Borough Council - Regular Meeting

We're just waiting to make sure we're live. I'm good in there. You're good.

This meeting is called the order in accordance with the open public meetings law in accordance with chapter two 31 of the public laws of 1975 meeting. This meeting of September 8th, 2026 was provided to the Curry news and star ledger in place on the borough's website and bulletin board of borough hall. They copy this notice is available to the public and a copy of the statement shall be included in the minutes of this meeting. Mayor Brian Gallagher here. Council members, Teresa Bonner.

Here.

Andrew Conti. Here. Glenn Denis. Here. Randy Pitts. Here. Gina Stravick. Here. Roger Firm.

Here. Please stand for the salute and please remain standing after.

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.

And I'd just like to ask for a moment of silence, if I could, for Mary Ann Ray. Mary Ann passed recently. She was a smiling face in Borough Hall for many years, and she comes from a very longstanding family here in Somerville, and she will be missed. So I'd appreciate a moment of silence. Thank you. All right, motion for approval of the minutes of August 3 and August 17. So moved. Second. Discussion? Roll call.

Council members, Teresa Bonner?

Yes.

Andrew Conte? Yes. Glenn Dineen? Yes. Randy Pitts? Yes. Gina Stravik? Yes. Roger Verm?

Yes. All right, departmental reports and notices. We have none. Committee reports. Let's start with Andrew.

Historic Advisory Committee did meet, talked about quite a few things, including our historic buildings that we own and maintenance, but we'll hear more about that later. That's all I got. Okay, thank you.

Gina.

The Somerville Rescue Squad has responded to 1,089 calls year-to-date. They had 122 calls this August. They have their squad picnic on Saturday, and they continue to serve our borough well. The Board of Health meets later this month, I think the 16th or the 23rd, but at any rate, Board of Health meeting this month. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. Glad.

Great. Thank you, Mayor. The fire department has continued to be busy. They've responded to 60 calls in August, and I think they're already racking up a bunch for September. So they continue to be out there helping us. Environmental Commission will meet next Tuesday, September the 15th at 7 p.m. right here at the Civic Center. And that's all I have for tonight.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Teresa.

I have nothing to report this week. Okay.

Randy. Thank you, mayor. Just a quick note or schools are back in session. So please slow down the speed limit across our entire borough is 25 miles per hour. And please make it a habit to lock your cars, lock your homes up, not putting any panic out there, but I just let's keep our town safe. That's all I have.

Okay. Thank you. Roger. The Civil Recreation has a trip coming up this weekend for all active adults 55 plus. It's a bus trip to Monmouth Park. They're going to be going on Saturday, September 12th. It is $20 a person. It's going to depart from the middle school at 1130 a.m. and back around 5 p.m. Transportation, admission, and a reserved picnic seating area as well as a bottle of water will be included. For the food, you can bring your own or purchase from a multitude of food truck vendors that are there. For more information, SomervilleNJ.org forward slash bus trip. Uh, for any questions you can contact Kathy, uh, via her email or, uh, 7 0 4 6 9 8 5. It, it should be a nice weekend. Uh, it should be a good time for all.

Okay.

Thank you. All right. Um, I've got, uh, two items to go over. Uh, the first is in reference to the recent lawsuit that was filed. And I have a statement to read on behalf of myself and the council. The Borough of Somerville takes any allegation involving any of our departments and personnel seriously. I want to assure our residents that we are committed to accountability and transparency in all of our municipal operations, and any concerns raised will be addressed through the appropriate legal and administrative review and investigation processes. Because this matter is in active litigation, we are not able to provide further comment at this time. Um, the second item is in regards to our library. Uh, and I'm sure most folks, I'm not going to rehash a lot that has gone on. Uh, but what I will tell you is that, uh, um, I attended the, uh, the county library commission meeting, uh, last week. And, uh, there were, it was a packed house. There were, uh, residents, uh, from Somerville, um, and, uh, Almost every one of them spoke in favor of reoccupying our library space. I will say Mallory did an absolutely incredible job. She is on this issue, and she is doing extremely well on this issue. So thank you. Your comments were well placed, well thought out, well researched, and I thank you for being an ally for our library. Thank you. uh... what i will tell you is that uh... after that meeting this past thursday we did receive an email uh... myself and a couple of other uh... representatives from the borough will be meeting with the library commission uh... representatives of the library commission on on thursday and uh... We'll see what happens at that meeting. I don't have any preconceived notions regarding it. I'm looking forward to a good thorough discussion and hopefully I'll have something more to tell after that meeting. So we'll see where that goes. Proclamations, so we have two proclamations on. One is for Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month for September of 2026. Are there any representatives here for that? No? Okay. And then National Diaper Needs Awareness Week. Is there anybody here for that? All right. So, Kevin, I'm going to ask if you would get both of those proclamations to the appropriate personnel. All right. I'll give those to you afterwards.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. uh... presentation somerville station parking program uh... just as a as a way of background uh... we over the past at least past two years i've had a number of residents from uh... this area this neighborhood uh... coming to ask the borough to help uh... parking in this area is a challenge and uh... the borough council uh... up until this point was not ready to take over the streets. The borough did not own the streets. They were owned by the developer. Part of the redevelopment agreement does call for the borough to take control, to take ownership of the streets at a certain point in time. At this point, the main construction, the heavy construction for the last building in this project is completed. There's a lot of work yet to be done, but the heavy construction is completed. So at this point, the borough has been preparing to take over and take control of the responsibility for the streets, which also includes the enforcement of parking on those streets. And part of that is trying to help alleviate some of the pressures and fix some of the issues that are in that area. Is that a good assessment, Kevin?

Yes.

All right. So I'm trying to buy time while you get ready. And I think part of what we're trying to do is to advance it now so that come winter, hopefully we don't have the same type of winter that we had last year. And I know there was snow on some of these streets for a month, month and a half afterwards. So as part of that, we also need to advance the idea of snow clearing as well.

So Mayor, there's a couple things. I do want to introduce you to William Snow. William was our intern that has come on part-time to work on this program with us. He knows more about Somerville Station than anybody at this point. We've done a handful of walkthroughs. I'm going to have him handle the PowerPoint and work through it, and then certainly if we have questions, you have questions, we can proceed. We also have an introduction of an ordinance as well on the agenda tonight. So let me just switch over to our... All right, Mr.

Snow, I think you're on. Just make sure your microphone is on. There you go. Can you hear me now? Gotcha.

