Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everybody. Um the meeting will come to order. Thank you for coming out this evening. Hope we all enjoyed an extra week between meetings. Um madame clerk, would you please read the adequate notice of compliance statement? Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the city clerk's office in preparation of the council annual meeting notice dated December 17th, 2025, which was properly distributed and posted per statutory requirements. Please be advised that fire exits are to my right, your left, and at the back of the room. The city has a listening system to assist the hearing impaired. If anyone needs hearing assistance, please obtain the system at the deis and return it thereafter. Okay. Uh, thank you. May we have the roll call, please? Mr. Ber, present. Mr. Chris Foley, here.

Miss Camson here. Miss Lman here. Miss Laroscina here. Mr. Powski here. President Ho here. Thank you. And I would like to call on our historical minute presenters to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Madame Clerk. Uh would you please read the notices regarding the closed session and hearings and comments?

A closed session meeting is authorized by state statute was announced and held prior to the start of this meeting and the known items for discussion board listed on the published close session agenda. Please be advised that council meetings are broadcast live on Comcast channels 34 and 36 and Verizon channel 30 and rebroadcast on Thursdays and Saturdays on HTTV on Comcast 36 and Verizon 33. When invited to speak, please come to the lectern clear uh where am I here? Clearly state your name and address, spell your last name and speak into the p podium microphone so that your comments can be understood by all and properly recorded. Whenever an audience or council member reads from prepared statement, please give or email a copy to the city clerk at cityclerk@c cityofsummit.org. To help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard, please limit your comments to no more than 3 minutes in length. Unless you are using an electronic device to follow the meeting agenda or needed for professional emergency contact purposes, please turn it off. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to expand a bit on the city clerk's note about hearings and comments. Um, this will facilitate a smoother process, particularly for those watching remotely. If you are seated in the first two rows, anything you say to your neighbor um will be picked up by the recording microphones and make it difficult for others to hear the official proceedings. So, please be quiet. The 3minut limit on public comments corresponds to a bit less than a single typewritten page. If you're leaving written remarks, please put your name on them and place them in the box near the lect turn when you're done. And with that, let's move on to the city's business. Um, starting with minutes for approval. Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of the regular and close session meetings of March 17, 2026?

So moved. Second. Um, all in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Hey. Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of the regular and close session meeting of March 23rd, 2026? So moved. Second. Um all in favor? I opposed and I abstain. The motion carries. I abstain too. You okay? Thank you. Um on to reports. Madame Mayor.

Thank you. Good evening everyone. I'd like to take a moment to highlight some of our upcoming community events that we hope everyone will enjoy. First, in recognition of local government week, the city will host the second annual summit showcase on Tuesday, April 15th from No, not Tuesday, April 15th, Wednesday, April 15th,

from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Summit Firehouse, which is at 281 Broad Street. Um, this is a fun interactive event where residents can meet representatives from city departments all in one place and learn about the work they do every day to keep Summit running. There will be city vehicles for the kids and for the kids at heart. that's me. Um to explore along with customized coloring pages, swag, and other activities. It's a great opportunity to connect with the community. And I hope many residents will stop by. And a few days later on Friday, April 18th, nope, Saturday, April 18th. Somebody's playing a joke on me. We will continue our celebration of both Summit's history and our nation's history with Revolutionary Trail Day, one of our key events marking America's 250th anniversary. The day will begin in the morning at Twin Maples with a presentation on women and the revolution. And then from 11 to 2:00 p.m. on the village green, residents can enjoy a wide range of colonial inspired activities. We'll have fs and drums, craft stations, revolutionary pirates and songs, a demonstration on pi spies during the revolution, not pies. That was on me. um plays written by our fourth grade ideas students and a reading of a personalized letter drafted by a historian on Summit's role in the war. After the Village Green event, residents are invited to head to the Summit Free Public Library for a lecture focused specifically on Summit history. We hope many of you will come out and join us. And then also on April 18th from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. residents are invited to participate in Earth Day cleanup at Martinsburg Park and Bryant Park. Walk-ins are welcome. So, if you're able, please come lend a hand to help beautify our community. Hope to see residents at this these events. And we encourage everyone to visit city ofsummit.org for more information. Thank you.

Thank you. And now on to our city administrator, Tammy Baldwin for her report.

Thank you, Council President. Good evening, everyone. Um, first of all, the summit free market. The April events for the free market will be Saturday, April 11th from 8 to 3 PM and Friday, April 24th from 12:00 pm to 2 pm at the transfer station. Summit residents with a parking disposal permit can attend. Browse donated items and take what they want for free. And you can also donate. You can review the donation guidelines on our website at cityofsummit.org/freearket. Uh please do that before bringing any items to donate. Spring curbside leaf collection. Curbside leaf collection is ongoing now through Friday, April 24th. The leaves should be placed at the curb in paper biodegradable bags for pickup on your trash collection day. Twigs, branches, and other yard debris should not be included with the leaves. Please note, it may take up to two weeks after placing bags at the curb before they are collected. More information on this is available at cityofsummit.org/leafolction. We also have a photo contest for local government week. It's back for 2026. You can send in a maximum of three photos by May 15th and share the beauty, uniqueness, and community spirit of Summit through your eyes. The contest is open to Summit residents of all ages, and we have guidelines and submission info posted on our website at cityofsummit.org/phoontest. Uh we have received some really wonderful entries the last couple of years. uh while we've been running this program. So, we're looking forward to seeing what you can send in this year. And that concludes my comments. Thank you.

Thank you very much, city administrator. And I'll just pick up on the fact that next week is local government week. It's always a good time to thank our hardworking, talented city employees. Um but next week especially, please make an effort to do so because they give us 150% every day. Um, council held one of its listening sessions last night. I want to thank those who attended. We had a great conversation. If you weren't able to join us, please mark your calendar from Monday, May, April 27th, excuse me, from 7 to 9 at the community center for our next one. Um, if you were in town last week, you may have seen the abandoned railroad bridges across Ashwood Avenue and Russell Place come down. the process went smoothly and particularly on Russell Place. It really opens up the street. Take a drive and just see what a difference it makes. Um, finally, our recycling committee is putting out a series of videos about everything you can recycle at the transfer station. They're great. There's a lot to learn. If you haven't seen them yet, you can find these on the city's social media pages. Um, so I highly recommend that to everyone. Let's move on to our historical minute. Council member Palowski,

thank you. Um, so a lot of people when they think of Summit, they think of it as a big sports town, which of course it is, but we also have a uh tremendous and robust arts program in town, uh, starting in the in the lower schools and going right on up to the high school. I encourage everybody to try and catch a show next year. Uh, they're very well done. They're very well attended, so you might actually have to buy those tickets in advance. But tonight for our historical uh minute we have two uh of our thespians singers um here to present a history of drama at Summit High School. Uh first we have Anna Prisbilo who's a senior in the drama club president and senior Ben Strauss who had uh I guess you had the lead in Big Fish, right?

Co-lead. Yeah. All right. Well, you were very good. You were both very good. So,

the Summit High School theater program has been telling stories for over a hundred years. Summit High School was first established in 1888, but we weren't able to find any information about the theater program until 1923 when Summit High School moved to the building which is currently L and C. Johnson Summit Middle School. Browsing through past yearbooks, we learned that plays and musicals have been produced by Summit High School thespians. Ever since, Summit High School theater graduates have been accepted into the top prestigious acting and musical theater programs such as Carnegie Melon, Ithaca, Boston Conservatory, North Carolina School of the Arts, the University of Michigan, and NYU Tish among others. Our alums have appeared on Broadway, national touring companies, regional theater companies, and community theaters.

Summit High School currently offers beginning and advanced theater classes. Our advanced class is currently working on our annual director showcase, an evening of one acts directed by us. So, come see our work April 29th in the Summit High School auditorium. Mhm.

We thought we would take you on a quick journey through the decades, listing some of our notable productions. Each year, the drama program has an average of two shows, a fall play, and a spring musical. Typically, in 1923, the first year in the beautiful auditorium where we both performed as middle schoolers. The drama club produced the famous restoration comedy, She Stoops to Conquer, in addition to a junior class play. The two productions in 1930 were the senior play Captain Applejack and the musical show The Girl in Blue Gingham. Miss, you might want to look at those.

And the 1940s saw the beginning of the government organization. Sponsored plays are, as some of you may remember, the GO shows that were produced through the 1980s. In 1952, the GL show was the entertaining but very challenging Gilbert and Sullivan Alfreda, the Gondelers.

