Borough Council - Regular Meeting

Please stand for a flag salute.

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

Please bless this Marin Council as they deliberate on the best of pomp and lance. In accordance with the New Jersey Open Public Meeting Act, Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided. The time, date, location, purpose of this meeting, and agenda was posted on the Municipal Building Bulletin Board, transmitted to individuals requesting notice, and published electronically on the official website of the Borough of Palmton Lakes. Roll call, please.

Mayor Serra. Here. Council President Sands. Here. Councilman Day. Here. Councilman Bruce. Here. Councilman McKinney. Here. Councilman Sanders. Here. Okay, thank you.

It's always my honor to honor groups that come in. And for people who don't know, who are the newer people in Popton in soccer, I was very involved in soccer. I was the president for 10 years. I coached many traveling teams. And I welcome all you guys here that are really putting your time in. And I'm going to call out one of the people I see in the back, Dwight Nystrom. He's been doing this probably 25 years now in helping the soccer team . I know how important and how hardworking you kids are, especially in the flight one, to get what you get. So I'm going to read a little bit something here that was sent to me, and then we're going to call everybody up for a recognition. The team has won their different flights in the last three seasons. Flight three is the spring of 2025, flight two in the fall of 2025, and flight one in the spring of 2026. We beat Bloomingdale Butler Bears twice this season. They were the back-to-back flight one champs the last two seasons, and we lost to them the last three years. Flight four, which shows the development, and we started in flight four, so that shows the development up to flight one. In the final game of the season, it is a game that we had to win to take first in the flight. We were losing 3-0. Warren going into a hydration break with only 15 minutes left to go. We came out of the break after being dominated for 45 minutes and scored five goals. In the next five minutes of the game, it was the most memorable moments for our program when we won 5-3. The team that has not lost a home game since October 26, 2024. They were the flight one champion. So for people who don't understand how it works, five all the way up to one. One is a hard flight. One is where all the big teams are playing in. And these are towns with lots and lots of children in those towns. So, you know, Pompton Lakes, we're always strong in what we do. We always support our athletes. And they always do what they're supposed to do. So congratulations to all you guys. good hard work, good coaching, good people involved in soccer, so I'm always, what else to say that. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give everyone a certificate. I'm gonna call their names up. Okay, one by one. Once I call your name up, you can come up front, stay up here, or Lizzy, would you rather go back and come back, or how do you want to do it? No, go ahead. Okay. And then we'll take a group picture at the end. So... Where's... And if I mess up your name, help me. So this is just a certificate of recognition of winning your flight, flight one. You're doing a great job. So our first name is James Bolton. Come on up.

Louis, come on up.

Alexander.

He's not here. He's not here, right? Wait, which one?

Alexander Cox and Valdivia. Valdivia.

Valdivia. Okay. Max.

I missed the other one, .

Milan. Joshua. . Bradley. Michael. Landon. Yeah. Tony.

Walter.

Why don't you guys come around here on both sides. Coach, if you want to say anything. Obviously, thank you for the support and the talent.

the talent, having the community come together for this type of moment means everything to these kids.

So thank you again for having us, and thank you parents for coming out and showing your support.

And let me just add one more thing. My kids went through the program, and they're playing high school, right? And these kids will meet together probably most of the time in high school. That's a big advantage when you're playing, because they already know each other, they know how the game's played, they work together. That's why it's so important that we keep our kids together in our town like that. So I appreciate you all. Thank you.

Thank you. Good job, guys. I'm proud of you. It was a lot of hard work. Good job, guys. Thank you. So we're going to start our meeting.

This is our time. If you'd like to get out, if you'd like to stay the whole meeting, you may welcome to stay the whole meeting. Okay, while they're filtering out, I have just some more updates before I move on to open this up. Some good news for this weekend. Our first tenants are moving into the Meridian building this weekend. That's a long time coming. There's only a couple at this beginning, but they've already started taking applications. They've got a bunch of applications already in. You'll slowly start to see people coming in. With that, and I've been involved with some people up here for a very long time with making this happen. Everyone has to understand with this building, once it reaches 50% is when the pilot starts to kick in. The pilot was never put in place to lower anybody's taxes. We've said from day one it was to stabilize our tax base. So when we have to buy a fire truck, for example, we can take it out of our pilot money, which is a million dollars, something like that. So as these pilots come through, and I have to say this just to remind everybody again, The property that that building was on, the part of the town that we collected, the piece that we had as a town, was roughly $26,000 a year. The first year of the pilot is $350,000 and escalates up to a million dollars after 30 years. So it moves up every year. These are big numbers for a small town. Yes, I understand it's a big building. I understand it's bringing new people into town. But bringing new people into town is not a bad thing. They want to become part of our community. They're going to be walking around downtown. They're going to be shopping. This building is basically keeping our downtown float right now. Downtowns are having a tough time surviving with all the box stores on the highways. We have a hardware store here, for example. If everybody isn't shopping in the hardware store and they go to Home Depot instead, that hardware store is not going to make it. This is another part of redevelopment. Most of the development that's going to happen in town will not be as big as this building. Everything from this point on will probably be smaller, and there's not a lot of space left to redevelopment. But if you look around, most towns are doing this. Avalon Bay is adding a section in Wanaque, another 300 or 400 units. Wayne is already adding 1,200 to 3,000 apartments. Riverdale will be putting in some projects. Every town around us is jumping on the bandwagon. We were lucky enough to start it early enough where people caught our interest. And we have a great downtown. That's why they come here. We have a great bid that puts things together, that keeps the programs running and moving. And people recognize that. And builders recognize that. So at the end of the day, I'm happy to see the building opening. There is a restaurant going in on the bottom. There will also be a daycare center going in on the bottom. So both the retail spaces are filled. They'll take a little time to get that running and open, but they've already committed to signing the leases, so we're moving forward. So that's really good news. For the people that have been up here, I thank everybody who's spent the time and energy. We've spent a lot of time and energy talking about this and making it happen. So we'll start to see progress from that phone call. So that was all good news. Okay. Can I have a motion to open the meeting for public comments? So moved. Who was that? Councilman Venon. Second. Councilman Sanders, all in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone from the public like to address, please just give your name and address. Try to keep it to five minutes.

Good evening. My name is Bill Lowe. I live at 311 Pompton Avenue in Pompton Lakes. And I would like to say it again. I can't hear you. Talk a little louder. Is the mic here? Yeah, but it's not a heavy mic. Just talk louder. Bill Lowe, 311 Pompton Avenue, Pompton Lakes. I'd like to congratulate the Pompton Lakes Thunder U-12 Flight 1 soccer champions. First of all, and you'll be happy to know I'm not here to complain about taxes. And I'd like to acknowledge that it looks like there is some work being done as far as the DuPont cleanup. And you guys took some action to get some of that revenue for the community to use, to utilize. But today, I read in the local section of the Record newspaper that Hackensack sets pilot deadline. Officials say developers owe $6. million in unpaid revenue. So I went to page 4L, and who do I see that owes the town of Hackensack money? It's Meridia. Top two on Meridia. So I don't know, Mr. Mayor and Council, men and women, maybe you could tell me when is it that Meridia started and pumped the mics? When did they break around? Was it six years ago, seven years ago? What I'm suggesting is that there wasn't ample vetting for this developer. I think we could have done a much better... job. I think it was rushed. It wasn't exactly reckless, but I don't think this body did their due diligence. Maybe it goes to redevelopment first, but somebody dropped the ball because he owes Hackensack, so he's got to pay Hackensack before he even starts to pay here. I'm not... I'm not opposed to pilots. I think they're good. I think they can generate a lot of revenue. But I think we could do a better job in inventing these developers.

I'll answer that. Thank you. Anyone else would like to address?

Hi, my name is Lou Bellini. I live on 214 Ridge Drive in Pumpton Lakes. I was just wondering, I understand they're taking the footbridge out that connects Lenox to West Lenox. Is there any possibility whatsoever to use that bridge to go to Joe Grill Field and maybe into Pumpton Plains or Pumpton Aquatic so that the residents of Pumpton Lakes can get to that trail? And from that trail that can go down to Wayne, I think that would be a fantastic way to keep people off the highway. Because you've got to cross 23 to get to it now. So if that bridge can be utilized over there, I think that would be a great idea. I'll answer at the end, but I have some good information for you at the end. Yeah, I imagine we need some stuff like that to fix it up. The other thing is, is there any one can speak with? And I think this is just so obvious, and I don't know why it hasn't been brought up. to get the school in town, Windsor School, over to St. Mary's. I mean, St. Mary's is a school. It's got a gymnasium, it's got an auditorium, it's got a cafeteria, and it's got classrooms. It would be perfect for them, and I think it would open up a tremendous amount of space for retail. So something like that might be a, I don't know who to talk to.

Yeah, well, I'll answer it. Thank you. Anyone else from the public? Anyone else from the public? Go ahead, whoever.

Good evening. George Popov, 1104 Colfax Avenue. I'm here on behalf of the Pompton Lakes Community Advisory Group. We have spoken to residents since the press release about the billion dollar settlement between the state and DuPont, especially with the allotment of $75 million for Pompton Lakes. We would like to suggest a focus and a cooperation from this group that $75 million be allocated to Chemours DuPont site and not go into the general funds of the state county or any place else. That's what needs to be cleaned up. We need to reduce the amount of contamination that's coming out of that site. It's never been cleaned up and fully addressed, and I'm sure I'm not talking about anything new to this forum. However, let's have a focus on that. Let's get these funds, let's put them to use, let's do some planning and not waste it. There's also opportunity for the residents as far as the vapor intrusion systems and the yearly testing of the system. We have heard from many of them who are saying that they would like to have independent people, not Chemours or DuPont people, test the systems or the wells that they keep coming down and the police guide them as far as getting down. The protocol and the reporting on it is very poor as far as to the residents as to what is the level. And it should be to residential standards, not to industrial standards for the water. And that needs to be really managed by this group, by the council, and by obviously the administrator of the town. We have to look into alternate power sources. When the power goes off in the town, the systems don't work. So then every individual in town in the flu is subject to the vapors. And that could be bad for their health, probably is. Again, I'm not a doctor, I don't claim to be one. But they've got to keep it running all the time. They need backup power somehow. and that should be at the expense of Chemours Dupont. The additional areas of the drinking water should also be tested on a more regular basis, that it's not being contaminated in any sense, and hopefully this group can monitor it and get reports on a regular basis, quarterly and not annually. They need to continue to monitoring the air quality in the pool, and that apparently is not going on. on a standard basis. Continue. An opportunity should be given for those people, especially with this large funding, who want to move so they can get a market price on their homes. I don't know who else wants to move into a contaminated area, but I guess some people are willing to take that chance. Taxes and We all got hit this year. Maybe there is an opportunity if you can give a break to DuPont as far as what they're paying in taxes because there is no plant up there. Why not give a break to the people in the plume and the rest of the borough? Start looking at zero-based budgeting for the town. Don't tell me constantly every year we have to go up. Let's go back and review if there's any possible waste or obsolete projects that we're still funding. Why? It's the same as with the rest of the government, and we found a lot of corruption and fraud throughout the United States, but I'm not suggesting in any way that there's anything like that going on here. Let's just be diligent in handling our funds, because personally, it hurts. and possibly we should distribute some of these funds to the people in the plume. Also, measure the plume. Has it really remained the same? I've been here for over 40 years, and the plume designation hasn't changed. I know water doesn't run uphill, but when was the last time this group has asked to really have a measurement of how big the plume is and how dangerous is it? okay really hopefully we can put the 75 million dollars to good use here not any place else in the county let's not waste this opportunity that's what we have as far as the group goes and we'll be back i'm sure thank you for your time and attention thank you anyone else from the public

