Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. The meeting will come to order. And Madam 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 dais and return it thereafter. Thank you. Would you please read the rail call? Mr. Boyer?

Present.

Mr. Chris Foley? Here. Ms. Kalmanson? Here. Ms. Landman? Here. Mrs. Saracena? Here. President Toth? Here.

Okay, I'd like to call on Hunter Patel to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, would you please read the notices regarding the closed session and hearings and comments?

A closed session meeting as authorized by state statute was announced and held prior to the start of this meeting, and the known items for discussion were listed on the published closed session agenda. Please be advised that council meetings are broadcast live on Comcast channel 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, clearly state your name and address, spell your last name, and speak into the podium microphone so that your comments can be understood by all and properly recorded. Whenever an audience or council member reads from a prepared statement, please give or email a copy to the city clerk's office at cityclerk at cityofsummit.org. to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard please limit your comments to no more than three minutes in length unless you are using an electronic device to follow the meeting agenda or need it for professional emergency contact purposes please turn it off thank you okay thank you and i'm going to expand a bit on the city clerk's note about hearings and comments this will facilitate a smoother process particularly for those watching remotely

If you are seated in one of the first two rows, please remain silent. Anything you can say will be picked up by the recording microphones and make it very difficult to hear the official proceedings. And the three minute limit on public comments corresponds to a little bit less than a single printed page. if you're leaving your written remarks please put your name on them and place them in the box near the lectern when you are done with that let's move on to the city's business beginning with the minutes for approval do i hear a motion to approve the minutes of the regular and closed session sessions of may 19 1926 with the closed session minutes as amended so moved Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Minutes are approved.

and then on to reports madam mayor thank you good evening everyone thank you for being here and we have our annual pride and juneteenth events coming up this month summit has pride will be held on sunday june 14th on the village green from 3 to 5 30 p.m and will feature musical performances health and educational displays art activities food trucks and more Our Juneteenth celebration will be a two-part event this year, starting with a flag raising on the Village Green on Friday, June 19th at 3 PM, and then a pool party celebration at the Summit Family Aquatic Center on Saturday, June 20th. This event will be held from 12 to 5, and you do not need a pool membership to attend or swim. We'll have food trucks, children's activities, music and entertainment, and another flag raising ceremony.

More information on both of these events is available on our city website.

Hope to see you there. And I have an important travel advisory to share regarding the upcoming FIFA World Cup that's taking place at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. This event is expected to draw thousands of attendees throughout June and July. As there will be no on-site parking at MetLife, all attendees will be relying upon public transportation to travel to and from the venue on game days. Substantial congestion is anticipated across New Jersey transit lines and stations in the surrounding area, including Summit, beginning several hours before each game and continuing for several hours after each game. Summit residents are advised to avoid non-essential travel on New Jersey transit trains and buses on the following days. June 13th, 16th, 22nd, 25th, 27th, and 30th, and July 5th and 19th. Those who have the flexibility to work remotely are strongly advised to do so rather than commuting on New Jersey Transit these days. Anyone needing to use New Jersey Transit on those dates should allow extra travel time and consider alternate routes or modes of transportation where possible. This information is also on the homepage of the city website for you to refer to as well as on New Jersey Transit's website. And last I just last meeting Councilman Pulaski announced his resignation and I promised that I would make my comments not then because it was late in the evening and I would wait until today. And in the intervening couple of weeks, my understanding is that we do typically honor volunteers at the RE-ORG meeting every year. But I still really feel strongly that given the dedication of Bob, I wanted to just stop for a second and say that he worked literally nonstop. He worked so hard as a council person for the citizens of Summit. that he couldn't both do his paying job and this job. He's a volunteer. He was the one who brought his power washer out and asked the city staff to make cleaning up the town a priority. He didn't just ask them to, he showed up and he showed them how it could be done. And he spent his free time doing what he believed to be right. And he pushed to have Anderson Fieldhouse fixed and Cornog Fieldhouse fixed to align with what we all believe that Summit is, which is, as I like to say, the GOAT. And so I just wanted to make sure to take a minute to thank him for his dedication and just to say that he will be missed here in the dais. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. And now on to Tammy Baldwin for the city administrator's report. Administrator Baldwin.

Thank you, Council President. Good evening, everyone. Please be advised that now through June 18th, the Health and Vital Statistics Office will be closed for lunch from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., Monday through Thursday. We just have a temporary staffing issue. If you've watched budget presentations, Council's very cognitive of the budget, and we're a little bit leanly staffed, and humans have... Issues that come up and so we'll be closed for lunch just through the 18th. So please have patience with us with that. The summit free market June events will be held on Saturday, June 13th from 8 AM to 3 PM. And Friday, June 26th from 12 PM to 2 PM at the transfer station. Summit residents with a parking disposal permit can attend and browse donated items, take what they want for free, and you can also donate. Please review the donation guidelines on our website at cityofsummit.org backslash freemarket before you bring your items to donate, please. And reminder of summer hours at City Hall. We are operating under our summer hours and it's now from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Monday through Thursday we are open from 8 to 4.30 and on Fridays from 8 to 1. So if you have any city business, those would be the hours to attend. Thank you so much.

Thank you, and for the council president's report. First, congratulations to last night's primary election winners. We all look forward to a positive campaign season, focused on ideas and issues, right? In turning to more immediate business, we do also wish former council member Pawlowski all the best. And as the mayor indicated, we'll honor him at the reorganization meeting next January. I want to explain the process to fill his seat for the remainder of the year. Because Mr. Pawlowski is a Republican, the Republican Party is responsible for providing the city clerk with three names for the remaining council members to choose between to replace Mr. Pawlowski. That has happened, we're doing our due diligence now, and we expect to welcome our new council member very shortly. Council is going to hold two listening sessions this month, both in the youth lounge at the community center. The first is next Monday the 8th from 7 to 8.30, and the second one is Monday the 22nd from 7.30 to 9. And finally, my upcoming office hours for the month are Mondays the 8th and the 15th from 3 to 5 in the council conference room. I'm always happy to meet at another time. And tonight. Mayor, we may. We may or may not.

I don't think, is Anna here? I didn't think so. Okay, so we have three awards that were supposed to be presented to our scholarship applications. They wrote essays. We had a semi-finalist that went to the state. We didn't have a finalist. We didn't have a winner this year. We did last year, which was fun. But they were supposed to come and get recognized, and none of them could come tonight. So we'll give them their certificates at another time.

Okay, well that's all of the end of the year pressures, I'm sure. But we do have someone for the historic minute, so over to you, Council Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Tonight I would like to welcome Hunter Patel to give the historical minute. Come on up. Hunter, who happens to have incredible parents who do so much for the city of Summit, is a junior at Summit High School, and he will be speaking tonight about the history of Summit Middle School, the building. So now over to you, Hunter. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Hunter Patel and I'm currently a junior at Summit High School. I participate in debate as well as numerous other clubs and activities, including Robotics Club. Today, I'll be going into the history of the Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School. I attended this school myself from 2020 to 2023, so it is of significance to me. The Summit Middle School was built as the Summit Senior High School in 1923. It includes classical architecture with gargoyles on the roof as a result of the time period. The gargoyles were placed at LCJ-SMS when it was built but are now hard to see since they're not near the current entrance and are hidden away on the roof. The gargoyles represent the five areas of study, which are science, music, humanities, athletics, and industrial arts. Gargoyles were traditionally used to scare evil spirits off of buildings in Europe after the ancient Greeks had used them as decorative spouts for water. The inclusion of these gargoyles demonstrates how the school was designed to go beyond basic utilitarianism and into symbolic and beautiful designs. During the 1960s, the current high school was built along Kent Place Boulevard. Due to this, the older school became the middle school as it is today, while the older junior high schools were closed. The school was named after Lawton C. Johnson in 2004. He was a previous student of the Summit Public School system who dedicated his life to serving the school community. He worked at the middle school for 52 years in a variety of administrative roles, including office manager. He was known as an exceptional individual and for not having missed a day of work in 47 years. Around 2010, the school did renovations including replacing old windows in order to maintain the original Gothic design. Landscaping was also redone in order to avoid large trees damaging the bricks and to be closer to the original landscaping style. These renovations helped to maintain the 1920s design of the school for the modern era. Recently, air conditioning was added and the cafeteria was expanded. In addition, new innovation labs were built to improve STEAM education and the school received large renovations to areas such as the entrances and athletic fields. Overall, Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School represents both the history and the future of education in Summit. While the building still preserves many of its original architectural details from 1923, it has continued to evolve in order to meet the needs of modern students with new renovations. These renovations and updates ensure that LCJSMS will continue serving future generations of students for many years to come. Thank you.

Council President, at the risk of aging myself, I knew Mr. Johnson when he was in the middle school. Yes, yes. It was called the junior high.

I think many of us remember when it was named on his behalf, and I'm a huge fan of gargoyles, so I appreciate knowing that. Thank you. And we do have a bonus presentation from community programs about our newest park and perhaps some other updates. So Assistant Director David Guido will walk us through that.