Okay. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for taking the time out of your night to be here. As I said before, my name is William Snow. I'm now the project coordinator at the Borough of Somerville. And throughout the summer, our team has been preparing the acceptance for Standard Dory Road, Station Road, Robeson Street, and South Davenport Street. My apologies. Dedicating our time to develop a solution that would help resolve the current parking situation here at Sunville Station. Thus presenting our parking permit program that will help manage the crowded parking upon the streets of the development. All the data that is about to be shown has been collected through the Borough of Somerville through mailing and hand-delivered surveys. Through the surveys, 124 units out of the 156 townhome units within the property have responded, coming up to a 79% response rate, with two units only submitting the number of vehicles within the property, which is included in the data, and 32 units still outstanding. Out of the 124 reported units, a total of 217 vehicles were reported. 48 units having one vehicle coming out to 48 vehicles, which results in about 38.7%. 62 units having two vehicles coming out to 124 vehicles resulting in 50%. 11 units having three vehicles coming out to 33 vehicles resulting in 8.9%. And three units having four vehicles coming out to a total of 12 vehicles for 2.4%. thus resulting in 61.3% of the reporting, 124 units having two or more vehicles, and going off current response patterns, we estimate that a full response scenario will fall in tow, projecting that out of the 156 units, approximately 60 units will have one vehicle resulting in 60 vehicles coming out to the same 38.7%. 78 units will have two vehicles coming out to 156 vehicles for the same 50%. 40 units will have three vehicles for 42 vehicles for 8.9%. And four units will have four vehicles resulting in 16 vehicles for 2.4%. Leading us to the same 61.3% of 156 units having two or more vehicles. thus leading me into the projected street availability. In Central Rail Station, there is 105 total parking spaces, 98 being standard parking spaces and seven handicapped spaces. South Davenport Street having 40 parking spaces, which is 37 standard, three handicapped. Robeson Street having 50 parking spaces, 48 standard, two handicapped. Sterna Dory having six parking spaces, six standard, zero handicapped. And Station Road having nine parking spaces, seven standard and two handicapped. Now, based on the confirmed responses of the 124 units, 76 street permits will be distributed, my apologies, leaving a remainder of 22 standard spaces open throughout the development. While based on the projected full response scenario, out of 156 units in participation, 96 street permits will be distributed, having a remainder of two standard spaces open. Now, that being said, the actual availability of the street spaces will likely be higher since not everyone is going to be home at the same time due to work, plans, et cetera. And several units are currently vacant. So weekday availability could realistically run as high as 15 to 25 open spaces throughout the complex for use by visitors and deliveries. weekend availability is a little more difficult to estimate due to variables like seasonal changes, though free spaces should still be available even at full occupancy. That'll be past the middle.

Yeah, if you don't mind hitting the next slide. So, Mayor and Council, where we're at is that There's too many cars for the streets, right? That's where we're at. So we held multiple meetings with the team here. Colin Driver was also part of the team at this location as well. What we've come up with is a program that would be an hourly program. So what would happen is... If you have a townhome in this project, you need to use that garage for parking. There appears to be some other uses right now that that would have to be corrected, and you would need to put your first car in the garage, which then enables us to have a permit program, which the second car would be afforded a parking sticker to be located on the street. And that's for all the townhomes. And if you had a third car or a fourth car, you would have to find alternate locations for that car. you know meaning that that it'll be a two hour parking on the street so you could park for two hours but if you were looking for longer term parking you would have to use one of the deck opportunities and obviously we had a couple folks that had four vehicles they too on car number three and four would have to find other parking opportunities which would include a paid deck the folks in Avalon would only be afforded the two-hour parking Monday through Friday in the street. Other than that, they would have to park in their designated deck. So both of their facilities, the one current under construction and the existing one, has a deck, which would accommodate their parking. they're very familiar with the fact that they would be limited to two hour parking Monday through Friday, and they would be limited on the weekends for four hours. So basically looking at that opportunity, you can move forward, thank you, is we would need to enforce that, that this is a new parking program that the borough currently does not have for residential parking anywhere else. We don't have time to parking. So to have two hours Monday through Friday and four hours for Saturday and Sunday for anybody without a permit or without a garage, right, they could park in the street. And again, we may look at that ordinance and have to tweak it later on. So this would include hiring additional enforcement officers to do that. And more importantly, it would include changing our enforcement system to a license plate recognition program. which we don't currently have. However, the good thing about that is we are moving to license plate recognition throughout the entire borough. So Main Street and all the other streets will be moving to license plate recognition. The numbers that you see in the parking lots would be abandoned to doing what they call an LPR program, which is the more common program today. Um, so this would be the same way here. We would also use an electronic system that would basically chalk your tires without physically chalking them back in the old days. When I was younger, they used to chalk your tires and they know when you were there and when you left. Um, this is more of an electronic enforcement because it'll basically read your license plate. and or your sticker on the outside if you're parking, but it'll read your license plate to determine when you, it'll grab the point in which the enforcement officer knows you parked there, and it'll grab the point four hours later on a weekend, and if that vehicle was to be there after four hours, they would be subject to a summons. There are some tweaks in this ordinance which we have to work around. One of them would be if you had an event or a party or something in your community that would cause an extension of time over those four hours. Maybe an overtime game for the Giants, an overtime game for the Jets. Who knows? But in either case, we're talking about planned events. So right now, we do take accommodations where people have to park in a particular area in other districts. So in other districts where you get a parking permit, and a parking guest pass. Sometimes the guest pass aren't enough for the party that you're having. This would kind of work the same way. You would go online and you would file saying, hey, William, I'm having an event. There's a birthday. I have a one-year-old child. It's a birthday. Everybody wants to come. I need more people to park on the street. We would evaluate that accommodation request and provide you the temporary improvement. And the way that would be done is We would need information about the vehicle or information about the license plate, and that would be electronically transferred to the enforcement officer. The enforcement officer would be able to see that and avoid getting a summons. What am I doing other than with my other vehicles? Well, vehicle one, like I said, would go in your townhome garage. By the way, these are not rules from the borough. That's where you're supposed to park your car according to the HOA. You're supposed to be parking in the garage. Vehicle two, because a large chunk of folks have a vehicle two, would get a permit. It would go in your side window. We would show folks where to put it. We also already have through five visits. We already have a lot of the data of what people have on their license plate, what license plate their numbers are. So we would be able to load that in as well. And then any other additional vehicles that you would have would have to make arrangements or other arrangements. You could use the paid deck up front or any other situation you may have. You may be able to rent someone else's garage if you have a collectible vehicle or something like that. There are some nuances. We do have folks that have motorcycles. And we would have to accommodate them because generally in your garage you could fit more than one motorcycle, right? So we do have someone that actually has four vehicles, but three of them are motorcycles. So we would make an accommodation where the three motorcycles would go in the garage and the one vehicle would go on the street, right, to make that accommodation. And you see the slide in front of you right now. It's tough because we call these south garages, north garages. There's availability in those garages for paid opportunities. and Avalon made us aware that every lease that they have also says that they're supposed to be utilizing their deck as well. Um, so our meetings with Avalon, you know, we felt that there might be some pushback or, or some angst regarding that, but, but Avalon is going to handle that and, and, uh, Communicate that with their tenants that they need to park in the deck. There are people that actually pay for the deck that park on the street. Because it's just more convenient, they pull up, they park, they stay there, they don't know so forth. So our anticipation of this is that. is that we have an ordinance for introduction now. It would have to have a public hearing at the next meeting. We have software that we still have to purchase as well. We've met with our veteran enforcement officers who we were gonna change some times in order to enable the veteran enforcement officers to provide the early enforcement so that there, again, there's an education process. We would probably spend about a month of warnings, and then going into late of this year, it would be into effect. That would be the plan. We have already made a request to the state to have these streets listed as public streets, that they're enforceable. by the borough. Currently now the enforcement officers pull up a screen. It's a pull down. They click on it and they move on. It's very fast. And in addition to that obviously the license plate software we have to purchase as well. There are some additional considerations Two things I know we skipped over one slide, but keep in mind it's not a 100% occupancy in the borough. And when William went through the numbers early on, he was giving you two sets of numbers, one of which the people responded to him going there, communicating and emailing us with their information. And then there was people that didn't respond at all. So we have to project that their numbers are going to be relatively the same as the people that did respond, right? So we carried those out. Even when you carry those numbers out and everybody parks on the street at the same time, there is actually a couple of free board spaces, right? If everybody was home at the same time and all our numbers are accurate and no one goes out and buys another car, but we know that's not realistic that that happens. So there are some, when we've met with the team, when I say the team, we've met with the HOA, we've met with Avalon, we've met with representatives. There are some concerns. The concerns is that one of them was if you have one vehicle today, yes, you have a garage and that's great. But you'll go out and buy a second vehicle. Well, that second vehicle would be entitled to a permit spot. So that would throw our numbers off a little. The concern from the people that only had one car was that they felt a little cheated, too, because they feel like if you have two cars today, you're getting a spot. and you have your garage as well, but if you only have one car today and you have a guest, the guest has to comply with the two or four hour parking. And they had felt that maybe they should be given a permit like that they handle. The problem with that is that that would considerably make changes to our numbers and our conversation is this is an ordinance that we're gonna have to see how it goes, right? And I think, you know, giving permits to imaginary vehicles does not fit into the matrix right now. So we have to assume that if you get a vehicle, great, you'll get a permit for that. That was one thing. The other thing was, is two hours and four hours enough? is does that really work? Now, listen, we didn't pull these numbers out of the air. They're consistent with other two hour and four hour parking throughout the state of New Jersey. So utilizing what they've done in their history is we felt this was a good start. And then again, we do have some, we have issues that we create as well. We're here tonight, right? We'll be here for more than two hours. So there are some accommodations that we have to make in order to have public meetings where people don't have to pay for parking or get ticketed. Obviously, the Veterans Memorial, they allow for parking after 5 o'clock. We have that free. It might be something we consider five days a week where we can encourage the two- and four-hour parkers to park out there as well. The... When the project was designed, obviously, we have a significant amount of handicap spots that were required, both by state law and by the planning board. There is an accommodation that We probably would ask you to make in the future changing one of those handicaps to a Purple Heart. Currently, we do have at least one Purple Heart resident in this community that's using a handicapped spot, but if someone was to park in that handicapped spot, they would be forced to a much further one away. So that would be an accommodation, provided that we meet the correct number of handicapped spots. That's the program so in a nutshell. It's it's Monday through Friday two-hour parking for guests and folks without permits and and four hours on the weekends use your garage If you're in a townhome and if you have an additional car be on the street Avalon has to use their garage in this program including the building that's currently under construction