Hi, Rick. Just the gentleman just before brings up an interesting point with DuPont. That's not what I wanted to talk about tonight. But what's happening with the old cleaners that I heard was supposed to be remediated and all of that? I mean, it's been decades with that thing sitting there. And I think that's just a blight on our community when you have something that's an eyesore like that. And for downtown, I think it's inappropriate. Let's put it that way. I want to thank the chief here because chief you've got people out there on on patrol on foot patrol that I've noticed uh doing some uh I'm sorry I just need your name I'm sorry I'm sorry just your name oh I'm sorry Randy Randy Pratt 322 102 Avenue um so I want to thank you for that all right but there's still some holes here Mayor, I gave you my cell phone number I hope you held on to. I was hoping I would hear from you, but I didn't hear from you and that brings me back here tonight. My thanks to the chief for following up on that stuff, but there's still some holes regarding parking in town. You mentioned earlier, Mayor, in your opening remarks about the Meridian building and you have a diner going in underneath there. Where are those people supposed to park? Alright, so you have a parking problem. Pumpkin Lakes has a parking problem. Pumpkin, they I'm sorry, Wannaque Avenue only has, and I don't know if the Council knew this, only has 44 parking spaces. Of all the Wannaque Avenue, from the railroad tracks down down this end here, there's only 44. There's only three handicap spots. In my section in front of my store, there's no handicap spots, but yet there are seven cars on a regular basis that either have handicap placards or some other kind of placard. I was told by an officer, if you see something, report it, which I did. I reported it. An officer came. And there's some conflict in discussion. And Chief, maybe this is something you wanted to speak with your patrol officers about. He pointed to the sign. And I agree with him on this point, that the sign says, metered parking will leave Monday through Saturday, 9 to 6. Fine, no problem. But the electronic park mobile doesn't give prices. Maybe the Borough Administrator can answer this. I don't use the electronic thing. I prefer coins. I just don't like the electronic thing myself. You have 90 cents, I believe, for an hour electronically, but 25 cents if you feed the meter. If you are a handicapped person with a handicap sticker, all you have to do is put five cents in there for 15 minutes and you're good for nine hours. But down my end, there's seven cars with special placards. Business, people who are coming to, customers who are coming to our businesses, they have no place to park. There's 15 parking spots on my side, 11 parking spots on the other side. You have a vehicle, and Chief, I had checked on this, you have a vehicle that parks every single day in the very first spot, just past the bus stop, feeds the meter by a point, has not gotten a ticket. I checked with your records bureau. They have not gotten a ticket since the last 30 days that I was here. They have not gotten a ticket since probably six months before that, okay? So does that vehicle have special dispensation to be there? And if it does, it should have a placard or some kind of notification or something of that kind. Let's go back to the meters for a second. So some of these I think are inadequate. And I think that's something that needs to specify what it is. Because I have people coming into my shop saying, hey, do I have to feed the meter because it's Juneteenth? Well, not according to the code. The code says Thanksgiving, Christmas, so on and so forth. Maybe a list of holidays need to be put on there. I've been in other towns where they also have a list of holidays you don't have to pay. But what's interesting is that the parking meter says a time limit of three hours. The officer responded to me, well, I don't know. I have no idea how long they've been there. And I have a video camera outside my shop for security reasons. And I said, well, would you like to see my security camera? And I can prove to you they've been there all day long. And we can re-roll it for a month if you want.

And he refused.

So there's a disconnect between the meter and here. Time? Okay. All right. So I'll pick this up again. But I think there's a disconnect. I would really appreciate a phone call because there's some things that we can get cleared out. Okay. Thanks.

Anyone else from the public?

Please step up. Good evening. Helen Martins, 59 White Way. I'm here from the CCPL about the cleanup. I myself don't think that's enough money, and I don't understand why it's just $75 million, but the fact is, They're safe for forever chemicals. What do they mean by that? We cleaned the lake up. Is it the water that runs under our property from DuPont, or is it the wells? I don't know where they're talking, but I was under the opinion when I spoke, when we first heard about this, that the people, and I'm speaking for the people that live in the plume, or want that DuPont site cleaned up. Because if that site is cleaned up, nothing else is going to run under our property. And also, the testing of the wells. They're out there. They have a police officer. They still worry about us attacking them. There's a police officer that has to stand out there while they test it, which is a waste of time for the police officer, because nobody's bothering them. But only they are telling us, oh, it's so-so, it's this, that. And we don't even know because we don't get nothing in the mail or anything about where it's at. We want an independent person to test along with them that we can feel like we're watching the hen house or however you say that. But the fact of the matter is, is the site being thought about getting cleaned up? And I also know that when we were here the last time when this suit came out and they were saying about the money, and I think it was you, Mr. Sierra, that said part of it could go to Patterson or whatever because it's a safe county. I understand they have their issues, but we have ours, and that money should come here. It's DuPont here, it's DuPont there if it is, then let them find out and get their money for it. We need the money here to clean up. I've been a resident a long time. And I enjoyed the town. But it's getting ridiculous because of the taxes and everything. I mean, we put up those big buildings. To me, I got to say they're an eyesore. Because the one that's across from the theater, when you were in winter and that building was going up, that whole area is shaded. In winter, that's going to be an ice rink because no sun is going to get at it. And the other one in the middle of the town, it doesn't even look like a country town anymore. And you talk about bringing businesses in, we've got so many storefronts that people are moving out of. And the fact is, we have nothing. The hardware store, the pizza parlors, I'm saying we do patronize them. But there's nothing in the town to shop for anymore. It's barbers, it's nail salons or whatever. We have a few restaurants, but there's no other shops to shop. We just have Gilman's, Sears, this, that. So you're saying bringing people in. There's nothing to shop for, unless it's restaurants and that. And the other thing is that we're putting these in and bringing people into our town But what happens when the schools get overcrowded and we have to build bigger schools and pay more taxes? This is ridiculous. Really ridiculous. So yes, we're putting in housing, but I think we overdid it for our town. And that's my opinion. But I'm truthful. I want the site cleaned up. And I don't want DuPont doing it, if I can have a say so. Because I don't trust them. I never did and I never will. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else from the public like to address?

Seeing no one, can I have a motion to close the public session? I motion. Council President Kent, Councilman Bennett, all in favor? Aye. Against? Mr. Lowe, I'm going to completely disagree with everything you said. This project has taken an extended long time because it's over. You can't hear me?

I can't hear that clear.

So you should move forward then. You should move forward. I'll talk louder, but I'm going to disagree with everything that Mr. Lowe said. This project has taken an extremely long time to do. Most projects get done in two to three years. This has taken ten. This has been vetted over and over again by numerous boards, numerous public sessions, numerous public meetings. Residents came and spoke their mind. The police department has signed off on it. The fire department has signed off on it. The MUA has signed off on it. The schools have signed off on it. Everyone was involved in the process when it happened. It takes time to build the buildings. The fact that it took so long, I'm a little disappointed in. I would have hoped it happened faster. I don't agree with the fact that it wasn't vetted properly. By the way, it wasn't vetted by anybody on this council except me because this council has changed. The people that actually brought this in are not even on this council anymore. It goes through our councils at different stages and we voted on each stage, different councils each time, on where we wanted to be with that. That was at recommendations of our planning board, of our zoning board, and our redevelopment agency. So all those groups were involved, including this borough. Lou, I'm sorry, I don't remember your last name. Yes, we are replacing the bridge at West Lenox. Unfortunately, they will not let us just take the bridge and put it somewhere else, but we are in the process of having a meeting very shortly with the county and some other towns about extending the walkway, believe it or not, and Michael, you can help me, from where to where?

We're looking to extend it from River Road off of Route 23 all the way through Riverdale through Post Lane all the way up to Wanaque at Union Ave.

to tie in with the Wannekew Trail.

So these towns are going to be in discussion with the county to make one long connected path with bridges involved over 23. So that's a great thing. I support it 100%. I think what they did in Wannekew is beautiful. I don't know if anybody's walked there yet, but it's a beautiful site. If we can have the same thing here, that's a home run. So we will push for that. Okay, sure. Mr. Popoff, you said a lot of things.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you. You asked about St. Mary's. Unfortunately, what happened back in the early 80s When our downtown was not thriving, the businesses were closing, and Windsor School came in and purchased all the property. They own that property now, so there's no way for them. They're going to want to move. We've actually said, maybe you'd be more comfortable over there. We'd like to get the retail back. I wish they didn't at that time okay the deal because we lost so much retail there. But at the time, businesses were hurting, and they all sold out to Windsor School, which is unfortunate. Thank you. Mr. Popoff, I've been doing this with you guys just as long as you guys have been doing this. I'm going to group it all together if you don't mind. The settlement. Let's talk about the settlement. We here, with Council President pushing very hard, want the money to come back to Palmton Lakes. That does not mean it's going to come back to Palmton Lakes. There is not even an itch towards that idea happening. We are not going to quit. We send a letter every month making sure with our attorneys, making sure that we're requesting this money to stay in Palmton Lakes. Someone is confused. It's not about the county. They could spend that money anywhere in the state. So the last time there was a settlement with money, Wildwood got new dunes. So that doesn't help Pompton Lakes at all. We are insistent, just like you guys, We had conditions here from DuPont, we want some of that money back to us. Even if it's a small percentage, 5%, 6%, whatever it's going to be. So we are going to push as hard as we can and we do have politicians pushing for that. What we do is need help from you guys to send letters to your politicians and to your representatives saying this is unacceptable, we should have some of this money here in Pompton Lakes. But at the end of the day, it's a governor's decision on what's going to happen with that money.

The New Jersey Constitution says it has to go back to the...

Okay, but that's not what they're doing. That's not going to happen. Any part of that is not happening. Put it this way. They haven't even answered. We've sent five letters, maybe, from our attorneys to the state. They haven't even answered our letters. There was an article in the paper today, and the council president was just showing it to me, stating they haven't even answered the letters that we're asking.

So I don't hope... Maybe you should go visit them instead of writing letters.

