Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I'm excited. We're all excited to see so many people here today. We've got a lot of really happy things going on. And after a tough few days, I think we could all use that. So, Matt, let's kick us off. 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 17, 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. Madam Clerk, would you please read the roll call?

Mr. Boyer? Present. Mr. Christofoli? Here. Ms. Kalmanson? Here. Ms. Landman? Here. Mrs. Saracena? Here. President Toth?

Here. I had asked Chief Evers, you are here, to lead us all in the Pledge of Allegiance. And I think you brought your own honor guard.

To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

Okay, 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 cityclerkcityofsummit.org. To help facilitate an orderly meeting and permit all to be heard, please limit your comments to no more than three minutes. 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.

Thank you. 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're seated in the first two rows, please remain silent. Anything you say can be picked up by the recording microphones and it makes it difficult to hear the official proceedings. The three-minute limit on public comments corresponds to a bit less than a single printed page. So if you're leaving your written remarks, please put your name on them and place them in the box near the lectern when you're done. We are going to rearrange our agenda just a little because I know people are really waiting for our swearings in. Let's not keep you waiting and let's begin with our brand new council member, Andrew Smith. I think it's over to you then, Madam Mayor. We've never winged it before.

Thank you. I, Andrew Smith.

I, Andrew Smith.

Do solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States

That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of New Jersey.

And the Constitution of the State of New Jersey.

And that I will bear true faith and allegiance.

And that I will bear true faith and allegiance.

To the same.

To the same.

And to the governments established.

And to the governments established.

In the United States. In the United States. And in this state.

And in this state.

Under the authority of the people.

Under the authority of the people.

I do solemnly swear.

I do solemnly swear.

That I will faithfully.

That I will faithfully.

Impartially.

Impartially.

And justly perform.

And justly perform.

All the duties of council member ward one.

All the duties of council member ward one.

According to the best of my ability.

According to the best of my ability.

So help me God.

So help me God.

Congratulations.

And Council Member Smith, please join us in the dais. Thank you. And now we're going to move on to our fire department swearing's in. We're gonna keep our mayor busy here, beginning with our brand new fire chief who's had an extraordinarily easy few days of it. I was going to say, yes. Chief Harnoy, please join us.

First I'm going to read your bio so we can learn a little bit about our new chief. Fire Chief Brian Harnois has served the Summit Fire Department for over 22 years. Brian began in Summit in October 2004 as a volunteer firefighter assigned to the Union Hose Company. He started his career here as a part time dispatcher moving to the role of firefighter in July of 2007. He has been passionate about firefighting and serving others throughout his life and he has spent his career training in various aspects of leadership and safety. Brian works his way through the ranks and was promoted to battalion chief in February of 2024. He holds a bachelor's degree from Seton Hall University. In addition, he is a fire instructor, drill ground instructor, fire inspector, and fire investigator, and a certified EMT. Brian served as the department's training officer for the last five years, revamping the department's program to include more hands-on training. Brian completed the command and control series and the new fire chief program at the National Fire Academy. He is currently working towards his executive fire officer designation with an expected graduation date in the spring of 2027. He brings a focus on cancer risk reduction, mental health initiatives for first responders, and community risk reduction. He has served as a volunteer for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation's Memorial Weekend at the National Fire Academy for the past 18 years. I'm not even old enough to have been there for 18 years. Brian received two Chiefs Awards for life-saving efforts in 2010 and 2022. Brian lives in Chatham with his wife, Megan, and his daughter, Becca, and his son, Colin. Please congratulate Brian on his Trial by Fire promotion to Fire Chief. So repeat after me. I, Brian Harnise, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and in this state under the authority of the people, I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully, impartially, and justly perform all the duties of Fire Chief according to the best of my ability. So help me God.

We should all be grateful that after the last few days Chief Harnois agreed to be sworn in. He did call me and say he wasn't coming tonight. Next we have a brand new battalion commander. Matthew Lemons, will you please join us with your family?

Great. Hi, guys.

I love your dress.

All right. So Matthew Lemons started with the Summit Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter in chemical engine company number one in February of 2013, was hired as a career firefighter in May of 2015, and was promoted to lieutenant in September of 2023. matt graduated from new jersey city uni university why was that hard with about with a bachelor's in fire science in 2022 in february of 2026 matt was accepted into the national fire academy's executive fire officer program matt has 16 years of experience in emergency services at the local county and state levels including 11 years of full-time professional firefighting with the summit fire department Matt was recently appointed as the city's fire official. In addition to serving in Summit, Matt has served as the chief of the Chatham Township Volunteer Fire Department, a level two fire instructor at the Union County Fire Academy, an active shooter incident management instructor for the New Jersey State Police and New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, is a lieutenant with the Union County Fire Investigation Task Force, and since 2019, he has participated in the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation's Memorial Weekend with Team Summit. Matt holds three professional credentials from the Center of Public Safety Excellence, including fire officer, fire marshal, and chief training officer. Matt holds certifications in the following areas. Fire officer two, incident management level three, EMT, fire instructor level two, fire official, fire investigator.

Hold, please.

Division of Fire Safety Rapid Intervention Instructor, Ice Rescue Technician, Swift Water Operations. Matt resides in Berkeley Heights with his wife of seven years, Jacqueline, and their two children, Matthew and Kinley. Please congratulate Matt on his promotion to battalion chief. I, Matthew Lemons.

I, Matthew Lemons.

Do solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

That I will support the Constitution of the United States.

And the Constitution of the State of New Jersey.

And the Constitution of the State of New Jersey.

And that I will bear true faith.

And that I will bear true faith. And allegiance. And allegiance. To the same. To the same.

And to the governments established.

And to the governments established.

In the United States.

In the United States.

And in this state.

And in this state.

Under the authority of the people.

Under the authority of the people.

I do solemnly swear.

I do solemnly swear.

That I will faithfully.

That I will faithfully.

Impartially.

Impartially.

And justly.

And justly.

Perform all the duties.

Perform all the duties.

Of battalion chief.

Of battalion chief.

According to the best of my ability.

According to the best of my ability.

So excited for you.

Okay, then moving right along, we also have a new lieutenant in our fire department. Yeah, no, and this would be James Hintz.

All right, James Hintz began his fire service journey at the age of 16 when he joined the Berkeley Heights Fire Department where he continues to serve as a volunteer today. Driven by his passion for the fire service, James earned a Bachelor of Science in Fire Science with a concentration in Fire Administration from the University of New Haven. He furthered his professional education by obtaining certifications including Firefighter II, Fire Official, Fire Officer II, Incident Management Level 3, Hazardous Materials Technician, and Swift Water Rescue Technician. In July 2019, James expanded his commitment to serving others by joining the Summit Fire Department as a volunteer firefighter and was later appointed to the career division in January 2022. Today, James resides in Berkeley Heights with his wife, Amalia. Please join us in congratulating Lieutenant James Hintz on his achievement. Repeat after me. Right hand, right? Yeah. I, Jimmy Hintz, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and in this state under the authority of the people. I do solemnly swear, I do solemnly swear, that I will faithfully, that I will faithfully, impartially, impartially, and justly, and justly, perform all the duties, perform all the duties, a fire lieutenant, a fire lieutenant, according to the best of my ability, according to the best of my ability, so help me God, so help me God.

And finally, this also means we get to appoint a brand new probationary firefighter, Christopher Jackson.

I brought the whole family. All right.

So Christopher Jackson grew up in Brick, New Jersey, where he lived until moving to Berkeley Heights and attended college in 2021. He graduated from New Jersey City University in May 2025 with two bachelor degrees, a Bachelor of Science in Fire Science and a Bachelor of Science in National Security Studies. During his time at the university, he earned Dean's List honors while continuing to build upon his years of public safety experience. Chris began his fire service journey with the Point Pleasant Borough Fire Department as a junior firefighter in 2018. In 2021, at just 18 years old, he completed the fire academy and earned his firefighter one and two certifications, officially launching his firefighting career. During his time with Station 75, he served as an engineer and was appointed assistant water rescue captain. He also volunteered with the Point Pleasant Borough First Aid Squad as an emergency medical responder, responding to 911 medical emergencies and assisting with patient care and transport. In 2025, Chris joined Summit volunteer ranks in Chemical Engine Company One. In addition to his fire service, Chris previously served as a class one special police officer with Tom's River Township Police Department and has worked in both the construction and carpentry trades, developing a strong work ethic and hands on problem solving skills. Chris has earned numerous advanced fire service certifications including hazardous materials operations, incident command system certifications, surface water rescue operations, fast awareness and operations, advanced fire behavior, and basic vehicle extraction. He's grateful for the opportunity to join the Summit Fire Department and looks forward to building a long and rewarding career serving the residents and visitors of the city of Summit. Let's congratulate Chris on becoming a career firefighter. I, Christopher Jackson. I, Christopher Jackson. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. That I will support the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the State of New Jersey.

And the Constitution of the State of New Jersey.

And that I will bear true faith.

And I will bear true faith.

And allegiance.

And allegiance. To the same. To the same.

And to the governments established.

And to the governments established.

In the United States.

In the United States.

And in this state.

And in this state.

Under the authority of the people.

Under the authority of the people.

I do solemnly swear.

I do solemnly swear.

That I will faithfully.

That I will faithfully.

Impartially.

Impartially.

And justly.

And justly.

Perform all the duties.

Perform all the duties. Of probationary firefighter. Of probationary firefighter.

According to the best of my ability. According to the best of my ability. So help me God. So help me God.

Congratulations, Chris. Okay.

Yeah, you went, yes. Okay, absolutely.

Okay, okay.

