Borough Council - Regular Meeting

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on September 9th, 2026 in the Municipal Building 25, Lansdowne.

The meeting will be open for public comment and shall be in accordance

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 marriage and council as they deliberate on the best of possibilities. 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 bulletin board, transmitted to individuals requesting notice, and published electronically on the official website on the borough of Pompton Lakes. Roll call, please.

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Yes. Okay, thank you.

Under my presentation, I have two things. First of all, I just want to address the power outage that we had in town. There were 1,500 residents affected two days in a row. I did reach out with the school board, the new superintendent, who was caught off guard on the first or second day to have no power to the kids. So we worked it out along with the chief. The best situation we can do, my contacts at Jersey Central, had promised us we'd have the power back on by 4 o'clock in the morning, which we roughly did, but they didn't promise I would have power the next day when it went out again after we put all the kids into school already, which became an issue because obviously it's tough to teach with no power. After conversations with the chief and our OEM and the superintendent, we decided to leave the kids in school because it was a half day. and the power did come back on around 11, 11.30, but we are, I have conversation and I have some calls out to Jersey Central to find out what's going on, because what happened was there was three high tension lines that just caught on fire and fell to the ground and set property on fire. That happened the first day, and then the exact same thing happened on the second day. That's a dangerous situation, especially, it's an area where children play a lot, it's over a railroad track, it involved double sides of a track, So it has to be addressed. You know, I know in general, a lot of the mayors have already stated that the upkeep that Jersey Central is doing to the maintenance of their equipment and trees is lacking behind. So I know there is going to be a push from the state to identify what's going on with Jersey Central, how they can make things better. There's going to be some meetings moving forward. So I will keep you posted on that. Also, I'd like to congratulate one of our residents that turned 100 years old. I did a proclamation for everyone. Married Robert Buck in 1955, and in 1962, they moved to Pompton Lakes, where they established their family home at 36 Beach, raised two daughters, Virginia and Deborah, and extended grandchildren. She was a long time member of the Pompton Reform Church, supporters of the Pompton Lakes Public School, PPA, school board poster and Girl Scouts. It's just nice to see residents be in town that long and then their relatives want a recognition of turning 100. God bless her and her whole family for taking the time and it was really, I enjoyed doing those things and I'm seeing more and more of them which is a good thing. Okay, right now we have a public hearing. I'm going to invite our grant writer to come up and speak a little bit about the Department of Community Affairs community program that we're trying to get some more money for our DPW garage. Anywhere we can get funding, I've reached out to the governor, I've reached out to congresspeople, I've reached out to our local politicians. She has an avenue that we think we can get some funding, so she's going to speak to us about that.

This is on, right? You guys can hear me?

Yep.

Alexa Reid, 121, remain out. But tonight I'm here representing my company, Bruno Associates, who's submitting the borough's grant application. As part of the HUD requirements for this program, the borough is holding a public hearing to solicit public impact on our application to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Resilient Communities Program. This program is funded through federal pass-through monies through the Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery funds appropriated from Hurricane Ida. The borough is proposing to replace the existing Department of Public Works garage at 40 Mill Street on its current property and incorporate flood resiliency and stormwater improvements. The new facility would also include an annex for the borough's Office of Emergency Management, including office space and secure indoor storage for emergency vehicles and equipment. The borough is expecting to request the maximum of $5 million for this. Tonight, the borough will accept oral comments and written comments through noon on Wednesday, September 24th, 2026. Comments can be submitted to Borough Administrator Michael Corelli, and a copy of the proposed application can also be requested from him. As it stands, the existing DPW facility is in an extreme state of disrepair and poses significant safety and operational concerns. A portion of the current property lies within the floodplain and has experienced significant flooding throughout the years. The proposed layout of the project would move the majority of the replacement building outside of the floodplain while keeping the facility on existing borough-owned property. The project would incorporate flood proofing, additional stormwater management, and other resiliency improvements intended to reduce future damage and service interruption. Specific risks include damage to fleet and facilities, loss of emergency equipment, and interruption of essential services. As previously mentioned, the facility would serve as part of the OEM annex and Currently, OEM vehicles and equipment are currently stored outdoors within the floodplain because no other viable storage location is available, leaving critical assets exposed during severe storms. This facility and its improvements would help provide a secure space for this equipment. Additionally, this facility supports the entire Palmton Lakes community, including storm debris response, roadway and drainage support, and through the boroughs, shared service with Oakland. Additionally, solid waste recycling and vegetative collection. Through HUD, we're required to discuss part of the community development of fair housing. The borough's community development needs include reliable public infrastructure, safe facilities for municipal workers, and continuity of essential services during and after severe weather events. Service disruptions can affect all households and may place a greater burden on low to moderate income households, older adults, persons with disabilities, households without reliable transportation, and others with fewer resources to respond to an emergency. By reducing flood exposure and improving continuity of public works and emergency management operations, our project is intended to strengthen the borough's ability to serve the full community. Additionally, the borough supports fair housing and equal access to public services. The project is proposed on the existing borough property and is not expected to displace any businesses or residences. In closing, the borough will be accepting comments for 14 days on this through noon on September 24th, As previously stated, comments should be made and sent to Michael Corelli. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have on the program or anything about the application.

So first of all, we're lucky enough to have Alexa who works for a grant writing who lives in town, which is a big plus for us, you know, having somebody who knows the town well enough to support it. So we use a grant writer when we feel it's out of our realm to write the grants because Michael can do most of the grants for us, but sometimes these grants are very complicated and that's why we brought her in to do this. Part of that program is to have this discussion we're having here and where they can reach out if the public has any comment to reach out to Michael in writing and then it would be addressed under this program when they're doing that. So that's all I have. But if somebody has any questions, we're more than happy to answer.

Thank you, Alexis. We need this grant very desperately because that building is a very bad situation and it is in the floodway. So my question is, you said there was a maximum of $5 million. Would that be a one-time check, or is that over like a five-year period? Do you know how that works?

Through this, all projects would have to be expended by the federal expenditure date of January 2029, so it would be on a reimbursement basis. So any pre-designed costs won't be eligible for that. It will pretty much be strictly the construction costs and any infrastructure improvements, and that will all be on a reimbursement basis. Okay, so soft costs are not...

So let me jump in here for a second. The soft cost, because we've had numerous conversations with other politicians, and we felt that they would accept a project that's ready to go. So we are in the process of paying the soft cost to get the plans done, to have the garage done. So that should be done in the first phase of what we're doing. So we can present it to this avenue and other avenues, because they would rather see a project and ready to go and waiting to see what the proof is. So I think the soft course part will be covered by us.

Yeah, I just want to say thank you for working on this. And I agree with council president that this is way long overdue. This is a building that I worked in in 1971. So it's way overdue for it to be removed and a new building put up. So thank you for all that you're doing with this grant.

No problem. I'm happy to help.

Any other questions, comments?

Okay, thank you.

For the public, I'm just going to say that again. If anybody has a concern or question or want to know how this process works, just shoot over an email to Michael Corelli, our borough administrator, or you can drop in a letter and mail it to him. We have to have it on record, though, so it has to be in writing in one form or another. And then from there, it will be moved up the right channels. So thank you. Okay, can I have a motion to open the meeting for public comments? Motion. Councilman Hinton? Second. Councilman Sanchez, all in favor? Aye. Anyone from the public like to address?

Jay Trubauer, 130 Legion Street. Just a couple questions and some other comments, but 26, 359, and 360. I guess we're not doing any more improvements over at Hirschfield based off of that. I think we talked a couple months ago about the ramps and stuff like that getting done. It just says we're rejecting them at this point. 26362, no cash policy for property taxes. Is that legal? I mean, U.S. Tender says for all debts. Just wondering. and 26377 just if you could elaborate a little bit on exactly what that is okay and uh i just wanted to say thank you to the dpw um for helping tremendously down at carlo field they've helped since i've been taken over as the facilities person there with grass cutting they've helped with the plumbing in the building Mowing, seed, we picked up stone that we got donated from TiltCon. TiltCon, thank you as well. They donated 10 yards of stone for the parking lot, helping potholes. Thank you to Home Depot in Riverdale for donating yellow paint for the goalposts. Thank you to Angie's here on Main Street for helping with some signs that we're getting done for parking. And I wanted to make sure I invited all you guys out. uh friday and or saturday we're having a pep rally for all the kids 7 30 friday night if anybody can make it we'd love to have you out there it's going to be a blast and saturday's opening day for us at home what time is that starts around uh which one friday saturday saturday The flag kids will start around 2, 2.30 in the afternoon, and the older kids will be starting around 8 o'clock at night, and there will be games all the way through as kids get older throughout. So if you guys could attend anything in those two days, it would be awesome. I'd love to see you there. And that's all I've got. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else from the public like address?

Jake. Ken Horner, 94 Mountainside Drive. Just two questions. I'd like to know if anybody has information when Cannonball Road is going to be milled and repaved through the county. I know that was talked about many months ago and unsure if there's any updates on that. And also, on Cannonball Road, I guess about 100 feet in or so, There's five to six foot shrubbery and debris. It's actually covering the fire hydrants now. I'm not sure who's supposed to maintain that property all the way up to the very first building on the right hand side adjacent to the train tracks. I mean, it's at least five, six feet tall weeds. I don't know if the DPW takes care of that or if somebody could actually cut that stuff down and make it more accessible and look nicer, at least, at the very least. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else from the public?

Hi, Mayor. Randy Pratt, 322 102 Avenue. uh here in pumpkin lakes a couple quick things i want to thank the mayor he met with me to discuss some of the things of my august 15th email i had sent everybody on council so we were able to clear uh some uh items on there maria you're still uh invited to meet with me over a cup of coffee as well okay um also um an old issue that i brought up eight months ago And I've been here as my third meeting now is still a vehicle that is parked all day long. I don't know who's not being honest with me or who's not doing their job. But that vehicle remains in that same location every single day throughout the entire day. And I was originally told the mayor and I spoke about this. that it was a, quote, bid enforcement problem, and it's not. So can we all agree that bid has nothing to do with this, okay? All right, so my August 15th meeting, 15th email. I just want to hear from the council at some point if there's any progress on any of the items that I brought to your attention. The next thing is something I brought up last month. It is 243 Wanaque Avenue. which is the old cleaners, which I brought up to the council's attention. The mayor and I had a very nice conversation about that. I took it upon myself to write a personal letter as a business owner in town, which I shared with the mayor. Mayor, I hope you shared it with the rest of the group. to indicate that they need to reopen and reexamine that. Now, Mayor, you made a very good point at last month's meeting, saying that there's a whole new crew of people coming in at the EPA that don't know the history of Pompton Lakes, with DuPont, with the cleaners, and so on and so forth. I'm simply asking Lee Zeldin to reopen and to renew an interest in that. In the meantime, since that email was sent out, I've also contacted Nellie Powell, if that's the way you say her name, Jay Weber, Assemblyman, Panaccio, Senator, who's a Senator, Brian Bergen, Assemblyman, Andy Kim, a Senator, Jeff Bandrew, Congressman, and Cory Booker, a Senator. So I'm doing my job. to help you guys to get this ball rolling. I hope that somebody on this council is also reaching out to them to say, look, we got this guy. He's a business owner. He's taking the initiative himself. Maybe we can get this thing jump started and get it going. I will say this, except for Randy, because Randy, you came over from the dark side, that you're all Republicans. You got a Republican party down in Washington, D.C. now. This is a great opportunity to start banging on doors down there and wherever and start getting some things passed. And Pumpkin Lakes definitely needs it, in my opinion, and especially in the downtown area. So thank you again for meeting with me now. Appreciate it.

