So essentially what that is is, I'm not sure if you remember, but maybe about four months ago, give or take, we put forward a container fee ordinance some time ago. There had been some litigation in reference to it. The litigation was based on the fact that they said essentially we were targeting certain areas. What we've done is we had a study conducted essentially that gives us information on why we need the actual money when it comes to containers. In addition to that it also addresses automobiles as well that are left on the port as well. Essentially what we're doing is we're creating a fee and the purpose of the fee is to help us with some of the issues that we deal with when it comes to the fact that in Newark we have additional issues with roads, additional issues when it comes to public safety and things of that nature. As you know, we have to have trained our police and fire when it comes to the port and all of the above that has led to, of course, as you know, on the unfortunate loss of two firefighters here in Newark. So that's the purpose of that. What we're doing is we're asking you to send it over to the planning board so they can consider, you know, when it comes to the master plan. The third one is 26-1055. And essentially what that is, is it's a compliance. It's for property compliance for us. Essentially, as you all know, we've been dealing with bad landlords. And unfortunately, through the history of us getting, you know, trying to get things repaired and things of that nature, unfortunately, the cost has been on the city affected. cost has been on the residents what this would do is allow us to create a fund and whenever we sue these landlords for these issues it would allow us to get attorney fees when necessary of course pay for the additional staffing that's associated with the task force that has to go out but most importantly they'll also give us an opportunity to help the residents who live in the conditions to actually have money to address the repair. Some of those folks are doing repairs themselves, trying to take care of themselves. And unfortunately we find ourselves in a space where, you know, we're paying for all of the work. The tenants are paying for the work that they're trying to put in, but the actual landlord or the property owner is not. So this would give us a fund so that when we sued them, fortunately we'd be in a space to help those folks

Two quick questions. How much are we charging per container?

It's based on the study. Basically what happens is after the container is there, after 30 days, it depends on the size of the container and things of that nature.

question question in terms you should compare some of the container fees to other ports you know in terms like the uh the port of uh long beach uh has a uh structure with the city of los angeles where they have their they both uh they're both sharing the same uh uh revenue because a part of the port uh the port of uh of long beach where cars come and all the other there we need to look at what their costs are because i think they're we should be comparable to what they are yeah so i think we're less than what they are

So essentially, in the actual assessment, which will be attached to the actual ordinance uploaded, it talks about cases that have taken place throughout the nation in reference to containers and things of that nature. It gives you details and does a comparison.

And then one question, sir, on the property compliance. One question on the property? Sure. Okay. Sounds good. But in regards to helping tenants, when code enforcement comes out now, currently, they make the tenant do a OPA request. or a copy of the inspection report. So that when these tenants are going to court with all of these violations, most cases they do not have the inspection report that states- With them, you're saying? Yes, sir. Because we're making them do an open request. In this property compliance, since we are, I hear the gist of it is to get the property in compliance as well as assist the tenant. We need to change that. when the code enforcement officer comes out and you know i have my concerns about that but we're doing a little better but i think we need to know the law better to assist the tenant because when there's violations that violate not only city ordinance but state ordinance we need to be in tandem with that in the court with the tenant so my question is The code enforcement process needs to change. Every tenant should have access to the code enforcement report.

For their unit, you're saying?

