Municipal Council - Regular Meeting

No. Thank you. I'd like to call to order the Naran Municipality uh council work session of Tuesday, March 17th. May I have a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance?

William McCoy. Dear Robinson, here. Here I do I have a motion to approve last meeting's minutes. So move. Second. All in favor? I. All right. I have it. Move on. We had an executive session tonight um about uh personnel.

Vice President Cleaning. Do we have any announcements? Yes, we do. Also, if anybody needs a translator, we have a young lady back there waving at you if you can get you can get a device to translate for you. Um, everybody mark your calendar. Saturday, April 25th, 2026 from 12:00 p.m. to 400 p.m. It's Izzy Earth Day party. I know you all wanted party with Izzy to be. This will be at um our recreational center. Am I correct? Let me see that. I'm trying to look for the thing. doesn't say there Elmo Park playground. My fault. Uh where has the best playground because I grew up there playing over there all the time. So April 25th, 2026 uh from 12:00 p.m. to 400 p.m. And um also I'll have a town hall at the library on March 23rd, I will have make sure I have uh green cupcakes since my last uh council meeting got snowed in for Valentine's Day. So we'll have uh Black Irish cupcakes. Black Irish. Any other announcements?

I'm sorry. I was just gonna um the uh the businesses on Marshall Street uh in in Nortown. Um on March 28th, uh we'll be having um a shop local uh celebration. We're encouraging folks to come out and um yeah, visit that that U shopping district. Uh, it'll be um all day. I think I have the hours here from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. So, we'd encourage people to come out and support local businesses. Thank you. Councilman Robinson.

Uh, thank you. Good evening all. I just wanted to say uh because hopefully we'll have a chance again to say it in in April, but just to name April for April 11th is coming up. Um, and I'd like to make it an annual thing with you all as I have this time together. So I hope that you will join me for what's the 411 our community town hall on 411. Uh it is it was virtual last year. We will have the virtual component. Uh but we will also have an in-person one as well. So I will come before coming with more details about the location. But just wanted to put it on your calendar. What's the 411? I'm interested to hear from you and hear about how your experience in the community is. So hope that you'll join us on April the 11th on 411. Thank you. Council, any other announcements? All right, moving along. Uh, responses to questions from last council meeting.

There are no specific questions from last council meeting. All right, thank you. All right, and we're off to public comments. Uh, Jay Begley and Oscar Vance. Good day, everyone. Hope you don't mind me put my green hat on. Well, I'm Jay Bagley and this is Oscar. Right.

I'm Oscar Vance, former Chief County Detective, Montgomery County District Attorney's Office. Uh, no stranger to the Narstown community. And, uh, I've been in this community of Narstown, working here uh, in the district attorney's office and working in conjunction with the Narstown Police Department on many occasions uh, for the past uh, 48 years. and I was the chief up there for about 30 years. But we come to you this evening for a program that we have now called the Advance Center located on Cherry Street. And uh it's located at 21214 Cherry Street. And uh there's certain things that we offer and we put together a program for you that you have in front of you at this present time. But we cover uh photography, uh drones, aviation, podcast, preparing young people for the police departments. We have a uh training program there. And uh Mr. Bagley here is the professor down at the Temple University who certifies these people for the drone program and also for the FAA program. So, Mr. Bagley, you want to tell about that?

Well, the main thing is our kids, the kids of Nars Town. Um, we deal with problem kids. They got a lot of issues. Some of them are afraid to ride down the street in the car without ducking down. that's how sensitive their interaction with their communities and they want to shoot each other and they want to hurt each other. Uh but what we're trying to do is turn that around and give them the positive outlook on that side. So for two hours for for certain they're in a safe zone. These kids are now uh since our first meeting which we had 10 kids and I tried to limit that but the next week we had 30. So that word got around which is a good thing because uh that's another opportunity for them kids. A lot of them are out of school, quit school, got thrown out of school, but uh they still have brain power. Our kids still walk around with with a brain and it can be turned around if they see some positive reinforcement and that's what we do. uh drones uh which I mainly uh do there is innovative and if you look at the movies, TV, the news, real estate, it's jobs for them without them having to you know get a college degree. So this is opportunity that they see and we have a group who are starting their own business. So this is how we come how far we come in a short time. So, it it's a blessing. It's a blessing to be a part of it and it's a blessing to be working with uh police chief uh Oscar Vance as well. And uh I've been working with I youth for a very long time and I've

takes some funding but that's that's that's just a little bit right there but it keeps us going. We're gonna have classes within three weeks uh for anybody who would like to get their part 107. Uh we'll be down 216 Cherry Street and we'll start you on getting certified on the drone program as well. And we do have photography, we do have music, and we have art and aviation. And for the kids who are athletic, we also have boxing. And that's growing. They just came out of nowhere. made itself at home and we said okay. So that's our story. Thank you.

Any questions? Uh not a question but I did want to offer a comment or actually one quick question. Are you guys um is your organization set up as a 501c3? Yes we are.

Okay. Awesome. I'd like to just quickly and I think this is helpful for anyone in the community share a funding opportunity with you. I'm not sure if you've heard of it but it is timesensitive. Uh the McGomery County area has the Healthspark Foundation and there is a fund called the Black Justice Fund. It's the Frank E. Boston Black Justice Fund. Dr. Frank E. Boston was a founder of the Landdale Hospital, first black person to own a hospital as well as an ambulance service here in the community. It's now the Lansdale Hospital, but either way, there's a trust that's transferred to his organization. They offer general operating support. They are open right now accepting applications, particularly LOIs. So if you want to learn a little bit more, but the deadline is March 25th. I would encourage you, you guys sound like you have a really interesting program. They do uh make sizable donations around that, but you have to prepare a letter a letter of interest basically detailing your program and in a lot of ways this can be your letter of interest. You send this in and then they will invite you to apply for the grant and this goes up every year. So March 27th is the deadline. You can visit healthspark.org to find out more about it. If you're here at the end of the meeting, I'm happy to share more. You can email me and I'll send it to you. But I would definitely encourage you, especially because that window is open right now, to look into an opportunity like that as well.

I thank you, uh, Mr. Robinson because I'm a AARP now and I was going to remember nothing you just said. I'll see you after the meeting. Thank you very much. Yeah,

Michael Patriga. Council, good evening. Uh, Michael Patria, 1800 block of New Hope Street in Nortown. And I know tonight we have a resolution uh before us uh pertaining to JP Mascaro and the the trash collection. Uh, and there's two options that were presented to council for uh weekly pickup just once a week or twice a week. And I looked up um tonight in the Webster dictionary the word consistent. And part of the definition it says continuing to happen. And the only thing that I can say that's consistent about with JP Mascara is that they're not consistent on picking up once a week because there's there's weeks at a time where I'll call there's weeks at a time where I I'll call and say nobody came to pick up my trash. So, as as we think about this tonight, let's um you know, let's keep that in mind that how it may have an effect on um you know, the town and the cost because I can see by looking at the resolution, it's going to be substantial increase uh in cost for this. Thank you,

Derek John's. Good evening, council. Um, there John's pathway to potential. Um, as you heard these men, great program. We partner up with them and been working with them. Um, but I'm here to address something a little bit different today. Um, there have been rumor within the town, I guess, trying to push my team out that we are the cops and we are working with the police and we are getting kids indicted. This is very dangerous for me and my staff. I've been working with the chief and everybody on council to better relationship with the community and council. But somebody who's walking around town telling them that we are getting kids locked up and getting them indicted. This is very dangerous to me and my team. And this nobody have given me any money. Nobody will put a dime in my pocket. Everything I do is from my pockets and my team pockets. So what we do is because we know the importance of trying to save lives and when people go around trying to do that is disheartening. And the most important thing is understand this. I'm not from the I'm was in the street life. Definitely was. But if I had information that a kid was going to kill a kid and I couldn't stop him, yes, I would inform the cop. I didn't think twice about it because that would be saving a life. But me going around being in the community to say, "Oh, I'm working to be secretly coming back and giving information to the chief or whoever is insulting to my character." And all I'm saying is that whoever is this rumor and the reason why I came to council to address it, I know people are watching and whoever is spreading this rumor is horrible. We're not here to

fight over money, funding, none of that. We have came here numerous times, told council what we're doing. Council haven't given us a job. We're doing this out of pocket. Come here all the way from Philadelphia every week. Nobody's giving me nothing. So, nobody should be acting like I'm over here fighting anybody for any money or any funding to be around trying to assassinate my character or put my team in danger. Thank you for your time.

Olivia Brady. Good evening, council, and happy St. Patrick's Day. I see on the agenda that there is a restructuring of the historic facade program, and that's what I'm here to talk about. Uh, I'm a member of the HARB as well as the Norristown Preservation Society. And I can tell you that historic preservation is very important to Norristown. It may not be a sexy thing. It may not be, but it is very important to Norristown because it is helpful to our economic development. So, I hope that the restructuring is I don't know what it is, but I hope the restructuring is to make it more accessible to the Norristown residents. I think it's important to um have the ability for these residents to fix up their homes and do it if they're in the district to do it in the historic way. So, I hope you'll consider that and thank you for your time. Al D. Janeiro.

Uh, good evening members of council. My name is Al Daneiro. Uh, I'm here with JP Mascara III. We're here uh with regard to the contract that's on the award. Uh, I'd like to defer if I could making comments. Certainly, we're here to answer any questions, but I thought maybe it might be appropriate to give us a few minutes when you have the agenda to make the award, answer any questions, and perhaps discuss your options. But we appreciate uh the opportunity if that would be permissible

practice. This is your opportunity for comment and you have two hours 2 minutes 30. Council of course could call you up with any kind of questions that they may have related to the proposals. That's not normal council's practice.

We will um We'll open the floor up for questions when you guys are up on the agenda. Okay. You guys want to feel some question? That's fine. Okay. Thank you. Um, Amber Queen.

Good evening. My name is Amber Queen. Um, I am a resident of Narstown. I'm also on the planning commission and design review board here. The reason I wanted to speak this evening were for two different reasons. Um the first is also about the JP Mascara contract. Um the trash service here is exactly that trash. They do not pick up the trash. They come in, they throw cans everywhere. We have broken cans. You can't get new cans. People are stealing wheels off each other's cans because there is such a long wait list to get trash cans. Um, you call JP MCO, you don't get anybody on the phone. They tell you they're going to call you back. They'll get you a can soon. Never happens. They barely pick the trash up. They definitely do not pick up the bulk items on the second Saturday of the month. And then when we have the dumpster um days, they are allowing contractors to come in and just fill those dumpsters. I see it with my own eyes. I live at Buttonwood Elm where there's one every single time. And unless you tip that gentleman, you're not getting anything in there. So, and he's actively made comments about people not tipping him in Narstown, even though he's paid to do a job. So, and we actively tip him when he helps to load anything large in those dumpsters. I would say I have a question. Did we do any type of vetting for other bids or quotes from trash companies other than JPMS Carol?

Normally, this is as uh Kell County said, this is more of you just talk to us, but I will say we did. Yes, many. Okay, we'll go over that when the item line comes up.

Okay, great. And then the second thing that I wanted to discuss has to do with B cellmark forensics and the contract with Narstown Police Department specifically regarding their data sharing as they do not abide by the rules and regulations that are followed by the state because they are a private entity. They have their own data sharing system and they have active contracts with ICE. There are other options who are local who are actually closer and would not be a larger increase in price to provide contracts with those companies. I would ask council to take into consideration that they actually look at the data sharing information of this company, who they share that information with, who what they're actually sharing, which is information of people who have not even been convicted of crimes yet, and that you would take into consideration finding another company for that contract. Thank you,

Andy. Not sure.

Good evening, council. My name is Andy. I'm also here um to talk about the Bode technology contract and to encourage looking into other options. I know um some of my colleagues including Amber who just spoke has offered a list of other resources that the county can go with for um their services and that don't um track um and have active contracts with um ICE and the Department of State. This is not the time to be giving away free information. We have vulnerable populations here in Norristown and there's no reason to be turning over information of people that are suspected of a crime and then could be picked up and will be put into the system. Um, so we encourage that NPD looks into other options that are more reasonable, local, and have a better outcome for the people of Nortown. Thank you.

Question. Uh, who you said that a list was turned in. Uh, is there any chance that you can send that list to me? We can send a list to you. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

And Natalia Nanjo. Good afternoon. Uh my name is Natalia Nano. I am a longtime community resident of Naristown and I'm also here to talk about uh resolution 2604. But I'm mainly here to talk about community trust with police as we have seen over the years. Community trust with police has been eroded. Um and we have seen police officers try to rebuild up that that trust with community with different events with different moments. Um but we continue to see that lack of trust, right? Because we see situations like this where the community doesn't know how much communication there is between ICE and police, but when when they're seen in the same locations, that trust erodess, right? And then when we see that because you were arrested for a DUI 10 years ago, because you were arrested for a suspected crime five years ago or whatever the situation is, once your information is in the system, that's it, right? They have your information, they have your address, they start following you or well, ICE specifically starts following you, right? So, as we're trying to fix this community trust between the the Naran community and police, we see this erosion when we have situations like this where police says we're not working with ICE. We're not giving your information to ICE, which is true, right? But then we see these connections between both cellmark forensics and other situations like that where once they input that situ that information into a system, it's out of their hands, right? And so as we're talking about building up that that trust with community, it would be completely different if the police could tell the community, hey, once we have your information, we have been able to cut the the ties between giving your information over to a federal agency or to the agency that is stalking our community members, right? Community members are no longer safe. It's not that they're taking criminals or people that are just in the system because of a

crime they committed. They're taking anybody who's in their system. We have seen them take people off of the street. We have seen them arrest people and detain people in front of children at the bus stop at 6:00 in the morning. Can you imagine how these children feel to then have to go to school and be there all day once they saw somebody's parents get taken away in front of them? It's difficult to see this trust continue to erode. And so if we as council, sorry, if y'all as council can do something to change that and to to really be able to rebuild up that trust again is something that we desperately need in this community as we see our rights being taken away and stripped away by our federal government and our state government every day. So if our local government and agencies can change that and really build back up that trust, that's what we actually need for our community and for our people to see our representatives and our elected officials be able to do that. So I thank you and good night.