Visiting them is not going to help, because they've already talked about how they're going to spend this money. They've done it from other polluters and other sites in other places. Now, let's talk about all the things you brought up. We have no say. This site is run by two groups, DEP and EPA. By the way, it should not be run by both groups. Most places have this done by the DEP, which makes it easier to deal with because we're talking with them. We have to talk to two groups. The holdup is because They were told a standard to clean it up to, Chemours, and then after the fact, there might be some talk about changing some standards and that wasn't part of the deal. So this is going to be held up for a while. This is not going to happen tomorrow where they clean it up. We wish it did. Believe me, we want this property cleaned. We want it back in the tax books. We want to use this property. But it's just not going to happen readily. You know, I've been about 20 years. This has been going on 20 years. Just like all you people have come to all the meetings. I've gone to all the CAG meetings where we had all those CAG meetings and we met in high school and all those things. I wish it wasn't that way. And I pushed. I mean, it's getting to the point where the person who represents DuPont, who, believe it or not, I know you guys don't want to hear it, cares about this town. It's not a corporate person. It's someone who's been involved in this community for 30 years from DuPont. At least cares. He's going to retire soon. Once we lose him, now we're dealing just with a corporate entity, which is not a good thing. I know you guys don't want to hear it, but the person, Dave, who was there, at least cared about our community a little bit. He knew about us. He knew our people. He knew our shops. He knew those things. So this is an uphill fight. Again, it's about writing letters. I've reached out to my politicians. Where are we with the DuPont thing? Nobody answers. I've reached out to DuPont. They're waiting for information from the DEP. And the other issue we're having, and I know the council president can address this, the DEP, all those people that had all the knowledge about what we were dealing with, have all retired. And they've hired all these young kids in their 20s and 25s who don't have any idea what was talked about for 20 years. So they're all getting reeducated on what has to be done. It's just an unhappy situation. The taxes that you talked about and the money, if they were to give us the money, which I'm telling you, if a miracle happens, we'll get it, we would gladly do all those things you mentioned. But there is no talk of us getting any money. We are fighting hard, though.

Yes, they got the settlement. They got the settlement.

But that doesn't mean they're giving it to us. They got a settlement for the state.

The state is in control of that money, not us.

But they're saying $75 million for us.

$75 million for this plant. The plant settlement was $75 million that went to the state. They're in control of the $75 million.

What a shame.

It's a shame. It is a horrible shame. I am asking for percentages. Give me 2%, 3%, and I'll be happy. And I know this whole group up here is fighting for that to happen. We want that money coming here. We can push as hard as we can. It's up to the state. I'm going to say it a thousand times. I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. I don't care what governor's in the office. You need to write letters to the governor's office saying this is unfair. Some of that money should come back to our town. We have to put pressure on them. By the way, It's happening in our town, but it happens in other towns. Other towns will have pollutants with other things. They take this money and use it at their will, whatever they need to do somewhere else. So we want that money to come back. It's unfair. Talking about the I'll get to the parking in a second. But the buildings downtown, that's an untrue statement. Right now there's a waiting list for people moving into town for businesses. They can't find places. I have someone right now who has a child care facility and would like to go in. Can't find a place. A lot of the buildings that you see in town that are empty are in the process of being turned into something else. That's what they're doing right now. Let's remember, I know somebody brought it up, Windsor School owns a very large chunk of our downtown, unfortunately, and that's what it is. The way it looks is the way it's looking, and that's not going to change. You say the nail salons, the pizza shops, the restaurants, those are what the people want to have in town. That's what they're looking for.

Yeah, but we also need some other retail.

Okay, but the retail is not up to me. I can't demand, that's called spot zoning. I can't say you have this. We do. We don't because I can tell you the retail is moving along very nicely. The square footage The example I can use, the building that we used to use for our coalition is now up for rent. He's increased his square footage costs on that building because of the building across the street. The landlords are now making more money to charge, which is part of what we're trying to do. I understand everybody has a feeling how it looks or it doesn't look good, and I appreciate that. I'm not saying everyone has the right to say one way or the other. For me, as a mayor, somebody mentioned, I think it was Mr. Popoff, we are at a basic talk when we come to our budget. There is nothing we can cut. The problem is they raise health care costs and retirement costs $760,000 just for our town, 72%. That's not just us, in schools too. We used to get state aid from the state. Every year we'd get a million or whatever we got. They cut all the state aid. There is no more state aid given to the schools and to the towns. So what they're basically doing at the state level is when they say we're not taxing you, they're not taxing you. They're telling the towns you have to tax them because if you want to keep, you have to pay for retirement. You have to pay for pension. You have to pay for healthcare costs. Then you have to increase your funds. That's the only way you're going to get it. Now, saying all that, this is where the pilots come in. Some of that money can offset some of these costs. If you get a million dollars a year coming in on a pilot, for our town on a $17 million budget, that's a big number for us. We can offset some things, but it doesn't mean our taxes are going down. It doesn't mean I know social media that I was going to talk about. There's a lot of talk on social media. We're in charge of 25% of your tax dollars. 25% of every dollar spent in Pompton Lakes, we're in control. The school is in charge of another 59% to 60%. And what's left is the county, the library, open space, some other things. What we do with 25% is a big deal. I mean, we have all our employees, all those services. We haven't cut any services to any person. But retirement is set by the state, and the pensions are set by the state. We can't change that. We can't argue that. So it's unfortunate. It puts us in a tight spot. We are looking for other ways around that. Let's talk about the parking downtown. I appreciate you, and I will give you a call, but some of your facts were incorrect. First of all, you said we have 44 spots. We have 220 spots in the pond hole, which we own. Those are our spots. So those are used for anybody downtown. The the on Park Mobile, it does list the costs and hours and everything listed that you're saying it's not on the sign. So it is when you go on the Web site is right there in front of you. I just learned this myself and I'm going to ask the chief to jump in. If you have a handicapped parking spot, you can park in any spot for as long as you want. It's a crazy state law, not a town law. So if six people who have handicapped stickers want to park in front of your establishment, put a quarter in, they're done for the day. They don't have to pay another penny. I don't know if you want to jump in.

Yeah, they actually have to max. If you're a handicapped placard, state regulation is that max out the meter one time and they can park there for 24 hours. If New Jersey also has a Purple Heart designation and they have a Disabled Veteran designation, if they have those placards, they are exempt from the meter and they can park up to 24 hours. But that would mean they would just have to move their 24 hours and they can move their car to the next spot, park for another 24 hours and they'll fit.

So that's basically what I'm saying. And I can't address the cars that are in front of your business, but if they have placards, There's nothing our police can do. There's nothing at all we can do. It's unfortunate. It doesn't seem fair to me. I understand they're handicapped. I understand they have to get to where they need to be. But they're also taking up vital spots to businesses, like you mentioned. We are looking at new signage when we do some things with the Pond Hole parking. So there will be some new signage coming out. I can't answer about the holidays. I don't know about that. I can't answer about the car in the corner. I don't know if you want to address that now or at another point. I don't know what the car is talking about. So we understand the situation with parking is very vital for our downtown, 100%. But every town in New Jersey has parking issues right now. Wayne is building 3,000 apartments. You think they have spots for 3,000 people to park? They don't. It's a shared parking service. That's what we're selling. That's what every town is selling. We have a pond hole where you can park in there all day and all night. It's empty most of the day and walk. That's what you have to do. Is it going to be right in front of your establishment? Probably not. But it's not going to be in front of the pizza place on the other side either. We have limited spots, by the way, set by the county. The county sets those spots. We have no say on the spots, how many are there, how many handicapped, how many striped out, anything. As a matter of fact, we were supposed to have a meeting next month that was canceled with the county on how they're going to improve traffic flow by maybe reducing spots or adding bump outs or whatever they want to do. We have no say on that. That's their road. That's their responsibility. I'm sorry, I have to go back to Mr. Lowe, too. You mentioned Hackensack. I don't know what's going on in Hackensack. I couldn't tell you. I don't know anything. He's been very faithful in his payments to us and everything we've had so far. We've had no issues with collecting funds from him in any way. He's the third biggest developer in the state of New Jersey, so I don't think he's in a hole right now somewhere. What his issues are in Hackensack is between the town of Hackensack and him. It has nothing to do with us. He also built a specific center, too. I would gladly give you a call. We can talk more about the parking. We can maybe come up with some suggestions. Chief, if you want to add anything. I don't know if you have anything more you want to say on that.

From what I understand, I'm pretty sure that the black vehicle that he's talking about is a fellow business owner that's on a bid with him. That being said, I'm just mentioning that because I'm sure he's aware of what this across and looking at this more is that the ordinance gives a time limit, a max time limit. What's inconsistent is if you're on ParkMobile, it doesn't let you pay after three hours, but we have the meters, so the meters will be unlimited. That being said, we would have an issue with forcing that because we need to get the signs up over there to advise anybody parking there that there is that limit in the parking, which we've already addressed with the PPW and spoken with other powers that need to get those signs.

So just to clarify what he's saying, we identified what you had said about the three hours. We're going to put signage up that actually explains that on Wanaque Avenue. Once the signage is up, then they can go ahead and start ticketing. We can't do that now without signage. Mike, I think we're in the process of working out the signage right now, right? So our DPW will put it up, I would say, relatively soon, and then they'll handle the enforcement side of WannaQ. That's not to do with ParkMobile. And just one other question came up about the schools. The schools have, these studies have been proven, they're only one and two bedroom units. So most people don't have a lot of children in one and two bedroom units. So when they built the Alexa in Riverdale, there was over 300 apartments, 240 apartments there. The school statistics, not our statistics, only brought in four children. So there's not going to be a big increase of school children into the program. You know the fact that yes, so you can actually because I'm seeing another town And the seniors and I'm gonna be there myself, you know, there's the state freeze program There's these all these programs that everyone should take advantage of with the state. It freezes your taxes You get some rebates back. I understand the taxes are high Let's just remember because now we're talking about taxes taxes are high everywhere in Detroit They're not just high here in Palmdale Lakes. I have a daughter that's looking for a house right now. As my daughter, she tells me the taxes are too high. So, you know, it's just a part of living in this state and where we are. We're trying to do the best we can, this council, checking every dollar that we spend. But at the end of the day, we're in charge of 25% of the tax bill. I'm going to open it up to the council. Does anybody want to add anything?

Yes, real quick, Mayor. So I looked up the Hackensack tax. thing with the six point something million dollars, Merdia owes $300,000 of that $6.7 million. So it's on the low end.

That's their problem.

It's not a large. I just wanted to add that it's not $6.7 that they owe. It's $300,000.

Anybody else? Anybody want anything? Nope. Just saw the numbers. My tax bill says municipal tax 26.52%. That might be right, yeah, whatever it is. I'm reading the tax bill now.

Yeah, so I said around 25%.

And school taxes are 55%.

Yeah, okay, that's about right.

County taxes are 18.

So tell me on a $1,000 increase, what would be the school increase?

My mathematician skills aren't that good.

550.

550. You got me on that one. Oh, that wasn't hard.

And for the town, it would be 320, something like that. No, 260. 260, sorry, 260.

But my taxes last year went up 750. I hear you. And my taxes this year went up 750.

I hear you 100%.

And we all know why. And I talked to Michael about it. Let's say, you know, over a 10-year period, as a retiree, $7,500 additional on top of what I'm paying now, I'm out of the town.