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

Mic's shut down, haven't I? So that's good. But as most of you have probably known me since I was a little kid, or my mom way back when in the days. So down at Hirschfield, wondering if any day now, as per Karen and I, going to wonder when the pit bull court's going to be put down. number one number two um as mayor and maria way back when helped me with soccer ref coached me at some point um now it's my turn and i'm a coach um i've done this seven years this year i have 10 kids um and down at joe grill the grass is taller than the ball So we had our first practice and if anything can be worked out, maybe DPW can cut the grass. Last year we had one individual who always cut the grass and this year he's no longer part of the DPW. So I had my first practice yesterday and we were trying to find the ball, but the grass was taller than the ball. So working on that one. Another thing I'd like to thank myself, Liz, Kathy, Barbara, Al, AJ, and everybody up here for all their help with Pompton Day. We had about 160 vendors and over 215 spaces taken. As most of you saw, it was a very, very successful Pompton Day. Everybody who showed up It was probably our most successful Pompton day And thank you to Steve for throwing everybody into a space I know it was pretty stressful So I do look forward to making next year a better and more successful than this year so If there's anything that anybody needs help with, I know that this year I was able to raise about $20,000 for sponsorship. So if there's anything that we can do, anything that we can improve on, please contact Steve or myself, and we'll be glad to improve on it for next year. So I'd be glad to help anybody. If we need anything, please just let me know.

Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else like to address? Seeing no one, can I have a motion to close the public session? Motion. Second. Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Against? Okay, Jay. So the two things you asked about Hirschfield, the bids came in too high. We're going to rebid them again in a different spec. So both of those things should be addressed in the next new bids. So, you know, we definitely are moving forward with that project. We're not going to forget that. And the curb ramps and all those things are also part of it. That's the second part of the 360. So we definitely are looking at that. 377, I'm going to be honest. Maybe, AJ, you can help me with that. Do you know that? Or Liz? Okay.

a strong support for all law enforcement officers okay just to show support for our officers in the mail That's why Michael said no.

Okay. All right. It's just showing support for her. I did not know you were involved with the, Carlo, thank you. I mean, we just did a very large project, which I'm sure you're aware of, with the help of the MUA and us. We got the sewers back up and running and the lines hooked up. That was a big deal and I was very nervous about how that was going to move forward. Because without the sewers and the bathrooms, we'd have real problems down there. So I have to thank the MUA for stepping in. We stepped in. And you guys have been actually pretty good down there to work with. You're not jumping the gun, and you're working with us and making things work forward. So that's how we're supposed to do those things down there. And I will definitely stop down at the field. I'm always down there anyway. And I'm sure most of the council will stop down at some point. So thank you for the invite.

He asked about 362 also. Yeah, I did.

That's the one I talked about. 360. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Yes, I think that's legal, right? No cash?

Yes, it is legal for government. The only statute that applies to it is NJSA 56, and that applies to private parties that are selling retail services and goods. I understand the question because I had the same question when I first saw it.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Shane. Where am I at? Ken, about Cannonball. As you mentioned, it is a county road. We have reached out to them once. We have reached out to see where we fall on their list. They haven't gotten back to us. You bring up a good point, and I don't know the answer. Who's responsible for the cutting of the shrubs along Cannonball Road? I would... suggest that if we can do it now and then we'll get an answer to what we have. So who's my DPW?

Yes.

Can we just reach out and see if they can go cut it right now and then we'll get an answer to who's actually responsible for it?

Actually responsible, OEM Al Evangelista can tell you that when I brought up issues with fire hydrants, the MUA,

usually came out and... No, but he's talking about the whole Cannonball Road.

Well, the whole Cannonball Road. I don't think we've ever maintained that. I don't know. That's really railroad traffic.

Well, from the front, from Wannekew all the way down.

Well, yes, it's borough right of way.

I'll have to get you an answer on that, but meanwhile, can we ask our DP just to go cut it right now, and then we'll get an answer for you on how that works.

Randy brought up a lot of good things. I'm glad we met. I have no issue talking it over. I'm going to start with the EPA. I am 100% on board with what you're asking of getting that property back up and usable. Writing the letters is a big plus to make that happen. If more residents can do that, we'll get a lot of ground. I have been talking to my connections from my side about it also. to make it happen. The EPA is a little fickle sometimes on what they're going to present. They don't have a real budget to fix things. So they push it to the state and the state says, well, we'll kind of help the state work with them to make it happen. The state has told me we have many, many brownfields sitting in the state and we're not taking care of any of them. They're all just on a list. But that doesn't mean we can't push harder and try to get that. Your comment about the Republican federal government, maybe we can get some money, maybe somebody in the federal government can help us. So I can try to reach out there. And I'm going to ask our council president, who worked for the DEP for a long time, if you have any information that you think would be relevant to this.

Yeah, usually Brownfield, what they do is they rank them. And the ones that are, you know, the most serious or higher, this seems to be that was remediated. It's still, the groundwater is still an issue. And until that's resolved, we can't do anything. We can't take it by... Well, we can't take it, right.

But I'm hoping... Hopefully. It's a good idea. So let me just say this. There's a project, and I'm not going to say which project, but a project being built downtown, and we'd like them to maybe help us. This is my personal opinion. and tearing down the building if we okay this building to be built. And they would pick up the cost maybe to take the building down if the EPA was okay with us capping it with pavement and just leaving it as open space. Not putting a building there, not anything. The EPA would have to okay that though. I don't even think it would be .

They could if they could. The Brownfield could.

The Brownfield could. So that's one of the avenues I'm going to go with that. So thank you for that. The car. I think we mentioned it last time. I don't think the signage is up yet. I'm going to reach out to my chief in a second. Once the signage goes up on the street, then we can enforce the law of more three-hour parking. Chief, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Yes, no, there's no signage on there yet.

So when that signage goes up, if we see it on camera and the car hasn't moved, theoretically, we could write a ticket for that car?

Yes, theoretically, yes.

As long as there's no placards or anything in the window.

Yes.

Okay. That's the vehicle on the street. Talked about the cleaners, the EPA. The fact that you're taking the initiative to make a difference is what makes a difference in the long term because being a politician and what politicians do, they respond to numerous complaints. So if they just get one complaint, they get two complaints, they put it in this folder. They get 30 complaints, they pay a little more attention. So maybe we can get the bid involved and write some letters. I will gladly write letters from our side to support what we're trying to do there because It's been an eyesore for a very long time and I know the bid is in agreement with me. We wanted that building down 15 years ago. We had issues, so many issues we couldn't even put up curtains and paint the front of the building because we didn't own the property. It would be trespassing. So we finally got an approval from the family that doesn't want to own it anymore to let us go in there and at least put up curtains. So we're still working with that. The other things we are still working on, I mean, we've had numerous meetings about downtown parking. We just had a meeting recently about Ponto parking and meter parking. We are going to be negotiating that. But again, one of the things that we talked about yesterday, I happened to have a meeting about this yesterday, is maybe we find a space and it would be south of you, across from the library, that might be a longer term parking ability for some people, five spots, four spots, that you could pay to an eight-hour parking. So maybe that would alleviate some of the people that maybe are parking in front of businesses, because it's not just your business that happens to. Unfortunately, again, I go back to if they have a handicap placard or another type of placard, they unfortunately can't stay there. I don't know who's parking there, I don't know whose cars are there, but we're trying to open up the parking as best we can in the whole downtown. Again, we had a meeting yesterday in reference to Ponto parking, and I had directed our administrator for this new parking area that's built for the Meridian project. They may need something from us, so maybe we can do a shared service with them to take the first eight spots that are on to Wanaque Avenue to use for retail during the day till like 3, 4, or 5 o'clock until the residents come back when they have to park, and then they have the spots to do that. I think that's something we might be able to work out. We haven't gotten to the conversation with them yet, but hopefully that does happen. Okay, Mike, pickleball. We're going to be talking about pickleball today, how many courts do line and not line. We will be lining them, but as Councilman Bennett and Councilman Cruz have stated, the tennis courts are in very bad shape right now, and it's a very expensive proposition to fix them, well over $500,000 to do it right. So we're going to have a discussion in a later workshop. about how we're going to do that. We can't just patch those holes and cracks because they'll just settle and not work eventually. So it has to be done properly. We might talk about using the next round of open space funding we get from Passaic County to go towards the tennis courts to repair them the right way, fix them. But we will definitely be lining two or three pickable courts after the meeting today. The grass at your grill, they are well aware of what they have to do for soccer. They do take care of it. You know I ran soccer for many years. This has always been a complaint. It won't be done on practice days, but it'll be done for games. Hopefully that'll carry you through to the next practice. But they won't be out there cutting the grass every day for practices, because practices are all the time and every different day. But they will have it ready to go for opening season. Pompton Day, we're going to all talk about it. I'm sure it was a big success. Thank you for putting all the time and energy, along with Steve and some other people, into making that happen. It's always a bigger and better event that we have. I think I answered everything. Okay. Motion to approve the following minutes. Regular meeting minutes August 12, 2026. Closed session meeting minutes August 12, 2026. Motion. Second. Councilman Bay, Councilman Santers, all in favor? Aye. Against? Authorizing payment of bills as listed below. Can I have a motion? Councilman Hinton? Second. Councilman Santers, all in favor? Aye. Against? Consent agenda. Does anybody need anything removed for discussion?

Can I just ask about 26-378? 378. Yeah, it's where the lakeside app days want improvement. Is that just for the road? It's just the road, yeah.

But I'll answer it. Anybody else?

I just had a question on 26-357, why lot and block is blocked out.

Anybody else? Okay, Liz.

Resolution 26-346-26380, where we will make

Okay, can I have a motion? Motion. Second. Councilman Hinton, Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Against? Okay, 26357, refund of escrow for block that's blocked out. That's Daniel's protection. So in other words, it's someone who's protected by federal court. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. And then 378, I think we answered it. That is just for the lakeside, that's just for the improvements to the street.

