Borough Council - Regular Meeting

This meeting is open according to the law on public meetings. According to Chapter 231 of the Public Law of 1975, an appropriate opinion was passed for this meeting. This meeting of August 17, 2026 was notified to Courrier News and to Starledger published on the website of the municipality and displayed on our display panel. A copy of this opinion is available to the public and will be attached to the verbal trial of this session. Mayor Gallagher is excused tonight. Members of the Council. Theresa Bonner. Present. Andrew Conti. Present. Glenn Duné. Present. Randy Pitt. Gina Stravik. Roger Verme.

Present. Raise your hands to salute the flag.

I swear fidelity to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic that represents it. A nation under the banner of God.

May I have a motion to approve the June 6th verbal trial? Motion adopted.

Opposed.

Members of the Council. Teresa Bonheur. Andrew Conti. Glenn Duné. Randy Pitts. Gina Stravit. Roger Verne. And for the approval of June 20th. Motion adopted. Discussion?

Call.

Members of the Council, Theresa Bonner, Andrew Conti, Linda Lee. Abstention. Randy Pitts, Jeanne Astraville.

Abstention. Roger Vaud.

We have no report or opinion from the Departments. We begin with the reports of the committees. Thank you.

As the City has noticed, La bibliothèque n'est pas accessible dans ses locaux actuels, mais les programmes continuent à travers la ville. Vous pouvez consulter le site web du système des bibliothèques du comté de Somerset pour connaître les événements et leurs horaires. Ils se tiennent au Somerset County Business Partnership and Middle East Organism, des sessions d'hosties and chai chez Lease Café, There are really excellent programs in the city, I invite you to take a look at them. As for public safety, you may have noticed on Main Street, new pedestrian, solar, with traffic lights. Basically, you press the button, it flashes, and we hope that this will improve the safety of pedestrian passages in the city. Sorry, I'm a little tired.

That's all. Thank you, Randy. Le comité consultatif historique se réunit ce jeudi, mais rien d'autre à signaler.

Le conseil de santé se réunit le 16 septembre. L'équipe de secours de Somerville poursuit son excellent travail. Ils ont fait prêter serment à un nouveau membre lors de la dernière réunion. Et les adhésions sont ouvertes. Donc si quelqu'un souhaite faire du bénévolat, de manière très productive en tant que technicien ambulancier.

Thank you, Roger.

The Environmental Commission met last week. Unfortunately, I could not attend, but I have an update. This was an edition success of the National Night Out, a lot of good exchanges with residents and useful information collected. The Environmental Commission also carried out an inspection of the trees in the city center on July 21 with a tree grower, with a tree grower. Five trees have been removed from the city center to date and the Environmental Commission works on the locations of species replacement and checks the suitable places to plant them, we hope, this fall after soil tests. In addition, restoration work on the habitat is planned, which I will talk about in a moment. It is this Saturday, August 22 at 9.30 p.m. We will work at Pocket Meadow and at Shelly Grove, at the intersection of William and Grove. If you want to volunteer, please consult our social networks to register or send us an email. And also on September 3, we will do a community plantation of 250 trees to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America in America. Volunteers are welcome and more details will be communicated soon. Other public events, on Wednesday September 9, David Devorin will host a session on the fight against the increase in energy costs from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Building of Social Services, 27 Warren Street, Room 1. He will talk about how to make your house more energy-efficient to reduce your bills and will present the new community solar project approved for discharging. Finally, on October 4, the electric vehicle show will be held together with the artisanal show and the summerville street fair. The environmental commission is looking for local electric vehicle owners to present their cars. So do not hesitate to contact us to see if you can expose your car on October 4. Many things in perspective. Thank you Roger.

Je tiens à remercier tout le monde d'être venu au National Night Out.

Je veux remercier bien sûr le service de police, nos premiers intervenants, les organisations communautaires présentes pour accueillir nos résidents et le service des loisirs pour leur jeu de la cible et les activités qu'ils ont organisées. C'est toujours une excellente soirée et j'espère que vous avez pu participer et en profiter avec vos familles. Très bien, passons à la suite.

Quelqu'un propose-t-il d'ouvrir la séance au public ?