I know the vast majority of you here are anxious to repair to the Elks and celebrate. We do have a couple of more things you should hang out for for just a moment. First, because we've just sworn everybody in, we should memorialize this with the resolution. And I get to turn the floor over to our brand new council member Smith.

an auspicious start all right thank you council president this resolution id 12629 to appoint a new fire chief battalion chief lieutenant and probationary firefighter per closed session i move to adopt this resolution second

Are there any comments from members of the public? Any comments from members of council? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? You're all appointed. Second, Chief Harnois had asked for a couple of moments.

Through you, Council President, I just want to take this opportunity to thank the Mayor and members of Council for their continued support of the Fire Department. I'm deeply honored and humbled to accept the role of Fire Chief for the City of Summit. It's a true privilege to lead such a dedicated group of professionals who serve this community so selflessly. My commitment is to work tirelessly to protect our community, support our firefighters, ensure our department continues to provide the highest levels of service. I would also like to express my gratitude to Chief Evers and Deputy Chief Mbimbo for their support and their leadership. As Chief Evers retires, I look forward to building on his legacy, and as we continue to serve our residents with pride, professionalism, and integrity. Thank you again, and I look forward to working with all of you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. You've already demonstrated the working tirelessly part. And finally, our Assemblymember Andrew McCurdy is here this evening, and he's got a few words to say about our retiring Chief Evers. Andrew.

Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to present Chief Evers.

Excuse me, if you speak into the microphone, it'll get that. Yeah, you can just grab that. Then everyone at home can hear.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Andrew McCurdy from the State Assembly. Just wanted to present Chief Evers with a resolution from the New Jersey State Legislature commemorating your 38 years of dedicated service in this role to the Fire Department and commemorating your unwavering commitment to keeping the people of Summit safe for all those years. Thank you for all your service and congratulations.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I appreciate it. I just want to take the opportunity to thank all the previous council members and mayors for all the great work for the fire department. They always supported me, but also they supported the men and women of the Summit Fire Department. I appreciate it. I keep supporting these men and women. They go out there every day, 24-7, doing their jobs for the citizens of the Summit. So I appreciate the support. Thank you. And it's been an honor being your chief for all these years. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. We welcome everyone to stay for the entire meeting. We know you'll want to hear about our audit from last year. But I suspect you may have other items planned for this evening. So thank you all for attending.

Thank you.

After we're done. Thank you, thank you. I'll see about that.

Thank you.

I love how they support each other.

OK. OK. OK. OK. Once Marina gets back.

OK. OK. Shall we return to the official order of business? So we're going to move on to the minutes for approval. Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of the regular and closed sessions for June 3rd and June 16th, 2026? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Abstain. Thank you. On to reports. Madam Mayor. I feel like a microphone hog tonight.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for being here. First, I know Chief Evers has left the room, but I wanted to say thank you to him for his service. I know that he's so humble. I know he didn't want tonight to be about him, but I'm very, very grateful. to Assemblyman McCurdy for recognizing his 38 years of service. So we're very lucky in this town to have such wonderful first responders, and we have a fabulous police department. I know that Chief Harnois has big shoes to fill, but Chief Evers left us in a good spot. So on with the important things. I know everybody wants to talk more about the storm. So I want to thank everyone for your continued patience as we continue storm restoration efforts. I know it's been really difficult for residents. I know there are people that are still without power and I have been in contact with JCPNL multiple times a day for the past four days. I actually missed a call tonight, they did a mayor's call each night. I unfortunately was not able to be there because I was in closed session. But our rep very kindly said that if there was anything relevant to summit, he would certainly give me a call later. So I haven't heard from him, so I'm hoping that things are business as usual and they're working around the clock. There are crews from Michigan, from Wisconsin. uh they've brought in crews from all over the place to um to have restoration efforts um we have been sharing daily updates since last since friday um we did post one this afternoon again most of the large outages in town have been restored The remaining outages are very labor intensive, unfortunately, and will require some time for repairs. The ones that are on the smaller side, if you look at the JCP&L website for outages, if your address is showing that less than 20 customers are impacted, you're likely not to be restored until end of day Thursday. That's sort of the outside. Any outages affecting 20 or more customers should be restored. stored by tomorrow end of day. So just hang tight. That's what they're promising. Hopefully they'll under promise and over deliver. And we know this has been a long and difficult process for everyone. And we're hopeful that JCP&L can really finish up and get out of town. And then I've actually asked also for kind of a post storm debrief if there are places in town where We know that there are recurrent issues with storms. I've been asked by some residents that they're people that always are the last people to be restored in a storm. They always lose power. So I sort of highlighted a couple of those areas. If there's anybody that knows that they are in that area or in one of those areas in town, please let me know because I will share that with JCP and also maybe they can look forward and address the infrastructure there. Lastly, on JCP&L and storms, you can text STAT, S-T-A-T, to 544487 to receive restoration updates from JCP&L if you haven't already. And again, their website has outage update information as well. The community center will be open as a charging center through Thursday 7-9, which is July 9th, from 3.30 to 9.30 each day. Fun stuff, I invite you to join us on the Village Green this summer for our Hot Summer Nights concert series, which is on Mondays this year, which is a change from tradition. So don't show up on Tuesdays, it now is on Mondays. And Screen on the Green stays on Thursdays, so movies on the Green on Thursdays. Weather permitting, we will host our second movie on the Green Thursday, July 9th, along with food trucks and a family dance party that starts at 7.15, with the movie shown at dark. All of these events are free and open to the public and please bring a chair or a blanket and check our website for full schedule of events this summer. And next Monday is community night on the Village Green, which begins at 6.30. This annual event is an opportunity for summit non-profits to promote their work to the community and a great chance for residents to find out more about local organizations. Non-profits should contact the Department of Community Programs to sign up as a participating organization. And at 7, we will have our Hot Summer Nights concert.

I hope to see you there. That's all. Okay, thank you. City Administrator Baldwin.

Thank you, Council President. I'm going to begin quickly with a few reports, very brief, but I wanted everybody to know what was going on in terms of the storm with DPW, Fire Department, and Police Department. So from DPW, at approximately 9 p.m. on Friday night, July 3rd, Department of Public Works crews were called out in response to the storm-related incidents involving multiple trees down in the roadway throughout the city. At the time of the initial response, seven city trees were reported down and obstructing roadways. DPW crews were dispatched to address these immediate hazards. DPW continues to respond to and address additional storm related work today as they are received. At approximately 10 PM that same evening, an additional DPW crew was called in to respond to power outages affecting traffic signals at various intersections. They remain engaged in post-storm cleanup efforts and continue to monitor and respond to incoming service requests related to that event. The fire department answered 157 calls for service since the beginning of the storm on Friday night. Notable incidents were seven trees on structures, one of which was deemed unsafe by the construction official. FD members handled a structure fire in town and provided mutual aid to a neighboring community for a structure fire. FD personnel handled several CO incidents due to generators being too close to the residents. Lastly, from our police department, immediately following the storm, members of the police department responded throughout the city to assess damage and secure areas impacted by downed trees, utility poles, and electrical wires. Officers worked quickly to identify hazardous conditions, deploy barricades, establish road closures and detours, and ensure the safety of residents and motorists. Throughout the response, the police department maintained constant coordination with dispatch, the Summit Fire Department, and the Department of Community Programs Public Works to prioritize areas of concern and ensure that all reported hazards were communicated to the appropriate utility providers. Additionally, police administration coordinated with the city's communication specialists to ensure updated information on road closures and access to resources was disseminated accordingly to the public. The police department handled 355 calls for service from Friday 8 p.m. to Monday 9 a.m. Approximately 120 of those were directly related to the storm. I shared all of that because I wanted to preface my comments about the storm, and that was that I wanted to thank our police, fire, and DPW for their efforts during our ongoing storm restoration process. I know it's been difficult for everyone. But all three of these departments have been working tirelessly to clear the roads, to maintain safety for residents, and it really has been a group effort. We were on several calls over the weekends, and I just want to thank everyone for their continued professionalism and their dedication to our community. So with that, there are still several downed wires and fallen trees that are causing road closures throughout the city. I'm sure you run into them here and there. Please use caution while traveling so that you're all safe. We do have that information posted on the city website and our social media pages, so stay in touch with that. And as Mayor Fagan stated, we do thank you for your continued patience throughout this lengthy and difficult process. We're hoping that the last remaining power outages are restored quickly. On a little happier note the summit free market July events will be held on Saturday July 11th from 8 to 3 and Friday July 24th from 12 to 2 at the transfer station Summit residents with a parking disposal permit can attend browse donated items and take what they want for free Please review the donation guidelines on our website at city of summit org backslash free market Before bringing any items to donate and that concludes my report. Thank you

Thank you so much. I'm going to keep this brief because we do have a lot this evening. And of course, I want to add my thanks to our first responders and the DPW. I keep saying the DPW crews are the unsung heroes in Summit. Because everybody's work is nothing short of heroic. And I also want one to give a shout out to council member Cal Minson who seemed to be everywhere over the weekend taking photos and sending updates Added to the city's adding to the city's official communications She was the one saying you cannot communicate too much even if there's nothing new to add so I hope everybody appreciated that effort and And finally, my Monday office hours this month will be every Monday for the rest of the month, 3 to 5 p.m. in the council conference room just outside of chambers. And with that, let us go back to our presentations. Council Member Lucera-Sena.