So that's what William's data proved out. All right. So thank you. I think it was a good overview of what the approach is. First I'm going to turn it to council, but then I'm also going to ask the public if they have questions as well. We'll kind of depart a little bit. So if you two gentlemen would just stay there, and I'll see if the council has first any questions.

Well, I'm sure that it's not going to bode well by the residents. But I think one thing is maybe when we build in the future, we need to consider more parking for one thing. But I also think that we need to have availability for the public to use this facility. So make sure we figure that in. I'm also wondering about the 32 people that didn't respond and how that's going to play out. But the bigger point is, is this going to then be reflected in the new leases that they write out when they renew leases and so on? You're saying that they have a lease right now. They're understanding when they rent here that they have to use the garage and the parking garage, but it's not being enforced. But moving forward, if we're going to have this very extensive plan, then we ought to make sure that that goes into the leases as well. And then lastly, I think that I guess I'm hearing this is going to come to an expense to the borough in terms of having to monitor this system.

Councilman, thank you. Those are great questions, and I do have answers for them. It's not a perfect system, but the 32 units are being accommodated for because we're carrying that number as if they responded.

So the percentages, you're using the percentages.

We're using the same percentage, that's correct, that the people had responded and we're carrying them as if they responded in the same vein. Keep in mind, you know, and again, William walked the community multiple times and it's very easy sometimes to identify that there's some transition taking place. So there's always seven or eight units that are unoccupied. as he kind of walked through it. So keep in mind, some of those folks didn't respond because they don't exist, right? And then he did go through all the tax records and we did notice that some of them are owned by investment companies as well. So they may be using them, maybe not in a primary residence situation. So maybe they're doing business in New York and that company's occupying the space. I really don't know the answers to that, but I do want to let you know they were accommodated for. The leases, my understanding, and I can't speak for Avalon, was the leases from day one, it's not new, the leases from day one provided, required that they utilize the parking deck from day one. And again, there's a cost to that. So folks that say, why would I do that when I could park in front of my own, right? So this is going to push them back to the deck. Now, my concern, and William, not only did he grab the data, we had everybody's comments as well. So they were concerned, well, is my rent going up? To do this well, your rent's not going up. If you have a car, you got to pay for that car now where you might have been paying on the street. And we presented that to Avalon because it's a comment we received, but it would all do respect. Their rental market rates are not necessarily part of. the matrix, right? So if it affects their marketing or their matrix of rental, that's what it affects. But we did bring that to their attention is technically something is going up. There are some also, you had a third question, I apologize, I lost track of it. Oh, the cost, I'm sorry. So the enforcement officer. So yeah, so what happens is... is our anticipation is that the fee to get a parking summons in this community, depending on what you think is expensive or not, it would be expected that the fee is similar to anywhere else. And for the most part, the fee is low enough where the folks Sometimes I'm assuming they go well. I'm gonna be here I'm just gonna get a parking ticket right so that the cost of the extra enforcement officer would be offset by either the fines issued to the To to the person or to the court fees that are paid Since there is no fee for the permit because that was a concern too is maybe we put a fee on the permit right and But I think that asking you to do that in this embryonic stage of trying to deal with parking is just not going to work yet. It may be something five years down the road to consider. But keep in mind, you know, it's not a perfect system, but these are public streets, so people would say – Why should I have to pay to park on a public street? We get that now on Veterans Memorial and so forth. So you do have some concerns with that. So we kind of looked at that. I think starting with this program as a basic program is a good starting point to have in place for about a year and then to evaluate.

I think it's in, I know you wanna wrap it up.

No, no, I actually have a couple of things as well.

I don't wanna. No, go ahead. Save you for last. I think it's important that we note that since these developments have come online, we have had residents come to meetings since before we even moved, well, I guess around the time that we moved into this location, asking for relief, asking for help, as the mayor said before, and as was said in the beginning of the discussion here. And I think that this is a good start, as has been said by Kevin. I think that At the end of the day, there are a lot of folks that aren't parking where they need to park. There have been other issues where people are parking in zones where they should not be parking, parking in fire zones, parking in places, which makes first responders, it's very difficult to drive an apparatus around these neighborhoods. And I think the relief that we can provide with a program like this, while it may be hard for some in the beginning is only gonna benefit the area as we move forward. We've seen parking permits work really well in other areas throughout town around before the hospital went where they weren't paid, there was a ton of parking issues around the hospital when you had to pay to park in that deck. You don't have to pay to park in that deck anymore. We had the permits as well, but those issues disappeared. And they're still enforced, but we've seen the permit program work in other locations. And the biggest thing to know about this, as Kevin keeps saying, is that this is a work in progress. This is not the end all, but this is the start of a solution. And we are willing and have been willing, as evident by what has transpired over the summer, to work with the residents and figure out if this doesn't work, then how do we change it to go next? But a lot of groundwork has been laid to make sure that this program is successful. So thank you.

Thank you. Just so you know, keep in mind the one thing we didn't talk about was the commuter. The commuter will immediately be eliminated from parking on the street. Two hours or four hours isn't going to help them at all. We don't know really what those numbers will bear out, but that would immediately correct that as well.

I think we've got to make sure, though, whatever the fine is for that is more than what it costs to park in the deck for the day. So as long as we do that, we should be in good shape.