And I hear that a lot. So many other seniors are out. I hear that, but we have to pay our bills. We have to pay pension and retirement and health care.

Well, we've got contracts coming up that we're going to negotiate. We do, but health care we can't negotiate.

Well, we have to work on it. Yeah, so, okay, I'm going to let that go. Okay. Okay, motion to approve the following minutes. Regular meeting minutes, July 22nd, 2026. Closed session meetings, July 22, 2026. Can I have a motion? Motion. Second. Councilman Hinton, Councilman Sanchez, all in favor? Aye. Bills and claims as listed below, can I have a motion? Motion. Councilman Bennett? Second. Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Against?

Consent agenda, anybody need anything removed? I would just like to make a comment on 26.333. Anybody else? Nope?

Okay, Liz.

Where is the ban on the canceling of federal companies that's used to consent to 2016 and various proposed resolutions? Okay, can I have a motion? Motion. Councilman Bennett, Councilman Hinton, all in favor? Aye. Against? Bennett and Hinton.

Question comment, I'm just a comment. I want to thank our business administrator Michael corelli through the years From the state tree commission that I've been on Working trying to get TPW to help us out with shade trees on the trails Disappointment for Ryan Wright the road repair supervisor also he's going to work on a lot of the trees trees in the park so i just want to thank our administrator for doing this and uh he came to our meeting the other night and we're all happy he answered a lot of questions and stayed for the meeting so this is a work disappointment is a work in the direction to help our park trees and trees and tanks. Good, and I think it's a good appointment.

I just want to thank you. Okay, so 26333, can I have a motion? Motion. Second.

Councilman Hinton, Councilman Cruz, all in favor?

Aye. Against? Okay, Liz, ordinances.

Ordinance 2625, an ordinance.

Motion to approve ordinance 26-25 for introduction. Motion. Councilman... Second. Who was that? Sanders? That was... Councilman Bay. Councilman Cruz. All in favor? Aye. Against? Oh, sorry. It's a roll call.

Oh. Councilman Cruz?

Yes.

Councilman Hayden?

Yes.

Council President Ken? Yes. Councilman Sanders? Yes. Councilman Bennett? Yes. Councilman Bay?

Yes.

Ordinance for Final Adoption of this Ordinance then Advertised. The notes amending and supplementing the salary ranges are the employees of the Federal Compensation Accounting Museum.

Motion to open the meeting for public comments on Ordinance 26-24. So moved. Councilman Cruz? Second. Councilman Begg? All in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone from the public would like to address just this ordinance? SEEING NO ONE, MOTION TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC SESSION ON ORDINANCE 26-24. COUNCILMAN HINTON. SECOND. COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENT. ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. KENT. MOTION TO APPROVE ORDINANCE 26-24 FOR FINAL ADOPTION. MOTION. COUNCILMAN SANDERS, COUNCILMAN BAIG. ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

COUNCILMAN GOODS. YES. COUNCILMAN HINTON.

YES.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENT. YES. COUNCILMAN SANDERS. YES. Yes.

Yes. Okay, thank you. Under my report, well, I have a motion, let me do that first. Mayor to appoint with advice and consent of Council Shannon McGill-Thompson as a member of the Environmental Committee to fill an unexpired term until 12-31-27. Do I have a second? Second. Council President Kent, all in favor?

Aye.

Under my report, we had an officer retire. Johnny Williams. He's been a long-time officer here in town, 25 years, worked with our DPW for many years also. I wish him well in his adventures moving forward. Those are the kind of people we like to see in town, people who grew up here in town, did other things, worked his career here, and is going to retire. So congratulations to him. Camp has come and gone for our summer counselors. I thank all the counselors that came and our staff that put it together. I had the privilege of sitting and talking to all the kids. The camp was run very well. They seemed to have a lot of fun. Unfortunately, there was a lot of rain this drive, so we were in and out of buildings a lot. But they seemed to enjoy going inside Atlantic School just as much because they could sit and watch a movie and not have to run around a lot. So I thank all the counselors for that. I want to thank our superintendent who's retiring, Paul Amoroso. I've worked with Paul for many, many years, for the last 20 years, and he's always been a stand-up guy. I can always call him. We work very well together, the town and the school board, and I hope that continues as we move forward. That's very important because we don't want conflict between those two agencies that handle the tax dollars. So we were always bouncing things off each other, and if he had a concern, he would call me. If I had a concern, I'd call him. So I wish him well. Again, I wish him a happy retirement, and I welcome the new superintendent coming in, which I'll be at a luncheon for her, and hopefully we have the same thing moving forward. And lastly, I just want to talk about the taxes a little bit, because there were people talking about taxes, okay? Okay. Unfortunately, in the state that we live, we are in the state healthcare plan, which means we have to use the healthcare right now that they provide. A lot of towns are trying to get out of the state health care plan because it's too expensive, which we will try to get out ourselves if we can. But the more towns they get out, what happens? The more expense comes in because you're paying up the cost of the towns that are leaving. The state has to fix the problem. If they want to continue having a state health care plan, they have to be responsible to fix this. I worked in New York State. I have health care benefits through New York State. They have no issues going on over there. Their numbers seem to stay steady from year to year. A little increase is 2%, 3%. It's ridiculous here in New Jersey. We're getting increases of 60% or 50% or 49%. It's understandable to why they have to increase it, but we cannot pick up those costs from year to year. As Councilman Hinton was saying, we can take a hit once in a while, but you can't take a hit every year. Again, I go to the public that they should reach out to their connections wherever they live and explain to them, we want to stay in this state. You have to help us. You have to help us with the pension costs. You have to help us with the retirement costs. Now, we do have contract negotiation coming up. And there will be a question on our ballot this year for local elections about the pensions itself, because we want to hear from the public and see what they say. I'm pretty certain I understand the answer that will come back, but we're going to put it out there. Because at the end of the day, we have quality employees here, our police department, our fire department, our DPW, all quality employees. but they get benefits. Those benefits cost a lot of money at the end of the day. There's nothing we can do. It's not like we can just say, no, you don't get those benefits anymore, or no, when you retire, you don't get this anymore. It's contractual. It's done in agreements. When a contract is done, You work out the best deal, but at the end of the day, they're getting their raises in there. That's why unions get involved, and that's why unions are there, to protect the workers. On the other side of that, because I come from both sides of it, they're pushing us to the limits, these unions, sometimes, of what they're asking for. It's costing us, the taxpayers, a lot of money. I pay the increased taxes, too. I'm not happy about it. But at the end of the day, let's just keep in mind we're in charge of 26% of your taxes. The school is 55% or 56%. And there's little pieces of the county. It's 20% and some other pieces. There's bunches of groups that are involved. I know most public would not understand that. They would think we are responsible for the whole tax bill. which is far from the truth. We're the second smallest supplier, and we think we do a good job on what we offer with this town for the money we get. And that is my report. Council President.

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to congratulate the U-12 Flight 1 boys soccer team. I was the registrar for many years under PLRSA and the referee coordinator. I got those kids trained. I ended up getting my license myself. So I never do anything unless I know how to do it, and I do it with the certification. And we have a wonderful program with the new groups. Dwight Nystrom was there when Mike and I were there. We were all on the executive board together, so we go back a long time, and it's really wonderful to see these kids come in first place. It's a tough thing to do at U-12 Flight 1, but they did it, and congratulations to them. I also want to thank Mrs. Martins and Mr. Popoff for their many, many years of fighting to get the right thing done with the DuPont property and with the state and the federal agencies to do the cleanup. And I was also on the CAG for a number of years, and it was this money, this money that was agreed upon should come back here. I don't want to hear that they're just going to take it and go and build something in another town or they're going to fix a dune down the shore. We were damaged. It was clear. And we had many residents that lost how many decades of sleep just trying to figure out, you know, should I live here or should I not? We've gotten past that for a lot of them. We do have vapor intrusion systems. There's all kinds of issues. There's still a big cleanup to be done, and I want the counsel and our attorney, I thank them very much for supporting sending those letters in. We finally are getting some traction with the newspaper. I'm waiting for Channel 12 to walk through the door. I thought they'd be here tonight. They should be. because that money for all these towns, not just Pompton Lakes, but for all the other three towns that so many people were involved in, that money should be going, at least a portion of it, should be going back to the residents who had to deal with the contamination in all those years. So I'm with you. I support that 100%. Okay. Now I've got to calm down a little bit. Okay. It's very annoying. Saying all that, I went on the Internet and I looked at the AI, the Internet, and I just want to say even with all the problems that we have with taxes and all that, we still get an amazingly good review on the Internet. Pompton Lakes is a widely considered good place to live, offering a dense suburban feel, small town atmosphere, highly rated public schools, scenic lakes, and river access. The borough has a population of 11,000, which we all know has gone up a little bit, and a medium home is 400,000. low crime rate and roughly 20 to 25 miles from Manhattan and some of all the other cities and the oceans and the ski resorts. We have held this town together with all of our residents. We've all stuck together and held it together. We have a very good police department We had an issue downtown for a number of months. We talked about garbage and people leaving their litter and we had the chief come in and explain the ordinance of how they can make arrests or give tickets when somebody did that and our police department actually went out and we had Lieutenant Capacchi, I believe, he walked the town and I want to tell you, I went down and checked. I walked down there at 7.30 in the morning and I went back at 5.30 on Friday night and I did not see one garbage bag and I did not see one piece of garbage on our town. And that is because I believe, my opinion, because we had police presence down there. So I want to thank you. I want to thank the traffic division too. Because I didn't see anybody speeding during that time. And I'm usually a little fast. I admit. But it's funny how things change when you know you're being watched. Now I'm going to ask you to continue that through September because the the high school kids are going to come back and they walk through town and I know they have a problem with the garbage can by the steps going up to the school. We all know that. So I'm going to ask you to continue this program and into October, because I think it's important that the people coming in understand that this town is going to be maintained, we're going to respect it, and they're moving into a place where it is highly recommended that you move here, even on the internet. on the AI overview, and I actually bought, and if anybody's interested, I have...

If you buy a house for 400, please let me know where that is.

Well, I want to know where that is, too. Yeah, but it says, like, you know, here we have a niche sheet. I guess it's a website. Pompton Lakes is, Passaic County is one of the best places to live in New Jersey. They said Pompton Lakes is a wonderful town to live in. The schools are excellent. The town is very family-friendly, and the parks and lakes are good. We have a van express moving. They talk about how the crime rate is 67% lower than cities and towns all over the United States. And it makes it a prime choice to live here. So sometimes we don't really know what we have until you hear how maybe other people live. But there's a number of different websites that talk about Compton Lakes. And they do say the taxes are high, but it also says it's high all through New Jersey, which we know it is. So I just wanted to make mention that, you know, we really are fortunate to live here. And I want to I just want everybody to understand that. I also want to thank Mr. Bellini. For years, we tried to get a trail, a bike trail and walking trail. down to the wing in that area. And we couldn't because the Riverdale mayor at the time would not allow that. So it's nice that we're going to get another trail. When we had COVID problems, when we had the issue with COVID, I can't tell you how many people came up to me and thanked us for saving that property down there because they had a place to get out of their house and walk around. They weren't allowed. There were parks that were closed down during COVID. You couldn't even play tennis. My sons were told to leave a park, and they were in the middle of the park, and they were just playing tennis. Two boys, my brothers, and the police made them leave. So we did not do that here, but other towns did. So it's important that we keep our open spaces open, and I want to thank you for bringing that up. Oh, and as far as the DuPont, I want to thank our attorney. I have a copy of the letter. This is a third letter that we issued in June 29th, and it is, I think it generated the recent article that came in. And Mr. Semerair, I also want to, if it takes a fourth letter and a phone call, I don't care what it is, I want you to do it.