Thank you, Council President. So it is my great pleasure to get to make some brief remarks about an amazing group of young people we have here in town. Teens tackle homelessness. So I'm going to brag on you all for a little bit, and then I'll ask you to come up to take a photo with Mayor Fagan and our Council President. The Teens Tackle Homelessness is a youth-led organization. They're a volunteer group that operates under bridges here in town dedicated to supporting individuals who are experiencing homelessness. You all are the best of us. You are values in action. You work with creativity and tenacity and an unwavering commitment to helping those in need with dignity and respect. In just one academic year, this amazing group of young people raised over $30,000 and packed... and packed over 9,800 lunches while you all are going to school and have other commitments. And I don't know how you find the time, but it's really, it's a remarkable achievement what you have already contributed to our community and those in need, even just in your few short years here with us. It's fitting that you all are here, I think, in our first meeting after our 250th celebration of America's founding. Every morning, my favorite founding father, Benjamin Franklin, asked, what good shall I do this day? And at the end of each day, he asked, what good have I done today? And I think you all are carrying on that tradition of service to the community. Your work with Teens Tackle Homelessness is the good that you are doing for the benefit of all of us, and we are so grateful that you are doing that work. America continues to be an experiment, right? And to borrow from the American classic film Mighty Ducks 2, America is kind of a teenager, right? Like you all. And I have a lot of hope as you all are coming up in your servant leadership for the chapters that are to come because I know that our future is entrusted to amazing young people like you. So we have, I believe, Teddy. Abby, Jack, Jenna, Lauren, Sydney, and Layla. And I should also say, if you'd like to learn more about this remarkable group of young people supporting individuals who are experiencing homelessness, check out their website, which they have created and which they also maintain. If you Google search your search engine of choice, Teens Tackle Homelessness Summit Bridges, it will take you to their wonderfully informative website. So with that, I would love to have you all come up with Rich Uniak. Thank you for being here, the director of Bridges, and we'd love to have you all take a photo with Mayor Fagan and Council President Toth.

All right, I'll jump in and do this. Okay, ready? Oh, wait, let's get the customers. I'm moving slowly. Okay, ready? One, two, three. Great.

Oh, great.

All right.

Okay, thank you all. Let's keep the good feelings going with our historic minute. Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Tonight, in honor of our country's 250th, we invited Henry Bassman and Jim Bennett to speak. They are representatives of the American Legion Lindsay Street Post 322, which supports and honors members of the summit community who served in America's conflicts and those who are now serving. Unfortunately, Henry is absent tonight due to a health issue, but we are proceeding at his request. So I'll invite Jim Bennett up to the podium. Thank you.

Thank you Councilwoman Landman and good evening Mayor Fagan, Council President Toth, members of Council staff and fellow Summit residents. Thank you for this invitation to speak. Former Commander Henry Bassman and I represent the American Legion and note that America's 250th birthday three days ago, America was born out of conflict and the Lindsay Street Post 322 honors members of the summit community who served in America's conflicts as well as those who are now serving.

Henry, unfortunately, is under the weather.

And that's a shame, because I wish he could co-present with me, because he'd be terrific. He's forgotten more about the Legion than I'll ever know. Let's start with the Revolutionary War, America's first conflict, even though there was no summit then. The war was already underway when the Declaration of Independence was signed. The area that is now summit was strategically vital. George Washington's headquarters lay protected in Morristown behind the Wachung Mountains. The Hobart Gap Pass, which is now Route 24, was the main conduit between Elizabethtown and Morristown and had to be protected. Towards the war's end, British General Clinton heard that a French fleet was bringing 8,000 men to reinforce the Americans. Clinton wanted to destroy Washington before that happened, but he was down south in Charleston, so he dispatched his Hessian general Kniephausen to finish off Washington. Fortunately, Washington had constructed 23 signal stations to alert him to oncoming British forces, including number 10 at our Turkey Hill. And thank you very much, Sinead and Rosemary, for putting this together. The station had a clear view of New York Harbor, and it boasted what most likely was a log pyramid beacon, which I think is the previous slide. There we go. And it smoked by day and it blazed by night. And the signal station also had, and if we go to the next slide, a carriage-less cannon hauled from Princeton affectionately known as Old Sow because it wallowed in the soil like a mother pig. Now, if we go to the next slide on Hobart Avenue near the intersection of Beacon Road, there's a plaque commemorating the site where the beacon and the cannon likely once stood. The beacon and the cannon worked twice. General Knuphausen and 6,000 men made their first move on Washington on June 6, 1780. The entire countryside responded to the alarm gun and beacon signal at Signal Station 10, and the militia kept adding to the ranks of the Americans. Under the cover of driving storm, Knuphausen finally withdrew to Staten Island. General Clinton returned and the British tried again 17 days later. Once again, the beacon fires and the old sow did their job and the British finally retreated after the Battle of Springfield, which was probably the largest battle of the Revolutionary War. The attack marked the last of the British attempts to invade New Jersey. But if we go to the next slide, we'll see that Summit's role in the Revolutionary War wasn't finished. The following summer, George Washington convinced British General Clinton that Washington was still in New York when, in fact, Washington was marching south to join General Rochambeau to defeat General Cornwallis in Yorktown, Virginia. Rochambeau had large brick bake ovens constructed where our municipal golf course now stands, simulating a permanent encampment. The ovens baked 3,000 loaves of bread a day. Now, although Rochambeau was French, baguette and croissant had not yet been invented and did not come out of the oven. But more importantly, the deception worked. Sorry about the hat. This is when you try to put a normal hat on a Bennett head and just ask my daughter-in-law about what I passed on to my grandchildren. So going back to the matter at hand, Clinton held back many of his forces in New York, and Washington won the Revolutionary War in Yorktown. Since the Revolutionary War, Summit has had a tradition of supporting service to our country. And if we go to the next slide, when the Civil War ended, there was still no Summit, but there were plenty of veterans by the time Summit separated from New Providence in 1869 and became a township. Many of those veterans were still there when Summit became an incorporated city in 1899, and we count 59 from an 1890 document and five from a family named Swain, and you'll see that document at the Summit Historical Society. Now, if we go to the next slide, you'll see that Summit had two Medal of Honor recipients for the same act of bravery in the same unit in World War I, Corporal Thomas O'Shea and Sergeant Allen Edgars. And the fact that it was the same act of bravery in the same unit made this unique for World War I and probably many others. We have an O'Shea Lane and an Eggers Court and Summit, and we have O'Shea's Medal of Honor and three other medals at the Summit Historical Society, and you'll see those on the slide. Now, if we go to the next slide, you'll see pictured in front of the Summit train station the 107th machine gun company known as the Summit Gunners. This was Corporal O'Shea's and Sergeant Egger's unit. Now for years, there had only been a World War I memorial on the Summit Village Green, where Summit lost 15 of its people. But in the next slide, we'll see that in 2022, The American Legion and the Elks dedicated a renovation to include a memorial to World War II, where Summit lost 72 of its people, Korea, where Summit lost 16, and Vietnam, where Summit lost 13. And they also dedicated a memorial to the War on Terror. Now to wrap it up, I want to make several pitches for the American Legion. We have challenge coins to send to those serving on active duty. And if you know someone, please reach out to our post commander, Mitchell Horn. That's mhorn80 at gmail.com. If you're a veteran and would like to join us, we meet monthly at the Elks Club at 7 PM on the second Wednesday of each month. And we have a monthly breakfast at the Broadway Diner at 9 30 AM on the third Monday of each month. We've put up 325 Hometown Hero banners throughout the town last count, so let Mitchell know if you have someone you would like to add. And finally, if you have someone in an ROTC program, we want to hear from you too. Contact Mitchell, again, mhorn80 at gmail.com. So thank you all again for the opportunity to address council and the Summit community.

Thank you, Mr. Bennett. Can't hear enough of some of those stories, can we? Now to the meat of our meeting, beginning with ordinances for hearing. Madam Clerk, would you please read ordinance for hearing number 26-3391.

repeal and replace chapter 5 filming controls and amend chapter a schedule of fees appendix section 8-27 filming permits and section 8-28 filming parking fees of the general code of the city of summit county of union new jersey thank you madam clerk council member boyer

Thank you, Council President. Once again, I'd like to defer to my colleague, Councilman Christofoli, who did a wonderful job on this ordinance that we have for hearing.

Very generous of you, Councilmember Christofoli. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Councilman Boyer. Ordinance 26-3391 would modify Summit's existing ordinance governing film and video productions as part of a partnership with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority to make Summit film ready. New Jersey's film industry is the fastest growing in the U.S. as our state's history and natural beauty along with a dose of tax incentives is attracting more productions here. One problem has been that New Jersey's 564 municipalities each had its own rules for filming requiring long and costly negotiations with each town for production. The proposed ordinance is a model recommended by New Jersey EDA to make the rules and process more uniform. 65 municipalities are already film ready and Summit will hopefully join their ranks. The ordinance includes provisions for Summit to turn down or take a break from productions if the big burden becomes too great. I move to open the hearing.

Second.

Thank you. Do we have any comments on this ordinance from members of the public?

Hello, everybody. Welcome, Andy.

Dory Gagnon, 27 Bedford. I have a couple questions on this, just in regards to traffic downtown. I know you guys wanted to close Maple Street, and those four corners of Maple Street are under construction, which was out of the blue for me since that wasn't brought up during Maple Street, but disregarding that. How is this going to be handled if we shut down in the middle of downtown? Because that's probably where filming is going to occur. And if it's during the school year, people getting across town to go to middle school, to elementary schools, to the train station, I think the public, people have asked me specifically if this ordinance gets passed, how is this going to affect the traffic in the incoming apartments that are going down in towards the Washington school area? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Before, as we typically do, we get all the comments before addressing any of the questions. So are there any other comments from members of the public? No, how about comments from members of council?

Council President?

Yes, Council Member Boyer.

although I can't answer the question about traffic at this moment but this ordinance really codifies the the police department the fire department gets pretty much everyone together so I'm sure that the police will do a good job with traffic but I will get more information about that But what I would like to say is that this ordinance was common sense with the camera. We open our doors with a little movie magic and the studios pay their own way and cover their own risk and Summit pockets the difference. That's a good deal for the folks who actually live here, and I hope to one day meet Jason Bateman. And if you actually, Dan, if you're getting heads up on stuff, let me know. So I support disordnance. And once again, Ms. Gagnon, I'll get back to you about traffic.

Okay.