Okay.

Okay, can we do both of those, Liz?

2626, bond ordinance providing.

No, you want to do 26357?

357, refund escrow fees.

Okay, can I have a motion? Motion. Councilman Sanders? Second. Councilman Hinton, all in favor? Aye. Against? And 378.

have a motion?

Motion. Second. Councilman Fage, Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Against? Okay, order to do this.

Well, I'm going to provide an acquisition of the equipment by the Borough Conference of Lakes and the County of the State of New Jersey appropriating $750,000, therefore an authorizing insurance of $680,500 bonds are known to the borough for the financing of such appropriations.

Motion to approve Ordinance 26-26 for introduction. Motion. Second. Councilman Sanchez, Councilman Begg, any discussion? Well, not really now, but we can discuss it.

This is- Michael said they were going to purchase two garbage trucks to replace in Oakland, it's in the Oakland area.

Right, so it's in part of the Oakland deal that we have, that was part of the numbers that we used that was included in the agreement. Roll call, please.

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion to open the meeting for public comments on Ordinance 26-25. Motion.

Second.

Councilman Hinton, Councilman Sanchez, all in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone want to address just this ordinance? Seeing no one, motion to close the meeting for public comment on Ordinance 26-25. Motion. Second.

Councilman Hinton, Councilman Begg, was that, or Sanchez?

I don't know, it was Ty.

Ty? Ty goes to the B. Begg. All in favor? Aye. Against? Motion to approve Ordinance 26-25 for Final Adoption.

Motion. Councilman Sanchez, Councilman Cruz, roll call please.

Councilman Higgins?

Yes.

Council President Kent? Yes. Councilman Sanchez?

Yes.

Councilman Fage?

Yes.

Councilman Cruz?

Yes. Okay, thank you. Okay, under my report, we'll start with Pompton Day. You know, it gets better and better every year. It's the 21st year we've done it. When the weather cooperates like it did this weekend, it makes it a much better event. We've had times where it's been much hotter. It was very crowded, very hard to move around. I heard all good comments. So you've got to imagine, most of those people who work these events work many events.

It's not just Pompton Day they come to. And I kept hearing over and over again, this is their favorite place to come and work.

And I'll give one quick story that I thought was funny and interesting. The woman who was selling bacon on a stick came over and said to me, Mayor, I've got to tell you two important things about your town. I go, what's that? She said, first of all, Palmton Lakes loves their bacon. I said, that's good to know. And then secondly, she said, when they're buying the bacon, they're having full conversations with me just about general and about the town and about things. She goes, I go other places. That doesn't happen. She said, the residents here are just so polite and nice, and they have conversation with me. Then she threw in, and my backdrop is this lake. She happened to be in a spot that was at the back of the lake. She goes, I would almost come here for free to sell the bacon. It's those kind of things that we do that make me feel better when we're driving around. Unfortunately, because of the way it's set up, It's a long, and we've made it longer. If you notice, we've closed down Band Street and formal links on school right now. And we added more vendors there. So sometimes people can't make the walk back and forth. And that's why we have the golf carts to drive them back and forth. And so I have the opportunity to have conversations with these people. Some of them are not even from town. And they said, look, I never missed this event. I love coming. I love walking through the town. I love the lake.

It's just a beautiful setup for a nice day.

So, you know, all in all, I got to thank everybody involved. There's too many people to name. And again, I have to remind everybody, it's mostly done by volunteers. There's a lot of towns that have these festivals, but they pay companies to come in and do these festivals. We've been doing it for the last 21 years by volunteers. So thank you, and we raise good money for our recreation department. The fireworks were outstanding if you were at the fireworks at night. And here's another quick story. I announced it at the fireworks last night. The gentleman that won the $500 gift card, unfortunately, his house burnt down a year ago to that date in Pompton Lakes, and he won the $500 gift card. I said, what's the odds of that happening? And if anybody deserves to win that gift card, it was him. So that's nice to see and nice to happen. You know, I've got to thank the police, the fire, the first aid OEM. They're all there. They're all supporting us. They're all making things happen. We had no real issues downtown. We had a couple minor injuries that were nothing. So all in all, great event, and I thank everybody for that. I have to thank the trails. If anybody's been down to the trails, I know some people will bring it up. We hired a landscaper to come and cut those trails. They are going to grow fast, but right now they look good. So if you want to walk on those trails right now, they look really good. I think we're going to keep trying to address it because it does get overgrown quickly, and it is an area that is used a lot. So thank you for everybody that did that. We had the senior picnic that unfortunately I could not make, but that's always a great event. I have to thank Karen Murphy and all the volunteers that came to show up to that. The seniors love to hear the one-man band play and do some dancing and have some food, so it's always a nice event. I attended the school breakfast. What was interesting about the school breakfast for me, I've been doing this now almost 20 years. It's the first time that Dr. Amoroso was not in attendance at the breakfast. So the new superintendent was very nice. We had a nice long conversation. Hopefully she does well here in Pompton Lakes. She's very excited. The thing I learned for most people that probably didn't know this, she lived in Pompton Lakes for almost eight years in town. So she knows the town a little bit and told me that she would have stayed here if she could have found a bigger house to move into. So she So somebody who does love the town and is involved, and I wish her good luck. Unfortunately, her first and second day, we had some issues with the power. And I was speaking to her at 3 in the morning, along with the chief. But I said, welcome to Palmton Lakes. And I will also say what she told me was, again all the employees and teachers and people who grew up in town have pulled her aside to talk about the town talk about the history and talk about tradition and these are things that she said when i've been in other districts i haven't really seen much of they go out of their way to make sure they tell me stories about this is how we do things 20 years ago 30 years ago and now which is great to see people are involved i always said and i talk to other mayors all the time i i really don't have issues filling all my boards and committees people volunteer to be on Most towns are begging people to be on their boards and committees. Some committees in our town we have waiting lists for. That's impressive. That's impressive. It speaks volumes to the people that want to be involved. The trail maintenance, I had a couple meetings with the county like I mentioned. They discussed, I guess a resident had called the county asking for a stoplight at Wannekew and Colfax. The town has no interest in putting that stoplight in. The county has no interest in putting that stoplight in, so it was a quickly dead issue on the whole thing. They didn't see any need for it. They didn't see any reason for it. I guess they got a call, so they followed up. We also had a meeting with the county to discuss possible, going back to the parking, possible ways they're going to improve Wanaque Avenue. They really didn't speak much, but it could involve slowdowns or bump outs or reducing spaces or any more. It's really, there's going to be much more conversation. uh and and lastly i had a great meeting so if you're familiar with aquatic then they have a walking trail that they built they called the morris county trail and in wannekew they have a walking trail that goes all the way up to the highlands we had a meeting with the county and the federal government believe it or not to try to connect these two walking paths between the top and the bottom and that means going through riverdale and pompton lakes which They are addressing and may look like they want to fix it. The biggest issue that they're having, and the reason we had the meeting, is to figure out how we're going to get around 287 on Union Avenue in Wanaque, because you have to get that to get to Wanaque side. But they threw out some ideas, crazy ideas, if you ask me, costing a lot of money, like building a bridge over the whole highway, building a tunnel underneath the highway. So, I mean, if they're talking about those kind of things, they're committed to doing this. It would be a 16-mile bike and walking pail. This was all connected from the highlands all the way down to the conic, which would be great. I'm 100% supported. I gave them a great idea that we can bring the water commission on board and maybe use the property, what we call the pipeline to connect us from like Hamburg Turnpike to 287 and then they have to figure out 287. That would help greatly. So keep everybody off the roads. The mayor of Riverdale, I can tell you, is very involved in this conversation too and wants to use the property in his town. These are future plans. It's not happening anytime soon, but all good things. And lastly, please don't forget, we have our 9-11 ceremony tomorrow at 6.30? Friday, I'm sorry. 6.30, is it? 6.30 here. We always get a good crowd. Let's not forget. We never forget here in Pompano Lakes. 25 years, and hopefully we get a good turnout for that. And that is my report. Council President.

Thank you, Mayor. Jay, I just want to thank you for the invitation to the pep rally and to the football games. I've never been invited before, but your group does an amazing job with the children and the athletics in this town and Riverdale. I want to thank you, and I know all the coaches there do an excellent job. I'm going to try to definitely be at least one of those events. Thank you. Mr. Pratt, I do want to thank you for your email and for the invitation for coffee. Sorry I was away on vacation. I just got back. But I'm very happy that I think we're really making a tremendous impact on downtown with Chief Rodriguez. He's taken a definite initiative to watch the roads and the littering and the graffiti. I think all of those conversations and earlier council meetings have really made a difference looking at your report chief I Can't believe how many people got tickets. I don't know if they're happy you're not having but you know where we We have to pay attention to downtown. It's it's a critical part of our whole entire Way of living around here, so I want to thank you for that. I will have coffee. Yes. Thank you Okay I want to thank Alexa Reed. She's a very knowledgeable young resident here. And Bruin Consulting does an excellent job with grants all over the state. So I think if we can get that money to rebuild DPW, we have to support that, because that building is an absolute necessity. I want to just ask, making sure, Mayor, that our sound system is better, because I asked Liz after our last meeting and Michael Crowley if they fixed anything, and I believe they did.

I listened to it last night, and you could hear everyone easily.

You could? Yes. Okay. So I'm glad that we made those adjustments, because putting a new whole sound system in is pretty costly. But if we can just tweak this system until it actually blows out, let's do it and keep it so that everyone can hear us. And if you can't, just let us know. But I think we're all talking into the mics now better. Okay. So I want to thank you, Liz, for having the company come out and do that. I also attended Pompton Day. It was wonderful. It was organized. It's a fun street fair. It's entertaining. It's so many different kinds of entertainments out in the schoolyard. The recreation and the Pompton Day commission committees provided, what, over 10,000 people? Did we ever take a count?

It had to be over 10,000.