William has done all those cost analysis as well. We looked at the deck because we looked at that saying, you know, are people still going to go, well, I'll take my chances. Maybe the enforcement officer is out sick today or whatever. So we looked at that, and the deck is not as expensive as people would believe that it is. And we're still working with the DAC folks. Colin has been meeting with them to see if there's any other opportunities for car number three or four at a lower rate. By the same token, your comments are well taken, that the summits certainly has got to be significantly more than the cost to find alternative parking.

Yeah, and just to dovetail, Roger's comments were right on point. We have, over the past two and a half years, we've had a number of folks come in en masse, you know, with groups of residents requesting that we do something, that the parking is out of control, and to the point where I believe that we even received a petition, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. So, so, you know, it's, it's, and our comment to them at that time was that when we take over the streets, we will implement a parking program. And that time is coming. What I'll also say is that the parking is predicated. The planning board approvals are predicated upon the use of the garages. That's why the garages are there. And if they're not being used, it's adding to the pressure on the streets. So part of this is also enforcing the planning board's restriction on using the garage as a garage. That's the intent of it. That's what it's there for. So, having said that, any other comments from council?

I just want to say I know it's hard to think on this very hot day, but making sure that we continue to accommodate for snow removal and encouragement of finding which spots in the borough lots we can direct people to. Maybe we need to make more of a specific effort for different areas to go to different lots.

So that has certainly not been lost on the radar. It was part of every conversation we actually had here. Today, I don't have a solution for that. We talked about plowing and so forth, but Colin is, we're in conversation with the operators of the DAC as well as we will have shortly, we'll be talking about another deck in the borough that we may have an opportunity as well to accommodate that as well. And again, obviously, William did all the research. Did you make five attempts? We did five attempts, six attempts? I can't remember how many. We did four attempts. Four times out there trying to get people to answer a survey. So to the point where... He went door-to-door twice afterwards. 80% is a great return. It was. For a while, we were stuck a much earlier, but I will have to give the HOA a lot of credit, Avalon. They provided us a lot of intel that we would not normally know by just showing up here at meetings. So their understanding of it they fully understand the ordinance we met with them about a week ago went through it You know it's not like I explained to them and like you guys are aware. It's not a perfect system, but not everything is right It's got to be a workable system And I think this system will work. Listen, we looked at, to Roger, to Councilman Vroom's point, we actually looked at turning Avalon Way into a one-way, not a two-way. But we've learned it doesn't fit a fire truck if you park on one side and you go through. So please don't ask the firemen to go there today. So because we were like, where can we even find more spaces? But I think that with the numbers we have, if it works and listen, if there's a lot more free board spaces than we think, then we can make an accommodation elsewhere. But that's where we're at.

Yeah, and I think there will be some unintended consequences, and we'll have to deal with those very quickly. And parking is always an issue because it's change. And any time you change things, people get – some embrace it and some challenge it. But it's obvious when you go out there even tonight that you know something needs to be done What I'm going to do is open it we don't typically do this, but I will open it up to the public I would just ask that that you come state your name and address for the record and please address your comments to me On this issue on the parking issue

Hi, David Devoren, 71 Davenport Street. I'm just curious, is the opportunity for police enforcement taking away from other things that they do? I'm assuming that there's no increase in the police force. You're adding something to their to-do list. So is something coming off their to-do list because of this? That was...

Yeah, it's a good question. I think I can answer that. Kevin, correct me if I'm wrong. This would be a civilian parking enforcement officer position. It would not be a uniformed patrol officer. Good question. Thank you. Other comments?

Gila Rosenberg, sorry, I'm short. Gila Rosenberg, 45 South Davenport, and I actually bought, I don't know, like a year and a half ago. So I park in my garage, I'm one person, but I want to know what if I have a friend over for more than four hours and I pay the same amount of taxes and HOA as the people next to me who have two cars. How is that... equitable at all, if that makes sense.

Thank you. I'm doing double duty here. So that did come up. So like I say, it's not a perfect system. I work in Borough Hall all day long. I hear people call me and say, I have no kids in the school system. Why should I pay school taxes, right? So it's not a perfect system in the sense that you're paying the same as the HOA person next to you. I get it. There are folks that don't have children that pay school taxes and they say, well, I'm the kids in the school. Not to minimize it at all, but again, just to go back, it's not a perfect system. If there was a case in which you had a planned gas that you plan to be there, more than four hours, maybe eight hours, maybe a day. That would be something you'd go online to either an app or to our website. You'd fill out the form so we could bring that information to the enforcement officer so the enforcement officer is flagged that that particular license plate or that make and model of that vehicle is recognized and approved. Obviously, if someone went in there and said, I'm going to have someone staying with me for two months, that could present a problem for us. That's no different than any other residential district we have. So for instance, I know some of you live in residential districts. And if you lived in a residential district and you said, hey, I'm going to have someone here for three months, you might have to make a different accommodation because they don't have a pass for three months. If we feel after we're able to analyze this a little longer and we're able to do like vacation passes or short-term I don't want to say rentals because do you think housing, short-term parking rentals, that may be something we could do. But we're just not going to know that in the beginning of the process.

And I think we have to see the availability of spaces as this gets implemented. And then there may be some flexibility. We just don't, as you say, we just don't know. Any other public comment?

Hi, Jeff Martinez, Lisa Terrace, how you doing?

So I've been listening to the comments, right?

When we have these developers develop these lands, they have to commit to certain parking spots. This proposal only hurts the small guy, in my opinion, because they're gonna have to pay an extra fee that these developers are now charging to use their parking decks. Why can't we just do what we did by my house and just have regular parking permits, have some enforcement first, see how that goes, and expand off of that? I don't think it's fair to hurt a renter personally. These people, they rent, they're not owning for a reason, so why hurt the little guy, in my opinion? Thank you.

Thank you.

So... Thank you, Mr. Martinez. So, but... This is done in collaboration with the HOA, right? And with Avalon and the attendees. It's done because this community is asking for permit parking, right? And this program, it's not a program the borrower's creating, it's developed with that collaboration. The reality is, there would be too many people parking on the street. So with all due respect, first you have commuters parking the street. The commuters come early. They take up parking spaces. Or they may, may not. They may go into the deck. I wouldn't call those people, you know, they're not renters, they're not stakeholders, they're users of transit. They should be parking in the transit deck. That's what it's there for, right? So this program would eliminate that right off the bat.

And really, I think the way this was developed, it's actually beginning to enforce what's already, which was already agreed upon both at the planning board and then what's ultimately in the leases that are in the site. It's almost just creating the enforcement mechanism behind it. So it shouldn't be anything It is new, but it shouldn't be. And I think the Avalon and the HOA are probably very happy that we're doing it because they chose not to enforce anything. And, you know, it's left to government to enforce it. And, you know, some will praise what the council is going to do and some are going to say, you know, those guys sat up there and this is what they did to me. And, and that's the position we're in. We have to try to do the best we can for the most people.

I mean, you do have, you know, to, to council presidents comments, it's not the safest system out there right now, right? You can't get down roads. The, the, the fire zones are blocked. Um, Not only do we have to clear up those spaces, but we have to make spaces available for those that come for two hours and four hours. So there's a considerably marketable change that we're making with this. It's not like we're finding a couple spots. We're finding a significant number of spots by making availability a significant number of spots.

Any other public comment? Okay. Oh, sure.

Hi, everyone. John Brewer, 1042 Station Road. One comment. Is the permit going to be a physical sticker, something that can be transferred between vehicles? If my wife wants to park in the garage and we want to switch, is it possible to have it attached to more than one car? That's question number one. And your second question. Sure. Second question, when this gets evaluated, what will that continuous evaluation plan be? It would be great for the community to see what are those junctures, what are the numbers that we expect to hit or not hit, so it's not just a, hey, we're going to evaluate it. We'd love to see the evaluation plan as we go. Okay. Thank you.