Council Member Christopher Lee. Thank you, Council President. Just to address concerns, I think the toughest customer to build the case for this ordinance was our city clerk, Rosie, who bears the burden of the entire process, including the safety, the police, the fire, the insurance provisions. between Rosie and our city administrator Ms. Baldwin's diligence in researching and speaking with other towns that have undertaken this ordinance or put in place the same provisions. They seem to have had a positive experience and that the impacts are manageable and we do have the ability to turn down a production.

Any other comments?

Just one more quick thing. And the police actually can control what's going on. And it doesn't come out of the city's budget. The applicant has to pay for it. So if there's a traffic issue, THEN CHIEF PETERS CAN ORDER A COUPLE OF PEOPLE THAT NEEDS TO MAINTAIN TRAFFIC. AND THE TAXPAYERS DON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. THE APPLICANT HAS TO, NETFLIX HAS TO PAY FOR IT. SO YOUR FEES MAY GO UP, BUT IT'S ALL GOOD. THANK YOU.

I just quickly want to express gratitude to council member Christopher Lee. He has spearheaded this effort and in my view it's a great as the second on the finance committee just to put it in cold hard terms. I feel like this is an important building block in helping to protect the economic vitality of our community. And we can as a side benefit show everyone what we know to be true that summit is a really special place and kind of put that on display. So I'm very excited to see this go forward.

Anything else? Mayor, Madam Mayor.

Not super additive, but this was mentioned, they had a whole panel about this at the league last November. And I was very intrigued, so I was really excited when Councilman Christopher Lee came and sort of pioneered. I know Rosie was hesitant. I know Tammy was hesitant. I was a little hesitant because I've seen what Rosie went through in the last year about trying to get some of the film crews situated to do some quick films. So I know that there were some hurdles. So I'm appreciative to our city staff for doing the diligence to make this happen.

Thank you. And I can only add, I know in the past year we've had filming at Fiorino. And at the train station, it seems not to have shut down the city in either case. My understanding is that much of the filming is exterior of private homes. And if you think you have the next home alone house, this is your chance to shine. With that, I'm going to close this hearing, and we can move on to ordinances for final consideration. So Madam Clerk, would you please read the title of ordinance number 26-3391?

Repeal and replace chapter 5, film and controls, and amend chapter A, schedule of fees appendix, section A-27, filming permits, and section A-28, filming parking fees of the general code of the city of Summit County of Union, New Jersey.

THANK YOU. MAYBE.

SORRY, COUNCILMEMBER BOYER. I KNOW. I CONFUSED YOU ON THIS ONE. I REFERRED TO DAN AND EVERYTHING.

NO, NO. I LOST MY PLACE IN MY SCRIPT.

I WOULD NEVER CONFUSE YOU, COUNCILMEMBER BOYER. AFTER JUST HAVING A HEARING ON THIS, I MOVED THIS FOR FINAL ADOPTION.

DO I HEAR A SECOND?

Second. Roll call, please.

Mr. Boyer? Aye. Mr. Risafulli? Aye. Ms. Kellenson? Aye. Ms. Landon? Aye. Ms. Saracena? Aye. Mr. Smith? Aye. President Tove?

Aye. Motion carries. Moving on to ordinances for introduction. First, we are pulling ordinance ID 12628 at the request of our engineering staff. Much of this institution follows directly from state regulation and those state regulations were recently suspended and are being reconsidered. And so our engineers determined that we should wait until we have final or at least more final state regulations enacted before we go about passing our own counterparts. And so then this leads us to ordinance for introduction ID number 12631. Madam Clerk, would you please read the introduction?

An ordinance amending the code chapter 7 traffic section 7-11 through streets stops intersections and yield intersections subsection 7-11.2 stop intersections designated.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Council Member Smith.

Thank you, Council President. This ordinance ID number 12631, and this is an ordinance that will add stop signs to the following intersections, New Brook Parkway and Beverly Road, Colt Road and Pembroke Road, Maple Street and Linden Place. Portland Road and Warwick Road, Tulip Street and Linden Place, Tulip Street and Oakland Place, Wade Drive and Hartley Road, Wade Drive and Karen Way. With a hearing date of July 28th, 2026, I move to introduce this ordinance.

Thank you. Second. Okay, Madam Clerk, roll call please.

Mr. Boyer? Aye. Mr. Christofoli? Aye. Ms. Kalmanson? Aye. Ms. Landman? Aye. Ms. Saracena? Aye. Mr. Smith? Aye. President Toth?

Aye. Okay, Madam Clerk, would you please read ordinance for introduction ID number 12633.

ordinance of the city of summit County of union, New Jersey amending and supplementing chapter 35 of the city code entitled development regulations, subsection 35 dash 9.2 prohibited uses.

Okay, Council Member Chris Afuli. Thank you, Council President. Ordinance ID 12633 would revise the ordinance banning data centers that was approved at our last council meeting on June 16th with the intention to further tighten Summit's defenses against this undesirable land use. Summit is fortunate to have many committed and knowledgeable residents who shared their ideas at council listening sessions last month and during the council meeting on June 16th. Following the council meeting, we requested the input of Burgess & Associates, a leading firm serving New Jersey towns on issues of land use planning and regulation, who has advised our own city government and planning board for many years. Joe Burgess is with us tonight, and his colleagues developed a background memo and a revised ordinance based on the direct input from residents and Burgess & Associates' own experience in many other towns. I then requested comments on the Burgess memo from the planning board on which I serve as liaison at the planning board's June 29th meeting last Monday. The Burgess memo is now available on the planning board website. We have been working quickly and after the planning board meeting on Monday, There was a very tight time window to finalize the ordinance by Wednesday's deadline last week. So we worked collaboratively. And that version from last Wednesday is the one that you see in the packet. We worked collaboratively as council with professionals over the holiday weekend and early this week to develop a slightly revised text. And we agreed on one change. to add a new section 2A to tighten the definition of accessory data processing facilities, requiring that the floor area devoted to such use does not exceed 20% of the gross floor area of the principal building, or 1,000 square feet. whichever is less, that's 1,000 square feet or less. For purposes of this subsection, the 1,000 square foot cap shall apply in the aggregate across all buildings on continuous parcels that comprise a development. While our professionals tell me this ordinance is very strong, even with this additional language, we will continue to monitor developments and strengthen it as needed. I move to introduce the ordinance with the change I just mentioned.

Second.

Okay, thank you. And although we do not have comments on ordinances at introduction, I think it's appropriate before we take the vote to ask Mr. Burgess if there's anything he would like to add to Mr. Crisafulli's introduction.

uh thank you for the opportunity the only thing i would note is that you know we worked cooperatively with mr chris affoli mr boyer the ms alvarez the chair of the planning board there had been some modifications since i had met with the planning board this is a very strongly worded ordinance which will basically prohibit Data centers throughout the municipality and I gather the next step would be to refer this back to the planning board for their statutory 35 day review period. And then I guess I will be sitting with the planning board to prepare their response to this revision.

Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll, please? Sorry. Yes, Council Member Landman.

I'm not sure if we're allowed to ask Mr. Burgess questions on the revised language that we've just heard, or if we should

Fine. Yes.

Okay. I just have a couple. So mostly for the benefit of the public, can you just explain a little bit about how we arrived at this number for the 1,000 square feet or 20%, whichever is smaller, and why you're recommending a square footage threshold be added?

Okay. Essentially, the thousand square feet came from dialogue with the people I had just mentioned. And it was because it relates solely to an accessory data center. not a principal use. The accessory use has to be considered a very modest percentage of the entire square footage of a building. We had originally talked about 3,500 square feet, but in the end we settled on 1,000 square feet given the dimensions of that. And that was the basic rationale to make sure it was a modest component of any accessory structure. One of the revisions, however, effectively ensures that data centers are prohibited, whether it be a principle-permitted use or a computer center with an AI component, which is now also prohibited.

So I'm just trying to understand a little bit better about what the issue is that we're trying to solve for by adding the square footage language. I think it's important for us.

At this point it is somewhat superfluous because with the other modification that the group had resolved to exclude over the weekend, the ordinance now prohibits AI even as an accessory use to a principal permitted use allowed as of right.

um so sorry just if i could ask just one or two more questions so um we've also heard from the public and we've talked about this in council that this type of ordinance will need rigorous review and oversight as the tech develops did you say that i didn't hear that i was just saying we've talked about the fact that this will need rigorous monitoring as the technology develops and

components of the ordinance as it's written now might need to be modified in the future and I'm curious if this would be included in the Master plan re-exam that's planned to happen for later this year Not with the master plan re-examination report separate and distinct from that the planning board has reviewed the DRO in its entirety to make certain modifications and that is an ongoing process beyond that The planning board is going to commence work on a comprehensive master plan, presumably later this year, and that's where the issue will again be revisited to see if there's need for change. I think there's a recognition on the part of everybody that this is a continually evolving area of concern, and the technology is also evolving significantly and rapidly. I know with the planning board, I'll be constantly monitoring that and reporting back to them for any modifications that's necessary.

That's great. There was one other thing we understood, but I think it's again just important for the public to understand the way this new version is drafted. There's no specific language about noise included now. And we've been given that explanation, but if you wouldn't mind, that was a major concern of residents. So if you could just explain that.

Well, with this ordinance, the way it is now written, the use is prohibited. So the comments in my initial planning report to you, where I mentioned not only noise issues, but other issues as well, vibration and the like, that became moot because the ordinance is simply prohibiting the use.

And we, I think, have all committed also to making some revisions to the noise provisions in our regs anyway, but I just wanted to... And that will probably come out of the further analysis of the DRL. Okay, great.

Okay, Council Member Boyer.