So I think I don't know if we have to vote on it, but it may have already gone up.

Well, but we really have to have an answer in there because this may come answers. Well, well, we have to make an answer because that's their job. We have 11,000 people in this town. That money has to come back to us. It should not go to any other town. But what we have to have the rights and we have to have that come back to us so that we can do the right thing for our community. OK. And. Oops, sorry. I had a lot to say.

Five minutes, five minutes. I know.

National night out. I want to, I want to tell you that was a wonderful evening. Our residents got to meet our police and it was a wonderful night and it, but we also had a lot of our community groups under our, our, our programs like our Environmental Protection Committee, Shade Tree Commission, our Flood Advisory Board, our commissions, our boards, our Compton Lakes Women's Club, our library, friends of the library, and a police fire, our CERT team, our OEM, and Passaic County Sheriff's Office. They all came and they met our residents. The kids had a great time with the fire department spraying the water, but it really shows a community relationship that we have. And I want to thank the DPW crew because they were helped set up and they also took down and the borough staff who helped. I know Liz and a number of the ladies that work in the office were there. So I want to thank you for a wonderful night and I do think you should keep it at 530. I think it's the earlier time is better. Just my suggestion on that. OK, and I think. So if you need the governor's I'll send you her email and I will send you her number.

And I think all our people are on our web page.

Yes, yes, all of our senators and assemblymen have also received all of our comments. But I will be happy to give that to you if you can't access it. And that is my report.

Thank you. Well said. Councilman Cruz.

Thank you, Mary. Sorry. So, Council Sanders and I attended the retirement ceremony for Paul Amoroso last night. It was a very nice ceremony. He was surrounded by his family. His wife did attend, two of his daughters, past colleagues, current colleagues, past teachers. It was a really nice ceremony. Grateful residents and teachers had nothing but wonderful things to say about Paul. They also had a fantastic cake. So whoever was there, the cake was amazing. You're looking, I know you're laughing, I took some home. So it's very, yeah, come on, you didn't want to have any, but it's bittersweet. You know, just you guys, if you don't know, he was in the school district for 33 years. Of the 33 years, he served 15 years as superintendent. And just on a personal note, he's an amazing individual, someone you can talk to. As Mayor Mike has said, he's a great partner to the district, to the borough. But I also want to welcome Denise Velez. She is our new superintendent incoming. She's very nice. Hopefully all of you at one time or another can attend the Board of Education meeting. I've heard nothing but great things about her. But I do wish Paul the best in his retirement. And speaking to his wife, he is still going to keep busy doing other things. So I don't know if it's a full retirement or not. The Board of Education meeting was really uneventful. There really wasn't anything really standing out. Councilman Sanchez may speak to something else I didn't see. Most of it was just paying a lot of the bills due to the work done at the high school. Some of that involved some of the air conditioning systems. What was it called? The... Yes, they're going to finish all those up across all the schools, which is Lenox, Lincoln, and the high school. So I know those payments went out, and I think that's about it. I don't really have anything else for the board of directors.

One thing I'm just going to add to you, Dr. Unruh, the one thing most people don't realize is he never forgets the name of a student for 15 years. You could come back 15 years later and he remembers your name. I don't even remember my wife's name. So for him to be able to do that, that's an amazing accomplishment in itself.

I did want to mention one more thing. Just completely different, but make sure you sign up for the emergency notifications. You know, we've got a lot of bad weather, a lot of thunderstorms, a lot of rain. You know, the communication that goes out, it'll be via text, phone, and email. So it definitely hits all the three channels for communication. So if you haven't signed up, please do so. It's very important. Oh, yes. It's on the borough website. And you will see a link there to sign up for the emergency notification system. It will ask you for some information. And going forward, you'll be added to the database. And then going forward, any, you know, any emergencies in town, whether it's weather related, most times it's weather related. You'll receive a text message and phone call.

And the other part of that is you can sign up. as an out-of-state person for your parents or somebody else. So if you live down south and your mom still lives up here or your dad, you can sign up, get the notifications, and make sure you call them and say, hey, look, this is happening in town next week. I think that's an important part of that.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, that's it? Yep. Thank you. Councilman Hinton.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I wasn't able to attend the luncheon for Johnny Williams, but I made sure I was there. to uh shake the man's hand and wish him a lot of luck in his retirement um kid grew up down into my house a couple of times on a few emergencies for my better half and uh he's done a hell of a job in pumpton lakes wish him a lot of luck um let's see we um went to national night out um i won't go through the list council president took care of that of all the people that were there um it was a great time beautiful weather Let's see. Then we attended the seniors, had their meeting, and everybody's fine and healthy and happy, and we enjoyed the trips that we've been on. Let's see, what else did I have here?

Did they talk about the senior picnic for Saturday?

Yes, they did talk about the senior picnic, which unfortunately I won't be able to attend, but I know you canceled. Are you a senior? I don't know if you're allowed. Actually, Mayor, you're old enough to be a senior.

Okay, then I'll go.

I get a free sandwich. There you go. And the council president has always been there. Our corp has always been there serving food, and they do a great job.

And I will be there.

Yes, and I'm sorry that I'll have to miss it. Let's see. We had our shade tree meeting, and like I said before, our administrator, who was also on the shade tree commission in Riverdale, So he's pretty familiar with what goes on in the shade tree meeting, and he's been very helpful for everything that we've been doing. Shade tree commission had a lot of questions for him. They hammered him, but he was able to field the questions well, and we're working well together. Good. I want to thank him for being there. Let's see. Talk about the plume. and council president and you and the rest of the council are fighting hard to get as much money as we can to the pool um i grew up in the pool 64 schuyler avenue right in the middle and one of our councilmen right now councilman bay lives right next door to where i grew up so um we're all in trying to get as much money as we can to come to pump the legs to solve that problem so we just have to keep fighting um also councilman cruz mentioned about the storms we had and i want to thank the dpw and the shakery commission through the years We've taken quite a few old dead trees down. We're on it right now. There's a tree of 223 Ramapoab that I was looking at. Administrator's shaking his head. Split right in the middle. So Ramapoab, that tree is actually a county tree. And Mr. Artieri was talking to the county this afternoon. And the county official will be there tomorrow morning. So through the work of the Shaytree and our DPW, all these storms that Councilman Cruz is talking about coming through, we've really had minimal damage. A lot of the power outages we had weren't due to town trees. A lot of the power outages we had were power lines coming in for, say, Riverdale. or other directions that cut the power to part of our town. So we're working hard. We're working hard. That's my report. Thank you.

Thank you for your report. You just reminded me that I am attending a workshop with northern mayors, as they call it, to address concerns with Jersey Central Power and Light on how they handle storm readiness and the tree situations in towns, how they can do a better job, we believe, some of the mayors believe, in doing tree maintenance to prevent those trees coming down and taking out power. We'll see where that goes.

They can just follow what we do.

I'm okay with that. Councilman Sanders.

Thank you, Mayor. I just have a brief report. National Night Out was awesome. It was a great night. Well attended, like everyone said. For Board of Education, I want to wish Dr. Amorosa the best of retirement. They did have to pass. There was a new legislation passed by the state on cell phone usage in schools. So from September 1st on, there will be no student will be able to have a cell phone on them in the classroom from bell to bell. So their phone has to be turned off. i watches and stuff will have to put in a backpack but from bell to bell they won't be able to use their phone or any device or any device any personal devices they're not allowed to use any personal is that for all schools though like all schools across the state of new jersey it's a bell-to-bell band

no Apple, like no watches, no, you can't have your own iPad, anything.

It can only be a small issue.

Except for lunch and after three.

So here at Popton, our students are allowed to leave the campus to go downtown to have lunch. They will be able to use their phones in town because they're off school property. And once they get back into the school facility, they will have to turn their phones off, put them in their backpacks or in their lockers, but they will not be able to. I think the first offense, they will have to hand their phone into the office and they can pick it up at the end of the day. Second offense, their parents have to come pick up the phone After that, they're not sure what happens with the third defense. They get shot in the butt. There will be notices going out to the parents, making them aware of the new legislation. I think that's it. Thank you.

So that's a statewide ban.

Statewide legislation ban.

That's news to me. We're up to Councilman Vennon.

Thank you, Mayor. I also want to touch on taxes. As chair of the Finance Committee, we spend hours going through the budget line by line with the borough administrator, the mayor, Councilman Hinton's on the Finance Committee this year, and we scrutinize what is spent. Your 25, 26 cents on the dollar that we collect. So we have to balance the needs of our police, fire, DPW, while keeping taxes under control. If I could say yes to the chief, I would. I totally would. I'd get you those four Tahoe's that you requested. Because the police deserve it. They work very hard for us. They deserve the equipment they need. But we couldn't do it this year. So we got one, I think, right? And then, exactly. So we revisit as time goes on. The redevelopment cost helps to offset. Your taxes would have been higher if we didn't have any redevelopment. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but I do know that it was reduced due to the redevelopment pilot offset. Cost of everything goes up. Healthcare hit as hard this year as it did the boards of education. I believe it was West Milford that closed a school. An entire school closed because of And if you look up, I think it was Hackensack, their Board of Education, a few months ago. Chambers. Jefferson, too. There you go. So some municipalities had to cut services. We did not. Some boards of education, as I mentioned, shut down the schools. We did not. So I think the folks that are making these decisions deserve some credit for working together to keep our services and our schools intact. And that's all I have to say about that. Moving on, congratulations to the Pompton Lakes Thunder U-12. And thank you to the coaches for your time and effort. Congratulations also to Sergeant Williams on your retirement. The luncheon was well put together. The food was delicious. Thank you to all who put that together. And Dr. Amorosa on your retirement as well. The ceremony was very well attended. I saw folks from all over there that last night. I also want to congratulate our newly hired and promoted DPW folks. There's a whole list of them tonight. So welcome and look forward to seeing you in your new roles. We appreciate your hard work. a natural night out very well attended as mentioned thank you to the police department and everyone else who put it together and dpw for cleaning up afterwards steel magnolias were also there maria council council president uh if you if you missed them that night yes uh if you missed them that night we will also be back uh for uh pompton day as well as the riverdale street fair the next night next day tomorrow night is the uh summer stroll on wanna queue ave live music by uh Group that I'm near and dear to wind up monkeying. So I hope you enjoy their music tomorrow night Lastly I will not be at the next council meeting on September 9th mayor Nor will I be at the 9-11 ceremony that Friday? around this time on September September 9th, we will be a team I'm participating in the 9-11 promise run as I have since about 2019 in one way or another around this time On September 9th, we'll be arriving at the Singerle Fire Department down in Elkton, Maryland, where we'll spend the night. Having started day one at the Pentagon Memorial around 4 a.m., groups of runners, not me, I won't be starting at 4 a.m., but that day I'll run about three or four miles in the morning, three or four miles in the evening, relay style, for a total of 240 miles over three days. Day one is D.C. through Baltimore. and then ending at the Singley Fire Department in Elkton, Maryland. Day two, we start in Delaware. We run through Philadelphia, including City Hall, ending the day at the Trenton Firehouse where we spend the night. And then day three, Friday, 9-11, the 25th year since that day, we'll have a full police escort from around Trenton Lawrenceville area through Princeton, ending our journey at Ground Zero coincidentally at 6.30 p.m. where our ceremony is set to begin. So if you happen to be in New York City that night, I'd love to see you, 6.30 p.m. at Ground Zero. Thank you, that's my report. Thank you. Oh, the organization 9-11 Promise is set up to raise funds for scholarships of the children of our fallen first responders and military, so active, current first responders. So if someone has past their scholarships available, 911promise.org. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Vague.