Proposition adopted. Supported. Discussions? No. Members of the Council, Theresa Bonnet, Andrew Quintero, Glenn Denney, Randy Pitts, Gina Stravi, Roger Berne. The session is open to the public. Please approach the microphone, address your comments to my attention and we will continue. Names and addresses for the public. My name is Zoltan and I just left TESAB. I came to talk about the DSA. The new owner of the company here. I see one thing compared to last year. What's going on this year? It seems that sales are down. What I see is that there are not enough people who come here who are really ready to spend money in local businesses. And what I see is that there are not enough young people coming here It seems that they always organize a lot of events on the weekends. What I see is that I think the work of the DSA would be to help us, local companies, to succeed. I don't see anything. I don't see my store, nor the logos or the promotion of any other company. There are clients who come to my store and who just move to Somerville. They love the city and they ask me if I can give them a brochure where they can see a map with the shops. The other big problem is also during the weekend events, people, a lot of people come. And they go from store to store looking for toilets. We have fundamental needs and we don't have any. I have a sales store to take. I can't provide toilets to anyone. It's a huge problem. And honestly, I would like to see more events. Not necessarily expensive events. I have some ideas on how we could maybe involve the local residents and try to create something, even for the week or weekend, it doesn't matter, but we have to create something that attracts people here who want to spend money. Does the DSA still maintain its website? And if so, is the map still valid? Because I know it's been a while since I've been there. I know that on the DSA website, there was a map that, if we clicked on the different shops and places, displayed information.

Yes, advisor, I haven't consulted recently, but I have no reason to think that this is not the case.

I'll check. Very good, just to make sure it's up to date. If I can add something, I was a few days ago. Je n'ai pas pu trouver une seule photo d'un commerce en ville. Je veux dire, il y a peut-être une carte, mais concernant ce qu'il a dit sur le fait de montrer les commerces et les choses à faire en ville, il n'y avait rien, peut-être deux photos de Sommerville. Tout au plus... Qu'est-il arrivé au kiosque ?

Je pensais qu'il y avait un kiosque.

C'est celui du comté de Somerset.

Attendons une seconde. Laissons, laissons, nous aurons, laissons le public s'exprimer. Any other comments? I'm Kenneth Lee. I own a few units on Division Street. So what Sultan says is valid, but from our point of view, we must also be careful because we have a lot of people who run away from others. We have homeless people on site.

There are a lot of incidents that happen in this sector.

Parking is not really ideal during these big events and we probably have to... It is therefore important to withdraw from the world. I agree.

Thank you very much for coming to talk to us tonight.

As you may have noticed, we were all noting what you had to say.

It is important for us to hear that we do not always have feedback from our merchants from the city center. But these are certainly points on which we can lean on. Kevin is the chair of the council of the DSA and Teresa is the liaison.

We can therefore certainly bring these questions to the attention of the council.

Obviously, we would be delighted to see the passage and as you have highlighted, it is fantastic, but it does not benefit everyone. So we can absolutely examine this question, this question. As far as parking is concerned, the neighborhood is considering promoting some unknown public parking. One of them would be the parking lot for veterans, which is not used to its full capacity. This parking lot, located right next to Warren Street, would be an ideal place to park and has many seats. It is generally less frequented, especially on weekends, and far from being crowded. We can work on it in the neighborhood to ensure that people know how to park, especially during major events. The streets fill up very quickly. The surface parking also fills up quickly. There is this parking, this building. There is also the parking behind Edge 2, a paid parking, but it is also open to the public. There is a part reserved for residents and a part for the public. Je veux absolument vérifier le site web car ce que vous dites sur l'absence de carte est un point qu'il faut régler. Pour reprendre le point du conseiller Pitts, nous devons nous assurer en discutant avec la DSA qu'il y a une représentation et la possibilité de voir, surtout avec l'usage actuel du web, de pouvoir cliquer pour voir au moins une photo du magasin ou quelque chose du genre pour garantir que tout y est. Cela ferait un peu de publicité lorsqu'il clique sur ses emplacements. Yes, I was just going to say that I have not consulted the site for a while and it is a very good remark.

If he does not show any local company and if he focuses only on events, so to speak, then he does not fully fulfill his mission. Je voulais aussi dire que si vous avez des suggestions pour améliorer le fonctionnement avec la DSA, n'hésitez pas, je passerai si vous me préparez une liste. Je sais que vous êtes très occupés et que vous ne pouvez pas assister aux réunions. Si vous voulez me donner ça, en taper une copie, je l'emmènerai à la réunion, je la lirai et nous pourrons discuter. D'accord ?

Examining the situation, we are simply discussing points on which we can act and that we can treat quickly. We have heard everything you had to say, but some things are easy to achieve, as we say, and we can approach them very quickly and efficiently. Anyone else has any advice?

Yes, I think the problem of public toilets, sorry. The question of public toilets is a long-term issue that we must resolve because I think it was one of the points he mentioned. There are not really good public toilets in the city center. C'est ça, exactement. Mais c'est quelque chose à garder à l'esprit sur lequel travailler.