1963 saw the opening of the new high school, the building we are currently in. Roger and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma christened our new stage. Oklahoma was the first musical performed after the most recent auditorium renovation in 2012. In 1967, the Guys and Disguise Club presented two plays. The Mad Woman of Shyo and Teach Me How to Cry and the musical The Pajama Game, which was notable because it starred Nick Wyman, who graduated from Harvard and became a very successful Broadway actor, starring in several musicals, including playing

Nardier in Layiz for five years in the early 2000s. Oh, and don't forget he played the terrorist in the classic film Die Hard with Vengeance. Nick also served as the president of Actors Equity from 20 2010 to 2015 and he is still a working actor. Nick Wyman is not the only professional to come out of Summit High School theater program. There are currently several actors appearing on community and professional stages around the country, including Shawn McManis, class of 2017, who appeared on Broadway in Beetlejuice. In 1976, The Music Man burst onto our stage, and it returned again in 2009.

The drama program continued to produce quality theater in the 1980s, including Westside Story in 1984, a long way from Captain Applejack. In 1996, the Paper Mill Playhouse created the Rising Star Awards. Based on Broadway's Tony Awards, the Rising Star Awards recognize excellence in New Jersey high school theater and musicals. Similar to the Tony's, Rising Star categories include performing, design, and outstanding overall production.

Every year, over 100 schools enter this prestigious competition. The first year, Summit's production of Into the Woods received two nominations. Summit has entered rising star every year, but since 2006, Summit High School has been nominated for outstanding overall musical, the top seven musicals in a class of over a 100 schools 17 times, garnering over 351 nominations and 43 final awards. We have won best musical four times, including last year for our production of The Prom. Nominations for the spring musical Big Fish come out miday.

We also participate in the Monontlair Theater Night Awards that recognize excellence in plays and musicals. Since that awards program began in 2008, our productions have received 225 final nominations, including best overall production, and we have won for best play and best musical. In addition to performing on the Summit High School stage, we have participated in the international Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Every four years since 2008, the Fringe is the largest performing arts festival in the world, featuring over 4,000 shows during the month of August from countries all over the world. We were fortunate to go to the Fringe in 2024 where we spent two weeks performing the musical You're in Town and attending a variety of plays, improv shows, musicals. think I saw somewhere like 20 shows within that two weeks.

Same. Uh it was so exciting to walk the streets of Edinburgh seeing artists from all walks of life coming together to celebrate theater and performance. It was a really special experience and I'm so grateful that we received the opportunity to attend. As you can see, Summit High School has a very active and successful theater program. But what we love most about our program is that we are a community of artists who tell stories about what it's like to be a human.

As my good friend and one of the pit musicians in our spring musical, Bigfish, Gavin Loenberger said, "This stuff is hard, but that's what makes it fun." There's something about doing the hard stuff with the people you love. Doing what you love exhausted. It's just the best feeling ever. We all feel the same way. Like the lead character Edward Bloom in Big Big Fish who told his son, "My character, I tell stories. That's who I am and that's who we are and who we have always been in Summit High School Theater. Storytellers."

So with that, we'll leave you with the main message from our beautiful spring musical, Bigfish. Be the hero of your story. Thank you. That was wonderful. You have a hard act to follow, Administrator Baldwin, because we're going from that to the 2026 budget presentation. Can Can I just make a quick request? Next time you do Shakespeare, can we get much to do about nothing, please? We did. I know. We did ask you like this year.

Okay. Roger. One of my favorites. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Bravo. Thank you for having us. Keep you guys here. I like your voices. That is a hard act to follow. Maybe next year you can get them to do the budget presentation for you. Are great.

Okay. Get this back. So last year I recall um the room was packed. We had a very um an ordinance that was of great interest to the community. There was even some I think some cameras here from some of the news stations. That was by far the biggest crowd I've ever had to introduce a budget. 24 years of doing this. So, um I thank you all for being here tonight for this. Um I will try to get through this swiftly and and point out the interesting pieces of the budget. Um, first I just want to tell everybody we're going to quick go through um the process and the timeline, the challenges that we face for 2026, what our financial totals come to, um the general fund budget summary points, tax base evaluation, some people budget nerds like me, we love that stuff. um the property taxes, which everybody's always interested in, the impact of the budget, um quick go over the general fund revenues and appropriations, our debt position, which is important, and um our capital budget. We did go over this briefly uh in our capital workshop back in December, but um well, actually, we went over it in depth there. We'll go over it briefly uh this evening. So, it probably seems to people like this budget just all of a sudden we're talking about the budget. Well, the budget starts in September. Um, formally starts in September. We're kind of working on all year, and you'll see that as we go through. Uh, but we commence the process with all the department heads in September. Uh, department budget budgets are submitted to the CFO and the finance director in October. And between October and December, we're making revisions um going back and forth with that. And then in December, we have the capital

budget uh request. Capital budget is important because while it's separate uh and it is a plan until you adopt the ordinances, the amount of money that you need for the down payment has to be in your operating budget. So, we have to get that. Oh, thank you. Actually, I wonder if I could do this so I can be handsfree. Can everybody hear me better with this? Is that okay? No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you.

I thought I was loud enough. I apologize. Um Okay. So then in January and February, we go over the operating budgets in the finance committee. So our finance chair, um Shantel Lamb, uh I want to say Lman and then I see your emails that says Garcia. um and Jacqueline Larosina Clare to uh our mayor Elizabeth Fagan are all on the finance committee and and we meet with all of the department heads and we go through the budgets uh during that time frame and then we come here and here we are April 7th introducing there are timelines there are statutory dates that we have to follow so this is the latest that we can introduce our budget and then you have a 28 day period between introduction and adoption we'll have the public hearing on May 5th and that's when everybody can ask questions. Um, and you'll have some information up on the website tomorrow if you want to take an in-depth look and uh that may prompt some questions from folks. So, this is the 2026 municipal municipal budget overview. Um, these are the challenges. So, uh just a quick synopsis of it. We did have a loss in what we realize on interest in investments. So, we had to budget $350,000 less this year. Um, so that's a hit to our revenue. Um, we also had an issue with the Atlantic Health Systems. There's a hospital bed tax. That was new legislation that came in in 2022, I believe, and we had to go back and pay the county of Union their 5%. We tried to negotiate something um, and we were unsuccessful. And so we had to take a loss this year and pay them the $81,940. So that's a little bit less money for the municipality this year. Um on the appropriation side, we had a pretty big

increase in our municipal operation expenses, 7.6%. um 245,000 of that was in salaries and wages and uh over just about 1.5 million was in all of the other operating expenses across the various departments. Some of the bigger uh pieces of that 1.4 was $100,000 increase in our legal and professional contract costs. Um 170,000 increase in utility costs. As you can imagine, that's all going up. It's going up for us at home. it's going up for us here in the city. And then an 88,000 increase in our healthcare insurance premiums. Uh that is also happening across the state uh and across the country. So hopefully at some some juncture we'll be able to get something done to try to control that. Uh with all of that and all of those challenges, this is our financial summary total. Uh in the general fund, the municipal budget in 2025 as adopted, you could see it was 59,769,000 in change. 63,427,000 in change for 2026. That's a 6.1% increase. The capital budget is up 1.6% um at 5,340,000. So the financial summary total includes both the operating budget and the capital budget. And for 2026 that is 68,767,000 in change. That's a 5.8% increase with the capital and the uh operating municipal budget. Uh to break it down for the soar utility and the parking utility which are outside of our general budget. Um they are self-quidating. They fund themselves. So the revenues raised within those utilities offset all the costs in those utilities and uh there's

nothing in the general budget that pays for for those utilities. In fact, the utilities do contribute uh some to the general fund that helps to offset taxes. Um so in the sore utility for 2026 we are at with the operations and the capital we are at 8.7 million. That's a 2.9% change. And with the parking utility, we are at 6.2 million, which is a 2.4% increase. Um, bringing the total financial budgets with the general, with the soar, and with the parking to 83,760,000 and change. I think it's important to note and and we'll see it in the end, but um the last several years uh and and during my tenure with the city since 2019, the parking utility budgets have been very small. I mean, sometimes nothing, sometimes 55,000, but last year and this year, we are working to fund improvements at our tier garage, which is in need of renovation. So, that's why you see uh larger numbers um in in the parking capital budget. Just a quick comparison, it's up 5.2% if you take the financial totals, 79 million versus 83 million. And this is the taxbased valuation breakdown. Um we went from I think it's on the next slide 3.380 to 3.4 million. So we had an increase of uh sorry billion. We had an increase of 30 million in the net assessed valuation. Um, if you're not familiar with it, it does reduce the impact on the property taxes because whatever the net assessed valuation goes up, it it automatically generates uh additional revenue, additional tax dollars. So, it offsets what you'd have to increase to the already existing base. And this breaks it down uh if anybody's interested, and it'll be up on online tomorrow, but it