Thank you, Council President. First, I want to thank Dan and Chantel. Late night conversations back and forth, and I think we all kind of figured it out a little bit. And with your conversation today with me, Dan, and Andy, welcome to the team, right? Thank you. Came in like a rock star, right? Here you go. I just want to go through the cap and the reason for the cap. I know we spoke about it, but I want the public to understand. I gave the scenario that if you don't have a cap, then someone can come in and argue, well, this is an accessory dwelling that's not an AI center. We are a research facility that does computing and kind of wiggle their way around the definitions and everything. And guess what? BMS, not to pick on Bristol Myers Squibb, but it's 90 acres. And our facility is only 8% of that, right? Which is like 90,000 square feet. So we want to prohibit all of that. And one way to do it is to put a 1,000 square foot cap as an aggregate so that you can't argue against that. And that was one of my examples that I had posed to you, Mr. Burgess.

And if I could follow up on that, the benefit of having a cap, even if you're not permitting this use at the moment, is that if someone were to seek a use variance, for example, to allow this, there is that provision in the ordinance that would make it a greater difficulty for an applicant to overcome the ordinance provision.

Okay. And lastly, where we've come from with the 20 megawatts, I just want to say that my colleague, Chantal Lamon, doesn't want AI centers anywhere, not even tablets, like computers or anything. So, but thank you and I support the way that it's written right now. My one question and my one concern that we discussed was the electrical capacity that you had put in your memo. And reason being that I personally wanted it in here as chips get smaller, Right. Well, maybe we can fit something in a thousand square foot facility. So I know we had thirty five hundred first, but that's the size of my house. Right. And we were like, I don't know about that. Right. But something that still has the capacity to to require more power than a thousand homes. So with the electrical, the critical electrical capacity, I hope I'm saying it right, that scales with technology. And I like that piece, right? Because it kind of merges with the square foot. And with that, it further protects the city. But nothing's perfect, and I think we're in a good place. But I'd like to see the planning board discuss that further, though.

Yeah, and we had discussed that today and I will pursue that. One of the difficulties with any ordinance regulation is how does the zoning official determine whether somebody complies or not. And, you know, our firm represents close to 50 municipalities throughout the state. We spoke to a number of zoning officials and to a person, they all said, that's a little difficult to understand how to do that. So I'm going to continue that analysis to see where we can control that in that fashion, but it may be beyond the scope of what a zoning official does, a zoning officer does, excuse me, because basically their focus is on the building itself in terms of setbacks, coverages, and that sort of thing, and this is well beyond their expertise. But we'll look to see if there's another way to get around that issue.

Thank you, Council President.

Okay. With that, may we have a roll call, please, Madam Clerk?

Mr. Boyer? Aye. Mr. Christofoli? Aye. Ms. Kalmanson? Aye. Ms. Landman? Aye. Ms. Saracena? Aye. Mr. Smith? Aye. President Tuchel?

Aye. Okay. Motion carries. Moving on to resolutions. Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Jill.

Oh, thank you. Yes. I'm so sorry.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution ID 12592. So municipalities go through a pretty strict audit every year, and auditors are instructed to find deficiencies. An audit is not an affirmation of our financial position, just that we've reported our results accurately. The audit of our 2025 finances was squeaky clean with two very minor findings related to the shared services in our court system. And I'd like to take a moment to say thank you to our director of finance, Kabliska, and our CFO and administrator, Baldwin, for a job well done. And with that, I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Do we have any comments from members of the public? Do we have any comments from members of council? Okay, then I'm sorry, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? No. Back to you, Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution 12615. As I just mentioned, the auditors had these two minor findings. And in short, we need to work with our court to improve the reporting procedures and ensure that receipts are attached with our daily deposits. These are easy fixes. We will work with the court to get this done. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Any comments from members of the public? From members of council? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Back to you, Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution number 12622. In case of an emergency, wouldn't know what that's like, like when critical equipment goes down over the weekend, we have a protocol for who can authorize emergency spending. And this resolution updates that hierarchy of approvals to reflect the current structure of the finance department. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Any comments from members of the public? Any comments from members of council? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. One more time, Council Member Landman.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution number 12623. At the June 16th council meeting, we had an update on the city's participation in the Garden State Community Energy Cooperative. including that participating summit households have collectively saved more than $48,000 during the program's first few months. This resolution allows the municipality to continue to participate in this energy co-op to help residents see cost savings in their energy bills. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Any comments from members of the public? Any comments from members of council? I'll only note that there is the ability to opt out of this if a resident chooses not to participate and likes paying higher energy prices. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Council Member Crisafulli.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution ID 12428 would award the bid for the repair and preventative maintenance of the tier parking garage structure. In the amount of approximately $3.3 million, 10 bids were received and opened on Thursday, April 16th of this year in council chambers. Eight of the bids were determined to be responsive. The submitted lowest responsive bidder was selected. The award is now being made due to the availability of funds. And I move.

You move to adopt this ordinance?

I move to adopt the resolution, thank you. Second.

Do we have any comments from members of the public? Do we have any comments from members of council? ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. BACK TO YOU, COUNCILMEMBER CHRISTIFULI. MAYBE YOU WANT TO BUNDLE THE NEXT TWO?

I WOULD VERY MUCH LIKE TO. THANK YOU. RESOLUTION ID 12630 AND 12640. are to respectively appoint a building subcode official and to declare a vacancy for the former position of that official in the Department of Community Services as a full-time building inspector. I move to adopt these two resolutions.

Second. Any comments from members of the public? Do we have comments from members of council? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? No? One more for you, Council Member Crisafulli.

Thank you, Council President. Resolution ID 12612 would appoint a new member to the Recycling Advisory Committee. I move to adopt this resolution.

Second. Any comments from members of the public? From members of council? I'll only note we've had an opening for a student member of the recycling advisory committee for some time. And this young man wrote me a letter with a proposal for sports equipment recycling. So I convinced him to apply for the job. All in favor? Aye.

I think, Council President, you should mention who it is.

Yes, his name is Hayden Lee, and he attends Del Barton, but he's a Summit resident, and I really appreciated the initiative he took. Okay, did I say? You did. Okay, this motion carries. On to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved. Second.

Do we have any comments from members of the public on the consent agenda? Okay, Council Member Smith, I know there was something you wanted to say.

Yes, so we have a kind of unique opportunity that was brought forward by a Sergeant Rudy Garada from the Summit Police Department. I think it's a really interesting thing that he really took to a head and that is to authorize the use of City Hall as essentially a counselor service for the Costa Rican community here in Summit where individuals can come use City Hall to to deal with passports or any other issues like that, different paperwork that they might need to do without having to go into New York City to the consulate there. And kind of like when the mobile DMV, right, Department of Motor Vehicles, So I think that this really unique opportunity that he really took the lead on and is kind of a no brainer is using this facility that's open to doing. It's a one day kind of thing that can really help members of the community and so I give a shout out to him for that.

Do we have any other comments from members of council? Council President. Yes, Council Member Boyer.

I really like the idea about making the Aquatic Center a cooling station, so kudos to that. And on that same note, I'd like to thank Grace and David Guida. I had posed a question when I was a kid. About one in ten of us had pool passes and were able to go to camp, so we just knuckleheads all day. Like, parents didn't know where we were. They were at work. So I posed the question to someone, a friend of mine on Glenwood. I said, do kids still not have anything to do? Do they still try to sneak into the pool? It's hard to sneak into the pool today because they have your picture, right? And that was still the case. So I said, well, can the city just pay for it? And it's like, ah, I don't know. And the next day, David called me. David Guida called me. He said, well, we got a donation for Grace. How many kids need a pool pass or camp? And by the way, you got like... eight hours to get me that information because the person that's given us the money is leaving for like the summer. So I'm like, all right, okay, that's great. So me and a couple of people, Wanda Fortune and Arthur Stewart and Charlie Stewart and a couple of other people on Dennis Place calling everybody, getting names of kids and At the end of the day, we have 48 kids that either got camp, pool, or both. And the parents were so happy. So now the parents are at work, and they know where the kids are. They're at pool, and they're playing with other kids, and meeting other kids, and getting ready for the school year. It's such a good thing. And this is one of the reasons why I love this town. You know, like, that was a beautiful thing. Secondly, the cooling center, I was thinking this weekend when folks didn't have power, you know, wouldn't it have been great to allow them to go during the day for free, you know, as opposed to 5, 5 o'clock and beyond. Maybe that's something that we could think about because that would have been a good move. So I know there may be some concerns with that, but for Summit residents, I thought that would have been a good approve. So that's it. Thank you, Council President.

Okay.

Thank you for your hard work in getting that job done, Council Member Boyer. Any other comments from members of council? Council Member Campbell? Are we on the consent agenda? We're still on the consent agenda.

We're still on the consent agenda. But I'll hold that for my council.

Okay, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes. So now we're going to move on to public comments. And as we begin public comment, we ask that residents of Summit step forward to speak first. We value input from everyone. Certainly any member of the public is welcome to speak. And we ask for your courtesy in allowing our local neighbors to lead the public discussion. And thank you, members of city staff, as you head out the door. Yes. Kick us off.

Thank you, Council President. Welcome back. Welcome, Andy. A couple comments on tonight's agenda. Number one.

Just your name and address. I know everyone else knows. Sure.