And I want to thank you all for everybody who participated, vendors and all the volunteers. But I do want to give a special shout out to Director Karen Murphy, Barbara Jennings who does the 5K run, Councilman Steve Begg for all the computer you know, listening and just keeping track of everybody. That's a big job. Yes. And Michael Shaccatano, you do an amazing job just trying to round everybody up and keeping on with the program. And I also want to thank all our organizations in town, both prior to and after the event, including our police department, our OEM staff, our search staff, ambulance and first aid squad. The first aid squad gave me a really cool tattoo of an ambulance, so I kept it on my arm for a couple days. My grandchildren loved it, by the way. I also want to recognize our Mayor Sarah and his golf cart Uber crew, Mike Riga, Mike Shacatano, and Councilman Begg, because you picked up and dropped off without killing anybody or running anybody over, so I'm very impressed with that. I don't promise that. Well, I thought it was pretty good. And I also want to, of course, thank the DPW crew for the complete cleanup of our streets after a big event like that and we're back to normal again. So it was an amazing event and thank you. I also want to thank Chief Rodriguez for the wonderful graffiti warning program and poster. The poster is awesome. I mentioned that to you. And let's just continue on that road as best we can. I appreciate that. I want to thank Mr. Crowley and the Open Space Committee and the Trails Committee for going to the outside landscape vendor for the Morris Canal Greenway. That greenway was put in back in 2015, I think. I was a part of that whole program in planning that with the Passaic County Planning Board. group and it's really, it's advertised all over Passaic County so that trail brings people to Compton Lakes for our natural resources and historic, our historic involvement in developing this part of New Jersey because of the canals. I also want to thank Councilman Hinton because he was, he really did spearhead trying to get that drill cleared out, and I want to thank you for staying on top of that, and it was needed, and thank you. Our open space committee has a vision of including a large complex sign for the new ball fields. It would also include our tree restoration program, Our conservation recreation mission and the upgrades to the Joe Grill Willowfield complex and this sign signage is going to be discussed tomorrow night at our open space committee. We have a subcommittee that met I guess back in early early August and we looked at different places to actually place this large sign out on the fields and I think we picked a really good spot so we're going to be talking about that tomorrow night. That's going to be the primary discussion. And my usual request, and I'm sad to say this is my fourth time now, I'm asking our Council Semerair, Mark, we have another letter that went to the Governor's Office. I want to know if we've been acknowledged in any way, shape, or form for receiving the portion of the $75 million DuPont or more monies that they've agreed to pay for environmental damages. And I'm going to ask Mark and our council, what is our next step? We cannot continue to be ignored. We have over 12,000 residents in this community. Every one of them has a right, in my opinion, to be a part of this award for the damages that we suffered in this town. So I would like to know, Mark, and you don't answer me now during your report, what can we do? This is ridiculous that we don't get an answer.

I understand. We've been looking at it. We don't see a solution to compel the distribution. We'll continue looking at it. I know that there are other towns that are in our position. We're hoping that at some point in time we get a response.

Okay, well, I think we have to do, I think Mayor, we're gonna have to talk about this. That's crazy, we can't just ignore it. Okay, thank you, Mark. The other thing I just wanted to mention, Jason Lavasi, he is one of the Boy Scout troop leaders. And you'll see a lot of blue signs all throughout the town about joining the Boy Scouts. So if you have a young son that's of that age, it's a wonderful troop and they do a lot for the community. You might wanna reach out to them. and see if your son would be interested in that kind of thing. And I did attend the senior picnic. I ate at the senior picnic since I'm a senior. And it was wonderful. I did a lot, by the way. And it was wonderful to serve the seniors. It's an honor to be with them. There was, I believe, over 100 seniors that did attend. I had a lot of fun spreading a lot of mayo and mustard on the sandwiches because, you know, we're not allowed to have people touch the food due to the health laws. So that's what we did. And I want to thank the Recreation Commission and all the people that came out. And we even had the sheriff's office come, the Sheriff Kaba. So he actually stood there in full uniform and spread mustard and handed out salad as well. So I want to thank him.

Thank you. One thing I forgot to mention in my report, we did have some special guests that popped in today. And it means something to me when both sides of the aisle show up to these events because, you know, No matter what's going on federally, you know, here locally we have to work with both sides of the aisle. So Congresswoman Poe showed up, Commissioner Mike Romagliette, who is from Pompton Lakes, he's a commissioner for Passaic County, Assemblyman Bergen, Assemblyman Weber, all came to our event and walked around and spoke to our residents. You know, there's many events going on those days and they picked our town to come to those events, which means a lot to at least to me and to our residents.

So thank you for coming. Mayor of Patterson.

Oh, yes. And the mayor of Patterson was there also. And I always joke with him because during COVID, you know, Patterson's a big town, a lot of money. He was on News 4 wearing a COVID mask from Pompton Lakes. And I said to him, I sent him an email, Andre, you can't afford your own masks over in Passaic County in Patterson. He said, no, you have a very nice mask. I told him he isn't. So it was interesting to have that. Okay, Councilman Hinton.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I attended the last senior meeting. I wasn't able to attend the picnic, but I heard from everybody, and I want to thank the rec committee. I want to thank you. all the council people and Liz that was there for what they did. The seniors said it was an excellent time. They had a real good time. Attended Pompton Day, Pompton Day ceremony. Mayor did a good job. And like you said, so many people were there and we were at the Lakeside Park when we had the opening ceremony. The weather was beautiful, and we had a real great time. Fireworks at night. All my relatives like to come to the fireworks.

Oh, the band, too. Thank you. We can thank the band.

Yeah, we can thank the band. The high school band. The high school band, the Cardinal band. Yes, they were playing some great music.

They did great. They brought some instruments and xylophones that you don't normally see on a parade route. They had three xylophones in there.

And all the vendors, it was a really nice time. um also i want to thank uh mr corelli and mr councilman dave councilwoman kent um for the morris canal greenwood we've all been pushing for that um you said it was formulated in 2015 um It's a great little trail. It's a shame that we didn't have maintenance from that point on. DPW really wasn't doing anything to maintain the trail. Like Councilwoman Kent said, I had pushed for a few years to get it going, and I want to thank everybody for doing that.

Thank you, too.

thank you well thank you uh so uh hopefully we can keep it open um from what the administrator said maybe every two weeks three weeks we'll get in there to maintain it the benches you can sit at them now there's no weeds growing through the benches and uh it's a really nice trail along the river and uh yes uh lauren venon who is trail maintenance uh committee's

head person that goes there all the time, her and Councilman Bennett, and then some other folks who are on the trail committee, they recommend it once a month. And so I think we're going to be having once a month, at least for one more time, and then we'll discuss this next year. So they were involved, the trail committee folks. I know your wife was there quite a bit. And so a number of people do help this. And it's been true, but it's so vegetated so badly that they don't have they were not allowed to use electric equipment or, you know, any kind of trip. They're not allowed. So doing this with a little hand sickle or a little, you know, clippers is not, it just doesn't cut it anymore. It needed professional maintenance. Yes. So that's why, but it was always maintained. It just, it got harder and harder for the, again, volunteers to continue to do that for 10 years. So, you know, it was a good thing.

And it was so bad that initially Pulitzer, when they did it just now, he had a hell of a job just to clear that trail. And he did a pretty great job. So I want to thank him also. I want to thank the resident for bringing up Roth's Cleaners. I had been pushing on that for the trees in the back, and Michael's going to work on that.

We have a contractor calling in.

To take care of the trees? Yeah. Good, because hopefully through your letters and the council can work addressing that. That is an eyesore for town and BID can help out. That really needs to go. So I want to just thank you for bringing that up. I won't address the dark side comment. I think it was a Star Wars comment. I wasn't. And that's my report.

Thank you. Councilman Santers. Thank you, Mayor.

I attended the 5K race. Oh, yes. They had the most competitors ever. I believe it was close to 300 contestants. It was perfect weather in the morning. The weather was nice and cool. I think the winner did the race in 18 minutes and 20 seconds or something like that. I also attended Pompton Day, which was well attended. Looks like all the vendors did pretty well. There was always a line at all the food vendors. It was nice seeing a lot of familiar faces. A lot of kids I coached and parents, so it was nice to see them. And to top it off, the fireworks. For a small town, the fireworks are awesome. Yes, we all can see them. A lot of big towns put off a big display. If you ever go to Wayne's, it's huge. Ours, compared for how small our town is, I think we do a fantastic job on the fireworks. I want to thank all the volunteers at all the events. They worked very hard. They did what they do all year just to make this event a great day for Pompton. And while I mentioned volunteers, all organizations are in town looking for help. If you're new in town, it's a great way to meet people as well as helping out. It could be the fire department, first aid squad, rec department, women's club, little league, Pomp and Lake's Riverdale Soccer Association, the youth football organization. These are just a few of the organizations that are looking for volunteers, and it's a great, great way to get involved in our town. I attend both BIA Board of Education meetings. I met the new superintendent. She's looking forward to working in town. Few things that happened over the summer. Lincoln, at Lincoln School, the new guardrails were replaced. They added an AD compliant ramp to the TCP trailer. At Lenox, the HVAC upgrade in the media center was completed, and asbestos abatement for the upgrade was also taken care of. At Lakeside, The HVAC upgrade for the multi-room was taken care of. The asbestos abatement also was taken care of. Brand new flooring across the first and second floors. An upgrade perimeter fence around the field. And added additional parking spaces. At the high school, electrical upgrade is 80% complete. They are waiting for the final parts, which are backward. Soffit repairs and vestibules were done, replaced guardrails and newly plumbed hardwired for dishwasher in the science lab. Special, let's see here. Athletic fields replaced hot water tank and painted snack stand inside and out, painted the field house interior, installed epoxy floor and locker room, and added new bleacher boards. Let's see here. Okay, a couple of things that are coming up. Tonight is back to school night for Lincoln School. Lenox School is tomorrow night, 6.30 to 8. Lakeside's back to school is September 16th, 6.30. Pompton Lakes back to school tonight is rescheduled for September 27th at 7 p.m. It was scheduled for the 17th but there is a scheduling conflict, so it had to be moved. September 18th is senior college application day, where councils will meet with seniors in the media center throughout the day to help with the common app and requesting transcripts and recommendation letters and answer post-secondary planning questions. September 23rd is the virtual financial aid night, Homecoming dance will be in Riverdale on September 24th, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tickets will be sold at the school lunch during September 14th through 18th. Homecoming day is Saturday, September 26th at 1 p.m., and the court will be announced after the game. That is my report.

Thank you.

You know what, actually, Chief, getting back to that pep rally, in the years past, the Garden Road and Ringwood was one way on those heavy nights. Do you think we can look into doing that again?

Yeah, so for Carlo Field, usually They used to put in requests for the dates and give us schedules, and we would accommodate that. The last couple of years, they haven't. But, yeah, as long as I don't know who's still in charge, if it's Jared. Is Jared still running? Yeah, I spoke to him today, so I can reach out to him, and I can find out dates, and then we can accommodate them.

Yeah, because it really works out really well.