All right, moving over to appointments. Resolution 26-25 appointment of professional ser or professionals for 2026 long nightquist. Yes, council you have before you um again the resolution 2625. This is the long quest long and nightquist. This is the lobbyist um for you for you to make a decision on which way you would like to go. Council, any questions?

I just want to make a statement. I I think we should continue our relationship with them. Um they have helped us uh retrieve funds for constituents over the years kind of should have been in my opinion on the January uh or just kind of getting late to it. Um so I think we should definitely u work with them and then then if you have questions or if you want to go elsewhere next year, we should have that discussion later. And then backing up there, um our contract with them, this will be a month-to-month contract that could be cancelled at any time just in case we're not happy with the services they bring. If that was the case,

correct? Looking at the agreement, it is looks like uh looks like it is a month-to-month. Okay. There's no penalty with that either. Not that I see an agreement, though. We got to make them work. Any other questions? All right. Seeing none, do I have a motion uh to appoint the Long Night Quest as our professional rules uh for 2026? So move. Second, Madam Secretary. William McCoy. I Robinson. Hi. Natalie Coulson. Hi. David McMahon. Hi. Dustin Queen. Hi. Shates. Hi. The eyes have it.

All right, moving along. Resolution 26-24, recommend award of contract to JP Mascara and Sons for Residential Solid Waste and Recycling Collection Services. Yes, council. We um actually I'm going to have Mr. Seion Chen present um this and he's going to go through the RP process of how we got to selecting this this actual vendor.

Hello, council. All right. So, uh, we went out for the RFP on the services. Kevin, you can actually go to the next slide. All right. Um, so currently our contract is with JP Mascar Suns. The contract first 2026. So, we went out for um request for proposals to get a competitive bid um for this process to see what we can do to renew or to get a new vendor. Next slide. All right. So, we advertise the posting in the Times Herald. We also um did the RFP through PenBBID. Um with PenBBID, it actually went out to every vendor who had a uh related commodity code. Uh so essentially anyone that's in the trash industry or so forth automatically got a system generated um notification let them know that this RFP was live. Um through that we had 26 entities actually pull documents. We had two that were in the process of preparing. One of them actually withdrew and we had the final proposal received which was through JP Maspar and sons. Next one. All right. Um the proposal was reviewed by a scoring committee uh consisting of representatives from the administration, finance department, public works department and the fire department. Uh the they scored the proposal individually and independently. Um the system then took their scores and came with the average of 84.25 out of 100. So the proposal we did receive was determined to be responsive and responsible. Um we have two service options that were provided within the proposal that we're presenting to council for consideration. All right. Uh we have option one which is the once per week trash collection. Uh here you'll see that the base contract term will be for 24 million482304. Uh it does have two optional extension years if we were to decide to extend um with a maximum potential contract of 37 million 97,856.

And for option two, um same terms, but this will have a twice a week trash pickup that has a base contract term from 28 million 164 and 96. Uh extension years there as well with a maximum potential contract value of 42,915 456. All right. So, excluding the prated 2026 period, which would be the same price for either the once a week or twice per week collection, um we're looking at for a twice per week um collection representing a 100% increase in service for approximately a 17% increase in cost. Um so double the the the work versus 17% in increase. Uh as an example, uh looking at 2030, the once per week uh service would be 4779 per household per month. at twice a week it would be 55.88 per house hustle per month with that's approximate difference of about 978 annually or $89 monthly or approximately 26 cents increase a day. So essentially we can have twice a week per service um twice a week trash pickup uh for 26 cents a day additional over the once per week um calls. All right. So, we did do a brief uh public survey and went out to gather some information. We had uh 80% of our residents who did participate actually were still in favor of maintaining the once per week with 20% um requesting for twice per week um pickup. What we noticed though within the uh once per week trash pickup, the complaints were usually around cause concerns, the bulk pickup issues, uh cart replacement delays, and missed pickup um concerns. So with that in our current contract that we're working on um and part of this proposal we actually have some

items that addresses those things. So for example the cost context um the cost for service even if we stayed the same is still going to increase uh based on uh different factors such as rising wages, equipment costs, fuel and inflation. Um the so what we're looking at is ways for us to maximize our service value essentially if we're going into this new contract. Uh what we're looking at too as far as we have the bulk pickup items. Um there were complaints around the you know Saturday bulk pickups and we noticed that they mascara was actually picking up trash exc with the regular trash pickup. So we actually worked that into our um RFP essentially to have bulk pickup done at the same time as the regular trash services. So residents have uh up to two bulk items they can place per trash pickup on the same day with their same trash. Uh if we were to do uh twice per week, that means they'll have double opportunity to do bulk pickup through the same week as well. Uh when it comes to cart replacement, um right now we have a 48 hour turnaround for cart repair or replacement. What we're doing with that too to add some more accountability, we're creating a shared mailbox between the vendor and the municipality. So whenever there's a complaint, a reser resident uh registers it through this mailbox. We'll have track it inhouse as well. So we can actually follow up and make sure that the uh carts are being replaced, but not only um limited to cart replacements, but actually any kind of trash complaint or issue, they can be sent and we can track them accordingly. uh when it comes to miss pickup, we actually built into this also a uh contractual penalty system. So essentially if there's uh mispicked up or service failures, we can actually penalize the vendor um based on that. But again, we'll have some ownership of that with the mailbox for us to be able to track it and actually hold them accountable for the services that we're agreeing to.

All right. So, essentially what we're looking at is uh for council to decide whether we're going to be doing a once a week per trash collection pickup versus the twice a week trash collection pickup. Is there any questions? Council, any questions? This is a four-year contract that you're asking us though. It's prorated, so roughly around four years and 9 months essentially. So it'll finish out the 2026 period and then be four years. So it'll go up to 2030.

I I think I have a question. So um also too, is there a way to have um and I know we talked about this um mascara come in quarterly to um answer public comment and questions and council questions. um can we put that in the contract for complaints so that way we're not um fielding because I know that's one of the biggest complaints that I have in the fourth district are um you know m complaints about trash and stuff like that. So, I'd love to have them come in and um you know, field questions and stuff like that and us also have the opportunity to talk about any um

yeah, I don't see that being an issue. And then part of the contract too also comes with the education far as trash services, the recycling services and so forth. But then also with the shared mailbox um we actually will have data that we could present ourselves at the same kind of meeting and as well as have them come in, but we also require them to provide reporting on that data as well. So I don't see that in Okay. And at least even if in the meetings having someone from council sit in on one of those quarterly meetings so we can field our concerns too. Okay.

What do you think comes in with the repair of the trash cans like some of the constituents said you know people complain about the time service. So let's say someone doesn't get a trash can for 30 days. Is there something built in there or fine penalized? Correct. If the trash cans are going and they aren't being replaced, there's a penalty built in the RFP. Okay. And to say too, the goal isn't to penalize and fine. Our goal is to ensure it's getting done, but if it's not getting done, the penalties are built in to help back that up.

Right. We have a um someone from Mascar. Sorry, I didn't hear your name when you said it the first time. Um, so I want to open the floor to any of the constituents out here if they want to speak on that. Do I need to have a motion to open the floor just to have them ask some questions? Can I do that? You can do whatever you you choose to do. Yes. Fair enough. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, just before we get there, can I just had a couple questions in regards to this plan? Um there was a survey right that you said that went out to assess residents and there was feedback offered around this. Um

looking at the two options um I'm wondering a little bit more about just our capacity through the contract itself. Is it mandatory that we take this 4-year and however many months contract or is there any conversation about a smaller time frame to pursue other options? And I was wondering within that commitment time period is there any penalty if we still find that this is not a service that is working for us or we're not liking is there a penalty for us in cancing that service? Uh we have uh built into our contract typically a way to cancel our services and it could be for convenience or whatever the case might be but we do have room to build in for us to be able to change services um in between the contract. But I do know through um with this our 2026 year is kind of locked in per budget, right? So it's already locked into what it is whether you picked once a week or twice a week. And I do know there's even opportunity because twice a week is a change. So there is even an opportunity for us to use it as a um like a test test experience to see if we rather want to do this or even just to to look at it, see if we want to do get more data or more feedback. Um but we do have room to kind of play around without being locked specifically with this. We just need one

uh without locked into the terms before. For example, if you were to pick the twice a week, we could hypothetically do a twice a week test run and then switch back to the once a week if we decide that the twice a week isn't what we want. It really may be me, but I'm having a terrible time hearing you. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. No, so what I was saying is that Alina, I'm sorry, I'm a little tall. Yeah, what I was saying is that um there is room for us to like for example we're to do the twice a week pickup. We can use that the 2026 keep playing. I'm sorry. Is it Can I give you a mic? I cannot hear like I really can't hear you. All right. Let me try to pick the mic. Can you guys hear me better now? It's a different month.

Okay. So the there is room for if we did the twice per week trash collection there is room that if we decided hey we don't like this we want to go back to once per week we can enter that discussion to switch to service.

So is there a time period within that like when is this is there a trial period of what you're saying? Uh so based on the RFP the um rates are all locked in for I believe it's 60 or 90 days one of the two but I think what we would need to look at we would actually have to discuss with the vendor essentially for the actual terms for that um which we can build into the contract before signing. So for example if it was for a month or excuse me for a year without penalty or whatever the case is we need to discuss um with the vendor to come to terms to agree but they are open today. Okay, I'm doing my best to hang in there. I really think I'm trying my best to I can speak with other I understand and I don't know if it's a vacuum of sorts. Repeat your question again.

My question I was trying to understand how much of a time window we had in navigating some of these services. He what I gathered of what I could hear was that there is some amount of time where we can try one of these rounds, see if we like it or not, but I'm not getting I'm not getting the clarity of how long of a time. Let us answer that. Um, so what would obviously this is a general award based on our specifications. What would follow up is a contract after that. What we would do is build in a notification period if Norristown was not happy and a 30-day period or whatever to switch or something like that. We'd have to negotiate that with Mascara, but I'm sure they would be immunable. Correct. So, right now, we're just asking for the RFP. We have not finalized the contract. Correct.

Correct. But service is currently active and within our active service, we could be trying some of these services. Right. Right. But again, we'd have to negotiate that with Mascarero through the contract. Thank you. Um I know that there was an RFP process for this in general. Um if it seems to find that we find ourselves in conversations with Mascarero year-over-year. Um can you talk a little bit of maybe about the conditions that create that? Is Moscow coming forward as the lead bidder? Are we seeing other options? Are we pursuing any other options? I'm just wondering seems like we always have a bit of concern but they're al also a part of the conversation

right so through this process and I think with a lot of our RFPs we're tending to go more to pen the pendant system which is electronic based system um and like I mentioned earlier it's tied to commodity codes so for example if ABC company has commodity 123 I'm putting RFP out for this one 123 related um service they get it's a wide net that goes out to cast to let them all know that this is available So what we tried to do for this, we tried to cast as wide as a net as we could for this. Um we had 26 entity, different entities that actually came in and pulled documents, but we ultimately had one successful bidder. And that is with this kind of service. It is kind of typical for some of them. Um and that could just be based off of the um where they're established, the upfront cost of what it might take for them to actually come in and do services so forth. Um, but so it's not uncommon for this type of service, but we did try to cast as wide as a net as we could.

And with that within that wide net, they ended up being the only successful completed. Correct. Correct.

I saw within my agenda packet that you also looked internally to see what options could exist within the municipality. I was wondering as you kind of went through those processes, were there anything particularly that stood out to you as viable options either now or for the future? Um, I think there's stuff that we can definitely look in and discuss further. There's more to it. There's there's deeper things that we need to discuss. One, one of them is what kind of equipment we actually need? When would we be a get that kind of equipment? Do we even have the resources to do so? Um, what would it be to get those resources on board? Because then it's not only just paying for the service, we're paying for, you know, the salaries, the insurance, you know, all the other kinds of things that kind of go into that. Um, and then also, you know, looking at what we can do to do at the same scale of what was being done because one of the things we don't want to do is put a disservice to to our residents essentially. Um, but I do think there is room to at least discuss or talk about it. Um, but it's not something we can do immediately prevent an elapse in service.