Et ensuite, j'ai posé une question sur le kiosque. Nous avions parlé d'avoir un kiosque d'information. On dit que celui qui était là appartient au comté.

Celui qui est sur Division Street est un kiosque du comté de Somerset. Il est donc géré par eux et tout ça.

Mais il n'est plus là.

Il a été inversé.

C'est ça, c'est ce que j'ai remarqué.

Oui, il a été endommagé, soit lors d'une tempête, soit par du vandalisme. Et il a été retiré. I mean, this is not the first time that we hear that the DSA has problems and doesn't do what people who pay taxes to the organization expect. They don't see the money spent in a way that benefits them in their companies. We have already spoken in private and in public about our concerns about the fact that it becomes an event promotion organization rather than an organization of promotion of our city center and the place itself, the physical space. We told them when they were sitting here that they should do more placemaking so that the space seems safer and easier to travel and occupy. I just have the impression that no matter how many times we listen to the business leaders and the number of comments we make here, we do not get the expected response from this DSA. DSA.

So for my part, I can't wait to hear their next budget proposal.

Would that be beneficial? And I don't know, Jérémy, you could maybe intervene on that. Could the council or the district send a kind of quick survey to the members of the CID to try to understand what's going on? Does that depend on our competence? So maybe with the permission of the council, we could prepare a survey for business owners and residents who are in the CID and who pay the CID tax with a few questions that they can give us their opinion. It comes back to the office and we can move forward from there. Something is different. Does it suit everyone?

Who is the tax of the SID paid by the owners?

So, are they the companies or? Well, it would be everyone. Anyone who pays this SID tax benefits, I think, from the DSA, right? Yes, but advisor, I just want to know what I have to prepare. Was it just for... Because when you said those who pay the SID tax, it's not the company, it's the owner. So, if I may, I pay my rent and I receive an invoice for a part of this SID tax.

Yes, so I was going to finish this sentence.

And I thought you were addressing someone else, not me, but yes, that's the only reason I have to understand. I can prepare everything you need. I'm just trying to better understand. To whom was the survey intended? If it's the companies that pay the rent, it's not a problem. If it's a owner, it's not a problem. I would simply do it in two different ways. I think we want to include everyone. Okay. I would say that obviously the business owners who are there experience the daily life of what is happening in the city center. Obviously the real estate owners feel it too. We had a lot of conversations about them. the infrastructure and things like that. I want to make sure that whatever the survey that we broadcast, we can certainly help you or that we can sit down to discuss it. Yes, I would simply say that I can work with Patty on this. We can find something that I think will meet your needs. Yes, and it is noted. So just to make sure that we take into account most of the points raised so far, we have had comments here, but I think that if we can sign them, because I know that it has been said that meetings are difficult to follow. We often hear residents say that it is difficult to come to these meetings. We have heard the owners and the companies say that it is difficult to go to the ADSA meeting. Maybe we could just sign all this, see what our next steps are. And again, I think that this will give us the opportunity to have an honest and in-depth discussion with the ADSA Council so that they can see what has come back to us and that we can take measures to move forward and see how to bring improvements for our business owners and our landowners. Yes, I have a question for Chargé de Liaison and for Kevin. Are their meetings recorded like ours, which are put on YouTube so that the public can watch them on their own?

Is the DSA like that? I don't know if they are recorded, if they are live.

I should say that they are recorded, they are live, but I don't think they are published somewhere to be viewed later like ours.

If possible, it may be a way for our city merchants to feel informed of what is happening, even if they do not have time to attend meetings or even to connect to Zoom links. I don't know if it's possible.

Yes, I am sure that if they are recorded and broadcast live, I imagine that it is possible to publish them somewhere.

Is there a communication with our financial director? You know, reports that allow to our financial director to know where these funds go and how they are spent. Eh bien, je ne sais pas si PEJ les reçoit, mais ça ne relèverait de toute façon pas de nos compétences de les examiner.

Non.

Oui, non. Elles, elles, vous savez, une fois que les quatre paiements trimestriels sont autorisés, ils le sont, n'est-ce pas ? Donc oui, si elle les reçoit, je ne pense pas, vous savez, elle les reçoit peut-être juste à titre d'information, mais les paiements sont en réalité autorisés par le Conseil une fois par mois.

Oui, nous.

Au bout du compte, ils doivent aussi passer par un processus où leur budget est examiné par nous, mais ils obtiennent aussi... Ils obtiennent, nous sommes audités.

Un audit.

Nous avons aussi un audit. Donc, tout ce qui ne serait pas conforme à ce dont vous parlez, c'est bien. Donc, nous pouvons certainement attendre, car, encore une fois, c'est la même chose que pour la bibliothèque, l'école et le comté. C'est déjà établi. Cet argent est décaissé. Nous ne recevons rien en retour de la part.