Kevin, you want to tackle that? Yeah, I was trying to figure out my buttons here.

So the intention right now, we have several residential permit programs within the municipality. They're a little different. The plan here was that one vehicle would get a stay-at-home. And it would be a unique sticker to this development, by the way. So the people in the hospital district couldn't park here on the street. So we have to make this one distinct from the others, or else people are going to come here to use the train, and we're not going to know who they are. So what's going to happen is the sticker... The sticker will go into basically the driver side window passenger side in the back. Keep in mind this is also a license plate reinforcement. So not only will we know the car that's supposed to be in the garage, we'll know the car that's outside the garage. So technically, we would have information about both of them. So based on the gentleman's comment was could they switch on and off, technically, it may be something we can do. That's a good question. Technically, we can because we'll have both of them. But if both of their vehicles show up outside, then they're in violation after two hours. Yeah. Right? So, like me, I think most of us are kind of creatures of habit. One car goes in the garage and the other person parks outside, right?

You're parking outside.

So, you know, usually that'll be the creatures of habit. I mean, keep in mind, I have family that live in this development, too. I know one of them is not as comfortable pulling into the garage as the other one is. right so sometimes you have those scenarios um but i guess you know based on that comment mayor and council is probably something we could look at to see if we could just register both vehicles only one would get a sticker but we would know if one's out there uh we would know a little more intel about both of them yeah i think those are that's one of those unintended consequences that i talked about because that's it's that's a good fair question yeah any other public comments

Hello. Marissa Wilkins, also 1042 State Road. We do switch every once in a while for the record. Two questions related to this. One, the design of the garages is not accommodating for most large vehicles. So that is a concern that will impact residents as far as not being able to fit one or both of their cars there that I would like to figure out a plan for. And that could be as something as a standard SUV. I mean these garages are really really skinny in every direction And I know it has been flagged but just wanted to re-emphasize the need for a snow removal plan I know this year was exceptional and I think we're due for another one this year And ideally it would be something where we don't have to pay for the garage because when we did it this year We evaluated parking a car in the garage and they wanted $20 a day To reserve a spot for a 48-hour snowstorm, so I understand the need for the community to clear But we would love to have a pre-approved Yeah, and I think that's that is the goal that we would develop a pre-approved snow plan I

So we have all the – out of everybody that responded minus those 30 people and change, we do know all their vehicles, right? So if there's a vehicle that's similar to, you know – an electric large SUV, which we see on the street, and it doesn't fit in the garage, we'll be able to flag down. We'll have to make that accommodation somehow. So it sounds like in cases where there's one or two vehicles, one that really doesn't fit into the garage or is extremely tight, You know, we'll have to look at that. That was not brought to our attention by the HOA, that there was any vehicles that were over the standard size. Oh, I shouldn't say standard size. We all have different vehicles. Like, for instance, you know, a big pickup truck, for instance, that we didn't really come across that. But it doesn't mean that we won't. So we'll just have to evaluate that and make that accommodation. There are some, you know, there are actually some spaces in this development that are not assigned. We've just kind of learned that recently. It's basically freeboard spaces that they built into the development. Now, we kind of took that out of our matrix a little because we're trying to work within the confines of what we have. But there are some spaces, I think there's eight or nine of them, eight of them, that, you know, are not assigned or not located in front of another facility. And then there's also a, it's a uniqueness, it's off of Avalon Way, it's actually Station Road. There's a set of town homes that are set back beyond the Greenway that have a very unique arrangement where they have a garage and they have a parking spot in front of the garage. So there are some variables that we may be able to play with to help soften the impact.

Thank you. Any other public comment? Okay. Well, I want to thank Mr. Snow for all the work you've done on this. I know it wasn't easy. Kevin kind of kept me apprised as you went along. So, good job. Thank you. Kevin, good work. Colin, good work. Again, it will be a work in progress. As we go along, we will be making revisions for issues that we see. You know, if there's an escalade, and an extended cab pickup that's one of these super wide dualies, we're going to have to look at those. We are going to run into those one-offs that we may have issues on, and we'll evaluate them at that time. But I do want to thank the residents for coming out. It's gratifying to have you here. And I also want to thank you for approaching this from a very, polite standpoint. Sometimes these issues can get a little dicey. And I don't know if you've watched social media today, but, you know, the idea of coming to a council meeting I think is a good one. And, you know, expressing your opinions and your beliefs, it's great. It's what you're supposed to do. And we take all of your comments and your opinions very seriously. And you did it in a very good fashion, a very polite fashion. And I think hopefully it was both reflected back at the same time. So thank you all for coming out.

Appreciate it. Mayor, before the residents leave, the way we're going to do this, because I thought someone had asked this question, no one did, is how is this going to get into effect? Well, we're going to turn this place during the week into a small DMV. And we're only going to ask the residents. They don't have to come to Borough Hall to fill out anything. Yeah, a functional office will have different hours, different days. We'll ask the residents to come in. and basically pick up their permit or whatever other information we may need at that time. We'll have printers here. William will be spearheading that. And we'll basically, so you don't have to go far. You don't have to drive your car to anywhere. Keep your car in your garage and you walk over here and we're going to take care of that all here.

And we'll put out informational flyers, emails, and we'll get information to the residents, the HOA, and to Avalon as well so that everybody is informed.

And the benefit, Mayor, that we did is this was all done electronically, so everybody that responded, we have their contact information by e-mail as well.

Awesome. Great. All right. Thank you. Are you staying there for the next discussion or no? No, I'm going over there. Okay. Mr. Snow, thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. All right. I'll let you sit down. Next up is discussion on 27 Warren Street and 59 Veterans Memorial Drive East, which is a proposed 385-foot square foot covered walkway. So, Kevin.

Yeah, so we've been here before several years ago. This is the parking garage on Veterans Memorial Drive. We were probably in this same spot like five years ago where the owners of those buildings, they utilize the deck that's behind it that the borough is the owner of. Um, they're basically, you know, have almost for lack of better word, a license agreement to use the deck. Well, their tenant, their tenants have required always a covered walkway to that deck. So basically 27 Warren, you know, it's, it's, uh, basically government occupied and the other buildings also occupy with various set the unemployment office. Um, human services. Oh, 27. Oh, that 28. Yeah. And then basically, so what, what, what the developer of that properties had to do was build a deck as a condition of the lease. So they've been in there a long time. This had come up previously about five years ago. We had issues with the deck at the time, which resulted in some legal discussions and then ended up in arbitration, which resulted in identifying responsibilities in that deck. Basically, the developer wants to come back and build this covered walkway. The covered walkway, again, has to be attached to the the deck the the walkways are going in front of a land use for it however in order for the land use for to hear it uh... the miss paladin ones that cast a consent so uh... we could do this really two ways we could Just, you know, say, hey, advise the compliance officer, which is the planner that the borough, you know, really wants to get a little more material information about it or at the board level to discuss any opportunities there are, because I think that this could present an opportunity in addition to just connecting the DAC. We may have a further discussion. But this is what it is, is that their attorneys wrote a letter to the Borough Council asking for consent to attach to the DAC so they could move forward with their application. So that's where we're at.

Yeah, I don't see an issue with it. The only thing I would suggest is just throw it to the planning board. Let's get a concept drawing from them. Throw it to the planning board for them to have a look-see, but I don't see any issue with it. It's a convenience, and it's good cover.