Um, and I just have one more question. I'm not sure who this goes to in the room, but let's say we decide not to go with Mascaro in this given situation. I'm just wondering what the other side of that looks like. We don't reestablish a contract with them. What happens? Is that service interruption? What does that look like? Service interruption, right? Service interruption. So, that's kind of not even on the table. They say it was, but I'm just I think there's concern here. So, I hope I think it's helpful to talk about without being short. What is service interruption look like?

Service interruption looks like there's no service. There would be no pickup. Uh and again as um Canon mentioned we pulled that net out 26 different vendors pulled it. Um but as I'm sure Mascara will get up and talk about and as can already mentioned in order to start a new service it takes a lot of startup and a lot of assets to do that. So even if you had interrupted service and we you were trying to do something it would be it would take some time to get something going. Even municipalitywise, we're not equipped. We're not prepared. We don't have equipment. We don't have staff to do that if it was immediately interrupted.

And last question, the end of that service contract is upon us. Is that right? Correct. Uh March 31st uh of this month is the last uh is a cut off date of the last extension that we had per based on the previous contract. more questions.

Uh yeah, I I have a question. I mean, I am also interested in exploring the idea of this being a municipal service uh going forward. Part of the reason being that um you know, Nortown kind of has, you know, it's not a suburban community with driveways and wide areas for collection. Um, I know on my street, you know, the the way we have these cans and only these cans for suitable for pickup doesn't work for some stretches of homes where there's no um access like through a back alley. So, those cans stay up in and out in front all times. Um, neighbors can enjoy cannot use their porches, you know, in the summertime because, you know, there's just a like a line of of cans in front of like a whole stretch of homes. Um, I think that the sort of certain like inflexibility in the way that the pickups are conducted is not helpful, you know, for some parts of Norristown. Um, and I think that if we took this on as our work at some future time, we could have more of that flexibility. Um, I'm still not I'm still weighing option one and option two at the moment, though. And to touch on that a little bit too, when it looks at the um and when it comes down to the cost breakdown as well, if you're looking at the twice a week um pickup essentially when you do have the residents, especially in the summer, that's one of our the things that we've thought about as well is that with the cans are sitting out there as a summer, it's hot, these things are, you know, building up sense. If it had twice a week, it'll get those things out and empty faster. Um, and looking at the differences in the prices for the uh comparison to the once a week uh pickup rate versus the twice a week pickup rate for that particular year, we're looking at about 27 cents in difference a day and there really could be some value there. Um, giving us more bang for our buck essentially. One of the thing that I was looking at with what we're looking at with that as well when it comes to the shear mailbox for example when there are areas where it's difficult for trash

pickup and this is why it's not limited to just the recycling um um the trash receptacle repairs it gives room for residents to voice their concerns and so forth because there might be a better or particular way for a certain block that needs to be picked up. It gives us room to provide some data to that and actually work with Mascara or whoever the vendor is selected I should say um for us to work with that and tailor essentially to make sure we are getting the services that we we're paying for. Um, what is the increase if at all from last year's budget and our services? If we were to just stay at the base rate of the same services, apple to apples, what increase or if any was there from this budget last year? Um if you look in the uh the packet that was there, we did have the um based on the price form, you can kind of see where the 2026 uh was locked into because that was part of the requirement um that the 2020X year 2026 year had to be locked at what was already approved per budget. Um so what we have is a 30, for example, a once a week um pickup is at 3576, but then there's also additional things on there as far as like the bulk pickup events that we do and so forth. But the year two it goes to uh 4513 for a once a week pickup, but that includes all of the additionals that weren't mentioned essentially.

And how does that align to last year's prices? Uh there's there's definitely an increase. Um I I don't know what the to say as far as the exact amount, but it's for if you're looking at the per household, it's going from 3576 to 4588 uh 13, which is roughly like 9 and some change. $9 and some change. Um but again there's more and that's with our service stay the exact same uh at the once per week. Um that increase is still there because of the different rates that weren't factored during the other contract which couldn't possibly have been which is inflation the wage increases and so forth. So it's really just kind of catching up to where that is that jump

there. And that's not to put you on the spot but I think people are concerned about or want to know more about where that pricing dollar is and from the feedback you said you were getting in the public survey people were interested in what those dollars and cents were making out. So, I just wanted to name that for our

room. I may wanted to call out mascara. Perhaps I would suggest a process if there were any. I know you want to engage the public again to see if they have questions of mascara rather than them. Um, their question may be directed towards you and then you ask mascara. You're not getting a back and forth right there. It may make the process go a little easier. It makes it a lot better. Yes. Well, before I open the uh the floor to the public, does anyone have a question to ask JP Mascara while they have representatives here? Because if not, I will not open the floor.

You would just need Okay. So, I need to make a motion for this first, right? Okay. Cool.

Thank you. I mean, a theory of giving them penalties for not doing their job is great, but I'd like to understand why there's a six-month lead time for just a trash can. It's as simple as that. Um, or why they even miss the pickup to begin with when we see them pick up trash and then they skip houses and don't pick them up and I see them put recycling in the regular trash. We pay extra for recycling. So, I'd like to understand how they can promise us that they're going to do better than they've done in the five years I've lived here because every single year it's gotten worse not better in my opinion. So that's really my question is is how are we as residents supposed to say Mascara stands up here and they can say whatever they want that's fine but they have shown us the opposite of everything that was discussed up here. I I understand we got one quote but why aren't we actively seeking why we're not getting more quotes? Why? I would like to understand the reason for the other quote that rescended. Why? We have three other trash companies that pick up within Montgomery County. So to say that we're going to have a huge disruption of service, I don't believe that. There are plenty of other companies that actively work within Montgomery County and and in Nortown and in East Norton and West Norton. It's not all Mascaro. So why are we not actively seeking out quotes from those companies that already are servicing other parts of our area? So I guess that's for us.

That's for everyone. So right, we are asking people to bid on it and we can't force them to. I know. I understand the process. I used to run a construction company. So the other company I don't did they get bought out or something like that? So I think they got bought out by another company. So then they pulled out. That's what I'm hearing. So, but we Why isn't anyone from Narstown reached out to Whitetail or Republic or Waste Management to ask why they're not even interested in giving us a quote? Are we just going to wait around and wait for somebody to want to do the work or are we going to actively try to seek better service? But that's the purpose of the RFP. I understand what the RFPs are. I hear what you're saying. You're

But I just want this and see on reference that the people in that industry were notified specifically that the bid went out and they they were notified. I understand that. But I also understand that there's a lot of um politics involved with companies around here as well, right? They know I mean they know that Mascaro is the one that's been servicing our area for how long? I have done trash contracts for dumpster pickups for all kinds of stuff. But when we say politics, can you I mean as in not stepping on each other's toes. Oh, so you're saying they internally they're the trash company each other. Okay. Because we say they all have their areas and whatever else.

I just want to No, no. I just think that we can be more proactive in seeking better service here instead of just settling for the crumbs because that's what it feels like. We're just This is the only quote we got. So, we're going to be good with that and that's we're we're going to go with that's what it sounds like that the reason they do RP so legally we won't be getting sued that we're cherry picking. Right. But if you're not getting any other quotes other than the company that you have a current contract with that's up for renewal, you are legally allowed to reach out to other companies to ask for them specifically to put a quote or bid or ask why they're not interested. There's nothing illegal about that.

There's no wrong with sending a question. I I briefly say why didn't you bid? But yeah, we that's there there's nothing illegal about that whatsoever. With that being said, um we will I will make it a point to reach out. Would appreciate to find out why they did not. Yeah. And I would also just consider what one week looks like, once a week looks like. Do we think that they're going to then come in and do it twice a week and do it? Well, I think we would all love to have our trash picked up twice a week. I just don't think any of us believe it's going to get picked up twice a week. Can't even get a trash can. and I've been waiting literally 6 months. So, thank you. Somebody from appreciate that.

How are you?

Good. JP Mascara III from JP Mascara and Sons. Um, first I'd like to say obviously we've been uh doing trash and recycling collection in the burrow of Norsttown for a long time. We appreciate the longstanding relationship that we've had with you. uh you're a very good customer of ours and we uh take pride in the service that we do provide to the community. I do want to address the current um procedures that are in place to address service concerns because um the way it's been presented tonight, it's as if we just go about our business and we don't have any interaction with the municipality with the bureau in terms of uh addressing complaints and issues that arise. And that's certainly not the case. Currently, we have meetings with public works on a twice a month basis, which is far more than any other contract that we perform in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And at those meetings, we discuss any complaints that were were sent into the burrow or any that were uh sent called directly into our company and we reconcile those. I can tell you for last month we had 25 for the entire month. We did 30,000 collections in the bureau and there were 25 complaints. That's less than one a day or basically one a day for the collection days. That's an excellent rep uh service level that we that we provided to the town. Now, I'm not here to dispute if there are individual residents that have had issues and I will certainly make myself available to them specifically. Uh give them my personal cell phone and handle their their issues uh directly. I have no no issue with that. you mentioned with respect to carts and the specifications of carts and things like that. That's the burrow decided to to have carts and the burrow decides what the specifications are that we bid on and that's what we do and that's the services we provide. We didn't decide to to necessarily put the carts out there. Um but we're we're committed and have

been to working with the burrow to address any concerns that come up. In fact, on a quarterly basis, I know you mentioned on a quarterly basis, we submit a written survey to the the bureau to fill out which has a laundry list of items for them to be able to put their concerns down. And we've received an excellent um record service uh level on all of those surveys in the last three years that we've had here in the burrow from the burrow from the burrow. So unless we know of what your issues or concerns are, we can't handle them. And but we're always open and willing to to to have lines of communication open to improve the service uh and make things the rest that you know the best that the bureau can be. I mean, we're we're committed. We're here. We're we're your neighbor. Um and we want this to be a good contract. Let me just say with respect to the once a week versus twice a week I once a week or twice a week obviously we're we're the we're the only bidder on on both of those options. So for us it it's really um irrelevant but I will say from the twice a week standpoint and and these issues have been brought up. Twice a week does provide the opportunity to have a cleaner collection throughout the barrel. Your trash is being collected twice a week. Right now, what you see sometimes in the once a week, not everyone, but some, they fill their containers up, the lids are up when they put them out on their trash collection day. That obviously gives the opportunity for the elements to get the trash spread out into the into the alleys in the streets. It also allows the opportunity for the for the animals and things to dig into the trash and spread the spread them in the street. When you go to the twice a week, obviously your trash is going to be picked up twice, so it'll be far less opportunity for those types of situations to take place. The bulk collection currently is being done on a

Saturday. We didn't decide that. That was in the last specification. Obviously, we think it makes more sense to do what's in this new specification, which is to pick the bulk up as we go through the town. I mean, there are many times now where there's bulk sitting out waiting to be collected. And it and quite frankly, I drive through Nan every day. I don't like the way that looks and I call my guys and tell them to pick it up even though it's not bulk collection day. Um the the the the former uh person that was in charge of the contract didn't like when we did that. He wanted it waited he wanted us to wait till the till the collection day that the bulk was supposed to be picked up on. So the the long and the short of it is we do have an open dialogue with the bureau on a very regular basis. We will continue that. We'll we'll certainly uh offer up any other opportunities for that dialogue to expand or continue because our goal is to have you be happy with your trash collection services. And I know we're not always going to be able to make everyone happy. That's just the nature nature of the uh of the business, but we certainly will strive to make everyone and every resident hap as happy as we possibly can. The cart issue, I I realize that has been an issue. We have put out 30% more carts in the first in the last contract than what the original specification called for. They get taken. They get um um a lot of people call and complain that their carts have been stolen. So, we we replace them. And yes, there has has been a backlog, but we're going to hopefully with the new system that uh the administration is going to put in place, we'll be able to address those on a more timely timely basis. Uh and uh Mr. Lightner. I've worked with him in another municipality. He knows my accessibility, so I'm not just standing here giving you uh a sales pitch. Uh he will certainly uh know how to get a hold of me and address any issues that that arise. Uh and like I said, we appreciate the business and we look forward to uh improving uh the cleanliness of the burrow with the twice

a twice a week collection. uh if that's the option that you go with. Uh and obviously um seeing whatever else we can do to work together to make sure that you guys have the best trash and recycling system that you can have and I'm available for any questions that you might have.

Thank you. I did have a question. Um you had mentioned that you work closely with the bureau. First of all, thank you for your time. Thank you for coming out and being willing to be a part of the conversation. I'm interested where the breakdown possibly could be because I do hear resident concerns about the trash. you're saying they're getting or at a place now where you've recently got less than one a day or around that rate and you're hearing from the municipality that everything is okay. Where might that breakdown be coming from where those concerns are? Do you find is it is it that you think that people are not reaching out to you? I'm just wondering because I've heard the concerns so I'm a little concerned that you're not hearing the concerns. I

I'm not so sure. I mean, we give the burrow the opportunity with a written survey to put down in writing what any issues or concerns are, and they have not been giving us back any issues or concerns on those on those surveys. Uh, and we've we meet in person on a twice a month basis with with public works to discuss any issues that that are ongoing and we, you know, strive to address them immediately. Additionally, we have supervisors in the town every day that check in on a daily basis with public works to see real time if there's any issues that that that need to be addressed. And we'll, you know, obviously we'll continue to do that. Um, and is there a way the public reaches out to you all?