Yes, for their unit. Because when they're going to court to fight Mr. Pennington, only because you're sitting there, to fight Mr. Pennington, the owner, And they don't have, only because you're sitting there, sir. Because they don't have that report that says they got a leak in the kitchen, a leak in the bathroom. I know they can't put on the report that there appears to be mold. And that's where we need to get our health department a little bit together. um because the average tenant doesn't have the four or five hundred dollars that it costs to get that mold remediation test done in the unit to prove it i mean you know we've had different reports from different code enforcement officers oh that's not mold this is mold there are things that's mold mushrooms there are things that's mold foam that come and there are mold trees that come through people's apartments and we need somebody from the health department as well so If we could in this property compliance include that when court enforcement goes out, that those report reports be ready within a reasonable time so that when the tenant goes to court, they have that proof because what is happening, um, because I've been advocating and I still do allegedly, um, the tenant is going in without that proof that they're living in an inhabitable condition. And there have been times when we've deemed that, like we did at the property at 279 Clinton Place. We had our electrician and our other guy come out because the gas had to be shut off. The electric had to be shut off because the boxes were sparking. So those reports needed to be readily available for those tenants, two of which were Section 8 tenants. And we need the inspectors to be on board with that. But the lady at the second floor was not a Section 8 tenant. And when she went to court with the landlord, we did not have ready for her our city of Newark code enforcement report that would have showed that we had to come out and order the fire department and PSNG in order for that electricity to be shut off. They had to shut it off. um unfortunately for safety issues so we need to let the tenants have that backup when they go to court to let the judge know that the owner is violating major stuff that is really a 24-hour repair and uh i'll say it on the record thank you for your diligence uh city of north and getting that done it took us a little while we left people in that home for over 30 days with no electricity um they didn't have a choice to move someplace else which was very very unfortunate but we do we do have to do a little better job assisting the tenants proving their cases when they go to court particularly when we're getting involved okay

Mr. President, just a question in terms of the process for the property compliance. So what is the process for a tenant to have access to the fund in order to deal with some issues with their apartment?

Yeah, so essentially the first part is establishing the fund. And then what we'll do is we'll make sure we work with finance to make sure that there's a process set aside so that the funding can be associated with the actual piece of property. Because essentially what I'm afraid of is this idea of I never complained about anything and I'm taking all the funds as opposed to you who complained, went to court, went through a process, and now you need the funds for your actual unit.

Okay. So the actual process is not included in the ordinance at this point?

For the tenants, no. But that's the next step.

Yeah, Mr. President, yeah, I do believe it needs to be drafted out, more calculated, more discussed when you're talking about some kind of process like this, because you definitely want to be intentional about what was happening, especially in a rent control area. and having alignment with folks being able to go through the court process being able to evaluate what's happening and what's going on if not then you'll be opening up pandora's box um you know in areas like this and you want to you know make sure uh that we are prudent about you know what it is that we're doing especially when you're looking to try to draw down um off of off of what these uh property uh folks are doing and then making sure that there's a streamline for uh to be able to access the poor dollars from them not just dependent on them because i know one aspect of it is you're saying well if we go to court and we win in court then the court should be able to to make them pay but actually being able to figure out a way to get those dollars over into yeah and if i could add one more thing

The system is broken, but a tenant should be able to follow a Marine defense. And very few have been allowed to do that in Essex County. And I know that's not going to be a part of this process. However, if the tenant is in a Marine defense case, and there are several out there because I've assisted some folks in doing that, there will be a pot of money that the court makes the decision as to whether or not that does or does not go back. to the landlord. I had a particular tenant on 17th Street. The landlord refused to fix the water heater. She had been playing into the marine defense going into COVID. She had about 20 grand sitting there. I told her, take that money and go buy her a water heater, call Home Depot, let them come. I told her, yes, I did. I wasn't a counselor.

She told her before she was a counselor first.

Amen. I was a counselor first. Amen. It sounds like she's not going to be a witness. Yeah.

I just want to put that on record.