Yeah, I think they have construction drawings actually completed as well. So if that's fine, I could advise the compliance officers as far as maintaining compliance to get to the board that the borough council is satisfactory with it and let the boards get into more of the detail of it.

Yep. Good. All right. Thank you. At this point, I will open up the meeting to the public. I will ask for a motion. So moved. Second. Discussion? Roll call.

Council Members Teresa Bonner. Yes. Andrew Conte. Yes. Glenn Dineen. Yes. Randy Pitts. Yes. Gina Stravik. Yes. Roger Vroom.

Yes. All right. Meeting is open. Please state your name and address for the record, and please address your comments to me.

My name is Carl Bay.

I've lived here most of my life. On the 31st, I contracted pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia from ship going there, giving adulterated food deliberately. Robert would not handle it, and I went to Mount Sinai in New York. I'm okay now, but I spent eight days in bed because of ship. This is a regular problem. There's also a serious problem with exposure to unhealthy activities, bacteria, those kinds of things with food and children and families or wholesome families. Somerville's a nice town to visit. I've lived here again all my life. I feel the town is misrepresented by the unions and contract relationships, health, and that kind of thing. Also, I come to these meetings because I just like to listen and learn, but I'm attacked by people and issues because I come here. The library also, I don't know if you found the location or not, but... I'm having a lot of problems with employees with the library. There's a wine bar in Somerville that apparently had a contract with the library by children time at this place with wine and stuff. And they feel a need to keep me informed of things that are none of my business. But there is a serious health risk in this town to wholesome families that don't partake in the bar honky tonk of the business community. And it's a real health threat, bacteria, healthy situation. A ship really needs to be looked at by the community, whether it should continue to operate. I have notified your grievance at New Jersey Transit, bus drivers actively trafficking, not so much narcotics, but trafficking trouble into the community. and I've been a source of that. I'm not liked in this community for the good work I've done, my activities, and I'm sorry of the way I look, but I don't feel good. You look fine. Yeah, but I felt it was really necessary to come here. You know, right now in the housing situation, I'm thinking of asking the Somerville police to investigate my situation with housing and problems I have with certain people affiliated with SHIP, Freedom Trail, and the unions and that kind of thing. I'm presently suing Robert Wood Johnson Hospital for things like that, where I have to go to Mount Sinai for assistance and be rescued by NYPD against things associated going on in Somerville, New Jersey. I'm very well known in circles for doing...

YOU HAVE ABOUT A MINUTE LEFT.

CHARITY WORK AND STUFF LIKE THAT. MY MAILING ADDRESS. I'M ALWAYS AVAILABLE IF YOU NEED FURTHER QUESTIONS. WE APPRECIATE THAT. THE SERIOUS HEALTH ISSUE HAS TO BE LOOKED AT TO FAMILIES THAT ARE WHOLESOME REGARDING FOOD, LIQUOR AND THAT KIND OF THING.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS. ANY OTHER PUBLIC COMMENT?

David Devorin again from 71 Davenport Street. Can you provide an update on the status of the library and what your expectations are?

Thank you. Any other public comment? Hearing none, I'll ask for a motion to close.

So moved.

Second. Discussion? Roll call.

Council members to respond. Yes. Andrew Conte. Yes. Glenn Denis. Yes. Randy Pitts. Yes. Gina Stravick. Yes. Roger Froome.

Yes. All right. Public portion is now closed. In regards to the library, obviously, as I said earlier, I'm not going to rehash all that's gone in behind it. But suffice it to say that... The Library Commission has closed the library citing mold and air concerns in the library. The borough immediately ordered not one, not two, but three rounds of testing. We tested upstairs for mold, none was found. We tested downstairs for mold, none was found. And then we also ordered an air quality testing from an environmental engineer and no issues were found. We're doing some additional testing as well. I believe Radon is, we're waiting for those results right now just as a safety precaution. We believe that the library commission is in violation of our agreement. That's what we believe the Commission held a meeting last week of which a number of folks came including Mallory and Most were very vocal. I think maybe except for one that they wanted this library back open including myself and uh... i think everybody agrees that you know the the long-term scope of the concept of a library bigger library more uh... spacious library in the county seat is a good idea everybody agrees on uh... it's the short-term approach of shutting our local branch down at that expense when the issue behind the reason for shutting it down does not exist uh... which was still perpetuated at the commission meeting so uh... what i will tell you is that i i did say at that meeting that i'm always open for discussion uh... i did receive any email on thursday from the director asking for a meeting and we are meeting later this week and we will sit and have a discussion The results of which I will let everybody know. So, but thank you. Thank you for your comments. All right. Ordinances for introduction. And we have a number of them. Uh, number 28, 11, uh, is amending ordinance number 27, 82, establishing a salary range for employee titles to be paid to certain officers and employees of the borough of Somerville. Anytime we make a change, a revision up, down or sideways to a salary, we update the salary schedule as a matter of course. So you'll see these on our agendas a number of times over the course of a year. Public comment on 2811. Hearing none, I'll close public comment. There is no requirement for public comment on the introduction of an ordinance, but it is a policy that I have that I do allow that for transparency purposes. So motion for introduction, please. So moved. Second. Discussion? Roll call.

Council members, Teresa Bonner? Yes. Andrew Conti? Yes. Glenn Denae? Yes. Randy Pitts? Yes. Gina Stravick? Yes. Roger Firm?

Yes. All right, 2812 is amending the Somerville Borough Code by adding a new chapter 60 entitled Busking Street Performers, establishing regulations for busking street performance in the borough of Somerville. This is an ordinance that will actually encourage busking. Busking is just what it says. It's street performers. It's jugglers. It's people who sing, people who play instruments, and it adds to the culture and character of town. You've probably seen people downtown, especially on a Friday night busking. You've seen a harpist. You've seen a gentleman with little tiny puppets playing music. These are buskers, and we want to encourage that, but we also want to encourage it in a... fashion that doesn't interfere with either borough activities pedestrians or other events that are going on so but we are committed to the idea of busking so public comment on 2812 Hearing none close public comment and motion for introduction. So moved second discussion.

Yeah, I got stuff. Um, this, uh, specifically names the downtown Somerville Alliance. Wouldn't it be better to use the more generic term of the, um, special improvement district, uh, designated management corporation so that we're clear in the future. If it's not DSA that we don't have to make a revision to this ordinance as well. The other thing that I have here is that there's quite a few mentions in here specifically of things that they would want, such as no one's allowed to do any performance anywhere but where they designate. It seems on 60.5A, on 60-4B, they say that no one's allowed to busk on any street where they're holding an event. This seems kind of self-serving to some degree. If we're trying to anticipate Dave Kuntz, instigate folks to come out here and perform and to entertain our crowds when is better than an event for them to be here, similarly with 60 dash six where performers on programmed event days blah blah blah I mean I could understand. If we have a parade, we don't want somebody performing in the middle of the street because we have a parade. I don't understand why if we're throwing a festival that it would be a problem to have a busker on a street or on a sidewalk. So I think my opinion on this is that it needs some revision. We need to draw it back out so that we don't have to make revisions later. And we need to probably consider whether we really want to eliminate someone's ability to come down and add to the festive environment that we create in town, as opposed to kind of police it the way that this is setting up. I mean, just the idea that nobody's allowed do this really we're designating a performance area is only these specific areas the point of busking is that somebody rolls up on a corner and busks that's the point so I can understand pedestrian safety I can understand vehicular safety I can understand we don't want them disturbing Memorial Day events the bike race things like this as far as downtown Somerville alliances food festival I feel like a busker adds to that as opposed to detract so I'm just confused as the principal as to what how do we get here yeah so some of it go ahead you want to

Yeah, if I could. I think that the reasoning for it is that at times there have been buskers down there who are singing loudly or playing loudly while there's a band on stage. So I think that is disruptive and disrespectful to the people on stage because they're being paid to perform and then there's somebody standing just halfway down the street who's playing guitar with an amp. I do agree that that's the difficult thing, is to make a sweeping thing saying no performances during an event, yeah.