breaks it down between our residential, commercial, industrial, apartment, vacant land, etc. This is a chart that just shows you a quick glance of the taxbased growth talking about net assessed valuation. Um in 2023 it went up $81 million. That was fantastic. So that was super helpful. Uh but we've had you know between 25 and 35 million increase a year in the net assessed valuation. Uh you can take a kind of in-depth this is represented by um billions over there on the left. So, as I said, when the net valuation increases, there's an automatic increase in tax revenue um before hitting any existing properties. So, in total tax revenue increase, it's 1.42 million. Based on that, for the municipal portion of the tax, it's about 298,000 for 2026. So, it's about a 0.009 cent taxbased growth impact just with the net assessed valuation. This is a chart that shows you I think everybody likes this chart. It's pretty interesting. This is the property tax rates from 2021 to 2026. Um you could see that uh it breaks everything down and gives you the total. This is estimated. We're still waiting for some final numbers. Um but the municipal tax rate for 2026 is.97 up from 0 943 in 2025. You can see all the way to the right the percent change between 25 and 26. It's a 2.9% change. Uh we have the school district, the county along with the open space for the county, um the local school debt service and the library. So in 2025, the total tax rate um as certified by the county was 4.471

and this year as estimated it is 4.636. So overall, that's a uh combined 3.7% increase. I love this slide. This slide just gives you the breakdown. You look at your dollar and you see what percent of your dollar goes to what portion of taxes. So um the school district, pretty typical. The school district is 49.33%. They're usually around that 50% mark of any municipality's taxes. um where you do have a school system and not a regional. Um county and open space is 23.81% of your tax dollar. The municipal portion of your taxes is 21 cents of that dollar. Uh school debt service 3.6%. Um and the library 2.3. Um, if you've heard me do this before, and I say this every year because I really mean it, 21 cents of your dollar goes to your municipal um services. So, everything that you deal with and get uh on a daily basis, your garbage pickup, your public safety, all of that is in that 21 cents. Just reiterating that for every property tax dollar build and collected, this the city only retains 21 cents of that to fund all of the municipal budget needs. So this is a slide that shows you the total property tax bill comparison. So if you look at the average residential home assessment valued at 445,000 and change in summit, this is what your tax bill would be in 2025. This is what it was. Uh at the municipal level, it was $4,155 of your tax bill. Uh this year it's 4 $4,317.

So it's a $162 difference in the municipal taxes again on the average assessed home. Um and that breaks down to about $13 and change. 1350 I think um a month for your municipal services. Um again, uh the library is $35 additional. Uh the local school debt service is $193, the county open space estimated at 102, and the local school district um at 441. So, if you live in a home that has the average assessed value of 445,000, if that's your assessment, your property tax bill would go up by $933 uh for 2026 based on these numbers. This slide shows you the municipal tax rate over 10 years from 2016 to 2026. Um, I think it's gone up 13. I I calculated this yesterday. I think it's 13.4 um percent. So about 1.3% a year on average um is what the the tax rate has changed by. And then a little bit into um some detail around this. Uh these are the general fund revenues. Um, you can see there's 26 compared to 2025 and and what that uh resulting change was. For 26, we're using $100,000 more of our fund balance. Uh, we are still leaving behind 20% of the fund balance. I think I show that in another slide coming up. Um, but I do have a a surplus fund balance policy that helps us with our bond rating. and we always want to make sure that we are around the 15 to 20% retaining and that really helps us get those good rates uh when we go out to

bond. So, we're still uh not jeopardizing that policy that we created ourselves and and try strictly to adhere to. Um local revenues are down. We talked about that. Um we we lost money um with our interest on investments. Um that was a big hit there. Um state aid is up slightly. Um, don't be deceived though because the state aid for the municipality never goes up. It stays the same for so many years. Um, that $46,000 increase is an increase in the state aid um to offset the school's debt, not the municipalities. So, because I kind of looked at that and was like, wait a minute, what? It never goes up. It doesn't. And it didn't. Um, grants are up. This is interesting. Um, we finished the year with just over 2 million in grants in 2025, but um, we started the year as budgeted with $68,000. It's really all in the timing with grants. We were just lucky this year that um, $1.4 million in grants came in before we were ready to introduce the budget. That doesn't always happen. Um, if you watch these meetings, you see a lot of chapter 159s and that's adding grants to the budget after we've adopted. Uh but we got a lot of these upfront this year. Um we're down a little bit in our enterprise enterprise contributions. Um prior tax receipts, prior year tax receipts were down 5,000. Um the municipal tax levy is up by 1.2 million. Um and the school district's uh debt is up 1.49 almost 1.5 million. Uh, and the library's tax levy is up by 276,000. Um, worth noting, uh, and the percentages of the revenues are are right next to each one, so you know, um, how the budget is funded. Um, but the

library is the rate that they get is is determined by it's called a third of a mill calculation and the state decides what that is based on population. And so we don't have an option to change that. It is what it is and and that's how the library is determined. Um and you can see here that uh the municipal tax levy represents 52% of all of the revenue that we take in um to support the operating budget. So this is this is the slide I was talking about. So we ended December 31st, 2025 with 10.6 6 million in fund balance and we are using 8.5 of that in the 20 I supposed to say 2026 I missed that we're using 8.5 of that in the 2026 budget uh which leaves behind just about 20% there the 2.1 million some people have asked me in years past why don't you just use it all to offset the taxes the problem is that you need to regenerate that tax that that growth in those funds so if I took it all we would start out with a structural imbalance right away in 2027 and uh I hope to be here doing another budget for you and that is not how I would like to start the year. So trying to be fiscally responsible. Uh we have two levy caps in the state of New Jersey. Uh the first one is the property tax levy. Everybody hears about that 2% property tax levy cap. We are actually $476,000 under the maximum tax levy amount that we could go to. Um so that is good. We there's another um cap levy that we'll get to in a second. Um this is the appropriation side of the budget. We just talked about the revenue side and

um this breaks down the total budget of 63,427,000 into the municipal operations and the other appropriations. Um so 38 just about $39 million of the budget covers salaries, wages, and other expenses for all of the departments. It covers all of our utilities. It covers all of our insuranceances. Um, that's health, that's workers comp, that's liability, that's cyber security insurance that we have now. Um, and all of our statutory expenses, pension, social security, uh, the other appropriations, 19,449, that is the library levy, our grants, our capital improvements, uh, the down payment for those, the municipal and the local school debt service, and the deferred charges and reserves. And then we have a reserve for uncollected taxes. Um people ask me about that a lot too because we have such a great tax collection rate. Um we usually collect about um 99.7 which is fantastic. Um and a lot of credit goes to our tax collector for that. uh the reserve for uncollected taxes is to cover what if you don't what if something happens and you're not able to collect you know somebody's taxes or several people's taxes or uh somebody becomes exempt from paying taxes. So the reserve for uncollected taxes helps make sure that the municipality is fully funded and can continue to operate and take care of paying for all of the expenses if taxes go uncollected. any portion of um I'm usually right around here. We do a calculation for this. I'm usually right around the 5 million mark. Uh if that is not used and we don't have to dip into that, that falls to fund balance again helping us for the next year. This is a breakdown much like the

revenues of the appropriations. Um you can see what percentage of the appropriations each category makes up. Um public safety tops charts 19% of the budget. Um community services is 13.5% of the budget followed up by our insuranceances and our pension and social social security which both come in at almost 9% each of the budget. Um you can see that what the increases are. Our insuranceances overall went up by 846,000. um the health insurance actually would have gone up much more. It ends up being like a 25% increase, but we had a 34 12% increase. Uh we were able to work with a broker and we were able to uh motivate folks, especially younger folks who work for the city who, you know, they're young and maybe they're not married, maybe they don't have families to go into plans that cost less for them because the increase hits every municipal employee in the pocket that has health insurance and it hits the municipality. So, it's on both sides. So, um, some folks were motivated by that big increase to take a different kind of plan that cost them less out of their paycheck. And it also helped the city instead of going up 34 and a.5%, we only went up about 25%. Um, which is still a lot. I don't I don't say only lightly, but uh, 34 and a half was pretty terrifying. So, um, we're in a better place than we were. Uh this rounds out the rest of the appropriations. Um the library, the grants. Um municipal debt service is the largest in this category at 10%. Um and school debt service follows right behind

at 9.1%. Um we actually went down in our municipal debt service this year by 362,000. That's just by virtue of the schedules for our repayment of bonds. Um, we will be going out to bond. You'll see all that on the agendas coming up um in June. We'll probably be going out, I think I'm mature, in July. So, we'll be going out for a bond sale. Um, and what what I do try to do is to make sure that our debt service repayment schedules are as even as I can make them. So, when we have a dip like this, this is when it's a good time if the market is good for it. um if we have uh enough and we do that makes it worthwhile because there are costs to going out to bonding. So you just have to be really smart about your timing and about um the amount that you're going out for to make it worth it. So it'll kind of it should fall in and then even out. So it might go up next year because we'll take on you know we'll take on permanent bonding instead of just notes. But we try to keep the schedule pretty even. This is the other cap, the appropriations cap, which um a lot of people say the CFOs, we all talk about it all the time. It doesn't really make sense anymore. Um because you have the 2% property tax levy cap. So having an appropriations cap where you have to keep your appropriations that are within cap under 3.5%. Um so we're under that by 1.2 million. you know, how much sense does it make when there are costs outside of cap like part of the health insurance and different things that are allowed to go up anyway? So, it's here. It's a part of the budget. I put the slide up, but I don't know how much value it really has anymore. um a closer look at salaries and wages