Delia Hamlet, 59 New England. Is my clock starting now? Thank you. Welcome, Andy. Thank you. Yep. A couple comments tonight. One on the stormwater management ordinance. I think a red line should be included in the next council packet. It's just complicated. There's a lot of details, so I think a red line would be easier for the public to see. Number two, it would be nice for the public to actually see the audit. I don't think we've done it in the past as even when I sat in that seat, so it's not a finger pointing. Tammy knows I'm crazy and I like to see it. I used to be able to go. It's on the website. There you go. Okay, thank you. I used to go get my copy. What I'm really disappointed in tonight, and listen, you're all new, and this is not a finger pointing session. In fact, I almost texted Claire tonight and said, Claire, please don't pass, please don't introduce this ordinance. There's a lot of reasons why. As a member of the planning board, we wanted to help you guys. We wanted to say, listen, let's tee up our professionals. Let's look at this ordinance. And what you guys did was you took the memo. You didn't publicize it. You didn't show Joe's comments publicly. And then you took the most important piece out. It's not transparent. And this is not a finger-pointing session. Trust me. I do not miss the work you guys do up there. I still like it. But I recognize it's a lot of work. But understand that when you ask our professionals for advice, you gotta show the public what he did. And what he did was he put 12,000 or 12,500 square foot for a reason. Because 1,000 square foot, to Chantel's question, is not gonna be legally defensible. It's not sound planning. My God, you could take Oak Knoll or Kent Place. It's gonna exceed 1,000. We asked for his help for a reason. And honestly, Dan was at the planning board. He agrees. Trust the professionals. They write these memos. They do this for a living. And I'm probably the most, I ask the most questions. That's okay. Ask the most questions up here. Jamel, I tried to talk you out of voting for this thing the night all day. And so as a Republican, I'm aggravated because I didn't think you should vote for it.

And I disagree with you.

OK, well, that's fine. But that just goes to show you it's not a Republican or Democrat thing. But listen, this is really important stuff. And it's OK to say, slow down. It's OK to say, let's do it at the next meeting. Claire, I almost texted you. I just said, Claire, bag it. It's not ready. It's just not. It's too important for the community. And by the way, the noise ordinance, and correct me if I'm wrong, Augusta is not here anymore. And Chief, you could probably, you have a provision in the noise ordinance. I believe the last noise ordinance was in 2008. I know you've made some provisions. But the level that you're talking about, Chantel, the DBC, was not even adopted from DEP until 2010. So if that's the case, we got a lot of work to do. Because the people at Bristol Myers Squibb, they're not hearing sirens, they're hearing humming. they're hearing things that we're not even talking about right now so my last comment is i have a whole ordinance written out for the noise ordinance i'll pass it another day but take your time with this stuff it's okay to say you're not ready we've done it a million times up here just don't rush it because you know what we're spending too much money on professionals we have to redo it and it's going to take more time thank you thank you for your comments

Good evening. Penny Barth, 79 Tanglewood Drive in Summit for over 50 years. Andy, welcome back. It's good to see you back on the dais. I have a couple questions. One is about the DPW. Everyone's done a great job with this horrible storm. What is the stance on the trees that are now out or the limbs that are out on the street? are the people responsible or is the town going to pick that up i just want to put that out there as far as the branches and the trees is that i don't know who's going to handle that but it's horrible all over my other concern is as living in this town for over 50 years hearing about the filming we love to film summit it's a gorgeous place i've lived here i've loved it I am so appalled about the streets in our town. It is like a third world country town. Other towns, you go to Chatham, you go to Madison, they rip the streets up, they come back, they asphalt them. Why are ours? We get a little bit here, a little bit there. Down by Little Kings, down by the middle school. It's like they do half a street. I don't know what the answer is. I've called and talked, tried to talk to Aaron. He never called me back. Venus is wonderful. She has gotten back to me. But I just don't want to, I just, why do we keep ripping up these streets? I hear high streets being ripped up again. And we keep ripping up and not replacing. Pine Grove has been horrible. I don't know where everybody lives. It goes back and forth. But the streets are horrible. I know. I live on Tanglewood Drive, as I said, thanks to calling probably once a week. to the gas people, we got Tanglewood Drive paved, Dale and Joanna. But Oak Ridge was pulled up at the same time, how many years later, it's still terrible. So I beseech the people here, sitting here, to not let any more ripping up, either whether it's water, gas, I don't care what it is, until we get paved streets. And please don't let people film in this town, because they'll think we're in some other strange place. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other comments?

Yeah.

Hi, I'm Polly Thomas, 22 Laurel Avenue. This is totally different. I just want to express my concern about the new proposed regulations for federal grant funding, OMB 20260034, and how these new regulations might affect Summit and New Jersey. Perhaps you have heard about this from the National Association of Counties and Cities. All federal grants are threatened by these proposed OMB rules, published May 29th. Comments are requested and due by July 13th, so that's my real message to the city. Scientists at New Jersey Medical School, where I work, are very worried, but cities, counties, and states that receive federal funds should also object. These rules allow the administration in Washington to easily deny and end grants, actions that have so far been blocked by federal courts. One major aspect of the proposal is that peer review will be undermined. Experts and professional staff from US departments will no longer make the decisions about grants to localities for public services, or for grants to nonprofit organizations. Billions in federal funds are sent to New Jersey and then distributed to cities, including Summit. The new regulation requires that instead of a peer review score, a political appointee will make decisions about who gets funded. The stated goal is to assure consistency with federal priorities whether or not localities agree. A second major concern is that funding could now be terminated without prior notification or cause. The political appointee can determine whether or not the receiving institution or its affiliations are considered anti-American, and that's in quotes, and choose not to fund them. All grants would need to align with the administration's vision. We are all asked to submit public comments by July 13th. You can go to regulations.gov and search for docket OMB 20260034. I'm also hoping many of us in summit will let our legislators know that these rule changes are not well thought out. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Yes, if you've got, excuse me, with your written statement, yes. I sent it, I mean. You sent, if you've emailed it, that's fine. I sent it, this is a short version. Okay. Do we have any other comments from members of the public?

Dori Gagnon. First, I am really grateful of the students who are helping the homeless. And I think it's great that you guys all stood and applauded. But last year, when Delia Hammett was recognized for her homelessness task force that she found herself and went to California.

I apologize.

That's okay. You can restart it now, Rosie. Only a couple people applauded her. And I think looking back at Mayor Glatt's letter that said this divisiveness that's happening in town, you should all be grateful. We're all doing great work, right? Mayor Fagan, I saw your videos. You were out there this weekend, storm cleanup. I'm sure a lot of you were. And it shouldn't just be one or the other. I think we should all just be saying thank you. Jamel's saying thank you. People need to work together because we're helping people here in town. And we don't know their political status, right? They're just kids, and they're doing a good job. That's one thing. Second thing, you've amended two ordinances this year. And I've watched almost every council meeting. And I have no idea what the heck is going on. Mr. Christofoli, couldn't tell you what you said. I don't even know what the ordinance was to what it was amended to. And I'm just sitting, a public person out here, trying to follow along. And I am so lost. And then you guys all have conversations with Mr. Burgess. And I watched the planning board meeting. And I'm still lost. And I think it was a time when you amend an ordinance to have people like me ask a question because I don't know what just happened. So you're all deliberating up here, having conversations. You have your side conversations on the phone. And people like us don't even know what's going on. So that's the second one you've done. The Maple Street one, I couldn't even follow you. I was lost and confused on that. So I think when you're amending ordinances, state the ordinance that's for introduction, and then state what you're amending. and why the change is happening. So we have a clear understanding of what actually is going on. I don't even know what the thousand, what is the thousand square foot data center you're allowing or not allowing or is it megawatts? I couldn't tell you. So from now on, that's a suggestion from me and I know a lot of other people are kind of confused as well and I'm sure it's just gonna escalate tonight. So if you could do that, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Do we have any other comments? Okay, then let us move on to council member comments. Do we have anyone with a comment?

Council member Smith. I have a comment as the new guy here. And obviously kind of the big thing here tonight was the data centers. I can say as a person who's now new to council, was not here when you had the whole public comments and people up in arms. I wasn't up here on the DS. But I can tell you, having been here now for the past couple of weeks, getting involved in these issues, that everyone on this, Diaz, I think, is on this issue on the same page in that we want to make an ordinance, the best ordinance that we can make, that's going to limit the use of data centers in Summit to the best degree. And there was, I think, uniform support for the new ordinance that was introduced tonight. across the board except there was one provision and that was the provision that was discussed about adding the square footage and there was a lot of discussion among council about that particular issue and i think that it's an important issue my understanding and again i am the new guy here but is that this isn't, you know, that there's going to be hearing on this particular ordinance. I was a little bit surprised tonight about the 1,000 because we had talked about other things, and there was sort of a back and forth, and I personally, I think, and I talked to Dan, and I talked to Jamal, and I talked to other members as well about this, and I think the 12,000-square-foot ordinance uh... provision that was in there initially that was the one that that i was behind uh... but the reality is that the the ordinance that was introduced even as it's written exactly as it was here today is better than the one that we have before it's more restrictive than the one we had before uh... and i think this is something that everybody's working within and and to your point understanding it i think there was a misunderstanding the last time from what I can understand about what council's trying to do. And I'm an attorney, and it's part of my job. I review statutes and things of that nature. And I can tell you things get confusing, and reading ordinances get confusing. But the provision that we're talking about so everybody understands. is that there is a definition for a computer center. And that computer centers are essentially like a server room of a company that already has dedicated equipment to store data for their own IT needs. You're talking about Overlook Hospital, banks, and other institutions, Bristol-Myers Squibb, they have the need to have certain storage of data. That's what's being excluded from what is really an overall rejection of data centers in Summit, certainly AI data centers in Summit. But we're carving that provision out for computer centers so that there is the ability for businesses to have part of their property, part of what they're doing for the storage of computer data. And in order to qualify for that, they have to meet certain criteria, and that criteria is listed out. And so when you're talking about different things, it has to be, it can't be a primary use of the facilities for the storage of data, like the data center. So there's, I think, several things, A to D or E or whatever it is, that criteria that you have to meet. And so what we were discussing, whether to remove or to have it 12,000 square feet or 1,000 square feet, whatever it is, is an additional measure that even if, so in the event that some company comes in and tries to get around everything that we put in this ordinance to do a data center that nobody wants, and I can tell you nobody up here wants it. I think most of the people in Summit or the vast majority of them don't want it. If some company wants to come in and go around that, then they've got to meet these certain criteria. But if they meet all of the criteria, B to E, they still have to deal with A. So even if you can somehow create a situation where you meet all the other criteria to make yourself a computer center so therefore you can operate, there is a provision that allows For example, you're talking about a 90-acre Bristol-Myers Squibb. You know, Bristol-Myers Squibb could come in and say, well, obviously we're a pharmaceutical, but we're going to take 90,000 square feet and make it into our, you know, server room, quote, unquote, where it's a computer center. It's not our primary purpose. And, you know, not that that would necessarily meet all of you. I've still got to jump through all those hoops. But now all of a sudden you're saying, okay, wait a second. 90,000 square feet or 50,000 square feet or 12,000 square feet, 15,000 square feet, it doesn't meet the ordinance. 12,000 square feet I think is something that we talked about. It is defensible for a couple of different reasons, including that there are some existing server rooms of that size. But at the end of the day, if you want to look at what this particular ordinance is doing and why we're debating this particular thing. It is to make it more restrictive, to make it more difficult for data centers to be in summit. And all the issues associated with energy and noise and things of that nature that people object to, that's the purpose of it. We're gonna have a lot more discussions, I think, on this issue between now and when it comes back up on the 28th. But I did wanna say, try and then hopefully what I said was helpful to some people to maybe understand it a little bit more. But also to say that, like I said, there's a new guy coming in, I'm a Republican. I got one other Republican here and there's five Democrats. Everyone on this is not a partisan issue. Everyone on this stage is going towards the same goal. We all want the same thing. We all want this to be restrictive. We're working together. We're trying to get it done in the best manner possible. And that's why I voted to bring this forward. And like I said, we'll have more discussion on this issue between... now and when it comes back up on the 28th, but the purpose of that is to try to have the best ordnance possible to prevent what we all want to prevent from coming into Summit. And the last thing I'll just say is there's a lot of different hoops that have to be jumped through to get from an idea of putting a data center in Summit, and this ordinance, too. It's got to go through the planning board, zoning board, et cetera. So there's a lot of different imaginations here, but the overall goal is to limit these data centers in Summit.