Councilwoman Bonner, I don't disagree with you on a lot of what you've said. This says no amplification, and I'm for that, but if there's not amplified performance, what disturbance does it make to an amplified band? And also, just in general, if we've closed the street for pedestrians and fun, the rules within this allow us to tell them to move along. If they're causing an obstruction or disturbing something, the rules within this. The parts that still remain, if you take out the parts that are specific to downtown Somerville Alliance being able to dictate where people perform. I'm just trying to make sure that if we're going to do this, we make it. kind of egalitarian in the sense that it's open to anybody that wants to do this whenever we make the street available for somebody to do anything. I don't really, I could certainly see that on a Friday night, on cruise night, that this is an issue from time to time with obstructions, right? We wanna make sure we have some rules around it. I could see that during an event, we don't want somebody playing competitive music back to them at the other side of Division Street, completely understand that. But there are plenty of places in the world that have restaurants with bars and music that are next to each other and competing in sounds. And that's why we have noise ordinances that we've already written. So to some degree, I think that this is just, I would hate to see as if we're giving special treatment, that somebody doesn't get elsewhere in town. If somebody wants to perform in a park, I don't think that this should... dictate that they can't, you know, something like that, you know, is kind of my thought around this.

I do have, Mayor, do you have a background on this? Go ahead. So, I mean, this was, in order to encourage busking, so let's not confuse this with permitted activities, right? So busking is the freelance spontaneous action, right? So Councilman Bonner, that was one of the reasons that this ordinance kind of comes about is so that you don't have this spontaneous activity occurring in front of a stage while there's a performer out there. That was one. It sounds restrictive, but again, it's just creating guidelines to encourage busking, because right now we don't encourage busking. This also mirrors, I hate to say this, while I'm certainly the author of it, it was authored by many other municipalities before I stole their material and authored it myself. So this is a combination. We had looked at it from the executive committee of the DSA. on Asbury Park, Seaside, where there's strong busking issues that have occurred over the years and how they addressed it and how they're living with that dynamic now, and it's working. You know, I do agree, Councilman, that the DSA shouldn't be named. I think I just made that as a mistake, to be honest with you, out of habit. That probably should be the District Management Corporation, whoever they may be in the future. So we could certainly, you know, the Council could certainly make that adjustment. But the idea was of busking is to create an environment because buskers want to see your ordinance. They want to see what witness. That's what they want to say. They come in, they ask, when could I busk? And currently, we have nothing on the books that says what they can't do and what they can. And for the most part, I'm sure they would comply because they're the ones asking for that level of compliance. So this does come about with some thought, and I know you recognize that. But again, if it needs to be amended, listen, this is not certainly, you know, I'm not at a point where I have a busking issue, right, that I have to be addressed. But we do have, you know, eight or nine buskers now that are regular that are looking for our ordinance so that they can comply with it.

Yeah, and I mean, really, some of this is also coming out of some conflicts that did happen. I know there was an event on Division Street, and there was an alternate group that was competing on that event. And it just, it almost, you know, the idea of having a busker, if you've got, let's say, a juggler at the top of Division Street, and you've got another function, a band going on down at the bottom, that's great. That's what we want. But I don't know that you want them in front of the band.

And keep in mind, the witness does read that busking is allowed if it's authorized. So if there is an event that busking is going to lend itself to the character of that event, you can get a permit for that. But you can't freelance it. So you can't just show up in front of the stage and start juggling bowling pins or something. But if the Special Improvement District, or I should say the District Management Corporation said, yes, we could use a couple buskers at this event, let's ask them. It does allow that, just so we're aware.

So I was just in Scotland a couple months ago, and they have buskers

juggling swords and fire But I you know I'd like us to sharpen our pencil on this a little bit further as we get through it So what as far as introducing it? I don't know that I object to introducing it, but before we adopt it I'd like to at least discuss some further changes to it.

I

So what I would suggest is maybe just highlight those areas and float them out. Sure. And then let's take a look at it. Sounds good.

All right. Good.

All right. Further comment? Motion for? We did introduction. We had a motion and a second. All right. Roll call.

Councilmembers Teresa Bonner. Yes. Andrew Conte. Yes. Glenn Dene. Yes. Randy Pitts. Yes. Gina Stravik. Yes. Roger Verm.

Yes. Alright 2813 is amending chapter 166 vehicles and traffic of the code of the borough of Somerville to establish a new schedule Permit parking and time limit parking zone without permit for Somerville station which includes station road Robeson Street South Davenport Street and Sterna Dory Drive We kind of covered that I'll ask for public comment at this time. I Hearing none, I'll close public comment and motion for introduction. So moved. Second. Discussion?

Council members, Teresa Bonner? Yes. Andrew Kotze? Yes. Glenda Nee? Yes. Randy Pitts? Yes. Gina Stravik? Yes. Roger Verne?

Yes. All right, 2814 is an ordinance amending Chapter 5, Administrative Organizations, Section 5-70, Department of Public Works of the Code of the Borough of Somerville. Kevin, can you give us an overview on that?

Yes, what that's doing, it's going to move the fire maintenance function that's currently historically have been under the fire department to under DPW operationally and financially starting in next year.

Okay. Public comment on 2815?

Rich O'Neill, 124 Westcliff Street. Is this going to remove the maintenance people from the fire department buildings? Will they be relocated?

It's not eliminating the maintenance people, no.

No, I'm not saying that. Will they be relocated?

I don't know that we've gotten that far, have we?

No. Right now there's a shortage. So we temporarily are utilizing DPW to provide administrative oversight. So right now they're handling their payroll approvals, their attendance, days off, things like that. What'll happen is eventually all those employees will become public works employees where they would have to basically work under a budget that's in DPW opposed to... kind of on fire. But we haven't gotten there yet. I hate to say this, we're getting there quicker than I thought because we do have some personnel shortages.

That didn't answer the question. Are they going to be relocated?

Yeah, I think it's too early to tell. We can't answer that right now.

I'll comment on that at that time. That would be a really bad idea for a lot of reasons. We'll speak about it some other time.

Thank you. Thanks, Richard. All right. Any other public comment at 28, 15, sorry, 28, 14, 14, 14. Um, motion for introduction. So moved second discussion roll call.

Council members, Teresa Bonner? Yes. Andrew Conti? Yes. Glenn Denae? Yes. Randy Pitts? Yes. Gina Stravick? Yes. Roger Verm?

Yes. All right, 2815 is amending and supplementing Chapter 166, Vehicles and Traffic of the Code of the Borough of Somerville to establish a new Article 21 entitled Title 39 Enforcement and authorizing the enforcement of Title 39 of the revised statutes of New Jersey upon the semi-public areas enumerated in the code as designated Somerville Town Center as an approved location. So essentially what this does correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin and Colin, it allows the borough to enforce parking regulations within Somerville town center. Um, specifically at this point, the, uh, handicapped, uh, parking spaces. Is that correct? And fire zones and fire zones.

Yeah.

Okay. So public comment on 28, 15, hearing none, close public comment and motion for introduction. So moved second discussion.