Somebody else tell her, but she came in and had the water heater done from public, uh, from home Depot and was able to pay for that. And it was a legitimate expense because hot water is essential. Um, so she was able to take that receipt and the judge did deduct that almost $2,000 from the rental pot. So I think if that was the, if that could happen, well you can't but in our legal services who's not helping nobody but i'll just say it if the legal help was helping tenants to file marini so my legal aid yeah well yeah allegedly um if the if the tenants were getting the legal help we could take this compliance and there would be some dollars to be used for the repair if you get what i'm saying so if i'm in the unit i'm paying two thousand dollars a month i pay my rent into the office right and i have seven thousand dollars there and i have leaks that are going on um in my apartment now it could take care of that but then the landlord got to take care of the roof and that's where code enforcement comes in to cover what the issue of the leak is because a lot of times it's the roof a lot of times it's the black bathroom in the unit above me that caused all of this that's going on so just wanted to say that but then also probably with councilman council slash commissioner council's assistant when the tenant is a subsidy slash section 8 tenant the housing authority DCA is paying that major portion and when there are violations in the unit they do stop payment. I don't know what HUD regulation we could slip in here, if we could, not saying we can or can't, but when those dollars are being held, as HUD does give Section 8 tenants money to repair their apartments when someone is moving in, we should be able to encumber some of those dollars from DCA, Newark Housing Authority, to not give it to the owner and get the units fixed. for the tenant as well. I don't know legally how we do that, but I think that since Section 8 and others have the power to stop those payments because of the failure to repair I think that something, if legally, can yield a legal mindset.

I don't want to tie HUD to this because of their ramifications, their process. And what I don't want to do is I don't want to put the tenant in a situation where I'm putting them at a disadvantage from something that HUD is supposed to do for them. I would love for HUD to do their thing and for us to be able to still help them on our side as well.

okay i just don't want to be double paying a landlord who is uh not being compensated by hud because we want the repair done and then hud turns around because they did fix it with our money and gives them that five six months at ten twenty thousand dollars back and the repair wasn't done by the landlord it was forced by our audience, if you kind of get what I'm saying. It's a little tricky in there. I mean, I really don't want to harm homeowners, but those who don't follow the rules and regulations and people are living in other conditions that none of us would live in, I don't think we should compensate the landlord with a double hit paying for the repayment. So I don't know how we fix that in there, but I think somewhere we should, you know, without further ado. We should do that.

Was these the only three added starters? I was looking for 26-009 and 26-037. 27. 26. 26. 1-009 and 26-1037. That should have been. Okay.

Good afternoon. Allison Ladd, Director of Economic and Housing Development. Thank you. We do have a few requests for added starters. One is 26-1037. This is modifying the affordability restrictions for a property that was sold. There was no definition of affordability, so we're actually defining the affordability so the property can be sold to a new homeowner. I BELIEVE THAT WAS ONE OF THE ITEMS, COUNCIL MEMBER COUNCIL. SECOND IS THE APPROVAL OF THE CBA ASPIRE FOR BRIC. THIS IS THE NEW DEVELOPMENT ON BERGEN AND CLINTON THAT THEY'VE ALREADY STARTED CONSTRUCTION. THEY HAVE ASPIRE FUNDING AND SO THEY HAVE BEEN ABLE TO WORK WITH THE COMMUNITY AND WITH THE ADMINISTRATION AND I ALSO BELIEVE WITH COUNCIL MEMBER COUNCIL ON THE BENEFITS AGREEMENT. WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO PROVIDE IS Three main things. One, they're going to be holding a variety of block festivals and events to ensure that the community is aware of wellness activities within the neighborhood and also that there will be some services that are directly on site. Second, they will also be providing some training for the various community representatives. And third, they're going to also provide multipurpose space for communities to organizations to have meetings at no cost. so that is what they are doing we did have to in this item spend more time with the developer of brick because at one point they did ask us to waive the cba but that wasn't a policy position that we were taking in the city so we were able to get some additional benefits out of the project so that is 26-1009 ANOTHER ITEM IS, AND I KNOW THAT A COUNCIL MEMBER REACHED OUT TO ME ABOUT THIS. THERE'S AN ADJACENT PROPERTY SALE, 26-0922. THIS IS A PROPERTY IN THE EAST WARD AND WE WERE ABLE TO GET TO AN AGREEMENT ON THE PRICE. AND SO THAT IS SOMETHING THAT WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE CONSIDERED. Another one is also in the East Ward. This is Brian's made address. The developer is Maria and Maria. This one is not in Legistar yet, but it will be today. And the last one we have is the lease for the temporary first precinct. So you might remember we have a temporary first precinct near the Office of Violence Prevention and Trauma Recovery. We do need a lease to enter into with them. And that will be the last one. And we'll be sending all of the materials to you today. So you have everything that you need. And all but one of them are already in Legistar. Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah. Mr. Chad, I would like to sponsor 26 dash a 1 0 0 9 at 26 dash 1 0 3 7. I'll second those two.