Yeah, we they they have the ability to reach out to us either either by by phone, email, uh, etc. Uh and hopefully with this new system uh that that's being discussed here tonight where we're we're simultaneously getting notifications, maybe that will um help help uh so there's no confusion with we called the burrow, we called Mscaro that we can we can uh have it all in one place and and address it timely. Awesome. And then my last question was just around can you help me understand because I wondered this too. What what feeds into the backlog of the long wait time for trash cans or the replacement of that distribution thing or what is that?

Well, it it was the it was the large the large volume of containers, right? When we when we first put the containers out, um you have 9,000 and then no one really knew what how many people were going to want one or two. We we accommodated it for two for everyone. We've gone through that aotment and we've put 30% more than the allotment out in in the burrow. Where they've gone, I don't know that. Um, and I think there may be this might be one of the communications issues with the with the with the carts that we we are hoping to solve with this with this new system. Uh, but I I I agree we should be we should be responsive to residents that have cart issues. I there's no doubt about that. And we'll we'll work to to make sure that happens. And and if

my wheel breaks a lot, too. I'll just say that with my wheel on my cart. I don't know if that's a thing you hear. I do have a question. Um, do you have a designated like team or something like when you call when Nars sound specifically calls in for customer service that they handle the calls? Because I think that's one of the biggest complaints that I hear is that they call Mascara and they don't get a call back or um, you know, it takes a long time for them to get a call back. So, is there like a specific We do have a We do have a designated representative that to receive the calls from Narstown and log them accordingly. And we do log every call that comes in. Okay. Uh and that's that's kind of what we then go over with uh at the the the bimonthly meetings that we we go over with with staff.

Would you say the call volume is high? I would say it's compared to other municipalities very low. Really? Okay. All right. Yeah. because that's because that's kind of what I hear at least in my district, fourth district. Most of the complaints that I hear honestly are trash pickup. Um so that's why I was just wondering if there was um if the call volume was high or maybe the person that's taking the call, you know, was kind of overwhelmed and maybe gets a lot of complaints and is not able to answer everyone back or No, I I like I said, for the month of February, we had 25 calls for the entire month. Okay. Wow. Okay. If they're not getting calls, you're only getting 25 a month. That's something we definitely should look into. Well, I'm sorry. What was that like?

If you're only getting 25 calls a month and then people are not getting calls back, that's something we definitely should look into. Well, I'll look into everything I hear tonight. I'll obviously look into uh and and and we'll be prepared to address these at the at our first first meeting um that we have on our right next regular meeting and we'll address all these issues that that were brought up tonight. That'll be great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, if I could just say a few words following up. Certainly, I was definitely here. I'm sorry. Mascara. I know it's I know. But it's just that means he's one. I get it. But it's just a thing that doesn't work.

No, you have to wait for them to speak. They're they're a team. The organization open to public comment. After they are done, not he is done. To your point, you did open up for public comment and you did not line, but he wasn't in the line. He asked already and you all did not get in the line and I was really like his face, right? So, we're going to let them finish and then you all can have an opportunity.

Thank you. Um, I've been with Mascara for 35 years. I've dealt with your solicitor. I've dealt with uh many of your uh past managers and first of all, you know your community. We're not going to suggest whether you should go to once a week or twice a week. And I'm I'm sensitive to that. You obviously want to get input from your residents whether it's by survey or by here tonight. uh you're the elected officials and JP obviously's last name was on the side of the truck. Uh he's sensitive to the service issues and he wanted to speak to you about that and and we we understand that if there's a lack of communication, we need to improve that. I just wanted to talk to you for a couple of minutes about your options that uh uh I think are factors for you to consider. First of all, um this is not a this is not an advertisement, but I have to be honest with you. JP Mascaran signs in this area has the most solid sound infrastructure of anybody. Now, we don't compete nationally. We can't compete with waste management all over the country. We can't compete with Republic over the country. But the Montgomery County, nobody has the infrastructure that we have. What do I mean by that? We have a hauling division right across uh the river from you and Bridgeport. We have a state-of-the-art uh $20 million recycling center just outside of Pottstown. We have a landfill just outside of Pottstown. So, our resources allow us to comp compete very competitively in this region. And your solicitor will tell you there's no politics in public bidding. You have to award the contract to the lowest responsible bid and bidder. And I've been going to municipal meetings like this for 35 years. And it's not unusual to have one or two bids. Uh it's a very tough business. It's very capital intensive. So, the fact that you only got one bid in the end result doesn't mean that you didn't reach out. Uh, it's a public process. Everyone on pen bid gets these notifications. So, 23 companies, 23 entities took your bid solicitation. And I would suggest to you that they realize that they couldn't compete with us in this community given the resources infrastructure we have and

the fact that there are private haulers that collect individuals. This is a bonded community. we're going to have to put up a $24 million bond. Now, I'm not saying you want to prevent people from bidding on this contract, but you have to have certain protections uh to make sure that if there's an issue because it's one thing to have uh complaints about misses. It's another thing to have a company not show up and then you have a performance bond issue. But I took enough your time, but I just wanted to focus on a couple things that I think if you haven't considered, you ought to consider. Um we we service about a 100 communities throughout Pennsylvania and we have more than a handful that are twice a week. The largest contract in the Commonwealth that goes out to bid is the city of Allentown. It's about 130,000 units. They've had twice a week for some time. We have that contract in Montgomery County. Lower Providence has had twice a week for a number of years. We have that contract uh about 14,000 units. Uh Warster is another big one. We even have a small community that has twice a week a burrow in in uh Delaware County Cohen Burough. So what I what I wanted you to take a look at if I could just uh ask uh your solicitor to uh pass down talk about value. I think this is where you can really appreciate whether you're getting value for your services when you compare the two types of of services once a week or twice a week. So I asked my guy to break down You know, we look at we look at the contract as number of collections. You have 9,000 units. So, right now we have 9,000 trash collections. We have 9,000 recycling collections. That's 18,000. Then you have bulk. Then you have yard waste. So, we're we're we're collecting between 25 to 30,000 uh containers a month. Am I going to sit here and tell you that that's going to be perfect? No. The human element, there's going to be

issues. The issue is not when there's a mistake. the issues when we can clarify it in a timely manner, which is important and we should be able to do that in 24 hours and we're not insensitive these to these folks here tonight. But what I showed you here is regardless of which option you go with now, the way your specs were laid out, there was a price mandated for the remainder nine months. So the price from April 1st to 1231 is the same price whether it's once a week or twice a week. And if and if and if you look at that number and say what what am I getting for that? The rule way we suggest you evaluate that is look at what the cost is per pickup which means every time the truck comes down the street to pick up trash. What are you paying? If you look at this chart I gave you uh in 2026 for one for that one collection of trash per week because we pick it up once. I'm not talking about yard waste. I'm not talking about bulk. I'm not talking about recyclables. But for one collection a week, u it's costing under our number $2.77. Now you go across that under 2026 for twice a week, you see that it's it's $1.92. So how two collections in each collections costing your residents under a price $1.92 versus one collection for 277. And when you look at those numbers, I suggest that that's how you really can value and gauge whether you think uh you're getting a bang for your buck or you're getting uh uh the best price, you know, as as and and I looked at these numbers compared to Warminster, which is twice a week, compared to lower Providence, which is twice a week, and even Allentown. And the per pickup is about the same. And when I say that cost, you know, that factors in sending a $400,000 truck down the street every day with a CDL driver that that makes a

fair wage of about 80 to $85,000 including benefits. Two drivers in the back of the truck that make about 50 to $55,000 with benefits and the insurance and everything else. So that's all tied in and that's what that's what you're getting for that service. and a you know as to factors that you would consider when from me going to other meetings and listening to other folks uh talk about you know why they would go twice a week um first of all the trash doesn't sit in the container for a whole week it gets empty twice a week and I've heard someone mention about stuff on the front uh porch where the trash container is there that's a factor uh secondly it's convenient people get double service if their work schedule is such or if they're away or for whatever reason they don't trash out on your first day. They don't have to hold it for another whole week. You have a second collection. Um, and one of one of the I think added factors that will benefit uh the b municipality, JP calls it a burrow because we've been here so long. It's a burrow. It's a municipality is that it really can help clean up. It'll help keep the burrow clean, if not cleaner. So, we really appreciate your time. Uh, and I'd be happy to answer any questions, but I know you got to do what you think is right for your citizenry. Whatever you decide, we we'll we'll be pleased to continue to serve you.

I do have a quick question and you may have mentioned this already. Um when for twice a week, what does that look like? Is that usually how many days apart is it? Is it usually Monday and a Thursday or Monday? Typically, look, we we didn't spell it out, but typically it would be most often it's a Monday, Thursday, Tuesday, Friday. Okay. So, there's a few days in between. Yeah. Right. with the idea that they're not each two days in a row. It doesn't it defeats the purpose if it or even if it's just every other day like a Monday, Wednesday, because then people tend to leave their trash out the end like and then of course if it's Monday, Thursday, Tuesday, Friday, if there's a holiday Monday, then it goes to Tuesday, Thursday. Got it.

Uh but the idea is over over a 7-day period, you get trash collection that's kind of equally uh distanced between the two levels and and there will be no pickup then on Saturdays at all. Correct. Right. No. Okay. I'll both pick up. Yeah, I think I No, we we would typically do it Monday to Friday, you know, unless some weather emergency or something or uh for some reason collections could be completed on a Thursday or Friday. Uh if there would be a holiday on Friday, we I don't know that we'd get it on Saturday, whatever we work out with the burough uh on the holiday schedule. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.

Would you like to have your question? All good. All right. Any other anyone else from the public have that question? All right. So, council, uh, what do we want to do here? Time for our work session talk about one week or two weeks.

All right, council. So, do I have a motion for resolution 26-24 to recommend the award of JP M Suns residential solid waste recycling collection waste with option one for once per week trash off a once per week trash collection with once per week uh recycling collection. So continue as we are. So move second. Madam secretary William McCoy I Robinson

I just like to that with with this plan I will be expecting a lot of accountability and communication. I'm accessible for that and I expect the same. I do wish there was another option in a way that would be something we could move faster on, but I do understand the timeline that we are facing. But I also understand my responsibility to these residents and myself being a resident here. So, I appreciate you and I'm looking forward to working with you to make this work because it needs to work. Hi, Natalie Coulson. Hi. I also just do want to add that um I count as part for the fourth district. I do want to be um part of the conversations of the uh monthly or quarterly conversations just to give my feedback for my residents in the fourth district. So

you said yes. Yes. Hi David McMahon. Hi Justin Queenan. I beat I have it. if you opted to go with one time a week that we would agree to keep our bid for two time a week open for the remainder of the year and if situation presented itself through the end of the year that you wanted to go to twice a week we'd we'd be agreeable to that. So I'll send a letter in uh to you and copy your solo that we'll hold the second time a two time a year uh two time a week option open for the remainder of the calendar year and if you wanted to reconsider you could do that.

Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. Next, a motion to approve the settlement for the pending tax assessment appeal for 350 West Elm Street.

Um, Mr. President, I'll actually I know uh B and C are essentially uh two uh they're related to different properties, but they're very analogist. So, just give an explanation of both. These were both appeals filed by the school district uh related to these uh properties uh in these circumstances because by far uh 80% of the tax revenue goes to the school district. They take the lead, their solicitor take the lead, they hire an appraiser. Uh we usually follow them on these issues unless there any kind of issues uh related to this in that there was some disparity or something came to our attention. uh it's really not cost-effective for Norristown to send me and my office, hire an appraiser and such to get involved. And both of these uh represented in money that will be refunded both to the school district and to council. So they're net increases. So a good result for Norristown uh both uh both for 350 and 354. Um so that's an explanation of both. I know you have memos in your pockets related to both. If there are any questions, be happy to answer them.

Council, any questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve the settlement for the pending tax assessment appeal for 350? Can I do 354, too? All right. For 350 and 354 West Elm Street. So move. Madam Secretary McCoy, I dear Robinson, Natalie Coulson, hi David McMahon. Hi Dustin Queen. I Rashad Bates I

the eyes have it. All right. Moving on to finance resolution 26-11 request for municipal council to authorize destruction of eligible finance reports per Commonwealth and Municipal Records retention policies. Council uh as you mentioned tonight I'm requesting approval to destroy specific finance records and it's within our uh record retention policy. actually a little conser even more conser I usually add an extra year in there. So just want to get rid of some boxes.

Just just uh I mean just for newer council's edification this is state guidelines the historic and museum commission they set guidelines on how things are to be destroyed and a timeline usually seven years or or more for these records. We're just complying with that. Correct. And and we have to do so by resolution. So just so I know there conspiracy theories out there. Every municipality has to do that. Get rid of their old paperworks. That sort of

uh these particular records aren't very important uh finance records. These are actually just regular records and they're only actually required two to three years. And we're going back only to 2001 for payroll and 2023 and 24s for some of the other records. None of these are really important paper records. Uh, council, any questions? I just have a general question. I'm in an industry where you got to keep it for 10 years after you don't have the client, then you can destroy them. But most everything nowadays that we use is electronics. Is this actual paper or is it This is actual paper. Okay. It's not electronics.