Yeah, they started off down where by like, like the block right after right before Mary, and then it goes down and then down the other way. So it released some traffic. Yeah, we can definitely take care of that.

good that's good i know i handed out the awards for the 5k race and i was tired just handing out the awards we had an 88 year old finish the whole 5k race running most of the time she did that good for her good for her uh councilman baig thank you american um first i'd like to make a motion to approve the following request made by the chamber of commerce

TO HOLD THE 27TH ANNUAL CLASSIC CAR SHOW, WE CLOSE WANAQUAV FROM 6 AM TO 5 PM. STREET CLOSURE BETWEEN PALMTON AND LAKESIDE AVENUES ON OCTOBER 18, 2026, WITH A RAIN DATE OF OCTOBER 25, 2026. POLICE FIRE FIRST AID TO BE NOTIFIED ON THE FOLLOWING REQUESTS. TO HANG CAR SHOW BANNER ACROSS WANAQUAV FROM SEPTEMBER 15, 2026 THROUGH OCTOBER 25, 2026. CHAMBER OF CONVERSE TO CONTACT POLICE DEPARTMENT AND ST. MARY'S CHURCH TO COORDINATE TRAFFIC CONTROL. certificate of insurance to be provided to the borough, and for permission to use the Pond Hole parking lot during the 27th annual classic car show.

Before I ask for a second, I'm sure, and I'll talk to the chief about it, the annual parking passes that are sold, those people will be using those, and those are kind of just anywhere, or how does that work with the car show?

Yeah, so the annual parking pass for the residents, they're 24 hours, so they can park anywhere in the model. I just met with Lieutenant Kapacki earlier today because she sent back the paperwork for the car show. The other thing that we're requiring that's new this year as well is that the bid has to send notification to the residents in Meridia because there are residents there. And then they need to they need to inform them where that they're not going to be able to get to leave during that event. So make arrangements to put your car somewhere else. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck.

Yeah, that's why I was asking, because we have we do have, especially on the weekend, most of the residents would be home. And if they're stuck in, they're going to complain. So they are definitely going to have to do that.

But they're yet. So they'll have to contact Meridian. get the addresses of the residents that are there and send notifications.

Okay, can I have a second? Second.

Councilman Hinton, all in favor? Aye. Against? good next one all right and uh next motion is to approve a request a request from the pompton lakes riverdale first aid squad to hold a tax style fundraiser on october 18 2026 between the hours of 9 00 a.m to 5 00 p.m rain date of october 25th 2026 at the intersection of hamburg turnpike and ramapo avenue seeking funds from motorists police have approved the traffic control plan ANSI certified traffic vests are to be worn, positioned in yellow, no travel portion, roadway behind traffic barrels. St. County Engineering Department has been notified. Can I have a second?

Can I ask what that is? Ask the money when you drop off. Oh, they have the blanket thing where you throw?

No, they use it in buckets. Buckets, yeah.

Now that's the same day as the car show. Will that be a traffic issue?

They do it. It's not closed. It's open. They do it every year.

No, no, no. But I mean, we're going to have one if you have closed. This won't be an issue with traffic?

No. The way they do it, the traffic flows regularly. They basically go up to the cars when they're stopped at the traffic lights, and then they go. They just have the traffic cones there so that they're visible and that the cars see them so that no one knows.

Usually when they're stopped at the rim. Yes. On both directions.

Correct.

Okay, did I say get a second? Second. Second, Councilman Hinton, all in favor? Aye. Okay, thank you.

All right, last month I attended the EPC meeting. They're looking at dates to have a fall cleanup in the downtown area. Tomorrow we meet, so hopefully we'll settle on a date and then have that out to everybody. The Big Met last month as well. The last summer concert was canceled because of the power outage. I'm not sure if that will be rescheduled. October 17th is the Scarecrow Contest and Pumpkin Painting. That will be held on the library lawn. And October 18th is, again, that classic car show. I want to cue out there will be classic oldies music played throughout the show. So please come out and enjoy the day. We had our final Pompton meeting last month in preparation for Pompton Day, which was held this past Sunday, obviously. Just a couple things. One, I want to thank the mayor, Chief Rodriguez, Al Evangelista, John Keating, and the rest of the committee for their input at the meeting. We made changes to the event this year, and I appreciate all the input that we received from everybody at that meeting. I'd also like to especially thank Barbara, Liz, Kathy, and our Borough Administrator, Mike Corelli, for all the hard work that they put in in assisting me with processing payment and paperwork for our vendors. It was a lot of work. I got a lot of phone calls from Liz, and it definitely didn't go unnoticed. So thank you all at Borough Hall for all the help you did with that. So thank you. Also, just real quick, the 5K had 276 registered, 253 finished. The fishing derby had 28 participants with 24 fish caught. And then lastly, Pump the Day was a big success. We had more vendors and people than ever before. So thank you to all the volunteers who gave up their day to work the event. There was a lot of people. We had a historic meeting last month. They had a booth upon today as well. They had a reenactor come to celebrate the 250th anniversary. Good-looking booth there. It seemed like he got a little attention, so that was good. He's by the dump tank. They're also working on coordinating a multi-town event over several weekends to celebrate the route Washington took, with more details to come out as that happens. So it's going to be a different town over a month period of the route that Washington took, and celebrating each town. So we're working. We had some guests come to the last meeting, and they proposed that to us. All right. Recreation, I had a meeting last month as well. They reported that summer camp went well. They had 118 campers. Women's Get Fit is September 23rd to November 18th at Lincoln School. Men's Basketball, September 15th to May 25th at Lincoln School. They are also looking to bring in Michael Comici for Warrior Fitness. The whole class is in the wintertime. And then the town-wide garage sale is October 3rd, and it starts at 9 o'clock in the morning. And then lastly, was trail maintenance day this was that this past saturday we also had a meeting before the trails maintenance day that i attended most of the trails were cleared despite all the mosquitoes that were there from the rain maintenance of the morris county greenway that we were talking about before was completed and i just want to thank bolster landscaping for completing the work and thank you to our open space committee for funding this project It's definitely making a difference. And then this Saturday, Lauren Bennett and I are meeting with Commissioner Vermaglia. We're going to walk to where the Merrill loop is. I marked the loop. We're looking for county assistance and support to put like a boardwalk style kind of hiking loop in there in memory, you know, not in memory, but in honor of Ed Merrill.

All right, and that's my report. So just so the public understands this, and I thank Stephen for helping us with this, we changed the whole way you entered in and out of Pompton Lakes, reversed it completely. Did we have any real issues with that?

No, in fact, we got feedback that they liked it better that way.

Okay, so that worked out well, and that was all Steven and Michael and everybody else trying to put that together. So it did make the flow a little easier and a little better. And the reason we did that is we have so many food vendors now that their windows were on the wrong side of the avenue when they were trying to sell. So this way they could get their window on the right side without having to make U-turns in the middle of the street.

Okay, Councilman Cruz. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, everyone. I attended the Board of Education meeting with Councilman Sanders, but he did a great job, covered everything, so I don't have to say any more to that. Pompton Day is always, it's always awesome. I think the best part about it is that you see a lot of the kids that graduate high school, fall off to college, start a family, and guess what? They come back to Pompton Day. You get to see them with their families as well. In addition to that, you get to see all your friends. Everybody's on vacation during the summer. You don't necessarily get a chance to see them. So it was really great seeing everyone. And the food was amazing. Great variety. Those are great. There was something for everybody. But again, the weather was great. It was really nice seeing everybody. So for me, I attended the Board of Adjustments meeting. It's very short. Legal services were approved in the amount of $1,575.50 to Merzidi Falcon LLP. And they had two applications that night, BOA 26.06 and 26.04. both were approved for the meeting, which lasted probably about 20 minutes, and then we called it a night, so I'll do it for my report. One other thing, I did want to congratulate my daughter. She won homecoming queen. I would clap until I saw the price tag for the dress. That's very nice. Attorney, any report?

Yes, I have a little bit to report, and I think that this will be the final report on the railroad track issue. Is it positive? Well, it's not as positive as I think you would like, but it's information.

Is it progress?

It's definitely progress.

I learned about an agreement that we had no idea existed. Another one. So, as you'll recall, our gripes besides just paying in perpetuity for something is the fact that we were provided bills after the fact without much of an explanation and those bills varied month to month. So that's the perspective from where we came from. We knew that there was a settlement agreement that we don't have and they don't have. We do know now that there were two agreements that applied to these railroad tracks. We do know that the crossing was there at the request of the borough, so it was something that they were doing for our benefit, not vice versa. The long and short of it is that we're billed monthly. Some of the reasons for the varying expenses month to month are the bills are for inspection and maintenance. So depending on what the inspection showed, the maintenance could vary month to month. There are federal regulations that determine how extensive the inspection is supposed to be, and they do mandate monthly inspections and quarterly inspections. So every fourth month there's a more detailed inspection and therefore a more detailed maintenance bill associated with what's identified. So that's why there's a variation in the bills, I guess, every three months. With regard to the variations associated with the differing maintenance obligations identified is the fact that the inspections are more in-depth. Also, there is another agreement. Apparently, at some point in time, we had asked for permission to run a stormwater pipe underneath the railroad tracks. And there was another agreement that imposed an annual licensing fee with an escalation clause. This started in 1951 at something that was less than $20, which at this point in time is now a $700 annual fee. Do we have that agreement? Yes, we have it now. And this call took place with Mr. Corelli on the phone with us. So he has the documents. We made sure of that as well. We also learned that there were more detailed, very detailed, I may add. This is a year's worth of detail for 2025, which, as you'll recall, what we previously had was maybe a fifth of this. It itemizes what the labor expenses are that are occurred every month throughout the calendar year They were sending it to an email address that we're not familiar with So we did correct that they are now going to Mike's email. So Mike's getting that information There's no way for them to fix a monthly cost And as a practical matter, if I was in their shoes, I wouldn't be entertaining their thought either because...

It's free money.

Well, not only is it free money, at some point in time it's going to cost them money if they set a fixed cost without any sort of escalation. So I don't think we could expect them to do that. I asked them to try to predict what the expenses would be, and they indicated, and this makes sense, that in order to do that, they'd have to send out an inspection in advance and then send people back to do the work that's identified. They said it's gonna be more expensive. And I get it. I did say to them as a fallback position that they agreed with is, I said, at least give me the regulation and the checklist for this extent of the inspection that you do every month versus every Three months, so that we have an understanding as to how much more extensive it is, so at least we have an understanding. And she said that she would do that. She didn't know if there was a checklist, but she certainly could give us the regulations, and she'll see if she has anything internally to do that. So the attorney for the railroad was very accommodating. She's, like I am, no historic knowledge. She did this research with the people that she had to speak to to get us there. So they are being cooperative. I don't think that she said anything that's unreasonable. uh we can expect that these expenses are going to increase over time uh but at the same token we're getting a railroad crossing out of it that we wouldn't have and it only exists because they said we'll give it to you as long as it doesn't cost us anything so that's where it's at mike's going to get the the lists mike's going to get the monthly invoices And obviously he's going to be looking at them. If there's anything that seems out of whack, we'll get on the call and make sure we're not being charged anything that's unreasonable.

So now at least we have a contact that we can deal with, correct? Yes, correct. We have the second contract, which we didn't have before. We have the correct email with the right information coming to Mike, and he can at least observe what the costs are involved with those things. So I think that's the best we're going to get out of this. The only thing I will throw in is, you know, this is a partnership, right? We're partners with them, they're partners with us. At some point, they're going to come to the town and ask us for something. And I will then bring up this contract back to them and say, well, we'd like to have a negotiation on how much that would cost to do that, because that's what they're doing to us.

Exactly. Yes. Yes.

It's good leverage, Mayor. OK, let's go.

How do you feel about what you came across with this investigation? Do you think the taxpayers have pumped the lights or are getting a fair deal for your business?

Yes, I think in the final analysis, I think that we have to balance what it would mean not having a railroad crossing there. I know that it means something with emergency services as the chief had articulated previously, but just the convenience factor for the neighboring neighborhoods as well. I don't think that they're doing anything that's unreasonable from what I've seen so far. Everything that they do, they have had an explanation, and every explanation is consistent with what your predecessors had agreed to execute in the form of a contract, so I do.

Well, it's my first year on finance, and I was looking at the bills, and there was breakdowns of the benefits of the individuals inspecting the tracks. It looked unusual to me, and the various amounts every month was different. So that's why I questioned it and I brought it up initially. I just thought it was ridiculous that we were paying that for a renter, but you've come across some good reasons. I was only looking for fairness of the taxpayer.

All right, so I think we're at that point now where this is a closed deal, but Michael will monitor, and Mike will monitor all that.

Right, and I'll get involved if he sees something that he feels like should. Thank you for all your work. My pleasure.

Any doubts?

No, that's it.

I will reach over to Liz as our administrator.

First of all, Michael apologizes for being absent this evening, and he has several updates from projects and personnel and other vendors. Please note on tonight's agenda that the borough reject its bids for the Hershdale Park Race-Graded Tourism Project, which includes resurfacing of the Hershdale Park walking trail. As an alternative, the borough engineer is working with a contractor through Morris County Cooperative Pricing Council to obtain more competitive pricing that will be made within our budget. We are currently working to finalize both the pricing and schedule. Given the contractors' availability, the work may be able to take place this fall with completion prior to the Recreation Commission's Halloween night. Otherwise, the project will be scheduled for early next September. I will keep you updated on the schedule. In addition, bids were rejected for the fiscal year 2025 community development block print. miscellaneous ADA curb grant replacement project because all bids exceeded the borough's available funding. The borough engineer is revising the project policies to bring the work in line with our budget and we anticipate going back out to budget in the near future. Given the timing, the project will likely not be completed until early next September. Furthermore, the borough is currently accepting bids for Lakeside Avenue phase one improvements project, which includes resurfacing of Wayside Avenue from Channel Court to Van Abb as well as Channel Court. As a contract board, this work is anticipated to take place next spring.

We will also note some personnel movement within the Department of Public Works on tonight's agenda.

The borough appointed two new full-time employees to fill vacant positions in the solid waste division and buildings and grounds These appointments from the Buildings and Grounds Division to a total of three staff members. Additionally, prior to Ryan Gostner's departure earlier this week, we began meeting up with the Prevention Coalition Office in preparation for the expiration of the grant term on September 30th. Please note that Dr. King will remain on staff until the conclusion of the grant agreement. I would also like to thank the Coalition for a successful Cardinal Coalition Give-Off Classic last weekend at Hershdale Park. Please also note that the 2027 budget packets have been distributed to all department heads, boards, committees, and commissions and are due back on October 23, 2026. The Chief Financial Officer and I will then meet with each department to review and finalize their requests before bringing them forward to the Finance Committee later this fall. Lastly, the State Health Benefits Plan has certified the renewal rate for the 2027 plan year. The Horizon PPO Direct 2035 plan has increased 16.2 in premiums. All related sideline agreements will be placed on the September 23rd, 2026 Borough Council meeting agenda for adoption and connection of the renewal of the Difference Card Program for 2027. As previously discussed, this will likely be the final year of the Difference Bar Program as we explore alternative options to reduce the borough's health insurance costs. And he says please feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

All right, just to follow up on what he wrote in a lengthy letter to Liz. um yes so what happened was when we put the bids in for hershfield park only a couple big companies put in to for the bids and they were just way overpriced on the costs uh we since now put it back out to some local companies we we feel pretty confident that the bids will come in within our numbers again so that's why we rejected both sets of those bids initially because the numbers were just so crazy out of whack. So we're hoping that we definitely are not stopping back on that project. We will finish that project and we will move forward with that project. And then the second part with the lakeside, we are, yeah, I think we're also doing Chandler Court. I think you mentioned that, the actual court itself and then everything. But what you had asked about the trees and the guardrail and all that, that's not part of it. And if you have any questions in general, I'll try to answer them for you.

I'm just curious. to, I guess, I'm not sure the word redesign, or come up with a better pricing, I guess she mentioned, or you mentioned during the letter? For the Hirschfield walkway. So if he's going to stay within budget, what is he going to do differently to make it more appealing for local contractors to take over that?

So what happened was, for whatever reason, local contractors bid on it. So it was only these big firms that bid on it, which were just out of the way. Yeah, so he reached out to some local people that he used. One of them is the people that built the Job Realty complex, and they're interested in bidding it out. So that's kind of where we'll hopefully get those numbers.

And the cooperative, right, correct.

Any other questions for our administrator? No? Okay. I'm going to say chief, but chief's not sitting in his seat. Sorry about that, man.

You got a report, chief?

Yes. So good evening. During August, the police department handled a total of 2,255 total incidences, including 1,317 dispatch calls for service. Our officers completed 97 reports. They made 12 arrests, conducted 406 more vehicle stops, issued 222 citations and investigated 23 motor vehicle crashes. Some significant incidences included two burglary investigations. One of those involved five juveniles who entered the Meridia building. and caused significant water damage. All five were identified and they were charged. The detective bureau also continued working on missing person cold case, which dates back to 1976. And they also participated in a multi-agency investigation, which resulted in arrest and seizure of firearms, narcotics, and money. We participated in the Drive Sober, Get Pulled Over program this year. I wasn't eligible for that specific grant, but what I was eligible to use was DDF funds, so they're drunk driving enforcement funds that were made available to me through the state of New Jersey. With that, our DWI enforcement detail resulted in 152 motor vehicle stops, 56 summonses, 114 warnings, and one DWI arrest. August was also important for training and preparedness. Our officers completed active violent response, active shooter management, DWI and school resource officer training, Our national night out was very successful and the department also which is a big credit to To lieutenant Rufo as our accreditation manager, but we did pass our accreditation on-site assessment without any issues so the next step is for myself and Lieutenant Rufo to go to a larger assessment meeting in front of a bunch of chiefs where they go over our assessment. And then once we pass that, then the individual from the State Chiefs Association will come in and will present us with our reaccreditation. So this is our first time going. We've been accredited. This is the first time getting recertified. So it's a big deal. Then regarding our WANA-QAB enforcement initiative, the report that was provided to you and the council covers the timeframe of July 23rd through August 31st. During that period, our officers dedicated 162 hours to enforcement, completed 213 directed patrols, conducted 128 motor vehicle stops and issued 51 motor vehicle summonses, 94 motor vehicle warnings, 24 parking summonses, and 110 parking warnings. The assessment did not identify any significant pedestrian safety or parking availability problems. However, it did identify potential improvements involving crosswalk pedestrian warning signs, parking meters, park mobile signage, and possible no U-turn signs. The department will be continuing the directed patrols along Wanaque Ave and will remain focused on traffic safety, parking, and quality of life concerns. And again, as always, I want to thank all the members of the department for their continued hard work and their professionalism. If you have any questions.

So I can tell you before we, I can tell you that because of this council asking you to spend more time downtown, we just read the numbers that happened. There is also a side effect to that. I got more calls from residents. saying, hey, I've been in this town 25 years and I got a ticket for parking in an illegal spot. And my answer to them is, if you're breaking the law, you're breaking the law. It doesn't matter how long you've been here. But there is that side of it. So I'm assuming that a lot of those warnings probably were for a lot of local people who've been in town telling them, hey, look, this is how it works. You do it again, you're going to get a summons or a ticket. But it's enough that the residents have noticed a little bit because they're paying more attention to what's going on. You know, I know everybody's on social media nowadays, and every once in a while something pops up on social media about, you know, graffiti or garbage or this, but we'll never see a comment on social media when the weeks are good and the days are good, when everything's working fine and correct. You know, you're only going to see the bad notice of one day where it caught us off guard, I think. with all the hard work from this council asking and from the police department and the bid and their all the groups involved that we've made great progress in the last year and a half compared to where we were two years ago with our downtown and it's only going to get better from there i think we can make more improvements i know we're all concerned about the graffiti we are in an investigation and i'll let the chief speak if he wants to about that about where we go with the graffiti if we catch them we will be pressing charges no matter who they are on the graffiti So that's what I have. I know, Bobby, you had a question or a question?

Thank you for your report, Chief. Just the number of unregistered vehicles. The number is 26. That just seems unusually high for receiving summonses for unregistered vehicles, right?

Sorry.

It's under motor vehicle summonses.

Oh, in the main report.

Oh. Yeah, yeah. Let me pull it up.

I'm sorry, Chief. Yes. Yes. So, I mean, we do get a lot of that because we have the LPRs in our cars. It does help with those things. But, yeah, it just depends on the time of the month. We're doing these at the end of the month when registrations are due. A lot of times some people don't even realize that, you know, they're driving because they forgot to pay.

Is it still, like, take-your-car or road-sharing?

they can it's really at the officer's discretion it's not a mandatory tow you can tow it um we have towed in the past but it's really on the whole situation and then speaking about that too i just want to touch upon that too so i know we talk a lot about enforcement and i and and i bring this up because the general public might not know but uh i think i brought it up here before but um so there's statute 40a colon 14 181.2 which basically regulates that as the police chief or I can't establish a quota when it comes to enforcement. OK, so I can't say even when I do these details and I'm getting money and they have guidelines, what I have to do, I can't say to my officers, hey, you need to go uptown and I want 10 tickets or I want 20 tickets or each officer has to do 10 tickets. Now, when I first started, that was the case. You used to be able to do that. You can't do that anymore. The state of New Jersey made it illegal. So when we talk about enforcement, I obviously want them writing summonses, but it's up to the officer to balance what that enforcement is. And enforcement could simply be talking to the individual that has a car parked illegally and tell them to move it. And that's the same thing if they pull them over or it could be that they give them a written warning. But I cannot regulate or I can't tell the officer that he has to write a summons. He has discretion. And the state of New Jersey recognizes that discretion. And that's the way we have to follow. So. Enforcement, it's a big thing. So as long as they're going out there, they're addressing the situation in any type of fashion, that is considered enforcement.