Thank you. Any other council members? Yes, Council Member Boyer.

So let me see if I can do this in, like, playing. Okay. So let me see if I can do this in, like, Plainly, just talking, we talking, right? So, okay, where do we come from? We had... Wow, something's going on, I don't know, I gotta... So, we started at 20 megawatts, right, as our ceiling. So a couple of weeks ago, we passed an ordinance that said 20 megawatts was allowable, and we heard from the public. The public got it, the public came out on social media, they came out here, and they said basically to council, what are you doing? We can't have 20 megawatts. That's way too big. That powers 15,000 homes. We can't have that. So what did this council do? We went back. We took out the 20 megawatts. And I'm not going to go and relitigate what happened. That's not because we did a good job here. We took out the 20 megawatts. We sent it over to the planning board. The planning board discussed it. They said, OK, we're going to write this. We're going to try to write this ordinance for the council because they want to prevent AI data centers in Summit. OK. So they gave it back to us. And in that language was 12,000 square feet. Now, your council members, some of us, had a conversation about that. Because 12,000 square feet is actually like, I live in a two-family house, so it's like four of them, right? That is way too big. So now we're back to 20 megawatts again. So what are we doing? We can't go back to the 20 megawatts. It's like the same thing. So imagine a home, four of them, 12,000 square feet, and putting Computers in there that processes data, right? So we're doing the same thing. So we took that out and said, well, how much do you really need, right? 1,000 square feet powers our regular businesses, our normal businesses. So we are, in a sense, went above and beyond protecting the city against anyone coming in here, putting a data center in here, an AI data center. And the one thing I want to point out is pre-existing non-conformance. What that means is... Whatever's here is grandfathered, right? So we're not removing what Bristol-Myers Squibb has. We're not saying, hey, you got to get rid of that because now we got 1,000 square feet. We're not doing that, right? We're saying that pre-exists here. We're going to keep that here. But what we're going to prevent is someone else coming here and in the next five years calling it something that it's not. Like I said in my example, oh, we're doing... You know, research, we own a research company. And it just so happens that we're going to use the 12,000 square feet to put all of our AI data processing things there. But we're not a data center, right? We're doing research. We don't want to deal with all of that. So 1,000 square feet is enough, and it prevents that. So I think that was a good move. Now, just to move on from that, I want to congratulate the chief, the deputy chief, and the lieutenant. I think they did a good job this weekend. I didn't know, I'm not on the safety committee anymore, and I want to thank Michelle for putting out all of those posts and everything, because now you're on the safety committee, you get all of those briefings and stuff, so good job. When I was on it, I was doing crime every week, so I'm glad I'm not doing that. So this is a good transformation. But when our city administrator gave us all of the stats. I mean, wow, the police and fire have been busy this weekend. And our folks, DPW, police and fire, have done a good job. And not but, to dismiss them, they did a good job. I drove around this weekend, especially with the mayor, and I can't help but feel heartbroken for people. Like, to go without electricity for four days now, right, is heartbreaking. People have animals. It's hot. There's trees still in the middle of the road. You know, I get it. People are saying, everyone's doing a good job. Everyone's trying their hardest. Yeah, I know. I know. But people still don't have power, right? Like, man, that's heartbreaking. So if we could get JCP&L in here, do a presentation. We normally have the utilities come in. PSC&G came in once before. American Warrior came in once before, to Penny's point, telling us how many roads they're going to rip up and stuff. JCP&L could come in here, right? And I think when storms happen like this, they should have someone's boots on the ground that people can talk to. So at least they're heard, right? And they're not staring at the website that says, look at these bubbles of power outages, right? Because we don't have the answers. So we can do better with communication. Once again, our police and fire, they're on it. They do this stuff. Right? But the utility, we need more answers from them. You know, people don't have power. So I think we could do a better job. I get pictures, well, the utility can do a better job. I'm getting pictures of, you know, trees still on the road and everything. It's not like the fire department go and pick it. I mean, you got wires and We should have the utility company and explain their processes to the people. Last but not least, the teens that tackle homelessness, that was just impressive because they're doing all these great things and they still have school and I know some of them are Go to the camp and have jobs and stuff. So, you know, that's that's good stuff and And I had one more thing to say but it's AI stuff is still in my brain I'm like, I just want to say a thousand square feet for some reason Thank You councilmember Boyer yes councilmember Landman I

Thank you, Council President. First, I want to say welcome to Andy. I've officially changed you in my cell phone from Matt's dad to Andy Smith. Thank you. It actually popped up as Matt's dad on my phone the other day when he called me, so I was like, oh, we've got to fix this. So now you have to suffer through minority finance committee updates. So first I just want to give a big shout out to our finance team. under Tammy's amazing leadership. And this is boring stuff, so hopefully you'll stay with me here. But we had a really successful bond sale following the June 16th meeting. We sold $22.3 million in bonds and a bond anticipation note for $1.4 million. We got 12 bids on the bond sale, which is exceptionally high. And that's all due to the fact that we have three, excuse me, all of our rating agencies have rated us AAA. And that is a tremendous amount of work that goes behind the scenes to get the AAA ratings from all of the agencies. And it's really paid off. It's a tremendous amount of work, as I said, but it pays off for taxpayers. So I just want to say thank you for that. And as a reminder, these bonds were sold to fund capital projects that we've already discussed here in council. A few less exciting but important work happening at the Finance Committee. We're beginning to look a little bit at sewer billing and potentially change how we think about sewer bills calculated for local residents and businesses to be more usage-based. We're starting on work documenting the financial commitments that we've made through last year's affordable housing plan. We're tracking revenue and expenses, as we've talked about here multiple times. We're seeing surge pricing for fuel. And of course, again, we doubled down on overtime pay for city staff, especially DPW employees. So we're keeping an eye on that. Pivoting a little bit to affordable housing, we've been having conversations with neighbors in the Shunpike-Ivy neighborhood and Wilson Park neighborhoods. Those are continuing. Residents have spoken to us plainly. They want the plan to go through a more strategic review, especially on the properties where the city is in control. they're frustrated they don't want us blaming Trenton that's not getting us anywhere and we've been listening we're gonna harness this enthusiasm from our residents and the great ideas that they've been bringing to us in the round four task force which we unfortunately didn't get to finalize in closed session today but we're making a lot of progress there's still an opportunity to apply if you're interested in joining that and you know look i i continue to say this for residents i'm optimistic there's a better path forward for some of the plan components and we have a lot of good work so please please join us and then finally i just wanted to end on some good news out of trenton that impacts summit residents and relates to topics that we talked about tonight last week the senate state senate passed the end tax credits for data centers act with bipartisan and almost unanimous support. This bill actually was led by Summit's own Andrew McCarthy. McCurdy. McCurdy, sorry. Sorry. And we'll save taxpayers over $250 million. So that was previously earmarked as tax credits for AI data centers to be built in New Jersey. And now those credits have been canceled. And then I also want to highlight that the legislature established some incentive programs for solar energy generation and storage that will also help reduce energy costs for all of us. So more to come on that. Andrew McCurdy is holding an open house on Thursday night from 5 to 7 here in Summit at 86 Summit Avenue in his offices. And I encourage you to attend and learn more and ask questions about this or anything else on your mind. And that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Landman. Council Member Kalmanson.