So Mr. President, just learned some information that there is two other items that are, and I use the word urgent, rather just give you the information. Purchasing department have an opportunity to just come talk about it and then we'll We'll follow up with you later today about how far they are. The first one is 26-0779. It's in reference to shot spotters, which is from public safety. As you can imagine, that system in itself is extremely important for us. It's essentially the process that we use. Unfortunately, when there is a shot that goes off within the city, it's the process and the system that they use here in the city to find out where it is. And of course, that initiates their reaction process. I'll let the purchasing department come in and talk about that. The other one is 26-0925. It's my understanding that's in reference to the security guards here in the city. There was a contract with one group. There was a bid that went out. From what I understand, the group that responded could not fulfill its obligation. As a result of that, we had to go back to the original contractor and this emergency contract will address that time period, the gap period, so that now the new contract will start, I think, in September. So this contract will address that small space of time. So I'll let the purchasing department come up if you need more details, or if you would prefer me just have them send you a document that explains the details for purposes of time.

Is this a new shot spotter system we're purchasing or upgrading?

I believe it's the same company. Same company is just that for additional time.

Oh, I understand. Additional. Okay. So, oh, it's a contract time. Yes. Okay. Okay. Got you.

I'm good. And I will say that because of our summer schedule, with the small amount of meetings throughout the summer. Unfortunately, some things get caught up in the mix. So I will say that, you know, this isn't a situation where I'm going to put too much pressure on the actual departments. I know folks are trying to do the best they can based on, you know, when the agenda closes and things that's happening throughout the city. So what I would prefer to do is send the council a document that explains both of these two items in more detail so that you all can have it and you can appreciate it at a different level before tomorrow.

appreciate it um council president yes i may if we can get um is there some document or some information on all of the other starters just a little detail not much but just a blurb if we can get that sure appreciate it thank you all right i'll second that thank you

council president council members we are now in a 30-minute public comment portion of this meeting where each speaker will have three minutes to speak please state your name for the record is there anyone wishing to address the council members hey family wake up nook

Oh, mama, I'm so glad to see you up there. Hold it down. See you. I'm glad to see everybody up there. Silver said he's got some great event he's running to. They doing what they got to do in the World Cup. USA didn't win. Shout out to America's 250. I don't know if anybody else said it. You know, I'm a patriot. So definitely celebrate us. You know, we still a young country. We still got a lot of learning to do. And I'm just so proud of us to keep fighting. need a program to get me back you know a lot of us couldn't afford to stay here i work right in the city and couldn't afford to stay couldn't have my own i don't know if i've seen a lot of studios coming up but you know we need to maybe check out some studio apartments because young men need to have their own space you know they just shouldn't have to live with somebody or room and shack You see what I'm saying? As well as these jobs being able to pay for that, you know, in the city. And yeah, Kelly, I told you we should have had a storage facility or something up there, right? And it is terrible how it just looked like that on South Farm Jive. But Crump, you know, she didn't want to say it, but it sounded like those people are holding our city hostage. Okay, that's what it sounds like. When they refuse to build, it sounds like a hostage situation. And then they start flipping it over. Unfortunate. Council know about that. That ain't the only area these people are doing that, I'm sure. And we got to put more feet to the fire, make them want to build or, you know, beautify everything around it. Put some stuff up there that says don't mess with these people. It's just, it's not okay. And then it leads other people to feel like they can just do what they want to do. And you're right. We got to do better. We're going to do better again. I said we need to have these young people training for every position in this city. There should be a young person following behind every director, every other director, the person under him, so they can come next up, next up. We got to be building from the bottom up, period. should have been so many young people following y'all around or they can still follow you around this summer you see what i'm saying think like that be ready to pass the baton when it's time and knowing that you prepared them okay i should be following uh miss daniels around okay something but yeah i'm so happy to see everybody again i told y'all the public Remember we talked about the ordinance, the Public Trust Act stuff? Yeah, we're going to get that stuff done. Because when you talk about all this data, this is where we can keep all that data at. We can know what jobs are available, what youth services are needed, who's in these spaces. We can do it. I believe in you.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