Thank you, Mayor. I attended last month's historic meeting. We're putting together the final preparations together for Pompton Day. I've been emailing back and forth with Mike, so Looks like we're going to get that reenactment going. Everything seems to be falling in line. Also, I think a real unique thing. Someone has a Joe Lewis painting, an oil painting of Joe Lewis. And I think they're from South Jersey. They want to donate it to the town. They wanted to go to New York City first and have it displayed in a museum in New York City and then donate that actually to the town. So I think that was Paul Bollman was here. The painting was actually done at ringside at one of his fights. So it's like it's really remarkable. Paul would have the date and time. He would have everything. next time paul's here um i also attended this year's national night out um thank you to our police department uh for organizing the event and for all the emergency responders responders who attended as well um it's always a great community event um and it's just great to be out there so it's good to see everybody out there the time adjustment wasn't was nice as well um pump the day update so this year uh september 6 is Pompton Day with the rain date of September 7th. 5K opens at 8.30 in the morning with the Christian Derby starting at 7 o'clock at Lakeside Park. We are almost completely full again with vendors. I think I have one spot left when I walked in tonight. So we have 205 vendor spots already taken up, and we have over 35 food vendors signed up again for this year. So hitting the same numbers as last year, which is nice. Also, in regards to wrecking the bid, the next stroll is tomorrow night from 5 to 9, so come out and support the stroll. I know the last couple got canceled because of weather, so definitely enjoy the night. The Elks is hosting a cheesesteak night on September 18th from 4.30 to 7 o'clock. The Elks is also having a carnival from August 2nd for that following week. They'll have games, rides, dunk tanks, food, and beverages. And then, I'm sorry, that wasn't the second. That must have been the 12th. And then Saturday is the senior breakfast, again, hosted by the Recreation at the Elks. Senior lunch. Or senior lunch, sorry. Or senior picnic. It begins at 12 o'clock. Please come out and have some fun. And then lastly, unfortunately, I missed Dr. Amoroso's retirement ceremony last night. Um, him and I were very close. So he was a great teacher. He was a coach of mine. He's a mentor of mine. Um, you know, he put me through interview processes and stuff like that just to prepare me to get into education. And, uh, you know, he's really going to be missed in it. Just greatly approve that, that human. So. Thank you.

Thank you. And just for the public watching at home, the Senior Picnic is open to anyone who's a senior. It's held at the Elks at 12 o'clock. You don't need to register. You can just come and show up. They have a band playing. There will be free food there and dessert and things. So if you're interested and have nothing to do, come on over. We usually get about 100 people, maybe sometimes more. So it's a nice little event that we have there. Okay, Boral Attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. I just have two brief things. Yes, we didn't send out a letter after the June 30th. We are looking at the settlement documents that came in, and we're going to adjust the letter accordingly. So we will get something out shortly, probably about another week or so. That settlement happened while my partner, who was responsible for monitoring, was on vacation, so he just came back today. So that's that. With respect to the railroad, I had a conference call with an attorney for the railroad last week. At that point in time, I had expressed to her all of what our concerns were with respect to the railroad crossing. the fact that the expenses have been increasing every year, the fact that we don't get advance notice and there are, it isn't a set equal monthly charge every month, and that that was problematic. As Councilman Hinton had suggested, I did float out the idea of having some sort of fixed number And after she stopped laughing, she indicated, well, you know, what in life doesn't increase year to year? She's like, we can't do that. She's like, you know, what are your concerns? And I said, well, our concerns are, and we're at a loss, right, because we didn't have the settlement agreement. We don't have a copy of this. And they don't either, which means that they either lost it or it was real favorable and they lost it intentionally. But one way or the other, the bottom line is I told her that the newspaper article indicated that you're supposed to be giving us advance notice. You're not. We really would like that, and we'd like to have an understanding as to why there's a difference every month with respect to the amount. She said that she could put that call together. I had discussed it with our administrator I'll make sure that he's on the call so that he could ask questions But it does look like quite frankly that the best we're going to be able to do is get advanced notice of what the amounts are and then Address it she did indicate you know if you want to get rid of the railroad crossing let us know I don't think that we want to I know that the neighborhoods in that area probably would be upset if that were to happen. And at some point we got to ask ourselves what it is that we want to accomplish because we it does increase over time. Right. So in about 10 years, this is going to be a different number. But right now it's between five and six grand. I didn't do the math on it, but I bet you I'm probably. $1,000, $1,200 in legal fees alone just trying to track the documents down and figure out what to do. So I don't know that there's an economic end to this. I understand what the concerns were, and we're certainly trying to address it, and hopefully in one phone call we're going to. It'll just be a gentleman's agreement. We're not going to have a written agreement with them. But that's where we're at.

Yeah, I would agree. You guys should chime in if you want.

I apologize. I'm looking over there. It was Councilman Hinton who raised the issue.

We tried. I don't want to put more taxpayer dollars into spending a cost that's not going to get us anywhere. At this point, let's get them to announce when they're going to do it. It doesn't seem like we're going to win any more cases. If we keep sending them out, it's going to bust us money.

That's how I feel. It's just the fact of the matter is there is no contract We're paying a monthly charge, which varies, on something that they can't even prove. No, there is a contract.

There is a contract.

Where is it?

They may have one. They're not telling us.

We don't have one. We don't have one, but they didn't come up with one either.

They don't have to show it to us.

What do you mean they don't have to show it to us?

They could say, all right, we don't have it.

Where's the contract for Pearson Miller Drive? Right down the road. Is there a contract for WanaQ Ad right over here? Is there a contract for any crossings? Why is it that we, the taxpayers of Pump the Lakes, are paying just for Schuyler Avenue alone?

The history makes it clear that that crossing was put in at our request. So we asked for it. They didn't want to give it. They didn't have it there. They put it there as a courtesy to us. And the agreement was, you have to float the cost for it. We'll put it in for you, but you have to maintain it.

Well, where's that agreement at? We don't have a written agreement. We had it.

There clearly was one at one point in time with archiving over the decades. It got misplaced. We don't have a copy and they don't have a copy.

We don't know if they don't have a copy. We can't say that. If they have one, like you said, it's favorable.

They're not going to give it to us. There was an agreement about maintenance. It was in the deed originally. But maintenance wasn't defined, and it obviously increased over time. What we don't have is the settlement agreement that regulated or related to the dispute that we had. At one point in time, the council years ago in the 90s was as frustrated as we all are with respect to inconsistent billing and whatnot, so they just stopped paying it, and eventually they got sued, and then that settlement agreement was the result of them getting sued.

Do we have a copy of that settlement we bring?

That's what I was saying we don't have.

No. Well, since 1964, I think this is when it really started.

We requested, the town requested this. The railroad did not request this. The railroad said, no, we're not going to do it. The town pushed to have it put in, so the railroad came back and said, well, if you want it, then you're maintaining it. That's what this is all about.

Well, we're not maintaining it. They're maintaining it. I think that the issue comes down to the solutions or the options we have available to us is continue to pay it under some reasonable terms, such as them giving us the bill in advance, letting us know what they're going to be doing, which we're going to talk to them about, or having them remove... the railroad crossing, which is not going to be a favorable decision. So I guess the larger question ultimately is, does maintaining that railroad crossing benefit the borough by $6,000 a year? And if it does, then you may not like it, but you should just keep it going.

So I'm going to do a short poll now. How do you guys feel? I'll start with Scott. How do you feel? Do you want to keep the railroad crossing or fight to push it out?

I think keep it because people use it all the time.

What happens if you remove the crossing?

We have no idea. That's something for us to explore. But you're going to end up having dead ends.

You will have dead ends.

Maybe we would ask the chief of what that would do for emergency response.

Yeah, it's definitely going to affect the emergency response. The Dupont area, just thinking about it very quickly, I would need to see how that looked like before giving an educated opinion on it.

But first thing, like everybody says, dead ends.

We have one way in. God forbid a train is coming through and a guy is stuck at a location. You know, right now, obviously you can't get to that area if you're over by the tracks on 1AQ app, but if the car happens to be on Colfax app, we can get back to it. Because usually if the train's up by 1AQ app, they've already passed that section.

Excuse me, but in all due respect, nobody wants to close that.

There's only two entrances right now. There's two choices.

One at Schuyler Ave and one on Canterboro. I'm not talking about closing. I don't want to close. Nobody here wants to close. So what do you want? But there's the aspect that we're paying, maintenance, when right down the road, They're not paying the maintenance on Pearson Mill. They're not paying the maintenance on YQAP. They're not paying the maintenance. Why are we, the taxpayers, paying the maintenance? We, the taxpayers, asked to put it there. Back then, yes. But the other entrances or crossings, nobody's paying on that.

Because they put them in themselves. We in the town didn't ask to put those other ones.

Person Miller was an apartment complex that was built on the other side of the truck. Obviously the railroad didn't put that in.

No, but they worked out a deal with Person Miller, I'm sure.

I don't know what they're doing.

At the end of the day, what happens here, and so we're not going to get stuck on this forever, if we keep asking our attorney, we're going to get more costs than the cost of the fees for the year.

We've paid almost a half a million since 1974.

So there's only two choices. It's either we say we don't want to pay it anymore and remove it, or we continue. We signed an agreement with the court. We lost. We're not going to win. Well, we don't even have that copy of that agreement.