Is there electronic copy somewhere? For some of these, not all. Okay. In payroll payroll system, we have all the W2s, all the, you know, all that kind of records. But we just don't have all the paperwork submitted, right? Does the payroll company have backups of that? Because don't they do everything electronically? Then they could either mail it to you or something like that. So there's electronic for they download every payroll would download a whole bunch of reports. Okay. So we have electronic file. We have electronic of everything we need. You just want to get rid of the paper part that you print off and stuff like that. Okay. Because I know some people be like, "What if you need to access it and stuff like that?"

Yeah. I wouldn't get rid of it. But yeah, I understand what you said because I put off stuff, but I still got electronically and we're allowed to destroy that. So, okay. Council, any other questions? See? Do I have a motion to approve resolution 26-11 to request municipal council to authorize the destruction of eligible finance records for a commonwealth and municipal records retention policies? So moved. Second, Madam Secretary. William McCoy. Hi, my dear is not there. Natalie Coulson. Hi, David McMahon. Hi, Dustin Queen. Hi, Shai Bates. I have it. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Thank you.

Next up, planning. Uh, request for extension of plan approval for 1417 and 1419 New Hope Street.

Good evening, council members. Thank you, Council President. Tonight we're asking council to give an extension for the land development that was approved um in 2021 for Mr. Costa for the property that is located at 1417 1419 New Hope Street. It's a land development that was approved at that time. As in most land developments that council approves, they usually are conditioned on the engineers's uh letter and usually it has all the conditions that the applicant has to meet. This has to be done within five years. Past the five years, you will need you need to come back to council to approve uh for an extension so that you're able to continue the land development. In this case, we have Mr. Greg Costa here tonight uh in case you have questions uh for him, but we also have the the municipal engineer because he's the one who keeps track of the engineering comments uh until he is done with those comments. Normally, he would if they have met all the comments, the engineer usually send us an an email or letter telling us, hey, he's met the conditions now he can move to the next stage. at this point he cannot unless he gets uh the extension from you. So uh I'll ask Mr. Costa just to stand in case counsel are there any questions of this um request for an extension for the land development. Go ahead.

So, just looking to get an extension. I think I'm almost at the finish line with the uh paperwork and all. It's just been a long tedious process. More personal uh issues that I was dealing with. It took that took the length of time to get here. So,

just just speaking on his behalf, he actually started this process in 2019. So, Mr. Cars has been through quite a ringer. Uh he got his zoning permits approved in 2019. He's taken the right process is what I'm basically saying. Uh then he um received his zoning hearing board approval in 2020. He came in for a minor plan uh preliminary land development in October of 2020. Uh Penoni issued a letter uh the 247 letter December of 2020. He followed up came to the planning northtown planning commission uh January 2021 and of course the planning commission recommended approval. He also went to the design review board uh for approval which they did uh recommend in February of 2021. Uh and from then on he's not been able to move forward but then when we looked at the time frame he it was past the five years that we allowed to allow him to actually start the u development. That's why he's here before you asking you for an extension so that he can move forward.

Yes. Council, any questions? Okay. Counciloman Robinson, I just had a question. Uh just so I can understand the process. Is the extension that you're asking for an additional 5 years of extension? Like what's the time frame on the extension? Understand it's a year or is it something that council can make a a decision? If you're a limitation five years, two years, it would agree to a two-year extension. Okay. So, why don't you approve a two-year extension if that's what you want to do? Ordinarily, if you done this, it would have been another five years. So, this will limit it.

Okay. So, my question is, would you feel confident with the two years? For sure. Okay. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Do you feel like you're close? Like seriously. Don't I don't need Don't tell me what I want to hear. Like for real. Like do you feel like that two years is the time you need? Yes. Okay. And Councilman McMahon, do you have a question? Yes. In two years or completion?

If you're comfortable with it, please recommendation. They don't

but he's asking they're asking for a year. Yes. So basically two years would be I guess what I'm asking is for completion like okay if we you're gracious enough to do a safety number of three years that's great for completion if it's a complete if you want a completion

so what the engineer is saying that once you've recorded the plans then you're not limited. You're good. So it's two years for him to be able to So So two years I think you're fine. Yes. Council would recommend the two years just to record it because after that he's got no limitation. He can then build. So you'll be good. We won't be back.

I'm sorry. I just think that no one wants an ongoing foreverness feeling uh having not been part of the council that looked at these plans before the 2019 feels a bit alarming to me personally. I I understand that you went through some things. So I'm just trying to understand but thank you for the clarity in the process that he is able to have his own timeline after you get to the recording if you feel like you can get the record get to the recording within the two years.

Councilman, let me just uh uh comment on that. It's not unusual at all. uh it does it seems like a long time but in a lot of developments you never know what the market and we might affect your development. So sometimes the market affects whatever it is that you're going to do and there are times the developer has to actually get their refinance together and it may take longer than that. So this is not unusual actually and I'm not I'm not debating that at all. Just as a resident who has been around a lot and feels like things are constantly always in process for a very long time. It's just something I wanted to understand a little bit more about the process, but the rules are the rules. If it is for you to record and then the timeline is yours. I'm not debating that. Okay.

Okay. Council, so so just for clarity, completion is a totally separate issue from from this. Okay. Um, so in that case, if we're thinking for two-year extension, that's just for recording of this plan. And that would be the thing that we might consider here at this moment is the two-year, excuse me, uh the the two-year extension. Um but it's not tied in any way to completion of the project. Well, so my own preference would be for the two-year extension. Mhm. Years. Okay. Okay. That's what they're asking. Do you need two years or do you need three years? Because I don't know process. I know things can happen. Well, I think he said he only needs like less than

I know. Wants to say something then he's like, "Oops." You know what I mean? So, what? Yeah. So, what's the what's the usual time frame? Because I know we don't know. Y'all kind of I've seen anywhere from one year to five years. It can be any of those depending on what the develop is capable of. I guess he always can come back again if there's a reason. Okay. All right. So, no. Okay. I want to trust his confidence. All right. With that being said, uh, council, do I have a motion to approve the request for extension plan of two years for 1417 and 1419 New Hope Street? So move.

Madam Secretary, William McCoy. Hi. Dear Robinson, hi. Natalie Coulson. Hi. David McMahon. Hi Dustin Queen. Hi Rashad Bates. Hi. The eyes have it. Thank you. And planning, you're still here. Request council authorization and approval restructure for a historic facade improvements program.

Thank you, council president. Uh I'm here tonight to ask council to restructure the historic facade program. Um given that we have uh a balance that we need to use spent by the uh end of this year 2026. Um just as a matter of um record uh the historic facade program um actually was established in ' 86 and it's been going on for a long time and we were fortunate enough to get funding through the upper county uh to actually continue this program. Um, if you recall, uh, I did come back to council sometime in November and ask council to increase the, uh, the architect's uh, fee because the the balance of the uh, facade program was large enough. So, we needed to extend or rather increase the uh, architectural services that we could service more applications. Um, if you Just follow me through the county oper. You recall that the municipality received $2 million October of 2023 and the projects that were approved was small business assistant loans for 228,000 historic facade for 128,000 the uh Northtown small business assistance center and NEC for fit out for 80,000 administrative services 124,000 Nortown food hall commercial uh kitchen 1,200,000 downtown redevelopment area business initiative 200,000. Uh the county called back to us and they were not comfortable with funding the food hall at that point. So, we came back to council and asked council to amend uh the uh program

and we asked council to approve the small business uh loans for 469,31 historic facade still 428 and the nor um small business assistance and uh NC office building for 2,869 because we since by that time we were not pursuing the combination of those two offices so that reduced reduced the cost just to um the uh I think it was the internet services and and licensing and of course the administration services that is the amount that is actually paid towards the staff that works on this program was 200,000 um than the food hall because the county was not comfortable with that. They said they'd rather u use those funds to basically give to small businesses that were going to be in the food hall rather than than uh having the food hall uh improvements done without those funds. And then the downtown redevelopment area business initiative uh was uh then $1.2 million. We did re get a a message from uh the county, even though that says December, we actually found out in around April that what the county was comfortable with was the small business assistant loans for $369,000. Uh they wanted the historic facade renovation program to run at uh 1,128,000 and the small business as um I had mentioned and the NEC office for 3,000. That's still the costs that were there prior. The administrative services that go along go along with administering this project was actually reduced to a 100,000 and then uh the Norris Chamber of Commerce was issued a 400,000 award and all that still comes to 200,000. Now

we come before you tonight because we are in a tight squeeze and we need to be able to use these funds by the end of this year. Uh we have been working feverishly with our business community to make sure that they take advantage of this opportunity. Uh and what we found out when we worked with our architect is that in as much as we had set the limit for $10,000, we were way um outdated in terms of costs of uh construction. Our architect basically looked at the improvements that can be used for the third program and it averaged $35,000 actually to do those type of improvements. So we said well this is an opportunity then that we can then increase uh asked council to increase the amount that actually goes to the small business assistance uh rather than small businesses so they can improve their facads and we're able to exhaust the funds by this December uh 2026. So rather than have the small businesses put in uh 5,000 and have a 5,000 um opera funds to match which will take us forever to exhaust the funds and we will not be able to meet the December 2026 deadline. We're asking council to consider this. Reconsider this and actually have the small business eligible for up to 40,000. Uh even though the cost estimates are coming at 35,000. Um that does not include prevailing wage rates. Once you use prevailing wage rates and you go out there to ask for bids, you're going to get to about 40,000. Uh so for us to exhaust the remaining funds um and and and I have to add I'm sorry I didn't mention it the 109 uh uh East Main Street would have been would be part of that facade project. Um the estimate has come to about 270,000.

We're still waiting for specs from the engineer and we'll be able to bid it out and we'll know how much we'll we'll be able to deduct it. But when we deduct that much from the balance, we have about $750,000 left for us to exhaust through this program. And therefore, we would need about um 12 to um anywhere from 12 to 14 projects to be able to use these funds to exhaust those those funds before 2026. We have to work feverishly. We have to make sure the business owners understand this and so that they would take advantage of these funding and we don't have to send it back. That's why I'm asking council tonight to reconsider the restructuring so that we can push this project forward.

Are there any questions? Council, any questions? Councilwoman Robinson. I was just wondering before we made the adjustments or before the hope to make the adjustments, how many applications were you seeing? We have received already and approved 12. Received and approved 12 already. Yeah. We've been working very hard on that. Yeah. And and just so that I'm clear, this facade setup is for a property owner, not not just simply a business owner. So, if you're renting in a space, you have to be the property owner to apply for this.

I like that question. I'll tell you why I like it. Because there are some business owners who are coming and we're encouraging them to speak to their property owners so they can take advantage of this. And several have done that. So sometimes it reaches the business, but then maybe the property owner does not know about it. Maybe they're somewhere in New York, they don't know about this type of um uh program, but then we've encouraged them, hey, here's an opportunity that you can improve the uh your property. And these dollars were already in effect prior to this current fiscal year that we're operating in. The 12 applications that you're speaking of, are they across the entirety of this program or are they just within the last calendar year? They actually it's the last calendar we had to really push. I see. We had to go out there and say

so it took a lot to get to 12. Oh yes. And with that in mind, you said you would need at least 12 more. About uh I'd say maybe another four or five. You need four more? Yeah. To exhaust the funds. To exhaust the funds. Yes. Can you uh can you send us a list of the properties that were approved or? Absolutely. That way we can see. All right. Thank you.

My questions might be a little bit different. So, this is the $2 million of ARPA funds we got that was supposed to be for small businesses, correct? Is is that where this came from? Um, well, those are the list of projects, right? Because I know we approved the food hall, right? But the county was not comfortable with that, right? But that didn't never came back to council to discuss, did it? Now that I know. Yes, it did. When did that come back to us to It came back to discuss with you when we moved the money in October 2024 to December 2024 because the money for the chamber was the uh block byblock. Yeah. But let me correct you.

That's when the money was that's when the whole thing was discussed. Listen. Well, we dis when you discussed that and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. B C President Bates. We were told $300,000 came from your department. Jane, didn't Jane, didn't we give them $300,000 from your department? Because it was going to be 400. That's a thing because then you broke it down to 300,000 with them spending money to getting receipts back. No, that the theus that I looked at and looking at you talking about the No, I'm talking about what was told to us. Yeah. at the time the block five block came out of a beautifification if I'm uh remembering that rightly um and that was assigned to I think

that's the local opera I want to make sure there's a distinction I think there's difference the local ARPA the 300,000 that's she's confirming that's the beautifification is our ARPA the chamber the chamber yes it came from Jane's department because Jane is managing being the arper from the county, right? And I just want to get this correct. So then the you told us the county was going to match what we gave based yesterday. They did, right? So you're saying now the 200 $2 million we have, we gave them $300,000, but it says 400,000 up there

because that's what was put, but they only got 300 is what you all approved at the meeting. Okay. So, council approved to give them $300,000 of our $2 million. Correct. That's correct. Okay. So, isn't where's Okay. So, we How did a million dollars get into the facade program council approve that? Because this facade program I'm looking at normally had $128,000. How did a million dollars get put in there if council didn't approve that? because I know we didn't discuss that because the count it's the county's ARPA money. No, it's

it's the the county's ARPA money and the county did not want to go through with the food hall. The county has to get they could say, "Hey, do this or that, but it still has to come back to council for us to approve when we talked about the ARPA and we talked about this entire budget that we didn't talk about the facil this." Okay, excuse me. If a council person like Yeah, let me know if I'm wrong. Did anybody discuss this as council that was putting a million dollars into the facade program? That's where the county wanted the money to go.