I guess it's afternoon now, right? Good afternoon. Good afternoon, council. Good afternoon to all the city workers and all Newark residents. Before I say what I came to say, I'd like to give a shout out to the workers of DPW who come out and work very hard and pick up everybody's slack. Okay. My four at large council members, and my South Ward Councilman, I came to appeal to you to ask the administration to please, to please, to please fix the street on Avon Avenue between Seymour Avenue and Chadwick Avenue. It's only one block. And it is the block that is in front of Avon Avenue School. And it is a hot mess, a hot mess. And it has been for several years now. If you go up there right now, the street looked like it was hit by mortar shell. And they can't say it was because of the snow last winter. It's been that way for several years now. And over the past couple of years, they've come a few times and done the fill-in thing. It does not hold. It does not last. And I welcome any of you to ride up there and take a look for yourselves if you think I just came down here today because I had nothing else to do. All right, and enjoy the rest of your summer.

Thank you. Good to see you, Ms. Green.

Deborah Salter, it's a great day. Nurik, it was so great to hear all of the questions that were talked about today. Thank you, Donna, for bringing up everything that we've been talking about. But now we have someone sitting up there that's going to needle you to get these things done. And Ramos chiming in, all of you playing nicely. Beautiful, beautiful to see. You know, I want to thank Councilwoman Bay's office for doing their jobs. Issues that were happening at the Y, I called her. She was on vacation, jumped up. What? You know, her people got on it because quality of life issues are important. So thank you to you and your office for being diligent and following up. So, you know, a lot was said today about this property. And Donna asked the question about the ADUs and the parking, because that's my thing. Parking has always been an issue, right? Just like a project that they're putting on North 7th. They got deferred from the meeting the other night, but they want to put up all of these buildings with very limited parking. So I know Allison talked about, we had 4 million from some years ago for these ADUs and we need We need people, places to live. So if we've had this $4 million, did it have to wait for the ADUs to be used? And again, how are we making sure that this parking is being done? Like we talked about for years, Ramos brought it up, this particular lot that you all gave away for pennies. The guy merged it, flipped it, sold it for four or five times what it's worth. But we've been saying this to you all. So what are we going to do to where Newarkers are now going to benefit instead of these developers and people who are buying these lots that were not being sold to homeowners or people in the city who want to be homeowners? We have lost so many people because the city has not worked with them to become homeowners in the city that their blood, sweat and tears held together. So we need to see some resolve with that. We need enforcement. Like we talked about, you all were talking about the Pabst Blue Ribbon site, which we talked about for years. What's happening? What's going on? People dump on Newark and hold Newark hostage because you've allowed it. They've come and punked you and said, we're going to do this. And other people come and say, well, it's Newark, so we could just dump our trash here. They ain't going to do nothing, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it's true. So when are you going to do something? These are conversations. It is now time to roundtree board the clean and lean, right? Clean and lean the property. That way they're not able to flip it and sell it to somebody else until they take care of Newark and pay our bills. This way, you don't have to burden the homeowners with tax increases, water increases, whatever increases when you take it from the people who are taking from us.

Thank you. Any other speakers? I don't see no other speakers.

Roll call for executive session.

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.