Does this make us doing parking enforcement for these parking lots now? So if somebody parks in front of Starbucks or in the back of Starbucks for too long, now we're responsible for towing them as opposed to the property owner?

We have the ability to ticket them. So what happens is keep in mind that street that runs in there is a private street. So there's also violations on that road as well. It allows someone to come and say Someone's in parking this handicapped spot for six hours. They took a train or whatever, you know, whatever it may be And we have the ability to enforce that as well as fire zones So I think well I should say we have the ability to enforce everything.

Yeah, that's this is the intent to enforce So what is a semi-public area then? I?

Well, semi-public areas is considered that street, the street that, you know, that South Davenport. South Davenport? Yeah. South Davenport.

It's a private road that public can drive on. That's actually what it is. It includes parking lots.

But I would say that under the statute, parking lots are also considered semi-public uses as well. So we can enforce.

It includes our parking lot, part of our parking lot though, right?

Parking lots owned by other people.

Let's go one at a time. We can't, let's have one council person at a time. Yeah.

I mean, my understanding is that this is, uh, if you read through the list of the places it's designated, uh, it's very clearly all block one 17 and one 18 over there and the town center area. One, one of these, the block one, uh, one 18 is like half of our municipal lot, right. Or a part of our municipal lot. That's.

Yeah. So, so councilman, you're absolutely correct. Every property is listed in there for enforcement. Um, Obviously, we would have to have some level of discretion, because right now, there's no intent to issue a ticket if you go and buy milk at ShopRite and you're there too long, or whatever. That would still remain under their

Policies are the enforcement we have is strictly going to be limited to the to the things of public nature that are affecting us so it's so it's not the general parking it is the handicapped the fire lanes Maybe double park double par in front of the store that kind.

Yeah, I people that park in front of Amy in front of shop, right? Or the other locations and they run into shop, that would be a violation. That would be something we would consider certainly that that's something that this ordinance allows us to enforce the, the, the level of enforcement that that's utilized here is something operationally we'll have to define. Um, this has been an issue for a, a long time and, and the municipal position has always been, if you give us, authorization, then we'll have to evaluate that. Up until now, there's been no movement by the developer of that property to improve the parking situation. So right now, as many of you probably know, you could park there and go anywhere you want.

They don't want to enforce the general parking for fear that they're going to give one of their customers at ShopRite or any of the other stores a ticket.

The goal there is to show a presence of a level of enforcement that we're able to enforce.

So Title 39 is a state statute? Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

And we didn't have this before?

Because it's private property for the most part, their enforcement completely lies within them unless they make a request as they did in writing which prompted this for the municipality to involve itself in the enforcement activities.

I wouldn't want to get into the enforcement activities of hourly, you know, the general parking but the eight the ad a and the fire zones. Absolutely Thank you for explaining everything sure for the comment Roll call Council members Teresa Bonner.

Yes, Andrew Conti. No Glendon a yes Randy Pitts? Yes. Gina Stravick? Yes. Roger Frum?

Yes.

All right. Consent resolutions. We have one walk-on, which is number 279. I'll give you the title. It's a return of a land development escrow fund to Mr. Martinez for Block 35, Lot 1, which is 12 Lisa Terrace. Um, this is a return of his escrow money and, uh, it's a walk on. I typically don't like walk ons, but I wanted to make sure that this got back into his hands as quickly as possible. Um, so that is one walk on that's number two 79. Um, I will pull off number two 62 because I think we have to do that as its own. Um, signatures should be going around for everybody. Um, any others to be pulled off? All right. Uh, two 57 is approving chapter one 59 from the national opioid settlement trust to 58 approving chapter one 59 from the HDSRF to the New Jersey economic development authority for the remediation of certain sections of the Somerville landfill. 259 is awarding an interim contract to Harvard Protection Services for crossing guard services for September 2026 and continuing until award of a new contract pending receipt of bids. 260 is memorializing and authorizing the borough clerk administrator and municipal engineer to execute and submit a request for incidental scope modification to the DOT for the South Mid-Austere Washington Place Improvements Project. Two 61 is approving one 59 for statewide insurance fund, 2026 safety and risk grant. Two 63 is authorizing and memorializing the submission of an application to the Somerset county historic preservation grant program for the exempt fireman's museum, also known as West end host company. Number three, two 64 is hiring William snow as a part-time project coordinator. Two 65 is authorizing an amendment to the borough of Somerville for 57 B deferred compensation plan to permit Roth contributions. 266 authorizing the purchase of two 2026 Ford police interceptor utility vehicles from Nielsen Ford through the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey. 267 is establishing a seasonal farmer's market fee of $300 for fire safety type 1 inspections for the 26th season. 268 is requesting permission for dedication by rider for revenues derived from engineering site inspection fees. as noted to sixty nine is requesting permission for the dick dedication by writer for revenues derived from the environmental commission donations pursuant as noted to seventy requesting permission for the dedication by writer for revenues derived from maintenance performance guarantees as noted to seventy one is requesting permission from the dedication by writer for revenues derived from planning and zoning board inspection fees pursuant to as noted to seventy two requesting permission for dedication by writer for revenues derived from the road opening fees pursuant as noted 273 is accepting the Borough Hall entry portico and exterior restoration project as complete, authorizing final payment and release of retainage to Dell Tech and closing out the contract. 274 is authorizing the purchase of Phillips Heart Start FRX defibrillators from V.E. Ralph & Son for the total amount of $34,098.21. 275 is awarding a contract to park mobile by arrive for a mobile parking payment system through Omnia Partners and approved national purchasing cooperative. 276 is creating the title of receptionist administrative assistant slash deputy registrar. 277 is authorizing the execution of the uniform shared services agreement between the county of Somerset and the Somerville Fire Department. 278 is approving the release of the maintenance guarantee in the amount of eight thousand three hundred and twelve dollars and forty cents to Jocelyn Fernandez for property known as 179 Grove Street block and lot as noted an application project number as noted 279 is return of land development escrow funds to Jeffrey Martinez for block 35 lot one do we have a motion so moved second roll call council members Teresa Bonner yes, but abstain from 260

Thank you.

Andrew Conti.

Yes.

Glenn Denis. Yes. Randy Pitts. Yes. Gina Stravik. Yes. Roger Verm.

Yes.

All right, 262 is accepting the 2025 municipal audit and execution of the group affidavit certifying the general comments and recommendations made by the order that has been reviewed. This is the year-end audit for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024. It's the auditor's report, which details all of the finances of the borough, which is an extremely large document. Everybody turns to the last page of the document to look at the recommendations, uh, that are required. Um, and. Incredibly. and I think successfully due to Paige and Kevin, there are no recommendations from the authors on how we handle our finances. Well done. Very well done. So we have to adopt this, and there is a signature page that we have to attest to that then goes down to DCA and is filed with the state. So I will ask for a motion. So moved. Second.

Discussion roll call council members Teresa Bonner. Yes, Andrew Conti. Yes, Glendon a yes, Randy Pitts Yes, Tina's traffic. Yes, Roger Verne.

Yes. All right, Roger bills and vouchers I make a motion to pay bills and vouchers in the amount of one million one hundred forty four thousand one hundred thirty nine dollars and forty cents second discussion

Roll call. Council members, Teresa Bonner. Yes. Andrew Conte. Yes. Glenn Denis. Yes. Randy Pitts. Yes. Gina Stravick. Yes. Roger Verne.

Yes. All right, Mr. Pitts, I will ask you for an adjournment.

I make a motion to adjourn.

Second. All in favor? Aye.