and the general budget which covers all of the municipal employees except for some that are attributed to the soor utility and those who work um for parking services and then those in the UCCC office. So in um the general portion of the budget which is most of our employees salaries are up by 245,000 and change. It's about a 1.3% increase. Um, in the store utility, we did move a couple of salaries over where people are doing more work in the store utility than for the general fund. So, that's why you see a little bit of an increase there. Um, and then parking services went up by 28,000. Uh, because it's a much smaller salary budget, it looks big at a 5% increase, but um it's just less employees in that division. And then the uh uniform construction code UCCC office that is what we call a dedicated trust fund. It doesn't impact um any residents or or uh commercial anybody's taxes, property taxes, um they're funded by their fees. So if you need to use them and pay for a permit or whatever uh you may need to deal with with them, that covers everything. It's a dedicated by trust. we don't take any money in from them as a city um into our budget and uh they are able to um operate that's up 2.1%. So overall uh it's $373,000 in um salary increases and overall 1.8% um keep in mind there are three collective bargaining units in there. We have um the team serves which is DPW. We have our police and we have our fire. And then the rest of the city staff is um not they're they're non-union. They're called non-unions. So there's no collective bargaining agreement for those folks.

Okay. The current debt position. Um we are required to do an annual debt statement. You can find that up in the finance section, the reports of the finance section of the website. Um and our statutory equalized valuation um it's three the average of three years the last three years. So it's um as of December 31st 2025 it's 10 million and change. Um we are allowed to borrow um up to 2.5% of that. So that's 352,000 and change. Um I'm sorry 352 million and change. Um, so right now our outstanding statutory debt is 63 million and change. Um, we could actually borrow another 289 million um and still be within the guidelines um and the statutory requirements of the state. Uh, but I'm happy to say that we are under 1%. We're not even close to that 2.5 at a 625%. This is just a quick glance at our debt, our past capital budget. So, it just shows you from 2017 through 2026 what we're paying in um bond principle each year. Uh and what our capital budget is for that year. And we're just talking about general. We're not talking about parking utilities budget or store utilities budget. if you um take a deeper look at this and and you might 2019 might jump out at you, but uh we bonded for a firehouse. So that's the only year where you see a pretty large number in the capital budget. And then a quick dive into um our city departments and their capital budgets. Uh as I mentioned, the general fund budget is at 5,340, parking services at

2,593. The bulk of that being uh the second half of the renovations um raising the second half of the money for the renovations for the tier garage and the soore utility various projects around town um at 2,250. Uh this is the change from year to year between uh you have fire. The reason why it's up 935,000 this year is because there is um a fire engine this year in that capital budget. Um, police is just looking at cars this year. Um, that's up 135,000. Community services is down by 35. Community programs, we've done a lot a lot of work recently, as everybody knows, and and we've funded a lot of projects. They're down by 700,000. Um, and we don't have anything. Uh, we did some renovations and administration and clerk, and we don't have any of that going on right now. So, that's down. So overall, we're up in the capital budget by $82,000 this year. This is a quick glance at your parking services and your Soore and what those budgets are. Um you can see Soar's up by 105, parking's down by 132. Um nothing crazy there. Fire department, again, they're looking at an engine replacement, turnout gear, small equipment, fire hose replacement, and rescue equipment. I mean, other than the engine replacement, this is all uh pretty standard on an annual basis for the fire department uh to operate safely. Police department did have some other requests, but they shaved it down. The chief was super helpful shaving down our capital budget a bit and um we are looking at vehicle replacements and we're going to try to find some creative ways to get some of the other um items that uh he's looking to do. Maybe we can find some grants. So, we're going to look at that. Um, Department of Community Services,

almost 2 million in infrastructure projects. That includes road improvement projects on Beakman, Michigan, Orchard, Pine Grove to name a few. Um, the micro paving program. The public works does a paving program. Um, stream scouring and stabil stabilization. um Ascot Way stream dredging and maintenance projects related to storm water uh and traffic and safety projects with um uh rapid flashing beacon installations um pedestrian safety improvement pedestrian safety improvement projects and sidewalk infrastructure projects uh which we do every year. Also vehicles and equipment um coming to a total of 740,000. The biggest of those is the street sweeper. They cost $350,000. Um it's expensive to keep our streets clean. Uh and a rear packer garbage truck, which is 175 and a couple other pieces of equipment. In terms of our buildings, we have 125,000 budgeted in the capital uh program for building upgrades, improvements, masonry, and wall repairs at city hall. And we have another $50,000 um in building upgrades for Cornog Fieldhouse. Department of Community Programs, as I said, they're down by $700,000, but they do have a $680,000 capital budget. Um it includes $200,000 for um playgrounds at Memorial Fields and an East Summit playground um for baseball and softball fields at Memorial. um at the uh slide repair repairs and replacements at the aquatic center. Um phase two of the Tatlock playground uh the memorial field tennis court replacement and park furnishings

sore utility requests and capital 2.25 25. There's 980,000 for infrastructure and sore TV. That's inspection and cleaning, the GS GIS mapping updates, um the Chattam Road building, which is where our DPW and SOAR headquarters are, and parking lot upgrades. Um there are 700,000 allocated for the Broad Street trunk line, for soar replacements at Woodmir Drive and Woodmir Pond, um Lraine Road in place, and Sherman Aav and general repairs uh and system upgrades. There's another 320,000 for equipment and vehicles, a tractor with plow, trailer, backhoe, mobile lifts, um for the garage, and 250,000 for sore pump stations. There's upgrades needed at Constantine Place, uh Glenn A and River Road pump stations, and then general pump upgrades and grinder replacement program, parking services, $2.5 million for the tier garage rehab project. Uh that adds to the 2.4 for from last year. Um and then the parking lot improvements of 93,000. So we're just about done. Um key highlights. So at the end of 2025, recall we had a general fund balance of 10.62 million. Uh we are using 8.5 of that um in 26 to offset uh property taxes. Um we used 71% of our fund balance last year. we're using 80% of it. Again, we're still within that um the surplus policy that we set forth. So, I'm not concerned about that. Just based on uh what happened with some of the revenues, it was it was worth taking in an additional 100,000 there. Um the overall municipal tax levy increase to balance the budget, um 1,217,000.

again, $30 million in new property value growth due to the increase in the net assessed valuation. Um, that brings 298,000 into the municipal uh tax revenue. Um, overall the 2026 municipal budget is going to require a municipal tax increase of 0.027 of every $100 of assessed property valuation, which will generate approximately $920,000 in additional revenue um to deal with the increases that the city is seeing in terms of salary wages and operating. So $162 of that 933 total tax bill increase related to the municipal tax rate which is what we can control here. Um that's the municipal portion and that's what we're able to control. So based on the 445 average assessed home that's the increase that you'd be looking at $162 for the municipal portion. So when I said at the beginning, this is the last slide, but the budget gets introduced tonight, you have to have 28 days between introduction and adoption. Um, and we have a hearing scheduled for our May 5th meeting when people can ask questions and and we can dive into this deeper if anybody would like to. Um, and please do look at everything on the website, but just because the budget is introduced and it's adopted and it feels like it's over, uh, behind the scenes, we've been talking extensively, um, in the finance committee and in various other committees, um, about things that we could do in the future. What can we do to help? Because you're not really finding new revenues in local government. It's very hard to generate any new revenues. Um so we have to think about what can we do to to help in the future. So some of the ideas that we're

going to be looking into in various committees and vetting out um one is exploring in-house recycling alternatives. Can we bring that in-house? Does it achieve any savings for us? Um determine any cost savings. If we change, don't throw anything at me, but if we change for curbside pickup instead of rear yard pickup, just looking at what that costs, what could we save? is is it worth it? Um investigating maybe police offduty platforms to determine if there's potential savings there. Um continuing to review city contracts for any price efficiencies. Uh that's something we do constantly uh and we will continue to do. Uh we're also researching some options for moving our telephone system to a computer-based system. Um we've gotten some feedback that that could save us uh well over $100,000. So that would be amazing. We are looking into that. Um, and if we're able to do anything, you know, some of these are take a little longer. Um, but like something like the phones, if we're able to do that this year, that'll just be savings. If we don't spend it, it'll go into surplus and it'll help us next year. Um, also, we have begun to do some work in various departments on the fee ordinances. We're going to study that further and just research customary fees in neighboring towns. You know, we found in some cases um the UCCC was looking and they found that we were charging I it's $20 for some type of permit and the going average was $100. We said, "Well, why don't we make it 25?" I mean, that's you know, a little bit of something, right? Um and then a cost analysis to see if u bringing a health insurance waiver. used to be something that um I did in other municipalities um and lots of municipalities across the state still do them where you have a waiver um for somebody who doesn't who opt not to take insurance. Maybe they take their health insurance through their spouse um and so they wave insurance with the city with the cost of insurance. Now, you know,

some of these plans are 38,000, 45,000, 46,000. Um, paying a $5,000 waiver may be well worth it, but we have to we have to vet that out because there are people who already wave and don't get anything. So, it's a it's an analysis. But these are just uh some of the ideas that we tossed around um and tried to think about how we could and there's I'm sure many more will come out of our various committees in ways that we can either um reduce expenditures, ways that we could raise revenues and try to offset property taxes um for the future. So the job isn't done and that is it. Thank you for sitting through that and I hope it was a little bit interesting.