And that goes from our side, too. We as a mayor and council cannot say, you're not writing enough tickets. I get that comment, tell your guys to write more tickets. We can't do that. Same reason he's giving for hitting. He can't do it, we can't do it. He can't even come up in conversation when we're talking about negotiations. He can't even come up. So that's an important part to the public to understand. They have to do this because they are police officers and they want to do the right thing.

And they do. Yes. And I just bring it up, but our officers do use good judgment. They do balance it well between writing summonses and writing warnings. And I feel like we do a good job as a department. and being fair with our residents and people that come and visit our community. So I do feel they do.

Any other questions for the chief? I have one more. Okay. I know it's not part of the report, chief, but how are we doing with the e-bikes?

Yeah, so e-bikes, I think they're still a little bit of an issue. I just gave a kid a warning today on Wannekew Ave. He was riding double. The kid driving had the helmet, but the kid on the back didn't. We had a nice conversation, and they looked at me like they were a little stunned when I spoke to them, but I was like, either you can get off and walk it, or I can take it. They got off and walked it, and I was like, you know the rules, but I just felt that that was a better way to handle it at this point. If I see that young man again, then it'll go in a different fashion. But I think that's the approach that we've taken. And overall, it's been pretty good.

I don't know about the rest of council, but I've noticed a difference in the town. I'm not seeing as many cutting across the sidewalks anymore. I'm starting to see more with the helmets on. I mean, of course, you're going to have your one or two that are just going to go against the grain. But overall, I've seen an improvement in the town just seeing where the kids are.

Definitely. You still have some issues, but definitely an improvement. There's not as many. They're not driving around as wildly. you do get the occasion where they do yeah so if if the if the officer issues them with summons they'll be managed to be mandatory to come into court it's a it's a motor vehicle so it's treated like a motor vehicle We might not necessarily call them roadside. I would say it's going to depend on how young they are. If it's in the middle of the night and it's a 10-year-old riding this thing, I would assume that they're going to call the parent and say he's from here. Or if the child is maybe... Because those things go pretty fast, and you can go a pretty significant distance on them. So I would say every situation dictates, but if it's just a regular, they're riding it properly and they're going to issue them a summons, I would say they're probably not going to contact the parent because they're going to issue the summons and then go. But if the child is not giving them the information or maybe doesn't know certain things, then maybe they would contact them.

Any other questions? No?

Good. Thank you.

Okay, workshop. I'm going to make this simple for Liz and for myself. We are looking at striping pickleball courts on top of the tennis courts, which the school has already verified to us that we're okay to do. They're okay to play with double lines. The question is a very simple question. How many courts do we want to do? two or three we have two pickleball courts now that are right then there's three more courts that could be done my suggestion is we do two out of the three and leave one full tennis just so nobody cries that there's no tennis court but that's up to you guys And it's used to open space funding, we'll be doing it. And the open space funding, it's relatively inexpensive. We're going to do the leftover money from basketball that was donated, we're going to do the basketball court strike, and at the same time strike these people.

It's $800 per court.

And we're not going to, do the other two courts need any type of restriping? No, just to add. Just adding. That's right.

That would be a different call. So the real question is, how many do you want?

So there will still be a total of five tennis courts.

Always. No, there is going to be four tennis courts and a pickleball court. You know, the one pickleball court where the one single court is. Well, actually, it strikes both. You're on five. I'm sorry. Yes. Five tennis courts. Yes.

Yeah, because. For, say, county tournaments, you have to have five tennis courts for the high school.

There will always be five, and the school has okayed us to do this. The question is, do you want to strike a wall for a pickleball? Do you want to leave one open? That's the real question.

Mayor, I met with the vendor down there when he went out to give us a quote. Concerned with the conditions of the tennis courts? That's a whole other conversation. Okay, because they're spending money on a tennis court maybe.

So let me talk about that. It's been brought to my attention by numerous council people. And I mentioned it earlier, you know, to redo the tennis courts, which has to be done. They're getting old. It's well over $500,000. We as a town do not have $500,000 to spend on tennis courts. I think the suggestion Mike and I have discussed would be, over a year or two of county open space money that we usually get from them. We pool that money and kind of put it together and look for some grant opportunities. So we do the tennis courts. I spoke to the gentleman who could fix temporarily the lines and things, and he said, look, It's not a good fix. It's not going to be so easy as just covering up the crack and it works. He said that'll settle within a week or two and you'll have the same situation you have now or worse because it might send the ball a different direction. He recommends holding off and redoing all the tennis courts. The pickleball to me, I don't have a real issue spending $2,000 or $1,500 to do the pickleball if that's what the public's asking for a pickleball. But I'll leave that up to you guys.

Mayor, can I ask you a question? Has there been any feedback from the girls and boys coaches yet regarding the line field reports?

According to the athletic director, they have spoken to all the groups needed, and they're all okay. Okay. So this is coming from the athletic director, the school administrator, and the superintendent.

Okay.

My paperwork says lay out and install two basketball courts.

That's separate. That's different. So that money has been put aside from the basketball association. They had some money left over when they closed and bought a dispute to it because he ran it. Yeah. And Lloyd and Scott, too.

That's right. Everybody's got a hand in that.

So there was extra funding, and nice and early enough, they donated it to wind the basketball court. They're paying for that. That is not part of the open space.

Well, that's not an installation of new basketball courts. That's just line.

And that's lining because the basketball courts there are the short basketball courts. So the long basketball courts, that's the court that's already done. It's the two short ones. That gives you more opportunity to have more people play, you know, two games versus just the one, which is used. And that money from PAL, you know, as Scott and Bobby know, That was all from PAL operations. When they closed down and went to PLRYO, they had a sufficient amount of money. We bought benches in memory of Rich Fleischer. But when Tilcon went and made the new courts, they didn't strike them on the second one. So that money was not taxes. That was from old PAL operations.

So the other question is, and maybe Scott or Bobby know the answer, is Lakeside bringing back the best court courts?

So they had a discussion on last board event. So they don't know. They're afraid of putting them inside the fence because there's a lot of kids in that area and they're afraid people will get hit by basketballs. um so they're not sure they want to put basketball hoops up but they're not sure where they're going to put them up so that's why these basketball hoops that we're doing now from pal and more important because for anybody who's been to town i'll tell you what big size basketball games all the time and down on saturday morning and at the 5k race there were kids playing on the basketball court

They had a full game going.

They had 10 kids on the court, and they were playing on Sunday morning.

This discussion really isn't about the basketball, though.

It's about the pickleball. What do you guys feel about the pickleball? Let me ask you this. If they line for pickleball now, is that going to be wiped out when they redo the tennis course? Yes, that's right.

We do them three years from now.

Well, however long it takes, because the problem is just going to get worse, and it's going to impact pickleball players just as much as it is tennis players.

We do not have the funding right now to do that.

Even with the funding, it's not just the tennis players. It's going to impact the pickleball players. They're going to start complaining, too. And to be honest with you, I have no problem with pickleball, but this is... You know, if I have to measure where priorities should be set, I know the money is different than spending-wise when I was in 2000. But, you know, focus is going to need to have, whether it's two or three years.

Yeah, but it's coming. Open space wouldn't pay for the new tennis courts. Open space could pay for the striping, but not for new tennis courts.

I'm just saying it would be a shame to have to go through it again. We would. And then we're going to have problems.

No question we would have to.

And then, you know, obviously with the cracks the way they are now, and I saw it during...

I understand. The cracks were bad.

I saw it in Tuesday's game. One ball came, they hit, and it went in the opposite direction.

And maybe... Bobby and I spoke before the meeting. You know, we'd like to set up a meeting with Bobby and Scott and the superintendent, the administrator, and the athletic director, and us and Corelli to kind of hash this out. Maybe there's some money they can get funding-wise, and with our funding, we can join a project together. I can tell you, I've been around long enough where when we did it the last time, the tennis courts, the school didn't want to have any say, put any money into it, so we had to pick up that cost. And we, back then, probably Because there was two prices. One was a cheaper price, one was a more expensive price, very expensive. We went cheaper, and that's probably why we're still having some issues now. To fix them properly because of the water that sits underneath it, it's a major expense.

That's exactly right.

All right, thanks, ma'am. You're asking the question...

I would say start off with two at least. I have to agree because that was my exact question. If we're going to all of a sudden line down a third quarter and then you're going to, in two years, have to redo it. We're going to put a third one in. Start with two. He did ask the gentleman who's going to do the stripping, which two do you want?

So does anybody care about the court? If you're looking at the court on the very far left, that's perfect. There's no cracks or anything. So I don't know if you want to keep that for tennis.

I'll leave it up to you guys. I don't know. And the other ones have tennis.

I think so, too. I think you can just put the pickleball courts one right after another.

So that would be the last two on the right side.

Those are your doubles courts. The doubles courts are to your right. Your singles courts are to your left. So let's do the doubles. Do the doubles courts. Do the doubles courts.

Liz, you got that? Do the doubles courts. Okay, so then we'll do the two, stripe the two to leave a full tennis court in good shape that they can play on. And then we're going to, we all understand we have to address the tennis courts too.

Yes.

Thank you, Mark. Okay.

But we can do that through open space, right?

Yes, we're going to try to reach out through grant writing and the school too.

Yes, absolutely. Okay.

Oh, wait, do we want to change, want it funded through open space or through rent?

No, this will be through open space.

This will be through open space, yes. Okay.

um rec doesn't really have yeah per se money on that um okay so uh motion to open the meeting for public comments second smith hinton councilman cruise all in favor all right yes anyone from the public like progress when you press 322 want to queue avenue

You have it on the agenda tonight. You have two leans on property on the agenda. At last month's meeting, there was discussion about putting a lien on the old cleaners at 243 Wanaque Avenue. Has that been done? I don't really know if a lien is going to do anything on that property because the people are out of town. They're in California now. and they've absconded on virtually everything with that property, which brings me to the next point. And I don't know the answer to this. Is that building condemned? It's not. What if you were to condemn that building? What would happen? I don't know. Okay. All right, let's go back to the parking meters for one second. Mary, correct me if I'm wrong, is that if someone were to receive a summons for a parking because those signs are incorrect, did you indicate to me, again, I don't remember what you had told me about this, that they could take it to court and fight it? Okay, so if that is true, that is the case, until, All those parking signs are brought up to code or wherever they need to be. Why not suspend all parking on 1 and 2 Avenue until those signs are put into place? That takes the pressure off the police department and it buys a little time for them or whomever to put those signs up as well. Might also light a fire under their butts to get those signs up a little quicker so that you can get that money back into the meters. Just a thought.

Anyone else? Still up?

So as a pickleball player...

I just need your name and address.

Name and address. Oh, Susan Davis, 417 Broadway. Okay, so as a pickleball player, you're converting tennis courts, well, you're going to be using tennis courts for pickleball. we don't have the right size net the height and everything else with that and when we've used it other times there's like when they need it for tennis The pickleball players can't play, even the one that's dedicated for pickleball. So I feel like if you're just going to put lines and I mean, there's a lot of tennis players as well in this town, because when we go to play pickleball, we see that there are people playing tennis at the same time. I feel like you really need dedicated courts for pickleball. You know, we're trying to pull the net down so it's more of the proper height for pickleball. I know it's going to be a lot of money. We were discussing this, some of the girls that play early in the morning. What if we do fundraisers? I mean, I'm sure we're never going to raise enough. I don't know what the cost is. I don't know if I personally could get people to give us estimates of what it would be. We were thinking of actually going towards the dog park and making maybe three courts going this way, the dog park goes along this way. Because when there's people playing, they have their dogs there and we're playing pickleball, and they're throwing the balls for the dogs, there's like a big smoke storm coming onto the pickleball from the dirt being picked up by the dogs. So it's not ideal to have a dog park right next to pickleball. So ideally, if we could move that Maybe in some of the free space that we've opened up where the houses were knocked down for the flooding and whatnot. I don't know. I haven't really thought it out where is a better place for dog park. I think that's just as important as well. But I think that would be ideal for the pickleball. If you could do that, you could put three courts in. Let the tennis players have all of those courts for tennis, because that is important for the girls tennis. They have quite a few players. So just a thought.

Thank you.

So about the people, I know that we have agreement that the high school keeps the nets and we keep the courts. I know that's always been a thing. I also know that going for new courts, they're almost $200,000 a court for a brand new court. So to get two new courts, $400,000, I know nobody has that either. I personally who runs the rec program, I know Karen's charge of rec overall, but I run the pickleball myself between outside, indoor, you know, from October to May, and then we move outside. We have almost 45 people between the rec program. And I know once a blue moon, you like to come down yourself, Mary. You know, so... With that all being said, I'm wondering how we can possibly, I know two courts are getting put on, how we can possibly reline the one court, the single court. So if there's a way to reline it or while they're all down there, go over the single court because that's faded. It was put in during COVID. So if there's a way for while they're there to reline it, That would be great because it's fading. I mean, the tennis courts are fading as well, as we all see. But if there's a way while they are there for them to repaint one court, so it would be three courts they put down two, and they repaint a third if there's a way for them to do that. That would be great. I know that we are all working together between us and the high school. I spoke with the athletic trainer or the athletic director. He thanks me. Mr. Hales, the tennis coach, thanks me because I work around the tennis schedule. I got the tennis schedule for the fall. I'm about to start the ball capable so I got their tennis schedule we're all going to work together and that's what we're going to do so if anybody has any questions about it you can all you know reach out to me about it you know that's my number is on it so I would be glad to work with anybody about this whole thing as you see most people most police that drive past there chief drives past there and sees me there almost you know every other day so i would be glad to work with anybody about this you know the whole thing i work with people and when i went with randy on the side you know we could possibly do it but it's going to cost 200 000 per court like i said so we'd be glad to work with anybody about this to make it successful so appreciate that thank you anyone else from public contracts

Seeing no one, can I have a motion to close the public session? Motion. Second. Councilman Hinton, Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye. Against? Okay. So going back to Randy, yes, the liens just get piled up as a group. You know, there's many different liens on that property for many different reasons. And maybe you want to mention liens are painted in an order, right? First lien, second lien, third lien.

Well, in the order in which they're recorded, but if they get paid at all. I know with regard to that particular property, and I haven't been involved since I began this term, but last time I was a borrower attorney, I know that they were unresponsive, they weren't in the state, and all it's going to be is a lien on the property. I'm sure we have tax liens on that property by now, and I guess no one was interested in acquiring them. At the time that someone eventually does acquire, then maybe you have a chance of having things resolved.

So going back to the history on that property, they're in California. The family has passed away. It's left to the children. They want no part of it. We've had conversation with them. It would cost us more than the building is worth to go out and fight that in California in court, so that's why we don't go after the liens. There are numerous liens on the property from numerous different people. So the lien thing is lost for us. The building is not condemned, and if we condemn the building, we would never go in there because it's trespassing. We would have to have a reason. So if a wall collapsed or something was going on, a health reason, whatever the reason is, we can't just condemn a building because we don't like where it is or what it looks like. It has to actually show condemned reasons, and it's not there yet. There's no reason for that. Suspending the parking, we would not give up that revenue that we have right now from the parking. The signs should go up pretty quickly. I know they're in the process of making them. There's not a lot. We're not talking about every meter. We're talking about parking signs that are actually in the street. I think there's maybe five or seven of them. i'm not sure the amount but the dpw is aware once i get the sign so we have a company that we deal with the county actually partner with us and they make the sign source for free uh i think they've just about finished them and then are just putting just replacing the sign that's there now with this new ordered sign once that's in place then the ordinance reads that you can't do this and then if the police have to find a reason, I'm going to let you address that, of why it's passed a certain amount of time. You can't chalk tires. It has to be on camera. There's a whole bunch of reasons that it has to be. Just because if this person was to come, move the car forward and move it back, he's allowed to do that. That's resetting the time.

You just got to move it to the next spot.

Right. He can just move it. I'll let you address it in a minute. You know, so it's not just physically he doesn't get in the car in eight hours. Yeah, probably they could write a ticket. But if he's smart enough and goes and moves it and it comes back, that's unfortunately just what it is. But I'll let you address that.

Yeah, it's just it just the way that the way the statute is written, you can't park there for more than three hours. So, I mean, literally the person could get in the car, drive around the block, park in the same spot. And he's good.

And that's not addressed in our work.

It's correct. No, I'm pretty sure the way that the ordinance reads is pretty similar to the abandoned vehicle statute, which is you just you can't use it. That's why we used to chalk the tires years ago so that we would know if the if the car moves, the car showed any movement, then you wouldn't have you wouldn't write you wouldn't write the you wouldn't write the summonses because they because they could.

But now, I mean, I guess there's ways with cameras. We could tell if it's in the camera view.

If it catches it on camera and the officer gets a call out there and then specifically, you know, witnesses this, then he could he could write the summons or he could just tell the person to move.

He doesn't have to.

He doesn't have to. Yeah. As long as he takes some type of enforcement, then the officer is fulfilling his obligation.

Okay, for the tennis courts, I mean, for the pickleball courts. Unfortunately, a couple of things you brought up just can't happen. Where the homes came down, the rule of the reason those homes came down is you can't put anything there. You can't build on that property. So it has to stay open like that. The parking area that you're talking about is actually owned by the high school. They own the parking area there, not us, but certain parts of it. So we couldn't just take over some of the property and build there. These pickleball courts to build are $200 to $250 per court. and we'd have to have a place to build them, which we were very limited on space because of most of our south end being in the flood zone, we can't put in a pickleball court. Now I've been working with a resident who has an engineering background, and he believes that some of the houses where the streets were, where there's no longer houses, why couldn't we use that area to build a pickleball court? And I've explored that with the county. because the county now owns that property when the houses came down. And they had issues with the curbing and things. It's a far-fetched idea, but it maybe could work. I'll say that. I hear what you're saying, but it's the best that we could do because our town just wasn't built with pickleball. Where it's the pickleball became so popular, I'd buy it, like Mr. Shakotano said. It's unfortunate the way it's set up, the way we have it, so this is the best alternative we have. I agree with you, though, that the nets are not ideal. If you're a real pickleball player, they are not ideal nets. And I don't think there's much we can do, but I will reach out to our engineer to see if there's a portable net that maybe we could put on one of those sites that could be kind of moved in and moved out. But when the tennis is played, which you mentioned, they would need all five to have the county tournament. But I guess they could put the net in for that tournament and then, you know, remove it for that. So that's something we can talk about and look at. But unfortunately, we don't have the space right now to build a pickable or the funds actually. Mr. Sciacatano, I know you're a volunteer, you're not working for the town in any shape or form. We have to keep that in mind. You're asking to stripe one that's, I haven't been down there to take a look. I don't know if anybody's looked at striping on that last one. It was adequate.

It was adequate. It wasn't great white, but it was adequate. And that's what the striper was.

Okay, so the striper's saying it's adequate, so we'll just probably leave that and stripe two. You know just as well as everybody else how much those fields cost where there's no way we're going to be purchasing new pickleball courts. I wish we could. I mean, I wish we had an area to do it. I wish we had the money to do it. I would love to do that. It's just unfortunate we can't. So we're trying to accommodate the best we can between what we have and what we can use. And maybe it'll get better. Maybe we get some funding from the the county or the state to help us offset some of these costs. But I agree with Councilman Cruz in that fixing the tennis courts right now is a priority because if we don't, they're just going to deteriorate so much.

Okay. In our letters going back and forth to the state about the funding.

Yes, that would be great.

For the cleaners and for pickleball. If we could throw those ideas into the...

I agree with everything that's been said about the cleaners. I've been fighting with that cleaners for many years. It's an eyesore. It doesn't belong in our downtown, and it's in an area where we could have a nice what I call pocket park that would just sit there as an opening into the pond hole in and out. It would be a win-win for everyone involved. It's just unfortunate the way it sits on these brownfields, and there's so many brownfields. How many brownfields are there in South Carolina? hundreds, maybe thousands of them, and the state just has no revenue to fix them. So our one chance, and this is where you came in with your letters, and I was close in trying to get the EPA to kind of use some of their funds to clean it up or fix it and open it up. They were back and forth with it a little bit, then said we can't do it. But maybe we push them harder, maybe we can see what we can do. Pros before, anybody have pros before?

Just quickly, I just wanted to see, how's the progress with the Oakland?

going very well right now so the last i spoke to our our supervisors were down to about 32 cans of people not changing the can size and these are people stating a point more than worrying about the cans but at the end of the day their garbage unfortunately is not going to get picked up so at some point they're going to have to switch to the cans i can tell you that um The manpower and the people that are picking up the cans now are much happier that we've gotten to the size where they can control it and pick it up.

It's good for them.

The recycling is working very well over there. The cardboard is working very well. Our recycling center, by the way, will be closed tomorrow if anybody's interested because they're doing some work on the road there. But Oakland residents are using our recycling center, which we didn't think they would use it as much, but they really are. So that's good news. And I appreciate the recycling center. You get your little sticker. Yes, they did get a sticker. And that's because the Oakland residents, we don't know who they are. Any other questions before? That's it. Okay. Motion to adjourn. Motion. Councilman Vague, Councilman Cruz, all in favor? Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

Have a good session. Look at that.