Yes, their audit has just been completed.

The council will vote to accept it in the same way that you would normally do it during its next scheduled meeting and then it will be available. We have a good voice. The main objective at the moment is to listen to the people who came here tonight. Thank you again for coming. But we know that there are other people who want to express their opinions, so I think we have a voice to follow and we will be able to evaluate once we have heard what our voters have to say. We have an order to present tonight. Now, Kevin, I think this captures just one change. In housing, C'est le cas. Ce qui s'est passé, c'est que nous avions adopté ceci initialement, puis nous l'avions modifié lors de nos discussions avec l'État au sujet de leur modèle d'ordonnance. Et maintenant, nous revenons en partie en arrière. So what is happening now is that anyone who builds a bi-family home or transforms a single-family home into a bi-family home will have an obligation to contribute to affordable housing, which was not the case before. And we are not trying to penalize if you want to improve your single-family home. You know, you get your permits and do everything necessary. This has no impact. It's only if you convert a single-family home into a bi-family home or if you build a new bi-family home. A motion for the introduction.

It's proposed.

Supported. Discussion. Councilor Theresa Bonheur.

Yes.

Andri.

Tina Stravec. Yes.

Very good. We now move on to our consent resolutions.

Is there any that the council would like to withdraw?

Very good. We also have an additional question at the end of the day that will be dealt with at the end. So we have number 247 concerning the cancellation of tax and receivables for the known address under the name of 187 Grove Street, Ilo 107, Lot 13. Number 248 approves the candidacy of Santiago Fernandez in the service of Somerville firefighters. The 249 approves the hiring of Russell O. Warner Jr. as a full-time worker on September 8, at the time of 22h50. Le 250 accept une subvention de 1,146,975 dollars du programme de fonds de réhabilitation des sites à rejet dangereux via l'Autorité de développement économique du New Jersey et le Département de la protection de l'environnement. Le 251 approuve un contrat de 2 ans pour des services d'entretien ménager au quartier général de la police, confié à Affordable Business Services. Le 252 nomme Joseph Lucas en tant que stagiaire analyste en documentation financière non rémunérée Le 253 autorise l'exécution d'un accord de licence avec 24 divisions Red Dev LLC pour l'installation d'une caméra de sécurité appartenant au bureau couvrant le Fireman's World Camp. Le 254 autorise l'initiative Community in Crisis Goes Purple, marquer la journée internationale de sensibilisation aux overdoses. And our added point tonight is the 255 which authorizes the Summerville office to conclude a global settlement agreement resolving disputes and land use objections concerning the development of Wittsworth Properties Urban Renewal LLC in the Canton of Bridgewater and authorizes the administrator of the office to sign this one after examination by the special legal advisor. Do I have a motion? It's proposed. Discussion. I just want to clarify one point on this file concerning the installation of a security camera belonging to the office.

It belongs to the office and is linked to the police service and is not accessible by anyone else but the office.

Correct. Yes, yes. So this camera was supposed to work on the low 4 to give us an angle. Okay. Yes, it wasn't great. So the owners of this area have agreed to let you fix it on the low 4. Correct. And we just had a conversation about quarterly payments, so it's time for the payment of the quarterly taxes. We have a pretty important sum tonight to distribute or not to distribute. That's not the right word. That's not the right word.

To give... No, that's even worse.

To... What is the word? To distribute? Yes, to distribute. You are very lively tonight. To obviously distribute the taxes collected, because the office collects the tax. And then we distribute it between these entities. So tonight, our total amount is 11,339,511 dollars and 100,100. This represents 7.5 million for the school. A little less than a million and a half for the county, 185,000 and a little more for the library, and 159,000 for the green spaces, with some other accessory expenses from the office. But here is the distribution of what we have. So, my motion is 11,339,511.01 dollars. Discussion. Should we pay the library? We have a valid DAI and we have a valid agreement. You know, it's the county tax. So, you know, we collected this money where people paid. So it's not a payment that we make to them. It's the contributors who paid. Amy, if you were in a municipality that didn't have a library, you would pay a county library tax. But yes, I understand your concern about this. Members of the Council, Teresa Bonheur.

Present.

Andrew Conti. Present. Glenn Zanet. Present. Randy Pitts. Jean Astravik. Roger Ferme. Present. Councilor Denine, a motion to raise the session. Well, thank you for choosing me, because I think I expressed myself badly earlier. So, I'm just going to specify that for the 250 trees, it's October 3rd, and not September 3rd. And I would like to make a motion to raise the session.

I press.

All in favor?

Against?