You said you said tonight. But what I'm saying is I get what you're saying, Jay, and what we're doing with it. But we did not have a discussion that we were moving a million dollars to the side program. So therefore, council didn't have a say in that money going there. Well, we'll have to check the minutes to confirm. I don't need I know we didn't. Okay. Let's do what what when did we do that that you recall? December 2024.

Lightener. I'm telling you without a doubt. We never had a discussion because I'm I'm not the only person that doesn't remember not having a discussion. Sean, that amount of money. Does council have to approve that from going from one area to another? Don't we have to approve a million dollars to go into a facade program? Uh in general, yes. I have to look at the specifics. No, I'm just I'm fine. I don't remember.

Yeah. No, I just want to cuz make sure cuz I'm like so now that it's there, I'm pretty sure we're locked in because we have a time frame. So, we can't really do too much about it. But so out of the two million that we got, we didn't get no we didn't that that foohaul that council did approve because I remember we approved it and we amended it like you said but I never remember us talking about taking the money out of that and put it in the program and any council member up here to please tell me if you have a different record. You said you you said you remember amending it

the money out of the food hall. I remember us approving 2024. I don't remember us approving a million dollars going over to the facade program. No, but you just said you remember amending the mo the money coming out of the lighter. I I don't want to get hooked on a little thing. I'm just I'm telling you what I'm looking at right here. I don't remember remember us moving a million dollars over there and I would think that council would should have legally would have to say so at the vote on that. I can understand that the county might not agree with it happened in 2020. I'll be honest.

Okay. I remember I it's okay if the county doesn't agree with it but I it would still have to come to us to work together. So for them so okay so who approved this? Who approved the 2024 of a million dollars going over program? Us. I'm asking who who approved that? We're going around in circles. We just talked about No, I'm not I'm I'm asking you a direct question. Who approved it? And I I give you my answer. What's your answer? But I told you before. I'm asking. Obviously, I'm asking for a reason. I'm not going to go around. We have to check the minutes. Please be respectful. Please be respectful as well. Hey guys, council. I'm asking the direct question. He's refusing to answer. Can you please repeat that answer, Mr. Lightner?

We have to check the minutes to confirm. You have to check the minutes. Yes, sir. So, President, that means we don't know that. So, we don't know. Okay. No, nobody has any questions about how a million dollars got.

So, with that being said, I think we need to a review of how that million dollars got in there, how who approved it, because if council didn't do it, somebody approved it without council's approval. Okay. Okay. Um but then my question is if it's already moved there, can we move it back? I don't think we can now because we got to we got to spend it within a year, but we still need to figure out how it got over there if council didn't approve it. And I get it. We don't want to waste money that could benefit

the municipality. It could have been used in different ways, but it's locked in there now if we could have had a conversation. I don't know. Maybe council would have came up with this or maybe council might want to do a twist or something, but it's locked in now. We got to go forward. But this from my knowledge, this is something council definitely should be a part of your say. I don't remember if we did it or not, but I agree with you there. Um, but if it is locked in, right? No, I don't want to waste it. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah, we want to use it and then we'll go back and check everything else. Yeah. Does that work? 100%. Council, do we have any other questions?

Seeing none, do I have a motion to request council authorization and approval to restructure the historic facade improvements program? I'm going to say move it, but it's because we don't have no choice. I feel as though that we're kind of forced to do this to spend this money. So, I don't think I really have a choice or a council has it or the money will go to waste. It will go to waste. Yeah. that wouldn't benefit the township. I would have loved to have a say so in it, but uh so move second. Madam Secretary, William McCoy. I Robinson. Hi, Ali Coulson. Hi, David McMahon. Hi, Justin Keenan. I Bates,

I the eyes have it. Thank you, James. Moving on to building code and compliance request to approve harb COAs. Hello Keith. Yeah, our committee met this month and they reviewed and approved coas. Any questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve uh the request for harb coas? So move. Madam secretary William McCoy.

I dear Robinson. Hi. Alley Coulson. Hi. David McMahon. Hi. Dustin Queen. Hi. Rashad Bates. Hi. The eyes have it. Thank you. Moving on to police. Resolution 26-04 memorandum of understanding and purchase contract between the Nartown Police Department and Bode Selmark Forensics Incorporated.

Good evening, Mr. President. Um before you was a motion to approve um memorandum of understanding and uh purchase the necessary supplies to support the evidence-based DNA testing program which is in place and has been in place in Narstown for many many years. I want to from the outset try to articulate what this program is. Uh this program which is in partnership with Delaware Valley Regional Crime Information Center in the city of Philadelphia and the five counties in the metropolitan Philadelphia area to support evidence testing for DNA purposes to identify individuals who engage in criminal activity. This is the testing of swabs that are taken from pieces of evidence that are recovered at crime scenes such as let's say for example a stolen auto. We would swab the steering wheel firearm. We would swab the magazine. We would swab the handle. Those samples would then be processed visav partnership with BOD and compared against the national database to identify individuals who are connected visav DNA to that particular piece of evidence that we have submitted. This is not, I want to repeat this empirically, a mass gathering of individual's DNA for submission to any database to be tracked by any federal government or a private entity. We are taking samples discovered at a crime scene. We don't know who put them there. And we're using that technology to swab it. Bod develops it and then they compare it to a database of known offenders, determine whether or not we can identify who may have participated in that crime. And I just, if you will,

indulge me for just a minute because I understand how sensitive this is to this community. I heard the people here this evening, spoken with Mr. McMahon, who's been very passionate and very uh leading on this issue. But Bod Labs is a $400 million company, $425 million in revenue. um our contract with them would not although it would send a message um symbolically would not affect Bod Labs but here's it will affect in the last two years we have had 146 separate criminal investigations related to DNA forensics in the municipality in Nortown we have used DNA to identify in 56 related cases related to firearms serious crimes of violence in our community, individuals who were ultimately identified and prosecuted because we have to do multiple swabs at a given crime scene. Let's say over the past two years, we have swabbed, 1300 times, individual articles. So, let's say a handgun is going to get swabbed four or five times. Stolen car, we're going to swab the door handles. We're going to swab the steering wheel. We're going to stop swab the gear shifter. That's 1300 swabs in two years. That takes capacity. That takes a large partner. And that takes a company like Bod Labs. Beyond the firearms investigation, DN evidence has also resulted in the arrest and burglary invest criminal investigation of 12 burglaries, multiple stolen autos. It has linked individuals, 58 individuals to 348 crimes across the metropolitan Philadelphia area. So this principle that 20% of people commit 80% of the crime is validated evidentially evident through genetic testing that individuals who commit crime in in Narstown commit

crime in the city of Philadelphia. They commit crime in Delaware County and this work and this process with all due respect to the passion on all sides of the issue and I respect everyone's opinion. This isn't a national event. This isn't a um a local political issue. This is about providing the best level of police services to the residents of Norristown to prevent them from being victimized. Removing access to these forensic capabilities would not eliminate crime. It would only reduce our ability to identify those individuals who are engaging in violent crime and property crime in our community. I just want to just speak a little bit about the Bodie connection. As a law enforcement practitioner, as a professional, as an American, I worry about the surveillance state. I worry about that. I have my thoughts and opinions. The Bodie Sellmark DNA rapid DNA development contract that was signed in 2025 was as a result of a court order that required the federal government to identify persons at the border who have a familiar relationship. A lot of people who rented the border illegally disguised their uh ability to access visav family relations. So they bring kids in and they claim to be parents, siblings of these minors. This was a direct result to identify individuals who are using minors to engage in uh border crossings illegally and also to identify individuals and children who are being used as pawns in human trafficking. The rapid DNA that Bod does is a 90minute process. Some of the program details and one of the most important things that I learned today when I was doing this because Mr. McMahon, you and I have a very impassion conversation the other day is that per the contract, the 2025 contractor through Bodie, the DNA samples are destroyed and the electronic data is purged from the system after the

familiar relationship is either affirmed or denied. That DNA program is agents at the border stopping individuals who are posing as family members. They swab them to identify if there's a family relationship. They don't identify who these people are. They only identify if this person and this person have a relation. Once that is done, those swabs are destroyed. Now again, I I'm very impassionate about this. I'm very much um a supporter of our criminal investigations here in Nortown. We know we have challenges with violent crime in Nortown. We know have gun violence. and to take away this program and to require us to try and find another lab. Quite frankly, I did research on some of the labs, one of them being a lab that's local in Will Grove, which doesn't have DNA forensics, one of them being a lab in Abington, which doesn't have the capacity, but to interrupt this program right now and to make us go out and try and find another vendor uh would seriously hinder our evidence re identification and collection process in Narstown and make Marstown less safe. So, I'm happy to answer your questions, but my request uh to you would be to approve this motion tonight um for the interest in the safety of public safety in Narstown. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Uh council, any questions? Good. Councilman McMahon, are you saying that a company like Guardian Forensic Sciences doesn't have the capacity to handle what Nortown's load would be? Not Not from my research. No, there's two individuals there. They're a small firm. They're competent firm, but to handle 1300 uh swabs in two years, that takes a lot more staffing than I believe that company has capability to do.

How low are we on um the stock now? Swabs, we're we're in the ars. We owe them money. They have um they've been gracious enough to continue to do our swabs. Um, but we owe money. And Mr. McMahon, I I appreciate your passion for this. I really do. But I just want to differentiate. This isn't us putting people into a system. It's us taking articles that we identify on the street as evidence and comparing them to the people who are already in the system. Thank you.

Uh, what's what's this contract look like? I mean, is this is this open-ended? what are are options kind of going forward to um continue looking for alternatives? So, this if I'm is this are we committed to only using them as a sole provider or is it or so as you and I parallel? Nope. As you and I spoke, this is a this is a one-year contract.

So, if it is the will of council that we explore other options in the next 12 months for this contract runs out, I will do my darnest to do that. But this at least keeps us on track while we explore those options. And we have parallel services. Do we have do we have to use them for all all our DNA testing? Yes, they're they are a vendor right now. We don't we we could possibly There's no exclusivity. Sorry. There's no exclusivity within that contract. We can go to other vendors. We could explore the opportunity to go to vendors. Yes. Is it because it's like a kind of a pay as you go thing.

Yeah. And but the one value here is remember we're tied into a regional database. So we have to make sure that the vendor that we go through is tied in the regional database or we're submitting DNA to a database uh you know we could submit to Kotus if there are proper vendors. Getting into Kotus is very difficult. Kotus is a national database that um that um is what the FBI uses. So yes we could explore other options but that would take time. Other question for you. Who's their national competitor? Who is uh Bode Celmark Forensics national competitor? Everybody has as a competitor.

So um nationwide I don't know to be honest off top of my head. Um but they are a large they are a large operator in this space. Okay.

So they have a monopoly kind of like I'm sorry. So they more or less have like a monopoly in a sense on this. I I think that's I thought for police uh for uh I think they're the largest vendor and and they have the capacity to work and develop DNA uh on multiple samples which gives them a unique uh proprietarial sense of uh we see proprietary vendors in our spears people who can only do certain things and no one else can really be in that space. Well, I think the biggest contingent that a lot of people had such concerns is sharing it with ICE. Is there any can we put parameters around? Remember, we're not we're not

No, I'm talking about the constituents. That seems to be their biggest fear is that we're feeding information into ICE and they're we're not we're we're feeding reference samples that are developed by BOD to the FBI's Kodus database. People who are are in that database,

right? I understand that. with and you could correct if people are saying that once they have it since they're a private company they're allowed to use that information any way they want to. So I think that's what the concern is. I don't think it's that we're you know we're doing this on purpose that I think they're saying that since they're a private company they're allowed to do with whatever information they want. Is there a way we could write up a contract to try to mitigate that? Again I I the answer is I don't know. Okay. What I will tell you is remember what they have. They have a developed DNA profile. Then that gets cross-co compared and then we get a ref then we get a response a hit back right.

I don't know if they then say oh we had kodus we have profile one and I'll use make this up because I don't know right the helix thing but one two three four five six it goes to FBI labs and kodas FBI sends something to us and says oh this is Tom Smith. I don't know that Bod goes, "Oh, FBI, we need that for our record so we can now." Do you understand what I'm saying? Like, Dave, I know you did a lot more research than I have. Is there anything out there like that that you researched?

No. No. I I that that that I personally know yet, but I'm saying we're not really seeing what, you know, we're we're signing up for a sort of a a terms of service that we don't really know what that like I'm not really clear on the limits of the data sharing on this. Um and again, you know,

the extent that I can understand the data sharing is that they developed a DNA and then they share it with the federal database to identify after someone in the database that has a match. So they share it with the FBI. I don't have any information, nor am I aware. And I would probably argue that CEUS uh restrictions related to criminal justice information would proclude them from selling it to a third party vendor. Right.

Yeah. But they they don't need to. I mean, there's a different standard to, you know, I'm not sure that a private company is really going to be meeting the same standard of safeguarding, you know, privacy in in the way um that like the the FBI itself is limited, you know, like there's more civil rights protections that the FBI So, the FBI does they do place massive restrictions on data share of criminal, but they call the FBI does, right? Correct. Right. But what I'm saying is I don't know the extent that this company as a private entity matches those same civil rights protections.

So my understanding to be an as to be a part of an FBI recognized DNA program, you have to be compliant with sieges requirements.

You have to comply with the FBI's rules um on data sharing. There's not a way for them to exceed those. Yeah, I'm I'm really I'm really reluctant to do this. Um I know I do understand the the the time constraint here. Um the We're going to be meeting again April 7th. I do know we're already behind on this. I mean, is there, you know,

can we When is the contract dig into this? Yeah. When is the contract up? Expired already, right? Expired. But they're still working for us when we got pay. Correct. We We've kind of worked with them to we quite frankly, we can't stop our DNA. We We had just had a shooting over the weekend. We have the cell shell cases out for DNA sample. We're constantly sending out samples for reference testing. I have a question. How many how many uh resources did you get? I know this came up on our agenda previously and had concerns within that time. How many other uh DNA testing sites have you been able to get in contact with? I know you mentioned the I don't want to use any vendor names because I didn't

I don't need to know how

but they're from Adam and Will. local. Uh I know you gave me a one out in Pittsburgh, but I wasn't able to figure out who that was. Um I did speak with the county's DNA expert or lead forensics lab. He did multiple years with the city of Philadelphia and he's been running our program for years here. He basically told me there are a few vendors in the country that could do what we're doing and who are also tied into the divot database, the local database, and our DNA profiling here. I'll say I'm a little concerned in the thought that I would have hoped that there were some more alternatives that that a that were available to us but also that there was time to look into them. I did some of my research as well. I can imagine that you put a good effort in and I can imagine our our counterparts also looked. I think one of the sobering moments is we all likely agree there should be on should be an alternative. Is there one that we can assess? I'm not asking you. I'm I'm naming that that it feels like that's the hard wall that we're hitting up against. I do also want to just frame while I appreciate you sharing Bode and their relationship to the border rapid testing, Bode is also actively seeking out additional ICE contracts and also sued a competitor for not getting one contract. So, I just want to name in the space that I don't I don't know that it's as helpful as we think it is to say this is all that they're doing. They are pursuing other space in that realm. And I also do respect that what's happening is happening at a very federal national level that impacts some of where our impass is and what our opportunity is. I don't want to keep pushing this down the line because I do believe we need the testing right to operate and do the functions that we need to do for our safety protocols. On the other side of that, I wish there was some expert that we could tap, someone that could tell us go left, go right. This guy down the street can do it for you. And I feel like we are amongst many communities who are knowing that there needs to be another way and not knowing what that

other way is. And I I think that goes to the the absolute rigid standards that the FBI sets for DNA testing and profiling. Um that makes it very difficult for companies to meet that standard. It's tough. I also I went back because I remember when we had this conversation before and it was about the data sharing policy but it looked like more a change to the fee schedule and there wasn't like a written policy about how they share data. I went back it seems like we have been in Bowd and it could be extended before this but at least since 2020 we've had a standing contract that's been renewed with Bode under these same sharing protocols. So to some extent, let's say we stop it, we just stop what's already been happening, not necessarily making an adjusted change.

Yeah. you know, and yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Do you feel like you have capacity and your team has capacity to do additional research? And if so, how fruitful do you find that that research might be?

Well, I think I think obviously the sentiment of the folks here, Council McMahon, is is that we should try and explore it and and I and I don't necessarily disagree with that. Uh I think the issue becomes is will our fruits will our efforts bear fruit? I don't know because I think that even some of the search and Mr. D respect Mr. admitted it's challenging. It's a challenging space. Doesn't mean I'm not willing to do the work and talk to I'm never looking at a company over in England, see if they have a relationship over here in the United States. So, um it is it is a challenging space to operate. But I again I do want to make it clear we're not talking about swabbing people and putting people in the database, talking about comparing evidence at crime scenes, people who are already in a database. We didn't put them there.

I completely understand that. I think the fear comes in in that this is not where we start. It's not always about where we start. It's about how the system progresses and then is able to maneuver once you're already inside. So, I think that the concern is about not not that it it's not where we are right now. It's how quickly things can change and how vulnerable populations are under those type of circumstances. Thank you, ma'am. Any other questions?

And but I don't it doesn't have to be for the entire floor. work the entire You can talk. I I have one more question or just doing good for clarification.

Um so there's nothing preventing us from using multiple vendors for this kind of work, right? There's no there's no exclusivity in this contract with Bode, right? partership not they would take DNA developed by a vendor other than Bod because it's a partnership in that seems like new information what do you mean well we're part of a regional DNA sharing program right

and that program the regional program uses Bod Labs as the vehicle to get DNA reference samples into the system. They don't use any other labs. So, we all use the same lab. That's license plate readers like that. You all share that like Yeah, that's the Viper system. There's a there's a soul source provider on that. So, you all dump that in there that any of y'all could go in there and use. Okay. The value in data is being able to share it across jurisdictions and to link different crimes to individuals. And as you pointed out here, we had 58 individuals who were linked to 350 crimes in the region and they're crimes of violence. They're serious part one crimes.

So I guess what you're saying then if we do have to look for a new um rising company, they would also have to have partnerships with the like the our sister brother uh municipalities and states like that for us to have a good DNA. Yes. and and that could be an opportunity in the future to to to see maybe there are other municipalities that share your concern and they may feel the um the uh desire to ask their elected officials and their professional staff to go check this thing out. So maybe this could be something that runs a foot, but right now that's not out there. Most of

So most of the municipalities and police departments around here are using BOD, correct? If you're if you're a part of the county program, use BOD because that's the last. Okay, got it. that in the regional segment that's how uh samples are added. Can you just talk me through that added process? Is that as with conviction? What what constitutes being added and DNA being retained so that it remains in this database with cooperative information about the person?

We're we're entering a reference sample sample is compared against the CODS database which is administered by the FBI. Individuals convicted of certain felonies and sexual offenses are as a result of their criminal conviction added to the FBI's CODUS database. Um there are other ways to get in the FBI code database. We keep BOD will store the reference sample or actually strike that our our partnership. We will store the reference sample because at some point in time we may have a sample today of a of a of a shooting casing that goes to an individual who's let's say this criminal but they get arrested two years down the road and they get their and they get convicted and the DNA gets turned up in the system that system going to come back to us and say hey Nar shooting you had at you know dab and um the cob and mark or whatever that's that's this individual here. So it's actually historically going back and helping us solve crimes too in that way. And we are contractually obligated to be in a contract with Bode. This is not an ad hoc. It seems like we're already in an expiration point with them and we're paying ad hoc.

So is but is it mandatory that we require a renewable time set? I think you're just going to honor our payment as payment of services passed due. We're not we're not acrewing any additional fees. What is the urgency look like for you to renew this contract if we're able to already still get services? It's high. It's highly urgent. It's It's urgent. Uh maybe let me clarify. I mean urgent, not that you don't think that the services are important. I mean urgent as in us getting into contract with Bod versus what you're doing right now, which is seeming to be paying them as you go. We're not we're not paying them. Okay. But you're just they're just

they're they're they're waiting for us to sign this contract and they'll accept payment for services rendered, but that's only going to that's a limited time. Do you have any definition on that time? Has there been any conversation around that? I do not. Okay. I would be interested to know if there were stipulated de deadlines on their end. Just trying to understand the dynamic. No. No. And I think the deadline was the whatever it was March 1st. It came before council in January. Um but we've asked them to continue allow using, you know, allowing us to submit submit the samples and they've done so, but that's going to run out. That goodwill will end. How long you think? I I can't speak for Bodie.

These are extraordinary times. Uh and so I think in that diligence is of the utmost important. You want to be rushed, but when there is not a clear alternative of the next, sometimes it needs time. So I'm just trying to understand that that perspective and I respect all the opinions from council. It's a very sensitive issue. I understand you're accountable to constituency. uh as your practitioner, this is what I feel is the best practice right now to continue our DNA program to protect our residents of Norristown and solve crime. Council McCoy, Chief, do you know of any other townships or bureaus that have uh pulled back from contracting with this organization?

I'm not aware of any. As a matter of fact, I'm aware that there is a program that we are not a part of where they actually are swabbing individuals who they come in contact with. So, it's actually expanding versus decreasing. So, if we were to not um continue contracting with this organization, what would that look like for us if we were to say no tonight? We would stop DNA testing of all evidence at crime scenes. That's starting like right away. It would it would probably start pretty soon because they want they're only going to accept accept reference samples for a period of time. So, and they're not going to give us any more time. Eventually, this is going to this is going to wear out.

So, the DNA that we would typically collect would just sit there and not move through a system that's reached. It's just Got it. Uh, Councilman McMahon.

Um, yeah. I mean, I just want to point out that it is possible to lose control of these processes, you know, and that we unintentionally build systems, you know, that necessarily weren't didn't seem obvious or may not have been foreseen here. And so, I'm really reluctant to continue on with this company. I understand this the the scale that they have, but that for me is a real double-edged sword. Um I really want to explore other options and I know that we're going to be as a group we're going to be talking about other issues related related to ICE and data sharing overall. Um where you know we want to I think set some standards about what our cooperation looks like as a town. Um so we have more to learn about this but um you know uh yeah I'm really uncomfortable with this. I really want to sort of, you know, explore the the other local options, get a sense from them. Um, their current capacity doesn't necessarily reflect what they're capable of in getting a contract from us, you know, so maybe just more time to explore this.

I mean, with all the No, that's that's not a question, man. I know. But I'm just saying that in in general like the you know step by step we're building we're building out these systems one small separate decision at a time and I don't really like contributing down that path and I respect that and again we're not expanding anything. We're just continuing what we've always done. This is not an expansion or an outgrowth of anything new. This is a practice we've always done. We just happen to use Bodie Labs to do our DNA development. No but I'm saying on the on the corporation's part. Agreed.

Right. Okay. That's that's where the issue remains at that level where people in this you know heading up these companies are always looking for growth. Okay. And so that our current uh government is a growth opportunity for many people. Whoever thought incarceration would be a for-profit business you know but here we are. Um, so yeah, I I don't have an easy uh answer here, but you know, I want us to seriously consider, you know, the implications of these smaller decisions that we make here. Thank you.

I have a question for you. So, basically, I know we could go into this contract and break it, right? What's the penalty for breaking it? Cuz I know it's a year, but everything's breakable and there's a penalty. I'm not a lawyer. I don't have a contract law. Um, so because from what I'm getting from you, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, is if we don't do this, basically, you can't do your job as a police officer to the fullest of cap capability. Correct. Like there might be crimes going around unsolved. There will be crimes that will go unsolved. Right. That's why I was I was looking at like, you know, every contract could be broken. There might be a penalty, but there's one that out there. I agree. Yeah. Council.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I mean, we live in a high crimestricken area where crimes happen on a daily basis. In fact, yesterday, people just stole my packages from Amazon. So, it's like crimes are happening on a daily basis. So, if we had a hiccup that some people might deem as a minor, it might cause significant problems down the line. And that's a problem for me. Every day there's a different shooting or every other day there might be a different shooting in Narstown. If we can't collect the data and move it through the system, then we're at a standstill. And that's problematic for me.

And and I'm not here saying that I'm not inclined to hear what Mr. McMahon is saying and look those other avenues. I'm just saying right now I'm of the essence we don't have it. This is a one-year deal. We'll be done this and then maybe in the medium I will be able to get you and we will be able to work together to get information if there is another source for this. Right now we don't have that.

Chief, would you be open? I know right now police department is struggling with, you know, getting new police officers. I know you guys are doing a lot of extra overtime and stuff like that, but at some point would it be okay for you to maybe come to us like once a month just to show us your research for like choosing a new program saying we do choose this tonight and we like have a like a steady course of over the year to find someone new to replace. If we can, I can work on putting something together for you, a timeline. I'll bring you um monthly reports on what what our submissions look like, what our responses look like, so you understand the value of a program.

Um but here again, we need to make sure wherever that lab is, they have the ability to submit into the FBI's coded database because that's where that's where the identities are. Samples don't have a name. They just have a number a number and the name and a number are connected in the eyes database. So, you got to make sure you can get clear their hurdles to get into their database. That's where the rub is, so to speak. Okay. Is there any more questions? No. Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve resolution 26-04, memorandum of understanding to purchase contract between Nartown Police Department and Bode Smark Forensics. So move. Second,

Madam Secretary. William McCoy. I dear Robinson. No, Coulson. Hi, David McMahon.

Dustin Queen, I and Rashad Bates. I have it. Yep. Four to two.

Resolution 2618, a request of municipal council to approve contract with Lincoln Center to co-responder for the amount of $120,000. Mr. President, uh, tonight before you is a long awaited, long talked about, long discussed proposal from the Lincoln Center for a mental health co-responder. Uh, this proposal was given to us prior to actually myself coming here. Um, there was a mental health co-responder program in Nortown prior to me being chief a few years ago. That went away. Um, this is a proposal in the amount of $120,000 to support a on-site clinician to do actual co-response with our police officers and also to assist in the mental health of our police officers because that is also a challenge we have. Um, the Lincoln Center has been widely recognized within the region on their resources and capabilities with respect to mental health care and treatment. Um, we have had and we have been told that we were awarded $191,000 from a PCCD grant to support this program. Where we have found challenges, that grant is still under review by the Department of Justice. About a week ago, as is the case, we're constantly reassessing our ability and we determined that that funding that we already have in place visa via grant program to the opioid settlements can be used to pay for mental health co-responder programs because police officers are viewed as tertiary victims to the opioid epidemic and therefore that funding is available to us. So, uh, that is us. That is why you're seeing on the agenda tonight because we do have significant amounts of opioid funded money. I think we're in aboutund a little over $100,000 there. There's there's probably a little bit of a

difference. And then we still have that grant program that we hope will get cleared by justice and and come here. Um I will submit to you that we've had some some issues lately related to to mental health engaging in our people in our community who are in crisis that have uh obviously um everyone has seen that we need true mental health co-response in this municipality doing responding programs and I will tell you I did a foot patrol with the transportation center recently and that is a place where we will start on day one in the transportation center working to get people help working to get them resources So the people who utilize that facility don't have to deal with the challenges that are there. And I respect everyone who's undergoing mental health and drug and alcohol crisis. I've experienced it in my life with my family members. But dignity is helping these people and dignity is giving them the resources to move and transition away from their current condition. And I believe that this program will not only help our residents, it will greatly aid our police officers. And that's why I'm requesting that you approve this program um for this program for 26.

Council, any questions? This is for one position the amount. Correct. It is is one position except and correct me if I heard you. So this person will not only be a responder, but they'll also administer uh mental health for our officers. Okay. H how do we do that now with our officers? Uh right now we have EAP, okay, which is an employee assistance program. We have counselors from Montgomery County Emergency Services use uh system teams, critical instance stress management teams that we've brought in after critical critical incidents, right?

Uh the FOP has a program that they can refer their members counseling that is paid for by the FOP. It's an anonymous program. So, we do have resources, but to have an in-house clinician constantly touching and being in the space where officers are gaining their trust because you know me, I'm a financial guy. So, I'm I figured I was like, okay, we were paying for some of those services. So, we're those are services that we're kind of not paying for outside of like apparently now. Correct.

Yeah, we're not paying for them. And the problem is is that what I've noticed in my past life, and we did this when I before I came here, we we've developed we wrote an RFP, developed an co-respondent program in in my prior community. Um, and one of the barriers to mental health care for police officers is the stigma that comes with mental health care. Police officers don't necessarily want to seek mental health care because there's a stigma that makes them weak. When in fact, the absolute opposite is the true. And what we learned and what I learned empirically and and practically was although the program was a little skeptical in the beginning when that co-responder was in there every day with the men and women in the organization responding to calls for service with them going through the same traumatic events they were going through. This circle of trust became apparent that they started to trust one another and view each other as peers. And when that happened, the walls came down and communication began and people got treatment for probably issues that would left been left undiagnosed and untreated because they didn't feel safe talking to anybody. So I think that's the value of this program.

Right, Kathy? Is this a Did we budget for this already? Okay, that's why I needed to know because we budgeted it didn't increase. I can feel finance right here. Just to let you know, I think that's it's a male thing to be perfectly honest with you. Men are little a little too macho. We all need have you need to talk to somebody from time to time. So here we go. Uh Chief, I did have a question that might roll in a two questions. So we're using the opioid funds to fund the co-responder, which is fine. Um so the PCCD grant when we get that I guess since that's going specifically for the co-responder that doesn't go back to the opioids, it goes to the code responder or you know it's a more of a technical finance. I don't know if we could use the PCCD grant funding to refund the opioid money.

Okay. Well, I didn't want to. I would because this could work for I was wondering if that would be then we could have that correspond for another year. We could have for another year that how that works. No, I tried. Okay. Thank you. If we budgeted for we budgeted for every year, right, for the disposition. Yeah, it's a contract. Oh, okay. I just thought we budgeted. It's going to be in there every year. You know, baby steps. Let's get this year put together and then Well, we usually don't take nothing from the budget. Uh, shoot excuse me. I'm just saying once it's in there, it's in there. But okay, as long as it be budgeted before, we're great.

Yes, council. Oh, uh, Councilwoman Robinson. Yeah, I just had a couple questions. Uh, so just to clarify, this is a contract with the Lincoln Center. So, the co-responder would be in essence their employee that then works with us. How would scheduling work? Uh with that in mind,

um we haven't gone into particulars. I'd like to see a flexible schedule from the the vendor. Um they have been very responsive. The nice thing about the Lincoln Center and why I think this is a good model is um they vet all the candidates. They will provide a co-responder who meets the needs of Norristown. They'll come in here. If they can't assimilate and work well, we just call them up and say, "Look, this isn't working out. We need a different we need a different clinician." Converse, contrast that with doing an RFP, hiring somebody, training them, bringing them online, then they may or may not be a unionized employee. They could be at will, uh, and then there's a problem and it's a very difficult process to to replace them. This way, we're constantly getting a clinician who's trained, up to date on everything, and um, if it doesn't work out, we can move on to another one.

Uh, yes, sorry, I had a couple more questions. Uh, currently as it's set up, the contract is a $120,000 contract at $10,000 a month over the course of 12 months with that with this original language looking like it started in January and then running through December. We're in March now. Is there a proration that's going to happen to the contract? So, the actual amount then is not the 120 that you're asking for. I would expect to be prrated. Um, I can report back to you from the vendor, but I don't think it's going to be an issue because they're not delivering services. or we go to the vendor and ask them to have it as a 12-month contract.

And so if we approve today the 120, there's it going to be come back to say, "Hey, here was the actual spend on it because you can't spend 120 in this fiscal year unless we're upping services in some way." It it it would go a couple different ways. One is it could be prrated till 1231 or it would go from the date we signed the contract, so 12 months from that date, but then that carries over into the next fiscal year. Yeah, that we have for a budget we haven't created. Just to Councilman Quinn's point is that's not in the budget the next year. But remember, this is a contract and we have we're using opioid funds. Totally understand. It's totally heard. I'm just trying to understand and being presented in March with a 12- month contract. We're already three months into that. Likely won't get placement until April,

right?

Yeah, we we'll get placement soon. what I would in my past life. Um, again, you're going to get reports on cases, actual statistics on how many people we've made contact with. We can't give you information regarding names and, you know, PII stuff, but we're going to let you know how many people we've had services with, how many people we've connected to services, and then we always try to look at the cases that are wins, right? How many wins do we have? how many chronic cases, chronic addresses where we're constantly responding to a mental health call at this location and now that call has been abated because we've had the professional staff on scene. And then, you know, you could also do an economic ROI on that. How many tax dollars are we saving by not chronically going to the same address over and over again to deal with a mental health crisis? When we abate that, there is there is a there is a value to that. I know it's still a little too early to tell as far as how the process looks like, but any indication that you can offer, I'd appreciate. Do you imagine that they're riding in the vehicle co- with an officer? Are they having their own separate vehicle? Maybe what happens in the term when they can't be at both calls? And have you identified any peak hours or times when you think you might use their services? Because, you know, mental health doesn't happen between two and five. So, trying to understand like where and how you might use this one person. I just be interested to know what thoughts you've already put to it. So, we definitely know there's certain locations in the community that have the concern right away. So, we could do co-response. Um, there's also follow-up solo response. Um, and Narstown could use two co-responders, but right now we need to get the program back up and running, get get the determination as to how we're going to staff it, what the hours going to be, what that's going to look like. Um, and then when we find out what fits, that's our model. and then I'll be back here hopefully in October arguing for more money for another program uh and hopefully uh in 2027. So this is this is this is the first step to getting us back to where we should be in having a mental health care response program.

Something about if the person's here and there for the police department they have openings can other I would like to see if other people within administration could use the same person as well if they have time available. Um, I think that would be great, but I know you guys go first, but if they're in the building, I think I think having I think having a mental health clinician on staff, we could probably maybe loot them into some of our conversations with HR about getting us guidance, information about what resources are out there. So, maybe not necessarily direct one-on-one clinician, but access to resources that we could draw upon to help all of our staff, not just the police. Exactly.

This fire needs it. Look, we all need it's it's a crazy world sometimes. Yeah, council needs it. Get started. Council, any more questions? Good. All right, seeing none. Um, do I have a motion uh for resolution 26-18 to request municipal council to approve a contract with Lincoln Center for a co-responder for the amount of $120,000? So moved. Second, Madam Secretary William McCoy. Hi. Dear Robinson, hi Emily Coulson. Hi David McMahon. Hi Dustin Queen.

I'm But I want to talk with you when you said go to this septa station. We definitely need to wrap them into that cuz that'll take all our money. But I'm I have it. All right. Moving along to resolution 26-9. establish and and or remove handicap parking.

Thank you, Mr. President. Uh councel, uh if you recall, again, this is a little preceding me, there was a period of time in the municipality where the issuance of handicapped parking permits was um uh put on hold, if you will. Um that that um that was rescended this year. We've received numerous applications. So here before you under this resolution is simply what has been your prior past practice to uh the applications have been vetted, they've been viewed, the individuals qualify for the handicap parking space and the addresses that are contained in the motion is our recommendation recommendation that they be granted for new applications. And then also there's some names in there related to um removals of prior permits that are no longer needed. Council, any questions?

The ones that are being removed are no longer needed. Uh they would have been individuals who may have moved uh perhaps no longer with us and there's no longer a necessity for that. So each year they do review the ones that are issued to determine whether or not the need still exists. So when we add new ones, we also are looking to take away ones that are no longer necessary. No more questions. Thank you, Chief, because I want to have a lot of people being happy about this tomorrow. Um, so do I have a resol or excuse me, do I have a motion to approve resolution 26-9 to establish and remove handicap parking? So move, uh, Madam Secretary McCoy,

I'm sorry, he left. Madira Robinson, hi Coulson, hi David McMahon. Hi Dustin Queen. Hi Todd Bates. Hi. The eyes have it. Uh, let's see here. Resolution 2620, request for municipal council approval to promote officer to the rank of corporal.

Thank you, Mr. President. Council, um, we spoke tonight in executive session. Uh, there currently is a need in the police department for a corporal position to be filled. Uh, on the 14th of January of this year, 2026, uh, the Civil Service Commission certified a list of eligible candidates for that position. Among the top three candidates is officer William Clinger, currently assigned to the investigative division. And upon performance review and discussion uh internally, it is our recommendation that William Clinger be promoted to the position of corporal council. Any questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve resolution 26-20 request for municipal council to approve promotion of officer to rank corporal? So move

madam secretary William McCoy I'm keep sorry cross his name off the dear Robinson Ally Coulson hi David McMahon hi Dustin Queen I the eyes have it and one more for police here so resolution 26-21 request for approval to purchase a contract from Perf for training IAT

thank you Mr. President, members of council, um when I was hired, you know, one of the things I do is I do an assessment of the police department. Um one of the things you charge me with is to work on pro providing overall performance evaluations and training needs and necessities regarding staffing and whatnot. One of the areas that we've identified is training related to deescalation and uh it is much needed in our in our profession. It's I would argue that it's that's needed within our organization right now. Um there's obviously been high-profile incidents in the past that have kind of really um solidified the need to do a comprehensive holistic high impact training uh that really drills down into the escalation. And the Perf, which is the police executive research form based out of Washington DC, is a nationwide think tank that delivers training and consulting all across the country. and they're nationally recognized deescalation training uh which has been empirically in evidence evidence-based study when they did it in Louis or Louisville, Kentucky back in 2015. It's the integrated communication and tactics deescalation training. And what it emphasizes the ability for officers to get on scene, create distance, establish communication, take a tactical approach, but allowing individuals to deescalate situations before they become um violent. Uh it is a national standard. It is the gold standard of training with respect to deescalation. A perf would come in here for a period of uh four days and train the entire department at one time. They all get the same message. They all get the same training. And this is instructors from all across the country that come here. The fee for the program that you see listed in there is inclusive of all travel, all food, all the services we need, the training center where we'll be

hosting the training. That is it. There's no additional fees to this. Um, this represents a significant investment in the professional development of your police department and your men and women and will help make Nortown a safer community, especially when we have people who are engaged who are have times of crisis and unfortunately officers respond. They're going to have the proper training and tactics to deescalate versus create situations where force is necessary. Council, any questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion to approve resolution 20? No. Oh, I held myself back.

20 uh uh a motion to approve resolution 26-01. Uh sorry, 2621 request for approval for purchase contract from Perf to training IAT. So move. Madam Secretary, Dear Robinson, Allie Coulson, David McMahon, hi. Dustin Queen, I the eyes have it.

Yeah, absolutely. I there's no problem with somebody from council attending seeing what's going on training. Um, thank you very lot of stuff on the agenda tonight. Thank you for your time, consideration, your thoughtful questions. I do appreciate your responses. I appreciate all of you. So, thank you. You guys have families. Do you want me to uh table the department reports or do you want to go through them? I don't have a family. So, I'm Okay. All right. Well, then uh can I have them? What's up? You're not table. It's not table. I have to table that.

No, I'll just move it to I'll move it I'll move these reports to the to the meeting down the road. Okay. Thank you, Leonard. Thank you. All right. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? So move. Second. All in favor?