Well presented. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm confident there will be many questions for you, but give her a couple of days to catch up on her sleep because I don't think Tammy has slept yet in 2026. Um but having having in having introduced the budget, um we now have a couple of resolutions to go along with that. Um so let's see. Um Council Member Landman, would you please Sure. lead us into into the finance resolutions.

Thank you, Council President. Uh this is resolution number 12477. This resolution introduces the 2026 budget for the city and the parking and sewer utilities. Uh we will have a hearing and vote on this budget on May 5th. I move to adopt this resolution by roll call vote. Second. Thank you. Do we have any comments from members of the public? Do we have any comments from members of council? Madame clerk, would you please call the role? Mr. Ber, I. Mr. Chrisully, I. Miss Calmanson I Miss Lanman I Miss Lucerina I Mr. Palowski I President Toast

I thank you. Back to you council member Land. Thank you. This is resolution ID number 12467 which introduces the 2026 budget for Summit Downtown Inc. which covers our special improvement district. We will have a hearing and vote on this budget as well on May 25th. I move to adopt this resolution by roll call vote. Second. Okay. Thank you. and we'll also have the presentation on that May 5th. So, um, any comments from members of the public? Comments from Council. Madame Clerk, would you please call the role? Mr. Ber, I. Mr. Christopher, I. Miss Celmanson, I. Miss Landman, I. Miss Lucerina, I. Mr. Palowski,

I. President Toth I. Okay, let's move on to ordinances for introduction. And madame clerk, will you please read the ordinance for introduction number 12451? An ordinance to amend the general code of the city of Summit, chapter 18, streets and sidewalks, section 18-3, excavation of streets. Thank you, Council Member Chrisouli.

Thank you, Council President. Ordinance ID number 12451 would amend the city code regarding excavation of streets. Residents throughout Summit have complained about the quality, timeliness, and predictability of the work currently being undertaken by utilities in Summit. The proposed ordinance is intended to provide better oversight and quality of work being done by these utilities, including changes uh to the road opening moratorum from 5 to 10 years, requiring authorization that paving be completed curb to curb uh and other uh measures for inspection and consultation and the ability of the city to issue summons and fines for violations of the ordinance. Uh, I move to open the hearing on this ordinance.

Um, I believe you're introducing it. Oh, I'm sorry. U, I would like to introduce this ordinance. Second. Um, thank you. Um, so let's see. Roll call. Mr. Ber. I. Mr. Christopher Fully. I. Miss Camson. I. Miss. Landman. I. Mrs. Sarosina. I. Mr. Powski. I. President Toth. I. Um. Okay. That madame clerk, would you please read ordinance for introduction number 12473?

An ordinance amending the general code of the city of summit chapter 7 traffic section 7-25 regulations for the movement and the parking of traffic on municipal property and board of education property subsection 7-25.2 municipal parking lot areas. Thank you, Council Member Calmanson.

Thank you, Council President. This is ordinance ID 12473 and it authorizes a change in current daily parking rate rates and prepayments. With operational and maintenance costs steadily increasing, adjusting the daily and prepaid parking fees will help ensure the city can continue to properly maintain the parking lots and garages. Permit parking rate rates will change as follows. Daily rate will go from $4 to $5. Monthly prepayment from $80 to $100. quarterly prepayments from $228 to $285 and annual prepayments from $864 to $1,80. With a hearing date of April 21st, I move to introduce this ordinance.

Second, thank you. Um, Madame Clerk, Mr. Ber, I, Mr. Chris Foley, I, Miss Calmanson, I, Miss Landman, I, Miss Lucerino, I, Mr. Powski, I, President Toth. Thank you. Um, madame clerk, would you please read the ordinance for introduction number 12474? An ordinance to amend the general code of the city of Summit, chapter 7, traffic section 7-21, speed limits. Thank you, Council Member Powski.

Thank you. This is ordinance number 12474 uh to amend the general code regarding speed limits on two streets. The first one is Orchard. It's going to uh drop from 40 miles per hour to 25 miles per hour and Springfield Avenue between this corner right here and the end towards New Providence uh from 35 to 25. I move to introduce this ordinance. second. But I I I think um Springfield is actually by team car wash headed to um head We're talking about Brian Pond, right? Yes. Correct.

Oh, right. They stand corrected. All good. Right. Yes. Second. Thank you. Um Madam Cler, would you call the role? Mr. Ber, I. Mr. Christopher Foley. Hi. Miss Camson. Hi. Miss Landman. Hi. Meroscena. Hi. Mr. Powski. Hi. President Toth. I. Thank you. And as Miss uh Council Member Calmanson noted, these ordinances will be heard on the regular schedule at the next meeting on the 21st. Um so now we can go back to more resolutions. Um and so this is to you counsel member Lzerosena.

Thank you, Council President. A resolution ID 12490 with respect to a parking agreement with St. Teresa's Church. Uh we're actually going to delay any action on this particular item. We have had productive meetings with St. Teresa's to resolve the parking issues that they uh have raised with respect to the NBC zone. So we will continue work on that. We do not yet have a final agreement for public review and approval. So we will be moving on from resolution ID2490. Moving on to resolution ID2502. This is to confirm the mayor's appointee to rent commission. The year is a wonderful candidate the mayor has brought forth, Angela Grant. She is a longtime summit resident and has a strong record of service to the community. So, I move that we adopt this resolution.

Second. Okay. Do we have any public comments on this resolution? Do we have any comments from members of council? Council president. Thank you. Yes, Council Member Boy,

just a couple of words about uh Mrs. Grant. Uh I've known Angela Grant for all my life. I think uh you know, eight, nine years old. Uh she her family and they have been pillars of this community for almost like a hundred years. Uh she knows almost every property uh here in town. She knows all of the residents here in town. She's actually been uh involved in a lot of different uh committees. I was just talking to her today on Junth. Uh she always lets me know when there's issues on Dennis Place, lights her out, and everything else. She's like the the Dennis Place captain, you know. Um she's very vocal. She is going to be an excellent uh uh member of this committee. And I think this is falls more in line with really getting um everyone involved in committees. I mean, we have so many different types of people that are involved in committees now from all over town and I'm really happy to see that that there's representation um throughout the town. So, uh I am in full support of Miss Grant joining this committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Um, then let's move over to Council Member Chrisouli. Thank you, Council President. Thank you. Uh, Resolution ID 12427 would authorize engineering services in amount not to exceed $150,000 for rehab of the tier garage, which our city administrator discussed in her budget presentation. Um, the total cost to rehab the tier garage is estimated um, excuse me, can I thought we were going to pull this resolution

the professional services? Yes. Did I'm I'm sorry to stand on your lines. Um the the package isn't complete. I'm sorry. I had sent out an email earlier today that explained that we hadn't received the original paytoplay forms which is a state requirement by law and therefore we had to pull it. Okay. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm sorry. I and I was talking to the city engineer and focused on his input and I overlooked that. That's okay. My apology. That's okay. I I you you have plenty with what with which to entertain us tonight. So I get excited about the tier garage infrastructure. We all do.

Well, the next one is going to be even more more fun. Um thank you, Council President. Resolution ID number 12491 would authorize installation of temporary popup dog parks at locations to be determined. There was an amendment to the resolution which our city clerk issued today. Um, this amendment will allow final determination of the locations to be set by the capital projects or the CAPS committee without delaying uh the implementation uh of this, I would say, important initiative that brings neighbors together. I move to adopt this resolution. Second.