Thank you, Council President. And goal is to breeze through this very quickly. Gonna give you the bird's eye view. If you guys do have any other questions, please let me know. I do know we have a packed agenda, so jumping right into it. So I know everybody's asking when our current playgrounds that are under construction are gonna be done, maybe playground. Got some bad news today is going to be pushed back to the week of June 29th. Unfortunately, there were some health issues there with the site foreman and a lot of drainage work that they did not anticipate having as well as a large tree stump that they uncovered during the construction. So we're getting there. Tatlock Playground, if you head down there, it doesn't look like it's going to be done on Friday. They're still putting pieces together. But I was assured that by the end of the day Friday, we would be able to open it. More to come on that. We'll probably have to do an inspection. So it might not be till Monday when we tie up the loose ends. But Tatlock Playground is right there. So that's super exciting. But the real reason we're here tonight is to talk about the new East Summit Playground that we've had a grant application on the agenda for. We also had an acceptance of a donation. So wheels are turning on this. So just as some background information, the playground is envisioned to be a smaller scale neighborhood playground, nothing like the playground that maybe which is huge or the beautiful owl at Tatlock. It's going to be a nice playground. It'll be a solid playground, but nothing like wow, that'll really draw people in. And that's done intentionally because we don't want to bring more parking issues to that neighborhood, which we know is already overburdened with the community center traffic. It's intended to be used primarily for pedestrian traffic. So people will the goal is for people to walk there. That's why we're calling it the neighborhood playground. And after we've been talking about this in committee for I'll actually say years now, this conversation goes back to 2021 when the playground master plan was done. We looked at different options and have been discussing it since then. So really thrilled to be able to finally build this and bring it to fruition. So the specs that you're going to see in a little bit were designed by the MRC and GameTime in conjunction with the grant that was applied for a couple months ago. The design came in at $370,000 total through the Bergen bids contract. It will be completely funded through donations currently after a grant is accepted tonight or a donation is accepted tonight. will, as long as it's accepted, will be at 396 on hand. So the remaining funds will be used to create about eight to 10 parking spots down below. So that'll be helpful in mitigating the traffic issue and making sure that Morris Court is kept kept safe after we see the plans tonight and they'll be all posted to the city's website tomorrow from June 3rd to July 3rd we'll be soliciting any public input on the project and then hopefully based on that feedback we'll be able to revise the plans if need be and award the contract through the Bergen bids again at the July 28th meeting Then there's a six to eight week delivery time with expected construction in September and October. So by the end of this year, we'll have three brand new playgrounds in Summit. If you look here, this is what the playground for the two to five year olds is going to look like. The large play structure, some balance beams, really cool with the swing set. So this is a two to five playground. There's the additional features as well. So that's why we're calling this a predominantly two to five playground. We will have the one structure that the five to 12 year olds will be able to play on, which love this design. It's super cool. But again, not predominantly, none of the other ancillary items for the five to 12 year olds. Those are only for the young ones. And this is kind of just a schematic map. If you look here in this area, you guys cannot see it, but basically the blank white space in the bottom of the 5 to 12 play area is where the tiny forest is. So the parking will be over closer to Morris Court. So that's the East Summit Playground. I know that this kind of comes up because this is what we're looking at heading towards now. So I'll just cover it very quickly. Memorial Playground, we know that there is a piece that is not in great condition. Part of it is shut down. So in the capital budget, as long as it is not adopted, but when the bond ordinances are approved, there is $200,000 allocated there. By mid-June, we are going to hope to have a community-wide survey out, which will help us design the playground. And by the fall, we're going to have conversations in the CPPS committee and decide whether we're going to completely redo the playground all at once or replace the one defective piece and come back in the fall and come back with another capital request in 2020. 2027 and that'll all be driven by fundraising but we want all of the memorial neighbors to know and Brayton kids to know we are looking at that that is it is being prioritized in addition to the sea summit playground so super quick but if you have any questions let me know thank you yes councilmember Boyer I'm thinking were you gonna do the Bobcat at the memorial playground that'd be pretty cool you got the Washington Owl yeah

Okay, thank you Mr. Guida. Thank you. Okay. Okay, so let us move on to ordinances for hearing. Madam Clerk, would you please read ordinance for hearing number 26-3381.

Ordinance of the City of Summit, County of Union, New Jersey, authorizing the subdivision of municipal property known as Block 1702, lot 48, and authorizing the subsequent transfer of the subdivided portion of municipal property no longer needed for public use by private sale to duly incorporated nonprofit organizations.

Thank you.

Council Member Chris Zafouli. Thank you, Council President. Ordinance 26-3381 would authorize a subdivision of city property for use by a non-profit organization to construct and operate a group home for four special needs individuals. This home is proposed to be located at 701 Springfield Avenue, fulfilling a requirement under the terms of Summit's Affordable Housing Agreement from December 2025. This commitment is time-sensitive, and we are under the court scrutiny for implementation of the agreement. Not moving forward with the elements of the agreement, especially the first one to come to consideration by council, could put some at risk of builder's remedy, which would remove our protections from further overdevelopment, including a potential eight-story building overlooking the Village Green. I move to continue the hearing.

Oh, I move.

I'm sorry.

I move to open the hearing. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to this? Okay. Please tell us your name and where you live. Ben Bowen, 10 Hillview Terrace. Okay. And I'm sorry I failed to say at the outset, just don't want to surprise you that we do have a three-minute limit on public comments.

I'll speak quickly. Sure. Since 1965, the National Recreation and Park Association has recommended that cities have at least 10 acres of parkland for every 1,000 residents. The median American city meets this goal with 10.8 acres per 1,000 residents. However, Summit, with approximately 22,700 residents, has only 51.5 acres of municipal park.

That's Reed, Memorial Field, maybe Playground and Wilson Park combined.

If you're super generous and include all of Bryant Park, which is a county park that's 41% in Springfield, you get to 102 acres, still less than half the amount the NRPA recommends for Summit's population. Even if you stretch it further to include dedicated sports facilities like Investor Banks Field and Glenside Fields, which don't meet the definition of parkland, Summit is still way below target. So I think that the council and the mayor need to be very thoughtful and above the board about any proposals that can cannibalize Summit's parks. In 2007, when Wilson School was being refurbished and returned to service as an educational facility, at the urging of then Mayor Glott, the Common Council created the Wilson Park Task Force. The task was to address both the potential impact of the reopening of Wilson Primary Center and the general state of the park, including the tennis courts and ball fields, which had originally been developed in 1974 when Wilson School was built. The Wilson School Task Force completed its report, presented it to the Common Council on July 1, 2008, and the report and its recommendations were adopted. Most recommendations were realized, notably a complete rebuild of the ball fields in the eastern part of the park, and later the replacement of six derelict tennis courts in the western part of the park by a healthy stand of grass for casual play. Since then, unresolved items in the report either solve themselves organically, the art park mostly just disappeared, or remain open, like pollution, parking issues, and the condition of the basketball court. To my knowledge, neither the common council nor any public committee chartered by the council has examined or adopted new policies that supersede the 2008 Wilson Park Task Force report, so I believe it stands as current policy. To be clear, the task force report does not contemplate subdivision of or residential development within Wilson Park. Instead, it recommends that the park should be, quote, preserved for future generations with no desire to change the use, the profile, or the culture that has evolved over the years, end quote. In conflict with this broad understanding, the preamble of the resolution states that block 1702, lot 48, has been identified as not needed for municipal purposes. This claim is factually wrong. To my mind, these two reasons, Summit's already inadequate park to person ratio, and the preexistence of clear, publicly negotiated policies with respect to Wilson Park and its use, demand that the proposed vote tonight be tabled indefinitely. Any proposal to subdivide Wilson Park for any use requires fulsome public discussion and negotiation which has not occurred. Thank you.

Thank you. And then if you could leave your comments, either email them or leave them in the box. He's going to email them. Email, thank you. Okay. Good evening.

Hi, sorry, okay, three minutes, right? I'm just gonna read this. My name is Allison Powers and I'm writing, or I'm telling you to, standing here to express my strong opposition to the proposed schematic that would eliminate a portion of Wilson Park.

Sorry, we just need your address

Oh, my family lives at 79 Beekman Road, just a short walk from Wilson Park. Our multi-generational household includes my husband, our two young daughters, age three and seven, my 82-year-old father-in-law, and our 13-year-old rescue dog. When we relocated from the city during the pandemic, access to walkable green space was a non-negotiable for us, and Wilson Park was a deciding factor in buying our home. This park is truly the heartbeat of our daily life. We are there constantly, whether my daughters are playing on the playground, my father-in-law is walking on the paths by the wood, or our family is using the paddle tennis courts, or like I did last night, I walk this path that I believe is proposed to get rid of in the proposal to Springfield to play mahjong with some friends. Having reviewed the proposed schematic, I'm deeply alarmed by both the environmental destruction and the potential fiscal site choice, or the potential fiscal implications of this particular site choice, and I urge you to reject the plan based on some of these following points. The proposed site at Wilson Park sits on this really steep hill with these huge, beautiful trees. And I don't know much about buildings, but I believe to build on that hill, the city would probably face some serious overhead costs with chopping down all of those trees and excavating the grade in order to be able to actually build on this lot. paying, like spending taxpayer dollars to fight and destroy the existing park infrastructure, and I imagine you'll have to build a costly retaining wall, but spending taxpayer dollars to fight the gravity and destroy the existing park infrastructure is fiscally irresponsible, especially when probably more economical and level alternatives exist. The tree alcove that's slated for destruction is a vital shield for our neighborhood. It provides essential shade that cools the paddleboard courts and makes them safe for the seniors and the young children during peak summer temperatures. It acts as a crucial nature and sound barrier. sheltering the entire playground and park from heavy noise and the fast-moving traffic of Springfield Avenue. In the era of climate change and pollinator habitat loss, cutting clear a mature grove of trees seems to run directly counter to Summit's environmental goals.

I did a little Googling, which I probably shouldn't have, but let me find my second piece of paper here.

I don't think we need to compromise. For example, there are other, there's potential places, houses that are for sale. For example, 24, oh, there we go. I was going to say. Sorry about that.

Thank you. If you leave your comments, they'll be attached to the minutes. Your name on them? Yep. Great. Thank you. Should I leave control here?

Yes. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Kim Leonard, 81 Beekman Road, LEO NARD. I want to be clear in that I support affordable housing in the city of Summit. And I agree that the city should help our house secure a new location. I strongly oppose subdividing and donating any of our public parks. Doing so sets a very dangerous precedent. That means we're setting a president today, it's Wilson Park, it could be any park tomorrow. So I opposed the proposed ordinance based on the following critical points. Number one, factual inaccuracy in the ordinance. The claim that this land is not needed for municipal purposes is patently false. The 2000 master plan, the 2008 Wilson tax force plan, the 2016 revision plan, all state that this park should be preserved the way it is, as park land. And it even, I believe it was the master plan that said we should, when it becomes available, purchase the Red Cross building and square off the park. That was never done. Right now we probably could have our Board of Ed offices in there and have freed up more space within the Wilson School, but that wasn't done. My question is why do we pay all this money and people take all this time to do all these reports to tell you what should be done and then we go and do something different. I know we're in a sticky position right now but there are other options. The second point is the site suitability and the title encumbrances. Per page 40 of the city's affordable housing plan, sites must have a clear title free of encumbrances. The city failed to conduct due diligence or a title search at the Elizabeth Courthouse before moving forward, ignoring the potential deed restrictions that I personally submitted to Town Hall. And let me be clear. I first approached the town back in the end of February, beginning of March, a long time ago. I went and got the deed myself. I copied it. I brought it back to Town Hall weeks ago. So when you try to pressure us that this needs to be done or the state's going to come and blah, blah, blah, shame on you. Shame on the city. That was due diligence. That should have been done. That wasn't. And it was brought to your attention and still wasn't done. The next critical point is the misuse of state exclusions. So the state allows all towns to exclude parkland, open space. and provides them with VLAs, right? So we get credits back. We don't have to.

Oh my gosh, I have so much more.

If you submit your written comments, they will. Thank you, Ms. Leonard.

Limiting the future school expansion.