Thank You council president I had some words that I really would have loved to share when the firefighters were still here but they were so eager to go and of course we didn't want to hold them up for for celebrating so I hope that so I hope that they'll see this thank you to our retiring chief Evers for your dedication and service to the city of summit we are forever grateful to you and wish you the best for this new chapter in your life enjoy your family your grandkids and as many woodworking projects as you can handle And of course, congratulations to our newly promoted firefighters, Chief Harnois, Battalion Chief Lemons, Lieutenant Heights, and Firefighter Jackson. This is the beginning of a new and exciting chapter for you, the fire department and the city of Summit. We are honored that you choose to continue to step up and serve the residents of Summit. And a big thank you to your families as well for sharing with us. Welcome to our new council member, Smith. We are excited to have you here and have a full council again. I'm excited to work with you for the rest of the year on the safety committee. And I can tell we're gonna have some good laughs in between all of the very serious issues that we discuss and tackle in safety. I have some updates from DCP. The opening for Mabee Playground has been delayed. Among other things, the basketball courts need to be lined and have backboards installed and tables need to be secured. Work should be wrapping up this week. We are planning a grand opening ceremony within the next week or two. For stadium lighting at Tatlock, Musco has come out and completed the light readings. All of them were as expected. We are still waiting the final report with the recorded numbers from Musco. For the speakers and cameras, target installation date is September. And Jamel mentioned this a little bit earlier, sorry, Councilman Boyer, about Grace and their contributions and how they supported some members of our community. So thank you to Grace. They provided pool memberships to 13 families, 30 individual memberships, and 26 campers have been enrolled in the summer rec camp through those Grace donations. And also, I did speak with David about the pool as a cooling station on the 4th of July because we would have loved to do that and in a perfect world we could have done that. But safety is our first priority and with all of the 4th of July festivities being canceled, it was very hot. We just, it would not have been safe for us to open it, you know, for us to open it as a cooling center to the entire town. So safety always has to come first. We did, you know, we did have the community center open as a cooling station if people really did need to cool down. And I think that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Kalmanson. Council Member Christopher Lee.

Thank you, Council President. I would also really like to welcome Council Member Smith. It's been great working with you, getting to know your working style on several issues beyond the data center ordinance in which we We collaborated. You're hitting the ground running, and your experience that you bring from your profession already is adding value. Thank you. Thanks. So I would like to comment on the data center ordinance. It's a very complex issue. It's hard for all of us to understand, right? None of us is a planning professional here on the Council, although we have varying degrees of experience and we're gaining more of that experience as we go along. I requested Mr. Burgess's memo and his draft ordinance and I requested the feedback from the planning board. I thank Planning Board Chairwoman Alvarez and all the Planning Board members for their diligent input. They gave an excellent technical review, which I believe was a very high quality. At the Planning Board, I requested the staff post that report online, and it's now on the Planning Board website, although it did take the staff a little time to get there. They're short-staffed right now. My next task was that I said for myself was to get unanimous support from all council members. And to do so, we had to tighten up the ordinance that was discussed at the planning board. The council has different interests than the purely technical council. We listened to resident input at the council meeting on June 16th, at the listening sessions, the feedback that we saw online. And what we heard is that Summit didn't want data centers. And so we tightened up the language. CONSIDERABLY FROM THE PLANNING VERSION, THE PLANNING BOARD VERSION, AND WE WORKED TO GET EVERYBODY ON BOARD, AND EVERYBODY WORKED TOGETHER TOWARD THAT GOAL, AND I THANK EVERYBODY. IT CERTAINLY WASN'T MY ACCOMPLISHMENT. IT'S SOMETHING THAT EVERYBODY PITCHED IN AND WANTED TO GET TO. SO I JUST WANTED TO CLARIFY THAT. IT IS TECHNICAL. IT'S HARD TO DESCRIBE. IT'S HARD, FRANKLY, FOR ME TO DESCRIBE, SO I APOLOGIZE IF I HAVEN'T DONE THAT IN THE CLEAREST MANNER. Council Member Smith probably did a better job than I did, and Jamel. But there we go. We are responding to residents' very clear desire that we heard that they wanted to ban all data centers, and that's what we have attempted to do. I believe we have done it. We will continue to monitor as necessary. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Grisavulli. Council Member Lucera-Cena.

Thank you, Council President. I want to first thank, we had several residents come to the most recent council meeting who live in the Bristol-Myers Squibb neighborhood to express their concerns, their frustration with the noise as a result of the existing usage of what's going on at Bristol-Myers Squibb. now concerns about the constant or the near constant noise and hum that emanates out of the production facilities and other parts of the campus, which is a lifestyle disruption. It can cause fatigue and other issues. So we have reached out to the Government Affairs Office of Bristol-Myers Squibb. We're in conversation. which has been an ongoing conversation over many years, but we are re-engaging in earnest to see what can be done in partnership, if anything, to try to address those issues. So again, thank you very much to our neighbors who came out to share those concerns, and we will provide updates as those conversations continue. I also wanted to double click a bit on affordable housing and also thank those. We had a great discussion at the most recent council listening session in June. So thank everyone for coming out on Monday evening in the summer to talk with us about parking and signage. But we spent the bulk of the time talking about affordable housing. We continue to hear and appreciate the questions and the concerns about overdevelopment, the strain on our schools and infrastructure, and the impact to the taxpayers, the cost of it all. As Councilwoman Landman mentioned, on the cost side, just as a quick reminder, and this information is publicly available on the city's web page, We're anticipating about 530 total new apartments, condos, houses, 530 total new units as they will be comprised over the next 10 years coming out of the prior council's round for affordable housing development plan. Work continues on the cost side. What is the impact to the taxpayer? That work continues again, but I get my back of the envelope math is that it would be approximately $20 million over 10 years and of a worst case scenario if all of the costs fell to the summit taxpayer and we're not able to access any county, state, federal, or private funding. As has been said, we want to make affordable housing work better, both for affordable housing and for Summit. This requires long-term strategic planning and solid financial planning. To that end, we have recently brought on a new member of the Burgess firm. Mr. Burgess was here. They are our long-serving external city planner. They have an additional expert in kind of suburban development who will help us take a broad view across the whole community, right? Not focusing on any individual proposed site or mechanism, but looking across the whole municipality to, again, think about that strain on infrastructure, on our first responders, on traffic, impact to the schools, the character of the community, et cetera. So we're grateful to have that new team member on board. I have joined the Mount Laurel, at least in the interim, filling former council member Pawlowski's seat, so we'll continue to do the work there. I have enjoyed getting to work with Councilman Smith on law and labor. wanted to provide a quick update on city litigation. We understand of course, and we know everyone appreciates, there's of course sensitivities around lawsuits, but we also have heard time and time again that the community wants to know more, and we understand because this is litigation against the community, right? It impacts all of us. So in brief, there have been two lawsuits, unfortunately, that have recently been brought against the city. I understand that some of the materials are floating around on social media, so wanted to just provide some basic information. There was one lawsuit that was filed by Beacon Church in connection with proceedings before the zoning board. The city is technically a named party to that litigation, but THIS WAS A ZONING BOARD MATTER. SO ANY QUESTIONS AND FURTHER COMMENT I WOULD DEFER TO THE ZONING BOARD. THERE WAS A SEPARATE LAWSUIT THAT WAS FILED BY K&K OR GARDEN HOMES. THEY WERE THE CONTRACT PURCHASER. WE'VE PREVIOUSLY SHARED THAT THEY UNFORTUNATELY WITHDREW FROM THAT CONTRACT. THEY HAVE NOW FILED SUIT AGAINST THE CITY. The bottom line is we will strenuously defend the city's position and we will work as hard as we can to protect the city's position and interests. KNK is alleging breach of contract with respect to the purchase and sale agreement for the old firehouse site. So the sale was approved by the prior council in December of 2025. The contract was then signed on behalf of the city at the end of last year, December 31st, 2025. So then work continued between the parties trying to get through those early phases of the purchase and sale moving forward. There was then separately the issue of a 2001 agreement that the city entered into with St. Teresa's, which we have also made brief mention of previously, which in part dealt with certain parking and access rights that were granted by the city to St. Teresa's. So we have the purchase and sale agreement for the old firehouse site that was entered into in December of 2025. and then relatedly a 2001 agreement that was entered into between the city and St. Teresa's. In brief, and this is very early stage all alleged, but KNK's position is that, and I'll just quote, the city intentionally misrepresented and concealed a material fact by not disclosing the St. Teresa's parking lot agreement from June of 2001. Those are allegations and again, the city will strenuously defend our position and interests and we will provide additional information as it becomes available. And with that, I am done. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Council President. Yes, quickly. Okay.

Andy, welcome. Thank you. Me, I tell you man, I should have welcomed you. Secondly, talking about litigations, I know Councilwoman Lucera is in the legal committee and everything. You know, I'm always told, like, oh, you can't speak about litigations and everything. So if the city solicitor, maybe next time you can give us some guidance about what to talk about and what not to talk about, because I like to give the public a rundown from my perspective on all of it. So, you know, if we're doing that, let's do it, you know, like that.

Through the council president if something is written in a publicly filed complaint The councilwoman can read it into the record it's already public any comments further than that I would not recommend and We shouldn't we shouldn't encourage that Anything else

Nope, I'm good. Okay, thank you so much. I just want to add one procedural note about the AI data ordinance as we developed it over the last few weeks. And I'll own most of this with the extra week between council meetings. I certainly took advantage of the ability to get a little bit of travel in. I wasn't alone, but I found creative ways to be totally unavailable and inaccessible to my fellow council members. So there ended up being a lot of fits and starts and trying to work things in at odd moments. And I am particularly grateful to our city clerk for tolerating all of it with good grace, because I think we were giving everybody fits on that. I'll be around between now and the next council meeting, so have at me. And I just want to read an email that I received during this meeting. and it sort of goes to clean up and some of that from one of our residents. Credit where credit is due. I called DPW today about a huge tree branch that crashed into the street on Friday from... from a tree in front of our house. At some point on Saturday or Sunday, some entity lifted the branch from the street and placed it on my neighbor's front lawn. It was massive and took up the entire lawn. Within two hours of my call today, DPW sent a crew and they did a great job of taking the tree, raking and cleaning up. Such a wonderful service from our excellent city employees, I'm grateful. And with that, do I have a motion to adjourn?

I'll make it. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We stand adjourned. Thank you.