Do we have any comments from members of the public? I I I didn't realize last night that Oh, Henry Bassman, 18 Heartley Road when I when I mentioned this my feeling about this last night at the listening session, which was incidentally terrific. Uh I think it's a great opportunity to have a conversation with your city leaders and I would encourage people to come to it if they've got something they want to talk with city leaders about. But what I mentioned last night was our our city green, the village green is a precious precious thing in this community and it differentiates us from a lot of other communities in the state of New Jersey. uh we need to be very careful to preserve the integrity of the village green uh and not to chop it up by adding a little of this and a little of that and pretty soon have it built and diminished. Um I know the idea is to have these popup parks be temporary, but in my experience temporary often becomes permanent. And when humans see an open space, it's an invitation for development. It's just our nature as human beings and we need to preserve that open space and I would encourage you to find other suitable locations for the dog parks. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other comments? Do we have comments from members of council? Council President. Yes. Council member Boyer.

Uh so the dog park is is a is a very personal thing for me because uh maybe a year ago, year and a half ago, I was out walking my dog. Well, first I I was pushing for um uh waste doggy waste dispensers on corners. That didn't work over, you know, well, and we were in the majority and they were like, "No." So, um the next thing I was walking my dog with my wife and I just asked a random resident. And I said, "Hey, how would you feel about a a dog park here in Summit?" And not only did was she ecstatic about it, she was like, "Call me and I'll help you like um design it." I was like, "Wow." Uh came back, talked to our city engineer about it. And he said, "Well, we have all the material already. Let's, you know, let's let's try it out." And the council agreed and and we did that. And it was an absolute hit. I think,00 people responded and uh Mr. Bassman, you don't have to worry about it. 80% of them said Memorial Phil. So, so I think you're in good shape, buddy. But, you know, that brings me to uh to my my second point. I know we're going to talk about the budget. Uh but, you know, we we went through this whole pilot thing last year, right? We did it. We asked the residents to come out, give their opinions, and they did. and they overwhelmingly said we want to do this. Um 65% of respondents said that they would use the park daily. That is amazing. That is amazing. So that means people are going to be out walking their dog. They're not in the house. The kids are not on their phones. They're throwing the ball. I mean, you know, there are certain things that, you know, the municipality really needs to listen to and do. And one of those things is bringing the community together. And the

last estimate I heard was $50,000. $50,000. I think the budget was 68 million, maybe more than that. I'm sorry. Um, but we also have a surplus that we carry over year year. $10 million. I know we need a a rainy day fund. I get it. Right. But that's $10 million. 50 grand out of 10 million. I mean, we could get that done. So, you know, I I I know we're going to go back and we're going to talk about budget things and everything, right? And I know the people who don't have dogs um may not understand that uh they're family members. Like my dog is like my son. I feel that way. He's my kid. I take him everywhere on planes and everywhere I go. Um but I I want I want the council to reconsider like let's let's start this process and not and not wait again. So, um, thank you, Council President.

Do we have other comments? Okay, I'll I'll just Oh, I'm sorry. I You're so quiet, Council Member Calman said. Too polite.

Uh, thank you, Council President. Um, something one of the concerns I had about a dog park, and I shared this last night at the listening session, is that maybe playground is going to be opening soon. So we have our first fully inclusive playground that should be welcoming children neurode divergent neurotypical this playground should be welcoming to every child and if putting a dog park here would deter anyone from coming then we shouldn't do it. We we we need to make sure that maybe playground continues or it has isn't yet but it will be a playground for everyone to feel welcome and to come enjoy. Um, so that is my concern about it going at Village Green. Um, there's some talk about maybe maybe a different quadrant or something like that. Um, so I just wanted to share that, you know, that's something that I've been talking to council about. Uh, thank you.

Thank you, Council President. Just and and you know what? I I absolutely agree. Let's not put it on the village green, right? And let's just move forward with a permanent one on Memorial. and everybody is and everybody is happy because I also have that same concern about the new uh playground that we've we've constructed on the village green. So why do the you know the uh uh the temporary parks? I mean let's go for it and let's let's build one memorial field where 85% of the residents said they would like to have it. So I think that solves all problems. Thank you, Council Member Palowski.

Thank you. Um, I don't necessarily agree, but um, I definitely would like to learn more about it. Um, I spent a lot of time at the dog park this summer and, uh, every time I was there, I asked residents, some of them are here, you know, what they thought of it, um, where they'd like to see it, how they how they could see it be improved. And one of the things we talked about was should we put turf down? Should we put gravel down? And overwhelmingly uh they said no, right? And I would say no, too, because as Mr. Bassman pointed out, we need to preserve our green spaces. One of the ideas, and I I like the idea of the popup dog park because it's mobile, right? But it's not the greatest looking fencing of all time. And um maybe there's a way to do better. and some residents came up with some ideas about I guess I'll call it a um permanent temporary dog park so that you can get real fencing. You can put footings in at various places in town and kind of move it around uh so different people can enjoy enjoy the park, the dog park at different times of year. Uh one of the problems with Memorial Field was come summertime it was very hot and there's no trees there. Um, but there is shade in other places. So, I can think of a number of locations, several at maybe, unless we don't want to do that. Um, uh, across Elm Street on the Village Green, across Broad Street by the train station where we no longer have the, um, Louie, um, Jackie's favorite, um, and Memorial Field, both sides of Memorial Field. that'll also help preserve the grass and kind of share the wealth so different people can walk from different places in town at different times of year. So, um

I I think we should keep looking at it, but in the meantime, I'm I'm very happy that we were able to do the temporary popup dog parks. Um and I'm glad that and thank you guys. I've been kind of pressing to get this on an agenda because springtime's here and and I thank the CAPS committee for uh making it happen uh for this meeting. Okay.

I'll just add um or to amplify what what council member Chrisouli suggested that the keep you many of you have great ideas as well. We want to hear them and direct direct your dog park ideas particularly locations to council member Chrisouli because he runs the caps committee.

Council President, if I may, I really appreciate this discussion. This is a a topic that really brings most people in summit together. Not everybody has a dog, but people recognize the value of of community and bringing neighbors together. I think we can find uh at least two spots that we can agree on and and we can get this moving forward. I want to listen to everybody's thoughts on this and we can come to agreement. Okay. Thank you. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Back to you, Council Member Chrisouli.

Thank you, Council President. Uh, resolution ID number 12492 would authorize a one-year contract extension for curbside collection and marketing of recycling. Again, a comment from Tammy's uh budget discussion. We're looking at creative ways to save money here. And instead of going out to market, the current provider was able to give us an extension with no cost increase. uh in contrast to the significant increases that other towns are experiencing when they go out to bid. Uh so over the next year, we will be exploring ways to improve performance on this activity. I move to adopt the resolution.

Second. Do we have any comments from members of the public? Any comments from members of council? Okay. All in favor of this resolution? I Any opposed? Motion carries. Council member Chrisouli. Thank you, Council President. Resolution ID number 12485 would authorize submission of requests for federal funding of the park line and associated sidewalks around Morris and Broad Streets in the amount of approximately $3 million. No matching funds are required for this grant, meaning the city wouldn't have to pay any additional amounts. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Okay. Do we have comments from members of the public? We have comments from members of council. Council President. Yes. Council member Boyer.

So, I I I chair the park line uh improvement project and there wasn't a chair uh before me. We passed a resolution last year because it was stagnant. It wasn't it wasn't moving. Um and what a great decision that has been. And I just want to and they they weren't having meetings and at all. Um and I just want to applaud the residents who are on that committee. Uh they have done a fantastic job showing up, getting the details, taking it back to the residents on their street. Uh and now we are and we've been pushing and so so now we've got the removal of the bridges and they're they're the uh EIC group um is up there removing all of the uh all of the clutter and everything and we got the DOT approvals. I mean, it is really moving and I'm excited about that. And and that's in some of these committees that we have, um, we we should be really looking at them and if they're stagnant, uh, we're all pretty good at like sharing things and we got to, you know, we should step in and say, you know what, it's not really moving that well. We need to we need to do something about it. And this is a perfect example. Thank you.

Other comments from members of council? Um, Okay. I I just want to add that while this is talk this this um I'm losing it. Grant application is says it's about the park line. We were told that for federal grants we should go big. Um so that this is wrapping in addition to park line this is wrapping in sidewalks. This is wrapping in the pedestrian bridge that would cross Broad Street and connect the park line um to the Solerno Dwayne side of Broad Street. So, this is about more than just the park line. This is about significant improvements to that part of town. And we unfortunately our city engineer is on vacation this week, but he thinks that he's put together a robust enough grant proposal that the feds will sit up and take notice and hopefully fund it. Um so with that um and hopefully they won't listen to your comments tonight.

All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. One more for you, Council Member Chrisully. Thank you, Council President. Resolution ID 12499 would authorize the appointment of an acting building subcode official, an important function of city government, and to fill this critical vacancy, an existing staff member will be named to this acting position while a permanent official is recruited. I move to adopt the resolution. Second. Do we have any comments from members of the public? Comments from members of council. Okay. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Resolution carries. Um, over to you, Council Member Pelowski.

Thank you. This is resolution ID number 12484 to authorize the submission to the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety State and Community Highway Safety Grant application and to execute a grant agreement. Uh we're going to be applying for $15,000. This grant is used for things like controlling impaired driving, increasing seat belt usage rates, promoting the proper use of child passenger restraint system uh systems, increasing traffic law enforcement, and a bevy of other initiatives that we may choose to implement. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Okay. Do we have any comments from members of the public? Comments from members of council. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Resolution carries. Back to you, Council Member Powski. Thank you. This is resolution ID number 12469 to declare two vacancies in the fire department. One is for uh lieutenant who's re uh is retiring and the second is for a pro probationary firefighter fighter. Uh I move to adopt this resolution. Second.

Do we have any me any comments from members of the public? Any comments from members of council? All in favor? I. Any opposed? No. Resolution carries. Um, one more for you, Council Member Belowski.

Thank you very much. Uh, this is resolution ID number 12495 to authorize fire department promotion to those two vacancies. Uh, one's to lieutenant and one's to appoint a probationary firefighter. I should have said on the last one, uh, thank you to Lieutenant Darko for his service over the years and and we wish you the best in your retirement. But in this one, I'd like to, uh, congratulate Thomas Penn for his promotion to lieutenant and Andrew Mullen, who is whose father was a longtime fire department, and he's following in his dad's footsteps. I move to adopt this resolution. Second.

Do we have any comments from members of the public? Any comments from members of council? Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Resolution carries. Um, let's see. Um, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Okay. Any member any comments from members of the public on the consent agenda? Any comments from members of council? Council president. Yes, council member Lisa.

Thank you. Just wanted to lift up in brief the four annual license agreements that are listed under law and labor. This is ordinary course action and also a legal requirement for the four restaurants that have applied to have sidewalk dining. Because they are liquor license holders, we are required to enter into a license agreement with them. They carry insurance requirements for benefit of the city and they also pay an annual fee which is $485 per seat. Um so again this is uh an ordinary course matter and and also a legal requirement. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments? All in favor? I.

Any opposed? Okay. Resolution. The consent agenda is adopted and thank you to our city staff who've been with us this evening. Um, of course, you're welcome to stay, but but please feel free to leave. Um, we're going to move on to the public comment section um of our meeting. And as we begin public comment, we ask that residents of Summit step forward to speak first. We value input from everyone and any member of the public is welcome to speak. We simply ask for your courtesy in allowing our neighbors to lead the public discussion if they're prepared to speak first. And again, um if anyone does have a comment, remind you of of our three minute um time frame and to leave written comments in the box. And I don't see people rushing to the lecture. My name is Henry Bassman, 18 Hartley Road. Uh, I've been ruminating about something for months, and when I found out that the budget presentation was going to be today, I figured this was the appropriate time to make this recommendation. And I have some specifics here, but this is really a conceptual recommendation. And it's based upon the premise that people tend to be more careful when they have to pay for something than if they have a blanket permission to use something uh without usage fees. And so I'm recommending that every entity that uses the lighted fields at Tatlock should pay a fee for each usage. The fee

should include the cost of electricity, cleanup, offduty police officers, and reimbursement for wear and tear. Any damage to the field should be charged back to the entity that used the field. And if the scheduled usage is canled and no practice takes place, then the fee should not be charged. The fee should apply to practice sessions and games by community programs, private sports clubs, and more than one high school varsity game of each sport. The changes, the charges to private clubs should be in addition to the annual fee already levied since the current annual fee covers the unlighted usage of the fields and every summit resident should not be required to bear the burden for the added expenses arising from the activities of a few. The fee should include an appropriate amount for long-term maintenance in addition to operating costs. The maintenance portion should be uh recorded in a separate budget line and acrew from year to year to help defay the cost of major maintenance needs such as replacing turf or changing light bulbs. There's a precedence for this. Uh community ser uh community programs, activities that you enroll your children in, you need to pay for. Uh you want to use the golf course, you need to pay for it. you want to use the aquatic center, you need to pay for it. These things are self- sustaining because they apply to only a portion of the uh residents of Summit, not to the entire community, and they're not necessary uh fees, not necessary activities, but things that are enrichment. So, um I' I'd like to like you to consider that. Thank you. Thank you, M.

I have a copy here for you. Okay. Um, in the box, sorry. Thank you for modeling that behavior. I said thank you for modeling that behavior. Okay. Do we have any other comments? No. Moving on to comments from council members. Okay, Council Member Powski,

thank you. Uh, first I'd like to thank Ben and Anna for a great presentation on the history of the drama program in our summit schools. I think when I introduced them, I said, "Our program is robust and tremendous, but I should have also said distinguished because they've not only uh been nominated for a slew of awards, but they've also won a whole bunch." Um, so congratulations to them for that. Uh, second, I just wanted to report that our boys lacrosse team is five-0 and they had a big win today against Satan Hall Prep in overtime. Quinn Hines got the game winner. Um we're also we also beat the number one public school Radner uh in our opening game. So they're off to a great start and the girls lacrosse team is 2 and 0 as well. I expect they'll keep winning, too. Uh then I was going to comment on the consent agenda, but I didn't get my hand up in time. One of the items that we had on there were to grant permission and set forth conditions for uh some events at Summit Downtown, Inc. is going to be uh putting on uh in the coming weeks and months. So, family fun night is June 4th. You might want to mark your calendar. There's a World Cup watch party. I think that's for the opening game on July 19th, which is my wife's birthday. So, maybe I'll take her to that. And Arts and Cars will be on September 20th.

Thank Thank you, Council Member Palowski. Anybody? Council member Chrisouli.

Thank you, Council President. Just wanted to follow up on my earlier comments. Dog parks are great, but the meat and potatoes of the city's work is not always as fun or glamorous. For heaven's sake, I should know I'm on the board of the joint meeting, which is our sewer utility. Important work. Uh, but nobody would claim it's glamorous. Um, the real work of Summit for the most part is done by a very talent and dedicated staff that make our city work. And one example that I'd like to shine a light on this week is Summit's Division of Land Use led by Agusto Delmaso uh in zoning enforcement. One recent enforcement action involved an unregistered business operating on a site strewn with debris with unpermitted structures and electrical connections, an unsightly danger to our community. Other recent zone recent zoning enforcement actions included a fine and removal of invasive bamboo. It looks great, but it really takes over. uh and they also uh find and close down an unregistered business. Uh the enforcement team is now focusing on storm water discharge violations, an issue that we're hearing about. We heard about it at last night's listening session and we're hearing about it all across town where neighbors are sending their water onto neighboring properties against the code. Uh so these activities help our town work better, help our town be more neighborly and also in some cases provide revenue. Uh we're looking for those pennies, nickels, and dimes in the couch this year for fee income. And this is yet another way where our towned staff is working to make that happen. So stay tuned. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Chrisi. Anybody else? Council member Calmanson.

Thank you, Council President. Um, first I wanted to start by thanking our CFO Tammy Baldwin, our um, director of finance Jen Kabisa and council members and there thank you for all of your hard work on the budget. This was not an easy task to start out with and with the delay in the sale of the firehouse property. I know that added a very challenging layer to an already challenging situation. So, thank you again. I hope you can get some sleep now. Um, also I wanted to give a playground update. Um, Tatlock playground is going to be removed soon, likely the beginning of next week and maybe playground is still under construction, not ready to open. So that does mean we're going to be without two city playgrounds during um, the spring. But looking forward um, come Memorial Day, Tatlock should be ready to go. It should be open and we have a tentative date for um, maybe playground for opening June 8th. So, we're really excited to have two new city playgrounds this summer. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Um before I make my planned remarks, I just want to um address something that's come up over the past 24 hours. Um I know we've been elected to deal with things like potholes and dog parks and parking. Uh but we also have a responsibility to recognize and respond to our residents concerns. Over the past 24 hours, I've heard from residents about the importance of the words that elected officials use at all levels of government from the deis here in summit to our president and um you know the rhetoric today from the top of our government was nothing short of appalling. Um, but I want to say that I am grateful to serve this community tonight in my capacity as a council member with my colleagues on this day as who respect and uphold the constitution. So, I just wanted to say that. Um, on to my other comments. I also wanted to thank Tammy, Jen, and all of the department heads um, as well as my fellow elected officials for being measured and rational and responsible in delivering a budget that we can stand behind. We are going to feel the squeeze this year as Tammy mentioned. Um but I'm confident that this team can make it work. Um you know as Tammy mentioned as a finance committee we met 12 times this quarter for over 25 hours in total. Um but most importantly the city staff across every single department spent much more time than that to draft, revise and refine uh the budget. And as she also mentioned our work is not done. Uh we are exploring a number of opportunities to make changes to the way the city structures is structured, how we provide services, revenue streams and appropriations to make sure we set ourselves on a course uh to weather the storms in the future. So that is our next focus and we always welcome resident input and suggestions.

Um, and then lastly, um, as I look forward to attending the Grace Gala on Friday night, I wanted to put a call out to our residents. Each week, Grace delivers, uh, food to over 800 families in the Summit community. I volunteer with Grace most weeks, twice a week, um, and have earned, uh, a title I'm quite proud of, which is the bag lady. um because I play a role in collecting, sorting, counting, and storing uh bags to help us deliver groceries to families in need. Um so my ask is we are in desperate need right now for reusable grocery bags. Um so please open up that kitchen cabinet in the bottom and dig out those extra reusable bags. Uh, you can deliver them to there's a gray storage bin in the back of the community center and if for any reason you can't get them there yourself, I am happy to come collect them from you. So, just send me an email and the bag lady will appear. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Um, let's see. Mr. Council Member Boyer, we haven't heard from you yet.

See, uh, you know, all I got to do is lean in and Claire's like, "Yeah, thank thank you, Council President." Um, this weekend I watched nearly 2,000 young athletes descend on I'm going to call it Tadlock, but investors bank field. Um, these kids weren't out there for a participation trophy. I mean, they were out there to find out what they were made of. I mean, you talk about like cheering somebody on. It was a wonderful sight. I kids were running and there was another kid running alongside of him. Come on, Jim. You know, and and Jim was like three laps behind, right? But it it was just it was amazing to see. Um, so I like kids doing activities. That is great. More more importantly though, what I what I noticed is that the volunteers, the parents, like these things wouldn't happen without all of the parents there. The the you know the the what do you call it? The snack shop. What is it called?

Concession stand.

Yeah. I've been in Alabama too long, so like you know my my accent is coming out. Yeah, the concession stand. Um cheers to the parents. I mean, they they they deserve like a round of applause. They make this city um uh uh work, you know. So, uh shout out to them. Um secondly, this was a weekend of Good Friday. Some call it Resurrection Sunday, Easter, uh Passover. Uh and before that, I reached out to a lot of family members that I have that I haven't talked to in a long time. And it got me thinking about loneliness and how a phone call can make somebody's day. I mean, I spent I spent hours talking to one of my aunts and you know, at the end of the the call and I didn't realize the effect, but at the end of the call, she said, "Thank you for calling me. I really appreciated this. Not only did you make my day, but you made my month." So, I you know, I asked folks and I said it to my family on Sunday when we all got together. You know, give people a call. There's always somebody that you're thinking about that you say, I'm going to call them tomorrow, right? We all have at least five minutes, but if it's with me, you need an hour, right? Like, so make sure make sure you uh give yourself some time. Uh but you know I wanted to say that and to uh Shantel's point about comments you know from the federal government from political officials in general. I share that opinion. You know, I listen, there's a way to talk, right? I mean, you know, I'm not talking about

policies and stuff, right? But I, you know, I I generally had to say what what and so, you know, I agree there is a certain decorum that you respect from your political officials and uh and you know, we can't control what other people do. we can control how we conduct ourselves. And I hope that you all are are happy that I'm not running off saying crazy stuff like that either. But um but yeah, I I totally agree. And you know what, and it it starts here with us and I think we've been pretty good about it this year. Um that is I know I forgot to say something, but that's all I got. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Um I Yes, Council Member Lucer Cena.

Sorry, thank you, Council President. And I apologize. I I forgot my timer, but I will try to keep my comments brief. April is autism awareness month. Uh so we are standing with our sons and daughters with a autism and others who have uh other neurode divergence. We have a save the date for Tuesday, April 28th. There is a wellness symposium at our Summit High School 6:30 p.m. There will be resources available on uh local mental health supports as well as activities for skills building to invest further in the mental health of our children. Um so again, that's Tuesday, April 28th at 6:30 in Summit High School. uh on what is is happening outside of summit. Uh I agree sometimes it's important to just say the thing and threatening an entire civilization including innocent civilians is despicable and scary. Calling brave young men and women into war when both the purpose and the exit strategy are unclear is terrible and scary. Taking innocent children and holding them in deplorable conditions in detention centers is terrible and scary. There are more things we could add to that list, but I will leave it there for now. And if anyone else is feeling scared or angry or sad, please know that you are not alone in that. Uh to close, we got some very wise words from outer space uh just a few days ago to help us through from NASA astronaut Victor Glover on the Aremis 2 mission. Uh he said in part, "I can really see Earth as one thing. You're on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe together." As we go into Easter Sunday, thinking about all the cultures around the world,

whether you celebrate the holiday or not, whether you believe in God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing, and that we've got to get through this together. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Um ah, our mayor has something to say. I do. I have to correct Councilman Palowski, unfortunately. Um, the World Cup Oh, man. It's a rough day for you, Bob. Um, the World Cup uh opening game actually is June 11th, and SDI is putting on a watch party on June 11th, as well as the one mentioned prior on July 18th.

19th. 19th. Okay. Um, so I just wanted to make that correction so that everybody knows. So, two Thursdays in a row downtown, there will be a buzz in the Bank Street Beachwood area. One for family fun night on the 4th and then one for June uh for the World Cup on the 11th. Don't get them confused. It would be really weird.

They're going to be slightly different experiences for sure. Um and then um one other thing, uh Mr. Bassman, I appreciate your comments. Um I don't know if you're aware but there is a field user fee that every single participant in any field sport in summit um does pay already. So that is and that actually started I believe when the turf went in at Tatlock investors um and it's been it's the intended purpose is to use that um those funds for um you know renovation and maintenance of of the field spaces. So, um, so it would it does exist. Um, and lastly, this is a little bit off script, but, um, I know that the YMCA, it's this is a near and dear event to my heart. Um, and, uh, it's the special needs prom that the YMCA puts on every year. Um, and that is May 14th, and they are looking for volunteers. Um, there are about 65 or so participants. Um, it really is an awesome event. It takes place at the Berkeley Heights Y. Um, and if you're interested in volunteering, uh, every every prom, um, guest gets a has a buddy. So, we need adults and and high school kids and college kids if they're home from school, um, to come and be a buddy. It's really, really, really heartwarming. There are videos on the Y website, too. So, you can check it out. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, and I'm just going to Council President, I'm sorry. I I I just remembered um and and I I'd get in trouble. you're trying to cut down.

I but I'd get I'd get in a lot of trouble if I didn't say this. Um so I know we're talking about the budget, right? Uh I have spoken to many of crossing guards. They're looking for some type of increase in pay and we if we haven't looked at that, why not? Um we should be looking at that. These are people that are out there in the in the cold 10 degrees, right? 20 degrees walking your kids across the street. Um they have they haven't had a raise in a in a while. And you know, a lot of these folks are, you know, retired, well retired, right? Um we should look at it. I mean, at least look at it. You can't say that we're not even going to look at it. that that's unacceptable, right? So, when you go back and you're looking at the finances and everything, just remember that these folks take good care of our children, right? And we should take good care of them because again, we do have a surplus. So, you're talking about, you know, an extra, you know, $100,000. I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there, right? When you got a $8 million surplus, kind of hard to defend, right? So, please take a look at it. Um the the last thing is uh you broke the astronaut. That was cool. Uh you know they they asked him how do you feel being the first black man going in you know to uh to the moon. His comment was great. You know his comment was um you know this is a an an astonishing thing for humanity. You know this is a great thing for humanity for people. And and that's the way that we should be looking at it. This is historic for human beings, you know, not a particular race cuz he wants

to be seen like everyone else and he is a really accomplished man. Um, so that was a good response. So, uh, thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Um, I'm going to wrap it up and looking at my prepared remarks, I'm basically just putting a bow on what everyone said. Um because now we we have gotten through the first quarter of 2026, which is a really good time to say what have we done, where are we? Um last year, council did reach the court-ordered settlement um setting summit's affordable housing obligation through June 30th, 2035. So this quarter, we passed the ordinances and resolutions to implement it um with transparency front and center. We hosted a long public meeting here in this chamber so residents could question our attorney and our planner. We posted detailed maps, unit counts by development, timelines on the city website, and we've held additional informal listening sessions to dig into additional concerns. Um meanwhile, the highlight of this evening, the finance committee with CFO Baldwin and um chief of finance Kobisa um has been laser focused on this budget and you've heard those details. Residents have been asking for more access, more transparency. So, council has already we held two listening sessions in February, one last night, another one later this month. Um, I launched council president office hours 3 to 5 on Mondays in the council conference room right over there. So, stop by at any of these, share ideas, ask questions, get to know us. So, in short, first quarter was about getting the city's house in order, planning the year, and improving communications. In the second quarter, as you've heard, council is going to focus on bringing neighbors together with the outdoor events um and dining, pop up the pop-up dog parks, playgrounds, watch parties, and more.

So, please stay tuned. Um and do I hear a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? We stand a journal.