Well, we don't. I don't have the file before me, as I indicated earlier. The original document indicated that we were going to be paying maintenance. We don't have the settlement of the lawsuit. So the choices are remove it, which is it may not even be possible. It was just something the attorney mentioned to me in passing. I think we all agree it's probably not a good idea just for slowing down emergency response. So we either negotiate with them, try to have some sort of agreement on getting advance notice, or you can stop paying them and get sued again. But you're going to get sued again. They did it before. And that's going to cost you more money. But, you know, when a governing body makes a decision, it binds the municipality. There are decisions that this governing body makes that binds the municipality moving forward, and that's what happened in the past.

That's what that redevelopment talk was earlier this morning. A lot of this council didn't make those decisions on the redevelopment, but you're held by that council's decisions when they made those developments. You can't go back and change it because you're a new council. It doesn't work that way. Same thing with this.

But if you go out there as a common sense man, and I think you are, and you look at what it takes to maintain that, there's only four lights. There's no arms. There's nothing there. But then the monthly charges come in different amounts. What do we pay them?

We don't know.

Or can we pay just a set fee, $500 a month or something like that? Because they don't want to do that.

What's that set fee? We're going to negotiate with them every year? That's really what it comes down to.

Well, I need a justification on their charges.

As I had indicated, the attorney acknowledged that she would put together a meeting with their engineers so that they could have an intelligent conversation with our administrator and I to explain what the differences are so we could relay that to you. and then try to come to terms on what they're able to predict and provide us in advance.

Okay. Let's do it that way. I'll go with that. Okay. Thank you.

I wish I had more of those. One thing I forgot, just for the public's sake, we have started now over about a month picking up Oakland's garbage. It's working pretty well right now. We've straightened out some bugs there. That is another benefit. We did a very large shared service with Oakland that they're paying us now to pick up their garbage. We're making you some good money and good headway with that. Fortunately or unfortunately for the residents of Oakland, starting Monday, if their can size is too large, it will not be picked up. That is the deal. So we've been meaning it for the last month, and our DPW guys have been busting their backs picking up these heavy cans. As of Monday, that will go away. So more to follow on that. Administrator's report.

Thank you, Mayor. Please note that the borough is accepting bids for the Hirshfield Park Phase 3 improvements project, which includes the resurfacing of the Hirshfield Park walking paths. Bids will be open on August 19th with a recommendation for contract award for the September 9th, 2026 council meeting. As a reminder, this project is being funded through surplus funding through the Hirshfield Park Phase 1 improvements project. which included the storage building renovations. So we're looking forward to that. And we also are accepting bids for the miscellaneous ADA curb ramp replacements project, which is funded by a $165,000 community development block grant from Passaic County in the amount of $165,000 and looking for a contract award for the September 9th council meeting for that as well. Just wanted to point out that I did have the opportunity to tour the new Meridia Capadagli redevelopment project on Monday afternoon with the construction official. As the mayor had indicated, Meridia has received their TCOs and tenants are starting to move into the building. And I am working on a walkthrough to be scheduled with the governing body and with members of the business improvement district who are also interested in touring the facility. uh for the tax bills uh you know hearing comments about you know the taxes and tax bills you know from the residents uh just as a reminder our 2026 finance and budget presentation is available on the borough website which provides a full overview of both our expenses and revenues and the impact on the residents. The most significant impact and financial challenge for us obviously is the state health benefits plan. An update for the governing body tonight, I have met with the health broker. We have gone out to market again for several carriers, both private and public health insurance fund entities. We have been denied all membership applications for each and every HIF and private carrier, cited a high claims experience and a poor census of employees. So we kind of are stuck in that matter for the next budget year. The state of New Jersey has announced anywhere from a 17 to a 71% premium increase, depending on the plan type. The plan type that we have is not 71%, but it's more like a 35% increase on the premiums. And this impact obviously is unsustainable for us because our borough employees only contribute the statutory minimum towards the cost of their health benefits, which is something that the mayor brought up and is on the ballot for November, as the mayor had indicated. So, you know, we're looking forward to working with everyone and to do everything that we can to lower our taxes or lower the impact of our taxes, I should say. through contract negotiations, through redevelopment. We have a bunch of new redevelopment projects coming up on the horizon. So looking forward to working with everyone on the upcoming budget cycle. And then just two reminders to the public, we are accepting applications for the rental of the new Civic Center. So residents can contact the Borough Clerk's Office for the application. So it's a nice facility. It has a refrigerator, microwave. you know, you could cater your party, you know, so really nice facility for that. And then it wasn't mentioned tonight, but just want to thank the Recreation Commission and all of the staff and volunteers who contributed to another successful summer camp. So, you know, always a great summer camp. I know the mayor talked about it last year. So just wanted to recognize them, and that is my report. Thank you. Any questions from the administration?

Yeah, real quick, just, Mike, there's applications open right now for people to apply to be part of the recreation? Yes. Just to put it out there.

Thank you for the reminder. So we are hiring part-time recreation aides, which is a very flexible position, as Councilman Dague knows. You could work one hour in a month, or you could work 20 hours in a month, but it is a very part-time position. So if anyone's interested in helping out the rec commission, certainly look at our website.

The other day on Sunday, very early in the morning, when I was still trying to get the sleepies out of my eyes, the council president called me up with a question. And she was concerned, being on the liaison to DPW, whether or not the pickleball courts were going to be painted. Are we doing anything with that? No.

I had a conversation with the recreation volunteer the other day who seemed to indicate that the Open Space Committee approved some sort of funding for that project. I was not aware of that. I'm happy to facilitate. So, you know, I'm happy to talk to Council President Kent, you know, offline and get that started.

Okay.

And a couple other things. The other day I was able to sit down with our administrator for over two and a half hours. And I had about 20 different questions for him.

I'm sure he was very happy with that.

Well, he was. I got tomatoes. Well, I brought up some tomatoes. I had to bribe him a little bit. But we talked about the Lambert Street footbridge, because that brought up by a resident. And he said he's trying to get some bids on that. That needs to be redone. It's falling apart, especially coming into school season. A lot of kids use that to come to middle school. Also, I brought up, I showed him pictures that was brought up tonight about Ross Clears. The trees are out of control. They're up on both sides of the other two built. So we're going to see if we can work to...

And thank you for reminding me. So the Roth's Cleaners, a resident brought that up and I didn't answer it. Oh, he's still here actually. The Roth's Cleaners is owned, we have no responsibility for that. It's a brown site right now, meaning the state took ownership of it and it just sits on the list with the rest of the brownfield sites. We tried to get the EPA to clean it up for us. Did help us a little bit, but said we will not clean it. We as a town will not purchase it because it's a dirty property, so we want no part of that. The owners have stopped paying taxes on it, and it goes into a brownfield, and there's not much we can do with that building. We don't own it, and we don't own the property, so we can't even go on it. We did have an agreement to kind of go in with the bid to help it look nicer from the inside with some shades and paint it up, and the trees I guess we can address. We can probably cut them.

They're out of control.

But it's private property. We understand that.

If I may, I did talk to the superintendent today. We did call out a tree company. We are planning on taking down all the trees on the site and issuing a lien on the property for safety hazards. So that's coming up.

Good. Thank you very much. What's the... We were talking about the new bridge at Hirtsville Park, and grass really never grew in that the county did. And we're talking about possibly hydro seeding that area or getting the county to hydro seed that area.

The county said they were coming back, if I understand.

They're planting three more trees because they had to take one down. And so...

Where is this?

The new bridges.

They told us they knew the grass wouldn't grow because it was hot. They tried. They said, but they'll be back in the fall to put down real grass and try it again.

I want to thank the administrator again for spending two and a half hours. It cost me six tomatoes. Better you than me.

That's it. Chief's report. Just before I begin, I also want to recognize Paul on his retirement and wish him well. I was both one of his students. I was there when he came back as a vice principal for his first year. And I had the privilege of working with him both as a board member, school board member, school board vice president, and then I'll be meeting with her in the coming weeks. As Sergeant Williams said, he put in for his retirement. He's currently on terminal leave. We will be recognizing him within the current few council meetings. So we'll have a chance again for some of you that might have missed him to wish him well in his future endeavors. Also, I know you touched upon Pompton Day, but I just wanted to say how we reversed the route to entrance to go in. So that's going to be a change this year. So hopefully that eases up some traffic flow going in and going out at the end of the event. That being said, so July was another active month for us. And our personnel, they were able to balance a lot of calls for service, a lot of proactive enforcement, criminal investigations training, and a lot of community programs during the height of the summer. Some major focuses throughout the month was our visible traffic and quality of life enforcement. Our department began a directed enforcement initiative, the continued parking enforcement area, and conducted traffic studies to evaluate our community concerns. So was on the list and was included in the report. Our detective bureau continued to follow up on significant ongoing investigations with local, county, state, and federal law enforcement partners. July also provided an important opportunity to engage with our younger residents of the Junior Police Academy, our bicycle rodeo. Behind the scenes, our personnel continued preparing for our upcoming accreditation assessment, which will be Monday. We have some chiefs from the state association coming in to perform that assessment. manager for this reaccreditation. He's doing a good job, a lot of work, and I've got to thank him and the rest of the officers in the department because there's a lot of records that got to flow back and forth, and it really takes a team to get that together. Also, we've been making advancements in our communication and technology projects. So just an update on some of that. We just finished completely cleaning out our radio room. So if you haven't had an opportunity to go in there, I'd be more than happy to bring you. But the room prior was years became a collection of equipment, larger radios. So we completely cleaned it out, stuff out, labeled it. So it's all nice and neat and probably hasn't looked that good in 50 years. It was a good project. Now we'll be moving on to our interview room, which is in the lobby. So essentially, it used to be storage for files and things of that nature. So now it'll be a true interview room so that when members of the public come in and they want to speak to us about complaints, they're not physically coming into the police department. That'll be an area where our officers will be able to take those complaints. It'll have cameras set up in there. So our detective bureau will also be able to utilize that as an interview room and not only interview suspects, but we will also be able to monitor those interviews and it'll be all integrated with our axon cameras. So I'm looking forward to getting that done. And then with that, our squad room will be getting redone. So there'll be more workstations. So that's the first part of our Our police department, so it'll be more workstations for the guys to be able to work and then we'll be making a true lunch room where the guys will be able to be able to eat their lunch. Uninterrupted right now, it's kind of a shared space. So, if our officers have somebody under arrest and processing them, there's really only a file cabinet that separates what the launch table is. So so, you know. We're kind of stuck with the space that we have with the building, so just trying to reorganize things to make the best uses of the space that we have. So we're full steam ahead with that. That being said, I just want to thank, again, the members of the police department for the continued work they've performed. each day, and I just want to recognize that professionalism and commitment allows us to remain responsive to the needs of the community while continuing to move the department forward. So, thank you. Thank you.

Okay, workshop. Questions? Oh, go ahead.

Sorry. So, how many students did you have in the junior police academy?

So I want to say it was approximately 20.

Okay.

That was an exact. So he was, uh, yeah. Sergeant control was, uh, one of the guys, one of my guys that was assigned there.

Good group. Yeah. Really good.

My son was actually there too.

Okay. And the second question is now with new e-bike, I haven't seen too many driving around, but how, how's that going? Um, Did you make any stops or talk to anybody?