Thank you, Ms. Leonard.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Nicole Delauro, it's D-E-L-A-U-R-O, and I reside at 1 Oakley Ave. My concern is not the mission of our house, but the precedent of subdividing and transferring public park and open space. Open space is one of the most limited community assets and one of the most difficult to replace once reduced. Decisions like this extend beyond a single project and set precedent for how future needs are addressed. Wilson Park serves a broader public purpose today and preserving public open space should remain an important planning principle for future generations. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Hi, good evening. My name is Christina Cogan. I live on 686 Springfield Avenue, diagonally across the street from the proposed home. I am not against an affordable home. I just don't believe this location is fitting for this home. When you're driving on Springfield Avenue, there's a big bend and it makes it very hard to get in and out of the driveways. On that side particularly, it's even worse and to build a home for disabled people, I don't feel that it's safe for them and for the community who are driving and walking and riding their bikes. So my concern is really just about the safety and also I second everything else my neighbors have said about preserving the park. that goes beyond you know for me it's like kind of common sense we don't even have that much park space why take it away so hope you guys reconsider this thank you

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Kara Cosolino. We recently bought our home at 9 Beekman Terrace after a very long search. One of the reasons we picked our home was because of the close proximity to Wilson Park. We have two little boys, ages three and five, and the park is, honestly, it's like their second home. Every day they beg us to go to the park. They love that place. It's like I can't even imagine something happening, you know, to, like, what I say, like their second home. Because so many kids in the area, like, rely on this place as a place to just feel free and and safe and it's really all the families in our area, we all gather there at night. It's just like a crucial part of why we bought to be in Summit. I can't imagine what the park would be like if it were subdivided beyond losing valuable open space. To be honest, I would also be concerned about like the safety of small children and some of the families who use the park regularly. the openness of the park allows for children to to play like freely and safely everybody's always running around my um my oldest goes to wilson right now they all stay and play afterwards they're there for hours after school they're there for hours after dinner into the evening it's just very much a place where the whole neighborhood gathers in a place that we all get to benefit from So we strongly hope that Wilson Park will be preserved in its current form for the families and the residents who rely on it every day and all the children who consider it their home.

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any other comments from members of the public?

Hi, Nora Radist, 18 Blackburn Place. I just have a question and I don't need it answered tonight, but I would like an answer from someone from the city or council. Why are we here at this point with needing to build 140 some affordable units when I was under the impression a year ago that it was closer to 82? So how do we get to this point? I would like an answer to that, not tonight. And to that point, the last time I was standing up here, I asked a question and I have not gotten an answer yet. So I would appreciate an answer to both of those when you have time. And I know you're busy and I appreciate your hard work. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, any other public comments? Okay, I'll declare the public portion of the hearing closed and we can move on to other council member comments. Council member? No, I'm gonna speak. Yes, of course. Thank you, Council President. Of course.

I would like to share with the public why I am not supportive of this ordinance. First, the ordinance includes a statement that is false, that this municipal property is, quote, no longer needed for public use. This is incorrect for two reasons. One, the public uses this area of Wilson Park every day, as you've heard. The school uses the field for events. The residents use the field every day, including the portion to be subdivided. Second, we may need this property for another use in the future. As the city adds over 500 new housing units as part of the affordable housing plan over the next nine years, we may need to rezone our schools to relieve pressure in particular from Washington School. We may need to move those students to Wilson and expand the building and relocate the parking. We cannot be short-sighted and give away this property now. Second, in the city's master plan, Wilson Park is listed as one of, quote, those few remaining parcels of vacant land, public or private, which would benefit the surrounding neighborhood for recreation or open space. The 2025 Environmental Resource Inventory states that Summit only has 0.1% of land deemed as recreational land. How can we responsibly cut any portion of this land, this precious resource? Third, this area of Springfield Avenue has been developed over the past few years, significantly increasing the impervious surface on the north side of the road. This new development would be located within 500 feet of the properties on Springfield experiencing salt brook erosion. Will this council continue to contribute to the environmental emergency happening on the stretch of the salt brook by adding impervious surface, removing a significant number of 100 plus year old trees and disrupting the soil? Fourth, I see in the 2026 affordable housing plan that Burgess lists 701 Springfield as quote, does not qualify for development in the vacant land assessment. I've heard some explanations as to why it was listed that way, but it makes me wonder, are there other properties on this list that are incorrectly listed as does not qualify? Which of those properties could we consider as alternatives? Fifth, I believe the city has not fully explored every alternative to subdividing the park. I know it may be challenging and we are under a time constraint, but I think it's in the best interest of the city to fully explore all options. And finally, if there is no possibility of using a different site, we should create a spot zone with smaller setbacks to reduce the property size as much as possible to preserve park space and reduce the damage to the existing trees and woods. Given we have only seen a concept plan and not the actual dimensions for the subdivision, how can we pass this ordinance? We should know what we're signing up for. For all those reasons, I do not support this ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have other council member comments? Council President.

Yes, Council Member Boyer. First, I'd like to ask our land manager, Augusto, to explain the process to the residents. A, the process of how we choose the available land, the vacant land use, how this was selected. and what is the potential recourse if we don't approve this for the city i know that's a laundry list but i think the residents probably would need to know uh through your council president yes mr damaso so the process for selection of the site

occurred over the course of about a year and a half in preparation for the city's housing element and fair share plan. And at the time, the city meticulously went through all the parcels listed on the VLA and other potential parcels or paper streets that we know of in town to determine what would be the most viable site.

I'm going to interrupt you for just a moment. For those watching this meeting who don't know, VLA means vacant land analysis. As part of the process, we did go through and look at every single undeveloped parcel in town. Those the city controls and those it doesn't.

Yes. And to that same point, the question was raised, well, why doesn't the city seek to purchase an existing home to meet those requirements? When we were comparing in a cost analysis between what we could do with available land that the city owned versus purchasing a home, given the median home price in Summit, it would have been much more onerous and the city was expecting to spend a minimum of a million dollars out of the affordable housing trust fund, not tax dollars, to procure a home that would meet the requirements for a group home for differently abled individuals. Now, through the past, it was done once before, and our house was lucky enough to find the property on, I think it's Greenfield Avenue. But that opportunity did not present itself. We considered a variety of areas and neighborhoods where homes would pop up. We did receive recommendations from members of community and council at the time and now. But none of those parcels were either economically feasible or viable for the development of a new structure. So that brings us to this point. I am aware, my office has received many calls from upset residents about the location, the conditions, the circumstances of a subdivision of this park. And we take all those concerns very, very seriously because we recognize that, yes, there is open space that is going to be lost. And to that same point, while it may state here it does not serve a municipal purpose, I would tend to agree. The development of affordable housing is a municipal purpose, and we do want to, as effectively as possible, as cost efficiently as possible, be able to include it. And so we're at this parcel. The subdivision process would go to the planning board, and they would have consideration on the size of the parcel, the potential for a structure to be put there. The city would be covering the specific cutout that would be proposed and any conditions set forth for the development of the parcel for a structure to go there. On that same point, any concerns that may have, yes, there are many mature trees and I've already instructed the city forester to go and take account of any municipally owned trees that might be removed and put forward proposals for how the city and the potential future holder of that subdivision for replacements. to take account of the requests for adequate screening from the area for the park, the racquetball courts, homeowners across the street, and any further replacements required. So I do want to stress to the public that my office has also received a lot of comments of, well, how can we do this? How can we do this? And members of the public, it's the duty of any city official to protect the interests of the overall town. And in taking this action, it's affecting putting into effect the first one of the first portions of compliance for the city's housing element and fair share plan. People cast away sometimes the severity with which the courts have treated the program and how challengers have treated towns across New Jersey through the program, but they're very real. So that's something that this council can take into consideration. And any issues that regard the remaining public land or any other public lands, I am more than happy to receive that feedback and work with the elected officials to form a plan on how we can improve our green spaces for the future. how we can improve the overall land uses in town. So we are receptive to that feedback. I hope that answered in question apart what the process is, planning board application, and the circumstances which this city is faced with.

Yeah, one last question. Is there a deed issue? One of the residents brought up a deed issue.

So of the documentation I reviewed, uh, I am aware that in 1972 there was a life deed, uh, conferred of the various properties of the former Wilson estate, uh, defining which defined the, uh, I believe they were five parcels. The two conditions expressed in that deed were to state that one, at some point after the passing of the prior owner, the city would construct and put into effect the development of a school there, which it did comply with. And during the pendency of the life of that individual, they would be allowed to live there. And I believe a home would remain for them to continue living there. And the home was eventually demolished once the school was put up. So, from the documentation I have seen, I believe, and our council, affordable housing attorney believes that there are no conditions at this time which would impede the city from proceeding with a project like this.

Do we have further?

Yes, Council Member Kalamanson. Thank you, Council President. Augusto, could you clarify, like we talked about this before a bit, if the title did not come back clean, we expect that it will, but if it did not, could you explain what happens then?

Hypothetically, if there was a constraint on the title prohibiting the city from taking action for this municipal purpose, then we would have to reconsider how we would apply that to our plan and inform all of the interested parties both within the city and our other parties such as our house, Fair Share Housing Center, and the administrative offices of the court.

Thank you, and another question. So this Our House property was put into our affordable housing plan originally at a different location. Was that location approved by Our House?

So when we were going through the potential alternatives, towards the beginning of the year and was actually the address listed in the housing element fair share plan, we came down to two which would have been effective. Which was 701 Springfield and the two lots on the corner of Springfield Avenue and Oakley Avenue. So when we were headed towards the adoption of the housing element, We had vetted both sites with our house, and they were in agreement that they could fit a group home for differently abled individuals on either of them, and each had its own challenges. There is a challenge of the grade on 701, but there is just as much challenge of the tree removal and landscaping required on the corner of Springfield and Oakley.

I'm sorry, I actually meant a different property, Edgewood. I apologize, I should have said Edgewood.

Okay.

That was the original one in the plan, correct?

Yes, yes. The Edgewood property, was just as complicated, or if not more complicated, because the primary access to it lied within a 30 foot span of the neighboring properties. So if you were to imagine two properties and in between them a 30 by 200 foot driveway, That driveway would have been the necessary access downhill to develop a home there on a slope, which would have required intense grading, intense landscaping, retaining walls to maintain the structure from erosion risk for the future. And emergency service access might be difficult in a property like that. So those were the three that were really open for consideration.

Okay, thank you. So we had three properties that were open for consideration, and we put one in, and then our house looked at it, and they said, this doesn't work for us. We just can't work with this. So I just want to be clear. I want the public to understand that there were three council members that were on the Mount Laurel committee that worked on this last year, and none of them are up here anymore. They're not up here. And they've essentially put a bomb in this council's lap. And I just want people to understand what has happened right now. So thank you. I appreciate it. I mean, I take no pleasure. I take no pleasure in this. No one takes any pleasure in this. But I want people to understand how we got here, how we arrived here. And thank you for your time. Thank you for coming tonight, Augusto. I always appreciate your...

YOUR INSIGHT AND THANK YOU. COUNCILMEMBER LUCERO-CENA.

Thank you, Council President. I first want to thank our neighbors who have stopped us on the sidewalk and called us and emailed us and shown up at council meetings to express their very legitimate concerns about this particular site selection. I think we are all in agreement. We want to make space for this project for our house, but this is not a good site to make that space, right? It is deeply unsatisfying, I realize that. Unfortunately, I personally feel we have shaken the trees, we have looked at all of the other alternatives, and there really are none in my view. Unfortunately, I think for us to honor the commitments of city leadership who came before us, and as a brief aside, this is a carryover obligation from round three. So this was actually a project that was supposed to be completed during the 2015-2025 program period that is now a carryover. And I share that not to cast blame on anyone else. The buck stops with us. This is our decision to make on the site selection. But the project, again, So it has kind of been long overdue. We need to find a space for this project so that we can honor the commitments that have been made by those who went before us with respect to our affordable housing program. So again, I know it's deeply unsatisfying. We do hear your concerns. We share your concerns. We agree this is a really, really crummy site. And in particular, I want to acknowledge Councilwoman Landman. She has worked so hard. She has stretched creativity. She has researched deeply. And she has invested so much time. And I know whenever she's doing anything else, this is running in the back of her brain, if it's not in the fore of her brain. And she's dedicated so many hours. to trying to figure out any other alternative. In my view in this moment, again, I think unfortunately there just is not another alternative, but I think there are several of us who are committed to doing everything within our power to mitigate the negative impact to the green space, to the neighborhood. So again, this feedback is very much heard and appreciated, and we are going to continue to work it and do our best again to try to mitigate the damage. Thank you.

Council Member Christofoli, did you want to say something?

Yes, thank you, Council President. Quite frankly, this is the most unpleasant and difficult vote that I've seen on my time here in council. And for all the reasons cited, it's a very unpleasant decision to make, the loss of forested land. among other reasons and my decision really boils down to do I want to risk given the scrutiny that we are currently under by the judge who calls quite frequently when they hear any signs or have any suspicions that we are not going to meet or we are threatening not to meet our obligations under the agreement and the result of that could be us losing our protections from Developers we would basically our zoning would be suspended and developers could develop significantly larger buildings in various places across town including on the village green and I feel that would be devastating to our town and faced with that choice I'm gonna have to vote to move forward with the project Council president

Yes, Council Member Boyer.

Just a quick statement. I had asked Augusto to give the residents some information, but I didn't get the comment.

That's correct.

So I've said it over and over in this chamber during my two and a half years here. So let me just go through the list here. We have Ashland and Broad Street. We have that project, right? And Ashwood. Yeah, sorry. Ashwood. I get my Ashlands and Ashwoods mixed up sometimes. So we have Broad and Ashwood. Right. Then we have the property on Shumpike that people don't want there. And now we have the property here at Wilson School that people don't want there. This is a pattern, right? And I've said it before. You know, everybody wants affordable housing, but nobody wants affordable housing. And I get it, right? I've said this before. The state has mandated municipalities to deal with this. And by the way, 10 years from now, you're going to be looking at 500, 400, 600 more, right? So you can block Wilson now, and you can block this corner now and that corner now, but it's going to be the same fight in 10 years. My recommendation for the residents of summit is something that, you know, I have done, which is talk to your legislators, right. And then Trenton and your votes matter because these folks are over developing your town. And by the way, they shouldn't handcuff us in privileged discussions about this. Be transparent. Lay it all out. Show the residents the whole affordable housing plan. If you really want affordable housing in Summit, here's the plan. Y'all tell us where it goes. Because my plan is this, right? I've said this in the beginning. Fix the current low-income housing you have right now. And in that plan, we did. We got that accomplished, hopefully. But that is where you start. There's people that need relief. You know where they live? In the back of Chase building, when you walk past the bank, right? Go back there. See the conditions of it. Weaver Street, you ever been in there? You see their playgrounds? Go in there. Look at the conditions of it. It ain't hard to find a summit. But we're strapped with this. Now, listen, I'm not going to hide behind we have no choice because it is not fully true. We could all sit up here and reject this. But we have to deal with the outcome that comes with that, which is our fair share housing plan gets ripped up. And the real possibility, because the state likes cities with trains, and the real possibility is we forgo Wilson, we forgo Shunpike, but you have to deal with seeing a 10-story building on Broad Street and Summit Avenue. Right. So where is it? And I don't particularly want any of it. I just said that. So my responsibility is to you all. And this is just by the way, this is just the council giving the council's approval to send a a plan to the planning board. This is not like the the full marked up plan of how it's going to look and everything um am i right by saying that i guess though that is correct okay all right um but with that thank you thank you and yes mayor i know you're anxious to say something yeah um i want to echo a lot of what councilman boyer just said listen

The affordable housing legislation is a problem for municipalities. We all want affordable housing. It's hard in New Jersey. It's really hard in Summit. We are in an expensive town. Land is not cheap. You all know that. You bought your homes here. When we sat for three, four hours every single week for 18 months to... first of all try to finish out round three which we had ten years to do and suddenly in the last year we had to figure it out and then we had to create a plan for the next ten years and I think I said to Augusto a thousand times I don't like it I don't like it and he said to me well you have three poison pills pick one and it wasn't he was being mean that's the fact the fact is there are developers that are circling like to prey on municipalities where they can make a lot of money. Guess what? We're lucky enough to live in one. But what that means is that there are developers that want to put an eight-story building on a corner right across from our Village Green. We had to say, okay, well, we could have that guy, or we could have this other person that's maybe a little bit more reasonable. It still stinks. I still don't like it. But I have to do something to protect us from this other nasty, giant albatross, okay? And so we were very thoughtful. Unfortunately, there are a lot of poison pills. But what I will say is, and it's sort of an answer to your question, Mayor. We got to this place because we were trying to be creative because what happens when you get a number from FairShare is you get a number, you multiply it by five because that's what the developers want to do. They want to put in their affordable housing, they do 20% of whatever it is they're developing. And so that means that for every one affordable unit, there's another four market value units. So if our number's 345 multiplied by five, math is 1,500-ish new units. okay and so in order to diminish that as best we could we were creative about places where we could get a little bit more credit so special needs housing veterans housing places where and and by the way making sure that we are we are an inclusive community we didn't want you know In our master plan it says we don't we want mixed inclusionary affordable housing so that means not a building with 100% affordable it means mixed it means with with market value our market rate housing So it's real tricky when you don't have land, which we don't. And so we shook every tree. And when I tell you, we really spent thousands of hours. And we relied a lot on our professionals to give us some guidance about how we could protect ourselves as best we could. Because we're all getting, every municipality in New Jersey is getting overdeveloped. And that starts in Trenton. So if you don't like it, talk to your legislators and understand that this isn't going away. And this is the best outcome we could possibly have had to limit the number of new units in this town. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. And I only can echo what Councilmember Lucera-Cena said, both thanking the residents. recognizing the hard, hard work council member Landman has done looking for alternatives. But like a couple of other council members up here, this is the best bad choice because all of the choices are crummy. The city controls almost no vacant land. And I guess, yeah, Mr. Delmaso has not yet offered me a poison pill explicitly, but I think this is the one we're going to have to take. So with that, Madam Clerk, I think we shall move on to close this hearing and move on to ordinance for final consideration. So again, would you please read the title of ordinance number 263381?

Ordinance of the City of Summit, County of Union, New Jersey, authorizing the subdivision of municipal property known as Block 1702, Lot 48, and authorizing the subsequent transfer of the subdivided portion of municipal property no longer needed for public use by private sale to Dooley Incorporated Nonprofit Organization.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Crisafulli.

Thank you, Council President. Having just completed this hearing moments ago, I move to vote.

Okay. Do I hear a second? Second. Okay. Roll call, please.

Mr. Boyer? Aye. Mr. Crisafulli?

Aye.

Ms. Kalmanson?

Aye.

Ms. Landman? Nay. Ms. Saracena?

Aye. President Toth? Aye. Motion carries. Okay, we are going to move on to ordinances for introduction. And this is the council member Landman show. So Madam Clerk, would you please read ordinance for introduction, 1, 2, 5, 8, 3.

Bond ordinance appropriating $5,604,000 and authorizing issuance of $5,337,000 bonds or notes of the city for various improvements or purposes authorized to be undertaken by the city of Summit in the county of Union, New Jersey.

Thank you. Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. These actually next three ordinances are our annual ordinances authorizing the city to issue bonds to cover the capital plans for the sewer utility, municipality, and the parking utility. It's an administrative step following the approval of the annual budget, which happened last month. So with that, I move to introduce this ordinance.

Do I hear a second? Second. May we have the roll call, please?

Mr. Boyer? Aye. Mr. Christofoli?

Aye.

Ms. Kalmanson?

Aye.

Ms. Landman? Aye. Mrs. Saracena? Aye. President Toth?

Um, okay.

Madam clerk, would you please read, um, ordinance for introduction ID or one, two, five, eight, four bond ordinance appropriating $2,250,000 and authorizing issuance of $2,142,000 bonds or notes of the city for various sewer utility improvements or purposes authorized to be undertaken by the city of summit County of union, New Jersey.

Thank you, Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. As I mentioned, this bond ordinance stems from the Sewer Utilities 2026 budget and authorizes issuing bonds sufficient to cover the Sewer Utilities 2026 capital plan. I move to introduce this ordinance.

Second. Okay. Real call, please.

Mr. Boyer?

Aye. Mr. Chris Foley? Aye. Ms. Kalmanson? Aye. Ms. Landman? Aye. Mrs. Saracena?

Aye.

President To?

Aye. Madam Clerk, would you please read Ordinance for Interaction ID-12582?

Bond ordinance providing for the improvement of parking facilities in and by the City of Summit, County of Union, New Jersey, appropriating $2,593,000, therefore, and authorizing issuance of $2,469,000 bonds or notes of the city for financing such appropriation.

Thank you for reading the correct ordinance. I meant ID number 12580. Thank you. Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. And last but not least, this bond ordinance stems from the parking utilities 2026 budget authorizing issuing bonds or notes sufficient to cover the parking utilities capital plan. I move to introduce this ordinance.

Second.

Roll call, please.

Mr. Boyer?

Aye.

Mr. Chris Foley? Aye. Ms. Kalmanson? Aye. Ms. Landman? Aye. Mrs. Saracena? Aye. President Tov?

Aye. Thank you. Madam Clerk, would you please read ordinance for introduction number ID-12582?

An ordinance to amend the code, appendix A, schedule of fees contained in the revised general ordinances of the City of Summit.

Thank you, Councilmember Landman.

Before I move to introduce this ordinance, I move to amend the proposed ordinance by changing one word in section A50, fees to be collected by the chief of police in subsection N. The second sentence should read as follows. Accordingly, the city may assess a special service charge in accordance with NJSA 471A-5C as follows. Making this amendment will ensure that we comply with the state statute regarding victims rights and provide the police chief with the discretion to waive the fee in certain circumstances.

Do I have a second?

I'm sorry. Madam. You need a second.

Yes. Second. Okay, so we are first amending the order? Yes. Okay. May I have our city solicitor?

You can just vote on the ordinance as amended. Okay. Since the amendment is coming from the person who's making the motion.

Ah, that simplifies things. Thank you.

Ordinance as amended then. Okay. Mr. Boyer.

Aye.

Mr. Crisofoli. Aye. Ms. Kalmanson. Aye. Ms. Landman. Aye. Ms. Saracena. Aye. President Toth.

Aye. Okay, thank you. Madam Clerk, would you please read Ordinance for Introduction ID 12583?

We just read that one. Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay, I am on the next page. Thank you. Okay, let's try 12511. Okay.

Okay. An ordinance to establish the 2026 salaries, wages or compensations of and for the officers and employees of the city of Summit County of Union, New Jersey. That's a period. Thank you.

Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Ordinance 12511 establishes the 2026 salaries for union and non-union employees. These annual adjustments to salaries and wages reflect the increases passed in the 2026 municipal budget. I move to introduce this ordinance.

Second. And then we probably should note before taking the roll call that the hearing date listed is incorrect.

Yes, my apologies. That should be the 16th.

Of this year.

Of this year.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, and thank you for that, Madam Mayor.

That was a carryover from minute track, by the way.

Okay, okay. Yeah, it looked like it was just a cut and paste from last year. May we have the roll call, please? Mr. Boyer? Aye.

Mr. Chris Foley? Aye. Ms. Kalmanson?

Aye.

Ms. Landman? Aye. Mrs. Saracena?

Aye.

President Tove?

Aye. Now, Council Member Landman gets a break. Madam Clerk, would you please read ordinance for introduction ID 12601?

An ordinance amending chapter three police regulations of the code of the city of Summit County of Union, New Jersey, adding a new section 3-20 entitled drones and other unmanned aircraft. Thank you. Council Member Kalmanson.

Thank you, Council President. This is Ordinance ID 12601, and this ordinance regulates drones and unmanned aircraft in the City of Summit. With the hearing date of June 16, I move to introduce this ordinance.

Second. Okay, roll call please. Mr. Boyer? Aye. Mr. Christofoli? Aye. Ms. Kalmanson? Aye. Ms. Landman? Aye. Mrs. Saracena?

Aye.

President Tote?

Aye. And then, Madam Clerk, would you please read ordinance for ID, or ordinance for introduction. We're getting punchy. ID 12599.

An ordinance amending the code of the City of Summit, 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 Calamanson. Thank you, Council President. This is ordinance ID 12599, and this ordinance will reopen the Chestnut parking lot. We will need to close this lot again when the property is sold, but until then, we would like for our residents to have access while it is still city property. With the hearing date of June 16, I move to introduce this ordinance. Second.

May we have the roll call, please?

Mr. Boyer? Aye. Mr. Risafulli? Aye. Ms. Kalmanson? Aye. Ms. Landman? Aye. Ms. Lucera-Cena?

Aye.

President Toth?

Aye. And finally, Madam Clerk, would you read ordinance for introduction ID number 12590?

Ordinance of the city of Summit County of Union, New Jersey amending and supplementing chapter 35 of the city code entitled development regulations subsections 35-9.2 prohibited uses.

Thank you. Council member Crisafulli?

Thank you, Council President. Resolution ID number 12522. I'm sorry, I have the wrong resolution here. I'm sorry, okay, yes. Ordinance ID number 12590 would add, no, I'm sorry, I'm reading the wrong thing here. This is the correct one, okay. Would add a prohibited use to the city code. This ordinance focused on large data centers is the second in a series of measures intended to protect Summit from undesirable land use. I move to introduce this ordinance for hearing on June 16th.

Second. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll? Mr. Boyer?

Quick question. Can I ask our land use manager some questions before I say yay or nay about this? Because we may have some amendments. I'm not clear about some of the language here.

Would that more appropriately be at the hearing, city solicitor?

Let's say, hypothetically, what I say is genius and everybody agrees. Then you can make an amendment. Yes. And if we waited to the hearing and I said something that was even more genius, then we would have to have another hearing date and then do this all over again, right?

You'd have to reintroduce. Yeah. Okay.

So to avoid that, I just want some questions. Augusto, so the megawatts, can you explain how large that is? Will that be running like every day? Is that the yearly?

Just through you, Council President, just give me a moment to see. The ordinance refers specifically to a total peak load in excess of 20 megawatts. So I believe that can be interpreted to understand that the peak power consumption at any time at or greater than 20 megawatts. If you're asking specifically how we came to that, number is we referred to a Pinelands Commission report which established that in regulation of data centers, the conventional or traditional data center or server room type building that people would imagine, not an AI data center, would see a conventional peak power load of around 20 megawatts. Now that is significant. But compared to a AI data center as it's capturing the public imagination now, those are multiple hundreds of megawatts more of consumption. So this threshold here is set on a basis of what we've understood historically and what has been interpreted by our planners to see that at the time of the creation of the prod zone, that's closer. to what would have been imagined for a computer center, less than 20 megawatts. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does to me. But how large would that be? So let's take Bristol-Myers Squibb, for example, right? So is that... half an acre? Is that like what if residents could visualize that, like how big of a data center would that be?

Unfortunately, I don't have the exact number of the correlation. Data centers tend to be, their size is measured on their power consumption, but I don't have that specifically for you. It would be significant.

Being that it would be significant, what was the thought process behind even allowing this?

Well, it wouldn't be allowed. Well, maybe there's a misunderstanding. Okay. But this explicitly would state that anything at or greater than 20 megawatts would be explicitly prohibited for the purposes of the AI data center as the principal use on the structure of property.

So I can have 19.

If let's say there were 19 megawatts of power consumption but there was a measurable and distinct impact on water utility in comparison to the aggregate land uses because there's a causal relationship between the size and scale and power consumption of AI data center to its utilities consumption. Even so, the argument for prohibiting that use would still be strong and prevalent as it's explicitly prohibited.

Are you sure?

There is certainty. A lot of towns have taken different perspectives. Unfortunately, Summit has a very specific scenario where we can't We have to take into account the land use rights of certain property owners in here and tailor this ordinance to reflect that the current property owners maintain a right to an extent, but figure out the measure for prohibiting the imagined or the envisioned AI dentist center as people are seeing them, such as hyperscale facilities and so on. That's why we've included computer centers also as a defined term.

That's what I'm saying. I think you did that here. You distinguish what the computer centers are, but then to now allow up to 19 megawatts, or even if it was 10. I think the idea is that the residents of Summit don't want that, right? And there's two slight things in there where you use principle and not primary. Is that a word, play on words, is there?

No, principle use, commonly understanding development definitions is just to define that the use of a structure or a land use is used principally and primarily for that purpose. So here that's what that would be.

They're both the same thing. So hypothetically, and I'm sorry y'all, but this is important, right? Hypothetically, if I rented a warehouse in Bristol-Myers Squibb, I'm going to have a warehouse. And then I'm going to have a subdivision behind it where I'll put my 19 megawatt data center. But my primary is I'm just having a storage place right here. Or maybe it's, you know, Maybe I have a real estate agent. I don't know. But I think, why can't we just outright say that we don't want data centers? Like, we distinguish between them, right, between, you know, Server rooms and like the hospitals and everything like that But then there's no carve out so that somebody could come in and put a 10 megawatt data center or 15 megawatt I Mean, I think it leaves the door open for that The other thing is the noise factor of it. I've heard, well, we already have a noise ordinance. I'm sorry, but it carries no weight. Again, I said I live across the street from the hospital. I've had the health department come out several times, and it's like, well, the wind is blowing this way, and I've got to come back in a couple of hours because the sound may be like, You know, I mean, personally, I think we need to put something in here that says, hey, it can't be louder than X, Y decibels. Right. To cover the residents that may live next to this, because here it would be allowable. I think this ordinance just needs to be stronger. I'm sorry, but this doesn't prohibit what the residents don't want.

Through you, Council President. So as you mentioned, if this threshold seems arbitrary, there is always the opportunity to just lower it significantly. When we were going about the comparison of land uses for, let's say, the power consumption of a hospital, according to the Apologies, I'm forgetting the citation from federal sources that we used. The conventional or common sized hospital for a town like Summit can consume between 5 to 15 megawatts. So if you were to, let's say, propose an amendment to where you would want to arbitrarily, or not necessarily arbitrarily, but reduce the megawattage in definition to 5. that would include it. And also keeping in mind that this is just a definition that intends to capture what that land use is envisioned to be. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be a way to skirt around it when the sum of factors included in this definition would be weighed on a land use application for a board. If we were Our city solicitor Marina.

If we were to lower the megawatts, right, to make it kind of sort of impossible for this to happen, would that be an amendment that would require us to do this again?

This is the introduction. So you can make whatever amendment, whoever, I don't know. I forget.

No, I'm sorry. Let me rephrase. Let's say we pass this, right? And during the two week period, we all decide, you know what? Councilman Boyer, you were sort of right. And we want to lower this to five megawatts or whatever, right?

That would require reintroduction because that's substantive.

Okay.

But that doesn't mean that you couldn't go through this and then make revisions after the fact as well, to just put this at the threshold and then if additional changes are deemed appropriate, then we make an amendment later to make it more tailored.

Augusto, thank you. It's been a tough night. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Okay, thank you. Let's move on to the roll call, please, then.

Mr. Boyer?

For the reasons that I just laid out, I think this ordinance does not meet the purpose that the residents actually require. This opens the door to having a data center in Summit, a hyperscale data center in Summit. I think 20, even 19, up to 19, it's just not clear. So I vote nay.

Mr. Chris Foley?

Aye.

Ms. Callumson. Aye. Ms. Landman? Aye. Ms. LaSarasina?

Council President, could you please consider calling a brief recess? I think Councilman Boyer is misreading or misunderstanding the language that's under consideration. What he's describing is not actually reflected in my understanding of the draft ordinance. I think if we could pull back and discuss with Augusto and our city solicitor, it may clarify the ordinance and may potentially change councilman Boyer's opinion.

Can he change his vote after this?

I mean, we're already in the process of the vote. We can, if after the, after the ordinance is introduced, we could have the same conversation as well.

If there's not, I don't think it will change the overall effect of the vote where, where, where. I'd like to complete the roll call, and if it could possibly affect the outcome, then we can consider it.

Sure, so the way that the draft ordinance is written, and certainly Augusto, feel free to disagree or for our study solicitor to correct me if I'm wrong. It is not the case that if there were a usage with a peak pull of 19 megawatts, for example, that then it's automatically permitted. That's not what the language says because there's a lot of other language that also describes the prohibited use. There's a lot of words separate apart from this discrete number, there are a lot of words that are used to describe the thing that we don't wish to permit. So it's not the case that the 20 megawatts is an essential part of the analysis. There's a whole lot of language that Augusto very thoughtfully benchmarked and researched and crafted so that there are many ways to define the prohibited use. The benefit of including the megawattage is that then it's an easy no. If something were at 20 megawatts peak pole or above, then it's an easy no, right? It simplifies the analysis. It's, in my view, actually a value add because it's a very discrete, kind of easily understood way to define in part the prohibited use. But it does not... supersede any of the other language. And again, it's not necessarily an essential part of the analysis. It's meant there, again, just I think for clarity and as a useful part of the definition.

Okay.

And for that reason, amongst others, I vote yes.

And President Toth.

Yes, so motion carries. Okay, one second. Thank you. Okay, moving on to resolutions. The first one on the agenda, law and labor, is not ready for introduction, so we'll move directly to finance. Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution 12578. The city previously approved borrowing money to acquire the Cedar Street lot back in 2019. This resolution allows the city to continue using short-term borrowing up to $1.4 million to keep this debt outside of the long-term bond issue that we talked about because we're planning to sell the property. So with that, I move to pass this resolution. Sorry.

Second. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Resolution passes. Back to you, Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution 12587 is a resolution to combine several existing City of Summit bond issues into one general bond issue with a total value of $11,429,000. This is being done to simplify the city's debt management. reduce some administrative costs, and make it easier to track and repay the bonds. With that, I move to approve this resolution.

Second. Okay. I'm sorry, I missed on the last one. I apologize. Do any members of the public have comments on this resolution? Do any members of council have comments? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Resolution passes. Let us move to safety and health. Council Member Kalmanson.

Thank you, Council President. This is resolution ID 12589 to confirm the mayor's appointment to the Board of Health per closed session discussion. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Okay, would you like to tell us?

Sure.

Yeah.

Nancy Munoz is the mayor's appointment to the Board of Health, and we are confirming that right now with this vote.

Okay, thank you. Do we have any comments from members of the public on this resolution? Any comments from members of council?

Okay. I just want to say thank you. I hope that this will pass. Nancy Munoz is obviously very qualified to sit on our Board of Health. She was a nurse by training. She has represented our residents here in Summit for Over a decade at the state level and has been an advocate for all things health related So I think she's got a really good handle on what's important and I think she'll be a really great representative.

Thank you All in favor aye any opposed, okay Motion passes on to capital projects and community services councilmember Christopher Lee

Thank you, Council President. Resolution ID 12522 authorizes the award of a bid in the amount of approximately $376,000 for improvement of Industrial Place and Walnut Street. That's between Broad Street and Summit Avenue. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Do we have any comments from members of the public on this resolution? Do we have any comments from members of council? Okay, I'll only say high time. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Resolution passes. Back to you, Council Member Chris Afuli.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution ID 12591 appoints Larsenia Cooper as a member of the Summit Housing Authority. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Okay, thank you. Any comments from members of the public? Comments from members of council.

Council President.

Yes, Council Member Boyer.

So I'm not going to really belabor the point, but I just wanted to make a statement. And, you know, when you're elected and you're in the majority, the majority has a right to appoint anybody they want to aboard.

I understand that, and I have to accept it. I get that.

The only thing that I would like to say, though, is up here there may be some people that are more educated than me or whatever, right? But there's no one up here that knows our low-income housing and what goes on there and how many people there and mostly everybody there other than me. That is where I'm from. If it hadn't been for my advocacy for the Summit Housing Authority, people would still have been being overcharged rent right now. They just admitted to giving back $40,000. I had people that I know this weekend give me a hug because they got messages because they got a $1,500 refund. That's a lot of money to some folks, right? And during that time, yeah, there were some smart people on the Housing Authority Board. There were lawyers and finance people and this and that. But you know what? They didn't listen to nobody. because they're so damn smart. They know better than the people that live there. We're making the same mistake up here. I put somebody forward because I know what needs to happen at the Summit Housing Authority. You know, listen, I'm in the minority, right? But I would have hoped that this council would have said, for one person out of all the 80 people that get approved, for one person at one time, it would have said, you know what, Councilman Boyer? Man, you've worked in that place, right? You've actually shown results. You got the whole project, all of them, into our fair share housing agreement. We're going to rehab the whole place. You found that they were miscalculating rents and not giving security deposits and people were living in flooded areas and things like, you did it. We agree with your opinion on this. It did not happen in this case. And I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed because that's where I'm from. I know. I don't need a lawyer. Oh, this person's a lawyer. So what? I don't care. So what?

There were lawyers there before.

And things happen. All I'm saying is you could be compassionate and give somebody a thumbs up to say you know what we trust you you know and and that's what i was expecting here and it's disappointing but thank you council president any other comments council member lisera cena

Thank you, Council President. A few thoughts. First, I want to thank Councilman Boyer. He has been a very strong advocate for our neighbors and the Summit Housing Authority properties for several years, and there is value in that. I also want to acknowledge the resident advocates themselves and various of the prior and existing commissioners who have also advocated either on their own behalf or on behalf of the residents. to bring these needed and positive changes to effect. With due respect, Councilman Boyer, you were not a team of one. There were several people working in coordination and advocating for those very same causes. So credit where credit is due.

Yeah, all the ones that I point.

OK. Our role, my background is in governance, right? It is the responsibility of this body in certain aspects to select what we consider to be the most highly qualified candidate for a particular role. We heard Councilman Boyer say he knows what needs to change at the Summit Housing Authority. And again, with due respect, we can try to persuade, we can try to bring people along. But in my view, it is not our role to try to reverse engineer to get to what we think is the right outcome by selecting one particular candidate over another. It's our job to select the most highly qualified candidate from those generous volunteers who raise their hand to say, I will serve. And so I also take issue with disparaging the newly appointed commissioner who we may so choose this evening. She is very highly qualified. We appreciate her willingness to serve and we are confident that she will be an excellent advocate on behalf of the residents of the Summit Housing Authority.

Okay, with that we're going to call the vote. Okay, very briefly, Council Member Kalman. No? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. We are going to postpone appointing the round four implementation task force members. Just ran out of time at closed session. But again, if you live near Shunpike, or Harmon Holdings, or 190 River, or Bristol Myers Squibb, or Franklin Place, we want to hear from you. Please apply on the city website. And I believe we have a motion from the floor, Council Member Lucera-Cena.

Yes, thank you very much, Council President. This is a motion from the floor. As Council President mentioned, a copy was posted on the city website in the Common Council Agenda Center. There are also, I believe, printed copies available for review in the lobby. This is a resolution to authorize the city to hang rainbow ribbons on the trees in our downtown district following on the success and partnership with the mayor's task force on mental health and sheep up summit. We had the green ribbons, the lovely green ribbons for May mental health month. This will be in coordination with our pride celebration coming up on June 14th. And I think an important message of inclusivity and appreciation for our LGBTQIA community members and allies. So with that, I move to vote on the resolution. Second.

Do we have any comments from members of the public on this resolution?

I'm sorry, who seconded?

Council Member Calmenton. Do we have comments from members of council? Council President. Yes, Council Member Boyd.

I'm in support of this, and I had a conversation with our city solicitor. I just wanted to clarify whether or not this opens the door for other folks to come to council and say you know we want to celebrate heterosexual or you know um birthright or you know whatever whatever people are in right so but because the council is doing this right we're protected from like a hate group coming in and saying hey i want skull and bones on the right we don't have to do that

yes it would be a different story if the city was permitting third party groups to put flags or ribbons up but this is the city's decision and the city's speech um essentially so there's more protections for that if we were to allow third party groups to raise a flag then you would open the door to to and you wouldn't be able to have restrictions. So there's a case out of the city of Boston from the US Supreme Court that set the standard there.

Thank you. Yes. Oh, no, I'm good. Okay. Yeah, I mean, as long as I'm in support of it, as long as it's serious.

Okay, Council Member Callaminson, please.

Okay, thank you, Council President. First of all, I don't believe there's anything like a heterosexual pride, so I think we're good on that. But I just wanted to note, too, in the Borough of Madison, the mayor and council officially proclaimed June 2026 as Pride Month, and they published a proclamation on their Facebook page, and they have pride flags flying downtown. It's really important that everyone feels welcomed and accepted in the city of Summit, so I fully support this resolution. Thank you. Thank you.

Council President. I'm sorry, just because I don't like people making me look ignorant. Wasn't in Boston, right, didn't they have like a, please, no, you talked, I'm always hearing you.

Okay, okay, no, let's skip the cross talk.

I'm sorry, in Boston, City Solicitor, wasn't there like a heterosexual march based on this? And that's... And during my research, and that's what I was trying to prohibit, is all these different groups coming to city council and doing this. So, I mean, you know, to make fun of it is inappropriate. And the heckling here is inappropriate, too. Okay, thank you. All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Resolution carries. Thank you to our dedicated city staff for staying this long. You are free to leave except for Mr. Guida who has to stay another couple of minutes. Because although we're moving on to the consent agenda, I just quickly want to pull out one of the items because we have some representatives here from the Junior League who plan to make a donation to maybe playground. It says maybe, the maybe playground project, but it's going to be redirected to the East Summit Playground Project is my understanding of this. You're looking at me suspiciously. Your friend is. Yes. Yes, go right ahead.

Just the clarification is that the acknowledgement, the way that the resolution is written is the acknowledgement for the donation is going towards maybe playground, but the funds for maybe have already been encumbered. So we're just using the funds in the general playground fund towards the East Summit playground.

Because money is fungible.

Yeah.

Yes. So we could in anticipation of passing the consent agenda take the photo now and not make folks sit through any more than they wish to. You're welcome to stay. But do you want to get down there, Mayor?

Who doesn't love a paycheck?

It's a novelty check.

That looks a little unbalanced, even from this side.

There you go. There we are. With that do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved second, okay Do we have any comments from members of the public on the consent agenda or items on the consent agenda? Do we have any comments from members of council for items on the consent agenda I Yes, Council Member Calmentin.

Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to thank the Junior League for their very generous donation towards Maybe Playground. It's really exciting. It's almost open. Everybody's super excited and just really glad that you continue to be a part of the playgrounds and the community. So thank you very much.

Anything else? Yes. Council Member Lucera-Cena.

Thank you, Council President. I also wanted to extend gratitude to our hometown heroes team, especially Michael and Dan, as well as the city staff. The banners are lovely and I think it is sometimes easy to take for granted how much work and how much time is required to make sure all of the banners are properly displayed and at their proper locations and ticked and tied to the source website. It was a tremendous team effort with also just a lot of volunteers who just care a lot about making sure that we are honoring those who have raised their hand to serve. So a special thanks to Michael and to Dan, but to all of the city staff members and volunteers who make the Hometown Hero banners possible. It's so lovely to see them in town and very important that we do so, so we thank them. Thank you. Anyone else?

I want to call out one item. We are relocating the historic marker for Fountain Baptist Church. Fountain Baptist's original location was pretty much where the police department parking lot is now, across from the Gallo building. But when the marker first went up, it was put in the Chestnut Street parking lot, simply because it would be more visible there. when we closed the lot in anticipation of the sale the the marker was removed and and folks from fountain baptist reached out asked about relocating it it's going to be um In front of the police department parking lot. I hope that's the right thing to call it, Chief. It's what I always thought of it as. Close to the commercial buildings near Broad Street. There's a patch of land between the street and the sidewalk. And once we pass this, then the DPW will install it and we can all recognize the original location of Fountain again. So I was excited about that. And with that, all in favor of passing the consent agenda? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. So on to public comments. And as we begin public comments, I ask that residents of Summit step forward to speak first. We certainly value input from everyone. And any member of the public is welcome to speak. And we simply ask your courtesy in allowing our local neighbors to lead the public conversation if they're ready to speak first. And it's just sort of a walk up, but you almost get in line.

Got an 11-year-old at home. Delia Hamlet, 59, New England. It always takes a special comment to get me off my couch and come back here, especially in the middle of NBA playoffs. But Councilmember Camelson, your comment tonight is particularly disturbing. You used the word, we dropped a bomb. The old council dropped a bomb on your lap. And I want to remind you, as your fellow other council members, Krista Foley and Lisa Aracena, seem to take the high road on this issue, but you, who were sitting up there with me for the last several years, were privy to every conversation, every email, and could have asked any questions, and you did not. i probably have 5 000 emails about affordable housing and you never once asked a question you never once opined i would have been more than happy to discuss all of this with you so to say we dropped a bomb on you is is almost a dereliction of duty and and this is this is serious stuff this is it takes a mature adult to have these conversations it's not funny This is a serious topic, and I find it fascinating that you seemed surprised. We've had multiple conversations around housing element and fair share plan. We've had multiple meetings with our city solicitor, with our city administrator, and I just find that it was a really tough comment, and I think that Jacqueline, Council Member LaSarcena, and Councilmember Krista Foley, we're actually making a lot of progress on the Mount Laurel Committee. I think for the most part we fundamentally agree on a lot of stuff, and I give them both a lot of credit for that. We're working together, we're trying to make things happen, along with Council President Toth. And then you've got Councilmember Landman talking to all our neighbors about the subdivision and how horrible it's gonna be. And I don't hear any solutions, it's just, we're dividing parkland, right? You heard the fine municipal land use manager, there simply wasn't any more land, right? I walked that property, and we're gonna talk about the planning board tomorrow, I walked the whole property this weekend. And it's sad to think that our community can't embrace a small piece of property, no one wants to divide parkland, for disabled adults. Here we are, right? Here's the solutions, what we should offer. Why don't we talk to Trenton? Why don't we talk to Trenton? Why don't we push back on 1766 last week, on 2680, on 1836 that went through Trenton? Why don't you tell your neighbors to stop and fight against Trenton? That's a solution. Or let me give you another solution tonight. Why don't you think about putting those other parcels on the recreational open space inventory or donating it to the Board of Ed so that when Trenton comes after us again next year, we have a solution instead of running to our neighbors and having them come to City Hall, put it on the Rossi, donate it to the Board of Ed, the corner of Springfield and Oakley. possibly another parcel right the municipal land use manager was very clear that that vacant land analysis was for multi-family homes our house is permitted in r15 zones and it's sad to think that everybody wants affordable housing everybody wants it but absolutely nobody in summit wants it in their backyard and that's why everybody should fight against it thank you council president

Mary Jo Micucci-Defonso, 12 Washington Avenue. So I'm probably a little behind the April here, but that's okay. So I grew up here, lived here for 50 years, graduated Summit High School in 1981. Jamila and I have had this conversation many times. I do not understand how the property behind the wreck We're gonna make it a park Has anybody done any research of the history of that property? There was a summer camp down there when I was a kid They still had that same summer camp You remember that same summer camp was down there when we moved it back to summit in 1994 and my son went there for a year or so so here we are with a property that was allowed to fall into disrepair and we're gonna make it a park again. You've got sports programs out the wazoo that have developed tenfold. crying for field space, but we're gonna make this a playground. Tonight I learned Memorial Park is getting a new playground. Maybe playground is getting a new playground. Why do we need another playground in East Summit? And I misunderstood. I thought it was exclusively for two to five year olds. Tonight I learned that it's also for five to 12 year olds because that was another one of my concerns. Why would I bring my two to five-year-old? Now, my kids are ages, they're seven years from the oldest to the youngest. I have three kids. They're all in their 30s now. So I'm going to use my kids as an example. Am I going to bring my youngest to one park and drop my son off at another park? No way. I can't watch him at another park. So that was on me that I read tap or whatever it was that the park was exclusively for two to five. That was my misunderstanding. So again, why do we need another park? And if you think you're going to put a park at Bryant Park, where I live, I will fight you tooth and nail, because it's not going to happen. That's number one. Number two, why are we spending all this money on these parks? When was the last time you did anything for your senior citizens? I'm reading that from what Jamal's been telling me, that the senior building is in disrepair.

Why are we selling the firehouse property?

put another senior citizen complex there, knocked down the existing one, and I asked him, he didn't have an answer for me, if the property at the firehouse can be built upon, can we add floors onto the existing property? He didn't know. He said he would find out for me, right? Knock down the current senior citizen housing and put up a new building. No, but no, we're building playground after playground after playground. What is going on? I don't like what's going on in my town. And like I said, I grew up here. I don't like any of this. And you know what? If Kenilworth can fight a data center, why do we want to have it? Maybe we should put it in front of your house or next to your house. THOSE THINGS ARE LOUD. PEOPLE CAN'T SLEEP HAVING THOSE THINGS IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS, BUT WE'RE ENTERTAINING THE IDEA OF PUTTING THAT HERE. THANK YOU, MS. DEFENSA.

DO WE HAVE ANY OTHER COMMENTS FROM MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC? Good evening.

I agree with Councilman Boyer's comments about the AI data center. I think the resolution needs to be very strong. And if we don't want data centers, we shouldn't have any megawatt threshold. It should just say no AI data centers. The current resolution clearly carves out data centers for existing facilities like at Bristol Myers or the hospital. That's fine. Those stay. But if we don't want any AI data centers, then let's say that in the resolution. No AI data centers, regardless of the megawatts, regardless of how much water they use or electricity they use. Just take them off the table completely. Don't allow any loopholes and prevent wasting time discussing any potential data centers in the future. Just put that into the ordinance now. That's it. Thank you. Thank you.

Do we have other comments from members of the public? No. Um, as we move on to council member comments, um, we do limit our public comments to three minutes. Um, and it is high time we imposed that same discipline on ourselves.

So as of now, we shall, um, yeah. Okay. You are.

And so am I, and I'm using the gavel. Um, so with that, Does any council member want to make a comment?

Sure. Yes, Council Member Landman. I'll be super quick. I just want to say happy Pride. I want to say thank you to the Junior League who helped me find some of my people when I retired from work and started volunteering in the community. And then as it relates to data centers, I just want to say that we can always amend the ordinance in the future if we need to. For now, I think it's important that we proceed. As with anything of this nature, the technology is going to evolve quickly and we need to be nimble. And we can't also let perfect be the enemy of the good. So we should move forward. And that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Council Member Chris Avelle. Thank you, Council President. I'd just like to highlight how Council is actually working together to address some of the most difficult issues I can imagine facing our town, including development. And tonight, we approved the appointment of a new member to the Board of Health. former State Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz. She was helpful to me when I first moved to Summit on some issues I was facing, and she brings extensive experience with state government and healthcare. She's on the record supporting vaccine use, a key concern of residents. And so I supported her appointment to the Board of Health. I think you're also seeing that sometimes we're almost in violent agreement. We agree that we don't want large data centers. We don't want overdevelopment. We don't want KKK parades down our main street or other undesirable celebrations in our town. We agree on these things. I think maybe it's almost what is termed in negotiations violent agreement where you're actually agreeing with each other, but the words you're using express dissatisfaction in some way. I think we need to express that we are actually agreeing on 99% of what we're talking about here. And it's that 1% where we can have a valuable interaction, but without getting to that violent agreement, which is not productive. So that's it, I think we're doing a lot together. We're making hard calls and we're collaborating. And I appreciate the service of everybody up here.

Thank you. Do we have other comments? Council President. Council Member Boyer.

So just really quickly, I don't like to be heckled for asking legal questions from the city solicitor. And I'm not against gay pride or putting rainbows up or anything like that. I'm not violent. So I guess that was because I'm the only Republican up here, right? I'm not a violent person. So I don't know what that comment was about. This is the way I talk and speak and act. We're all different human beings. But I think we all have to be respectful up here, though, especially to different feelings and ideas, especially now, because we all come from different places, some more than less. Great weekend. I was happy to see... councilwoman lucera sino on friday at the summit's arboretum it was a it was a great great time got time to hang out with my wife she don't get to see me a lot you know up here but um hanging out with the residents it was it was a really good uh for a really good cause um and uh that's it thank you council thank you

Okay, Council Member Lucero-Cino. Thank you, Council President. Now we have our city clerk on the timer, so I don't need to borrow my daughters anymore. Just real briefly, and we're gonna try to have this amazing group of young people come in to be properly acknowledged at a future date. I had the chance to go to a Bridges event last night at the EMS squad building and got to learn a little bit about the teens tackle homelessness group. This is a really remarkable group of our summit young adults working under Bridges to find creative ways, ways big and small, tireless efforts to support our unhoused population and work on housing stabilization efforts. They have a tremendous website, so I encourage everyone to look at it. It's teenstacklehomelessness.org. It's actually, it was designed and is maintained by the young adults themselves, and this is really a remarkable group. I want to just read their names really briefly, and again, we'll try to have them come in, but it's Catherine Lizzie, Zachary Batistella, Sydney Coynehan, Kayla Shea, Maggie Horan, Delia Callahan, Amelia Slater, Jillian Callahan, and Carly Moeller is their director of development. This is just the leadership team. I'm sorry, let's keep going. Jenna Carey, Riley Dangler, and Nina Hinnick. This is a high performance team, and these young people are volunteering. They are having tremendous impact. They've raised tens of thousands of dollars just this year, as Patty shared from Bridges. Patty mentions kind of off-handed a need, and this group is like, okay, we know the mission, we're on it. We are so fortunate to have purpose-driven young adults like this here in Summit. They are the best of us. I also want to extend gratitude to our Summit Education Foundation. Just in the spring season, they awarded almost $250,000 in grants to our public schools, supporting our pillars of safety and wellness, culture belonging, and project-based learning. Thank you SCF for your continued work to support excellence in our public school system. And one final note, it's the end of the year, we're getting really close to the final day of school in our public schools. The kids are over baked, at least mine are. And our teachers, our in class support, our other staff, our crossing guards, bus drivers, the administrators, everyone who supports what's going on in the schools is dialing it up even more to make sure that they're controlling the chaos of what's going on in the schools and still delivering great education and a lot of fun and magic for our young kids. So thank you so much to everyone who makes our public school system what it is. Thank you.

Yes, I was going to say, she's always a tough act to follow. Go ahead, Council Member Elmondson.

Thank you, Council President. First, I wanted to give a shout out to the police department and Summit PAL for hosting their dare pool party today. I have a daughter in fifth grade, and she had the best time. I had a car full of happy kids. So thank you. I know they enjoy it every year. And it's amazing that they continue to have that option every year. The fifth graders get to go. So we love that. Former council member Hamlet. The comment that I made, it wasn't actually for my benefit about the bomb being dropped in the lab. It was actually, I was really referring to the three new council members that we have up here. And the community is understandably concerned. And they're coming. They want their questions answered. And it's a plan that they have to vote on. And they take no pleasure in that. And perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I should have been more clear because I was saying this council as a whole. But yes, I was up here. I was up here last year. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions around how these things work, though, because you have a Mount Laurel committee and you have three people on that committee. So they go in. They have all these discussions. These discussions go on for a very long time. And then they come and they bring it back to council. And a lot of times, you have very little time to consider these. And most of the work, quite frankly, is done at that point. And so I just wanted to clear up a little bit of confusion, because I do think that they have this idea that we're all sitting around a table with the developers. And it's not how it works. That's not how it happens. But I also, I'm a little frustrated about the data center ordinance. And I feel like some people are trying to make a wedge issue out of something that we all agree on. Because two weeks ago, we had an ordinance to ban detention centers. And Councilman Boyer and Councilman Pawlowski wanted to add data center to the ordinance. Just those two words to the ordinance, that's it. And Councilmember Boyer said, we should add this right now. We don't need to wait until a buyer is announced and a plan is filed. I don't think there's any time to waste. We could wait another two or three months, but why not just do it now? so now we have this ordinance we have all this language that defines the data center and computer centers because of course we don't want to do anything you know that disrupts the hospitals um and you know anybody else who has you know what is a computer center and now it's not good enough and now and you know in the 11th hour now we have to add more and i thought we wanted to pass this as soon as possible to protect summit so i just I'm just feeling, I'm feeling frustrated because I'm feeling like, you know, our city professionals, they did their job. They did what we asked them to do. They delivered us a great ordinance. And I just feel like. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay.

You get three minutes as well. I would respectfully request that I get a little bit more because I do have some prepared remarks and I did not speak to these last meeting because Bob jumped in front of me to resign and I didn't feel like it was appropriate for me to then dial this back. So I will speak as quickly as possible but I think it's important that I say these things. I have served this community for decades. as a community volunteer, a leader, a physician, a coach, and a mother of four public school children. And I ran for this office to continue serving this amazing city. I intended to address these matters at our last meeting, again, but out of respect for time of Councilman Palowski's resignation, I chose to hold them until tonight. Our residents trust us to sit up here and do what's right. I suggest we honor that trust, focus on the real needs of our community, and work together to keep Summit safe and thriving. The current political maneuvering in this chamber is a profound disservice to our residents. It degrades our local government to the level of hyper-partisan Washington politics. We're seeing long established traditions such as mayoral appointments questioned, actions that were never taken when the mayor belonged to the opposing party. We're seeing ordinances deliberately passed despite advanced knowledge that they lacked legal viability. Furthermore, the practice of feeding one-sided narratives to social media and divisive local media outlets to damage reputations brings this governing body down to a level that local politics should never inhabit. Let's look at the facts regarding my recent appointments to the Board of Education. Individuals our city is incredibly fortunate to have volunteering for our school district. One is an award winning journalist and communications professional who covered public policy and education for over a decade as a political bureau chief. And who has served as both PTO president and president of the PTO President's Council. My second appointee represents five generations of summit roots. She's a summit graduate, a deeply active community leader, and a professional with extensive experience in finance and economics. These are two dedicated summit moms committed to maintaining a culture of academic excellence. To attack their qualifications is purely political. Regarding Maple Street, I clearly outlined the legal and safety reasons for my veto in my official response letter, which is publicly available. And that should answer former Mayor Radice's questions that she said were not answered last meeting. Let us be clear, this was pure political theater. The council majority knew exactly what they were doing when they voted for an ordinance that could not legally be signed off on by our engineers, our public safety authorities, or the mayor. In my role as chief executive of the city of Summit, my primary duty is to protect the safety of this community. If this council truly wanted outdoor dining, it should have collaborated on a lawful safe solution through our safety and engineering teams that our engineer could endorse in good faith. You're all smart enough to know that what you passed is illegal and fundamentally unworkable. Recently, this council majority has chosen to exclude me from meetings and cast doubt on my integrity. In six months, Little has been accomplished while countless taxpayer dollars have been spent on controversial legal battles regarding outdoor dining ordinances, Broad Street West, and lights at Tatlock. It had been my hope that by not engaging with the people who hide behind their keyboards and by being available to talk in person or on the phone at almost any time, the level of corrosive online rhetoric would diminish. This hasn't been the case. I'm asking the council majority to please get back to business. I welcome your questions and I encourage face-to-face meetings rather than public gotcha emails or social media posts. We can and should balance the will of the people with lawful and safe governing. Moving forward, we have two choices. We can either work collaboratively for the people of Summit, or we can continue the political theater, which may appease party leaders and outside political groups, but does absolutely nothing for our residents. Launching partisan arrows to score political points does not make anyone a better leader. It simply reduces us to petty politicians. I come to work at City Hall every day with a goal of doing what's best for the city of Summit. Not what's best for Republicans or Democrats, or even Summit Republicans or Summit Democrats. Simply, what's best for Summit. Let's all rise to the occasion and join me in upholding that standard.

Thank you. Point of order, Council President.

We've all spoken once. That's what we give our residents. Point of order.

Robert Fools, right? I don't get a point of order? As an elected official, I can't talk because you say so. And by the way, there's nothing written in policies or anything. You just said, hey, we're going to have three minutes. So, Council President, point of order.

You used one, I'll give you two.

Okay. First, I just want to say that you can give me three minutes. I'm fine with that. But I think it's highly disrespectful, highly disrespectful to do that to the mayor. It's not appropriate. And by the way, the last thing I will say is I'm up here pointing out things and respectfully disagreeing with things because That's my job. It's not personal. And I'm going to continue to do that. And hey, maybe in November, I won't be here anymore to do that. And the residents will decide. And I'm OK with that. But until then, I represent the residents. So I'm going to speak up. Thank you.

It's three minutes. Less than that. Thank you for that. Well, not me. Yes, Ms. Lucera, say now.

Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to address certain of the points that Mayor Fagan raised. I think unfortunately often what people accuse others of, they are actually guilty of doing themselves. And I also want to address certain of the factual inaccuracies. On the Board of Ed appointments, to my knowledge, no one has questioned the qualifications of the appointees. No concerns as to their qualifications have been raised, certainly not by me. I have expressed gratitude several times about their willingness to serve and support the excellence of our public schools. What I did question was what I consider to be a failure of proper process and engagement with the Board of Ed president and the other board members. that is put into our district bylaws for a reason from I believe going back to 2010. Honestly, I don't really care what was done in the past. We can't change the past, but it is within the mayor's control to do something right in the present moment and in the future. All I merely suggested was that she respectfully honor what's in the bylaws and follow the process that's written in our district policies. That was all, nothing more. Again, I will express gratitude to all of the Board of Ed members including the recent appointees. I know they will do their level best because we all care deeply about the excellence of our public schools. On Maple Street, there was a lot there. We need to be careful about the language we use about illegality and legality. Those words really mean something. There are instances where reasonable people can look at a particular statute or ordinance and interpret it differently. We had hoped, it was my hope at least, that there would be a bipartisan effort that we could work with the mayor as she is designated as the chief executive officer on this. We had several of our city professionals partner with interested members of council over several months to make sure that we could reopen Maple Street as a pedestrian plaza safely. It had been done safely in the past, it's been done safely in other communities. The mayor took a different view, and that's certainly fine, that's within her right. But to say that what we did was illegal is just factually inaccurate. If it were illegal, then other communities would have had actions brought against them. Summit would have had an action brought against them in the past, but that didn't happen for a reason. Because the assertion that she made is simply not true. As a brief aside, she also used official city communication channels to misrepresent and to assert her own opinion as to what is illegal and what is legal. I find that to be a really inappropriate usage of city communication and I hope that she will conduct herself differently going forward. On the point of what have we accomplished, certainly there's a lot more work that we wish to do, but just in brief, I'm really proud of the work that we have all contributed to in passing a fiscally responsible municipal budget, investing meaningfully in traffic calming and pedestrian safety, in renovating and building new playgrounds, in reinvigorating Silver Summit for our seniors, in implementing regular listening sessions. On the three-minute talk limit, if our residents coming up in this environment where we know it takes a lot for some people to speak in public and certainly against us up here, if y'all have three minutes, I think we can have three minutes. Thank you.

Thank you. I am only going to add, build on the gratitude to every resident of Summit who steps up and volunteers for one of our something like 70 boards, commissions, task forces, and committees, and for all of the wonderful nonprofits that make Summit the community it is. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? We stand adjourned.