I will say it's definitely decreased the amount of e-bikes I'm seeing, although I've had one juvenile not stop and run away, but he's been identified, so we'll be speaking to I'm glad that you brought that up because I just don't think that juveniles understand. These e-bikes now are considered motor vehicles. You have to have a license, you have to have a registration, and you have to have insurance. If the police department attempts to stop you and you run, now you're eluding a police officer. Now it becomes criminal. On top of that, you're facing reckless driving charges, careless driving charges. There is no distinction. So it used to be many years ago, you couldn't even issue a DWI to certain motorized vehicles. This is the same thing as a car. It's treated the same in the eyes of the law. It is a vehicle. So I just want to get that point across. um i will tell you if the individual would have stopped i would just educated them on the side of the road maybe walk it and this individual was doing the wheelie a high-speed bike coming towards me and then you know saw me uh if i wasn't paying attention we could have had a collision he saw me at the last minute So, you know, we don't want anybody getting hurt. You know, that's the point of all this and the point of the law. You know, just just the other day in Prospect Park, you had an individual crossing the street and they got hit by a bike and that pedestrian passed away. So these bikes go very, very fast. You got to take that into consideration. We just want our residents to drive safe. And I think as children, they were driving so young, they're not understanding the consequences. by making these decisions.

There's a lot of concern. I have people registering these bikes because they want to do the right thing. The DMV is still very confused about the whole process. I'm sure. They're like, you do need insurance on this one, but you don't need insurance on this one. This one goes faster than 25. You can get insurance. When this one doesn't, you don't need insurance. There's still a lot of wiggling room around in this whole thing.

100%. I agree. I think it's... You know, things might change with some of the statutes and how things are effectuated once we go through the process. But that being said, what a child, adult shouldn't do is have the police try to pull you over. Do not run. i already know who the person is that ran from me we have cameras everywhere in town uh you know they thought they were smart because they ran over the went over the bridge and hearse field cameras all the time so uh you know just work work to advice thank you chief you had a question yeah i just had a question how many years have we been using jobs for the police department so i want to say at least around

Six, maybe?

I think we made it longer. I want to say maybe, yeah, probably maybe like seven, eight years. When we changed over our CAD system to, it's not our CAD system, our time system.

What's that?

Yes, VCS. When we changed over to VCS. So maybe, actually you might be right, man. Maybe six or seven. Yeah, I think it was seven years. I think 2019.

Around like 2019. Around the time I became lieutenant.

Okay. National night out. Yes. Great night. You guys did a great job. Thank you. Previous chief used to see the boat there every year. I didn't see the boat there this year. Did we sell it? I had a new chief.

So we still have it or we sold it? We still have the boat. Thank you. Real quick, for the public, what does accreditation do for the borough, for the police department?

Yeah, so the accreditation process, as an accredited agency, brings in best practices, best policies, and that process Basically, we go through a proving ground. So we have to, as a chief, I have to put out, for instance, all our policies and procedures. And the State Chiefs Association sends in representatives, and I have to show proofs that we have the best policies and procedures that are in effect. And on top of that, I have to show that the department is effectuating and actually doing what's said in our policy. So for instance, I'm just trying to think of one off the top of my head. So we have to do security audits, let's say. We have to do security audits for a bunch of different things. So we have to have reports for our confidential funds, let's say, for the detective bureau, and they ask for those what's said in our policy. And this goes from personnel to simple policies of officers when they're on traffic control that they have to wear a traffic vest. So it says it in my policy, but I have to also show them the picture that they're actually doing that.

And how does it help the borrower? Becoming an accredited department, how does it help the borrower?

Yeah, so becoming an accredited department shows that our agency is on par with those best practices. And then it also, from my understanding, for your insurance, it also lowers your we are an accredited agency. Thank you. You're welcome.

Okay, workshop. I think we did the first one, right? Yeah. Okay, let's go to the second one, which we might even answer to it.

Thank you, Mayor. So following the July 22nd council meeting, a direction was given to solicit proposals for the maintenance of the Morris Canal Greenway Trail slash park. So I did obtain that from a local landscaper. This is to cut five feet on both sides of the trail from Mathis Ave Trailhead to Lincoln Ave Trailhead. Clippings will be mulched in place. All areas mowed at 3 1⁄2 inches. Trim weed rock around gates, benches, signs, etc. Blowing off of all sidewalks, curbs, and roadways. And the surface to be completed biweekly during the growing season of May to October. So the proposal has been referred to the open space committee for their meeting tomorrow with the intent to use open space funds to pay for this to further alleviate the burden on the DPW and to further improve our trails. So the cost, the biweekly cost to this is $413. And like I said, it's been referred to the open space committee pending governing body's approval tonight.

So we have to approve that? No.

Yes.

Okay, so shouldn't it go to open space?

We need a consensus to bring it to open space.

Oh, just to bring it to open space. Everybody's good at bringing it.

We have open space tomorrow night, so it won't be an issue.

Yes, we're all good.

I mean, I think that cost us pretty low. It's pretty low.

I just want to say that DPW hasn't been doing anything down there on that trail. And the trail committee's been working when they can on that. And I'm 110% behind this. make open space for providing funds for this. The trail committee is doing a hell of a job for the other trails. This was far too much for them to take on.

That mugwort is difficult to read. It's way difficult. I spent hours just one section, small sections. Right.

And what happens on the south end of Lincoln, south end of Lincoln Avenue, there's a lot of dead ash trees. We were talking about it at the shade tree meeting. And a lot of those trees have fallen over the trail. And it's not for the trail committee to use power tools to remove those trees. They're not supposed to be using power tools.

But I don't think they're going to be doing it either, the cleanup.

Well, then we would have to maybe bring DPW or somebody in.

No, but we just had a resident clear a tree off the trail. And so that kind of, you know, his name is Brian Sack. It just becomes a concern when he's now taking out, you know, his equipment, chainsaws and stuff like that to cut it up and get rid of it himself.

And residents shouldn't be doing that. If they get hurt, what are they going to do, sue the borough? We can't have residents using power tools cleaning trails. It's either the DPW or we have a contractor. One or the other. Not residents. Paul Bowlby removed a tree in the south end of the trail also, and he shouldn't. By himself, he shouldn't have been doing that. It's tough. It takes a lot longer than that. But these are concerned residents that want to make the town better. No, I understand.

So I think this is a really good solution. Yeah, I'm sure open space would be good, but we'll send it there. Does the chief have something?

Yes. So at the end of River Edge Drive, where the houses no longer exist, there is a tree that has fallen over and it's on lines, big cable lines. I know myself and Sergeant Gautreaux have called it in to try to get that.

Called DPW or Paul?

We've actually called the cable company to come out, but they're not coming out. But I just wanted to know if you knew. No, I didn't know about it.

But it might be on our list. Is it on our list, Mike?

Randy, you'll check it out, and we'll talk tomorrow.

Well, I'll work with Peter Oteri. I'm the liaison.

That's right. Is that true?

That's correct. Keep better money. We'll check it out.

Thank you, Jim. All right. Cashless property taxpayers.

Thank you. So we're coming back from the late June meeting where I believe the mayor was absent at the time with our chief financial officer again highly recommending that we no longer take cash for tax payments. We'll still take cash for permits, for rec fees, for court fines, whatever it may be. The issue stems from management in the office in terms of taking very large sums of cash. Recently we have very large payments coming in. It does tie up multiple staff members to have to double count to transport it to the bank. On occasions we could be tied up for two to three hours just dealing with one transaction that has to immediately go to the bank to be deposited. The recommendation, again, is to no longer take cash. Questions arose as to whether or not we can take credit cards. I did talk to the CFO. The answer is yes. So I think tonight, two points. We're looking to prohibit cash effective January 1st because we want to have proper notification to people and maybe we'll do some sort of postcard or something like that. but also give us time to bring forth a vendor to do credit card payments as well.

I have some properties in other towns and I don't think other towns are even taking cash to myself either. There is a percent charge when I go to pay taxes on some of their houses. It tells you right up front you're paying a 3% service fee charge to pay with this credit card or it's like a 1% if you're paying with a debit card. I would hope we're going in that direction of fees. I don't want to see crazy fees on this either.

I believe Councilman Cruz brought it up last time, but there is a new state law that for construction permit fees, we must offer as the borrower some sort of online payment mechanism. So we already have to do this for that. So it just ties in perfectly to the whole situation. But for tonight, we're looking for direction to prepare a resolution to not accept cash effective January 1st. And then the CFO and I will be back in person here probably in October sometime to talk about a vendor for online payments to make it a little bit more easier for the residents. I know residents, and we've been talking to residents, they get points for paying the taxes on the credit cards, so it's just something to consider.

Yes, and I've had residents say to me, I can't use a credit card just for that reason. They want to get their points back. But if you're going to pay in pennies, you've got until July.

Quarters, quarters, quarters, quarters.

Okay, everybody's good with that? Yes. Yeah. Okay. That was quick. Okay. Motion to open the meeting for public comments. Motion. Councilman Vanden, Councilman Cruz. Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone from the public like to address?

I have just a comment in regards to what was said before about the $75 million going to the state of New Jersey.

Frank, I mean, I need your- Yes, Frank 72 Hill Court.

Okay. So I know you said about the letters going to them. Seeing as we have Pumpkin Day coming up, I was wondering whether it would be possible to craft a petition that our citizens can sign, not only our town residents, but also some of our neighbors, to say, hey, Pumpkin Lakes is one of the four towns that DuPont's in, and it looks like nobody from New Jersey is saying anything about us getting any of that money. And sort of like... put some more eyeballs on the situation. I know that residents would like to be able to say something, do something. So, you know, either some petitions that they could sign or something online that they can sign, make it even easier. That's all.

I'll answer at the end. Thank you. Anyone else from the public? Seeing no one, can I have a motion to close the public session? Motion. Councilman Hinton? Second. Councilman Bay, all in favor? Aye. Great idea. Let's talk to some groups, see what they come up with. Maybe somebody wants to jump on that. It's no real thing, but more signatures, better. So we'll give it a try, maybe.

Approved to the floor. Any approved to the floor? No? Yes, I had approved to the floor. Go for it. Talking to our council president previously, she said that she was so proud of our council that always wearing suits and ties. Now, did I miss a dress code change that I'm the only one with a tie and the attorney?

No more ties?

It's summertime. We don't dress in the summer with a tie. Oh, so I missed that? Yes. I didn't get that email. Right. So you should have been looking.

So I don't have to wear a tie anymore. After summer, you should wear a tie. All right. But in September, we can't. And a white tie. You should have a light tie on, not a dark tie. You should.

You should.

It was a gift. We're getting fashion.

That is scary.

Okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn into closed session?

Motion.

Second. Council President Kent, all in favor? Aye. Thank you, everyone, for attending. Randy, I will call you tomorrow.

I was going to tell you to mention the drive silver or get pulled over.

Good night.

Good night.

In closed session, we discussed negotiation and personnel matters. Motion to adjourn. Motion. Second. Councilman Vanden, Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye.