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HomeMy Public PortalAbout1997/07/16 JULY 16, 1997 A Special Meeting of the Mayor and Council of the Borough ofCarteret was called to order by Council President Stanley Gutowski at 6: 15 P.M., on Thursday, July 16, 1997, Municipal CourtlPolice Facility, 230 Roosevelt Avenue, Carteret, New Jersey. SPECIAL MEETING July 16, 1997 Upon individual roll call, the following were noted present: ROLL CALL Mayor Peter J. Sica Councilmember Deborah Bialowarczuk " DuPont " James Failace " Jack Fazekas " Feingold " Gutowski Mailed to The Home News & Tribune, The Star Ledger and posted on the bulletin board on July 11, 1997. STATEMENT OF MEETING To discuss park improvements and a proposal from a community grant planning firm. Formal action may be taken. PURPOSE OF MEETING Randy Gottesman, Community Grants and Planning, asked if everyone had the time for him to walk through the proposal. DISCUSSlctiI Everyone said yes. Randy Gottesman started going thru the proposal. He said that what they basically believe in the best interest of Carteret is to do what they talked about last week, that is to focus initially on the needs assessments. Unfortunately because it's been such a long time or maybe nothing like this ever occurred before, this type of needs assessments, and there are.. Councilman Feingold asked how many hours did he estimate that will take. Randy Gottesman said a maximum offorty to fifty, and we can do it in... An unidentified person said it's all relative in to which condition we're in. 1. Randy Gottesman agreed and said that they have actually done it in thirty- tìve but that's the range. He said that, that doesn't directly.... to get any grant money that's coming into the Borough. It's an initial investment that generally they don't need to do more than once during their entire relationship with a municipality, no matter how many years that goes because once we kick it off, then we're involved and we're continually keeping you informed of things and it just snowballs and the opportunities JULy 16, 1997 DISCUSSlctiI Con't come up in a spot to spot bases, but we have a lot of catching up to do and looking at the whole gamete of primarily State and Federal funding. That is what he is focusing on. So that's the needs assessments. He said that it is possible that concurrently grant opportunities will be coming up. So they will be notifYing us about those, and do we want them to work on one or two grant applications if they're appropriate, if they're what we want, obviously they're that not going to recommend that we wait for the results of the report, which is really looking at the big picture and developing a funding project for the next couple of years. He said that's faze two, and then faze three is what they get to once the needs assessment is done, and they are up and running, it's a very short amount of time between here and there just to keep us informed of new opportunities On page two is their fees and he apologizes that on the back it says that the maximum fee is $100.00 an hour that was in '96, and they realized after last weeks meeting how astutely everyone here read that, that it is time to put a sticker over the one under it and make that $10500 but that is their '97 maximum rate. In terms of compensation, they're suggesting that $15,000.00 is a reasonable minimum to get started because you do need a needs assessment and you do want a secure grant. That's what they are here for. He said that this will leave us with sufficient funds to do a couple of needy grant applications in the areas that we select. It's an arbitrary figure, and it's not. He said that the work that we could do is relative to the amount that's in the budget, if more is in obviously they can do more, ifless is in we can talk about that. He thinks that this is a reasonable amount to give them an opportunity to prove themselves to us and to show that they can do this. Down to additional expenses that's our direct cost for sometimes when we can use these grant applications the funding...... is looking for twenty copies and it's delaying the document and it's sometimes more time efficient for us to throw in our machine and bind it and package it from there and that's just a direct cost with no mark up from what it cost us and that's a cap of $450.00, and that is the proposal in a nut shell. Councilman Fazekas spoke but was inaudible. Mr. Gottesman said that the needs assessment is not just knowing what's out there it's really doing an exercise which is your..... are doing in house, and that is meeting with everyone and talking with everyone and it's more of a planning thing and what happens is the municipal staff and elected officials get so bogged down with everything that matters at hand that they don't get the opportunity to take a step back really spend some time looking and working those things out. He said that one of the things that they will do is steer a department head 2. JULY 16, 1997 meeting and ask everyone to come prepared with there wish list, and they'll have a productive one to two hour session going around the table and flushing them out further. They will most likely to do that with the elected and appointed officials as well, and then they go back to their office and take everything that they've culled as to your detentions and desires and that sort thing. Then they research at the State and Federal level. He said that get to Councilman Failace's question as to whether it is readily available on the Internet, he said would say no. He said it is available but not readily. You'll find smatterings and pieces of the puzzle allover the Internet certainly not nearly a hundred percent. It's probably a fraction and it's a percentage and it's not in one spot. Could you identitY lots of opportunities, yes. Could you identitY as many as them, no, he doesn't think so. It's just a question of experience, and they use the Internet a lot but it's not their primary source. They have an extensive library, they're on dozen's and dozen's of mailing lists. DISCUSSlctiI Con't Councilman Fazekas said that he's looked and there is. The problem is that when they have it, then it's like what do we currently have. He doesn't know what we currently have, but it's in bits and pieces. He has searched it but it does take time. Councilman Feingold asked Craig CougWin that if they need to talk about specific items in the contract is that something for a closed session. Attorney Craig Coughlin said that if we are going to negotiate them then he thinks that we probably ought to or form a committee. If you want to asked general questions about, that's a proposed contract that they've prepared, and he wouldn't feel uncomfortable if you asked what they mean by certain things. Randy Gottesman said he didn't have a problem with it. Councilmember Bialowarczuk asked what was the ballpark figure for faze one. Randy Gottesman said he would try and do it for $3,500.00. Councilman Fazekas said that the first thing is to be in agreement that we need to obtain grants in the likelihood. If we want it to cut it down, then lets cut it down and get it started. If that's our intention to get things rolling, but he doesn't want to cut any fazes out. He would rather leave the fazes and get it started, and see what happens. The Mayor said that it is not a one year contract. It's only tor six months, Jess. 3. Randy Gottesman said that they think that there will be significant opportunities and they are just trying to be up-front realistically with us. That within three months their going to come to us with enough grant opportunities that we're going to authorize them...... he said that he will change it to twelve months if we'd like, but he may come back here in four months and say they've put in X amount of applications so far and they've exhausted the 15,000 and they need to talk about the unfinished contract. JULY 16, 1997 DISCUSSlOO Con't The Mayor said that he problem is that if he comes back four months from now and we've made grant applications for half a dozen things. He told him that he should know himself that things don't happen overnight, they don't put in the application then call you up and say here's your money. It takes negotiations, negotiations, and negotiations, but then we're looking at along a period of time, but we only hired you for six months, six months from now you can come back to us and say we did the grant application but we haven't heard any thing yet so we need additional money to sit here and wait. Randy Gottesman said he had no problem with making it twelve months, as long as everyone understands...... The Mayor said that he knows what happens down there with these grants, sometimes it takes even a year before they recognize the fact that you even sent them a letter. So he thinks that it should be extended for a year. Councilman DuPont said that he didn't know the company well, and honestly before we start spending $15,000.00, he wanted to make our selves look better, he wanted to call his references. He spoke with his references and he was told that they are very efficient, they do a good job. Also from a elected official's position, everyone is going to agree that the most important part is probably faze one in your initial proposal. In any professional services work there's certain backup information you need to obtain, you need to know in what direction you're going. He said that he was comfortable with the fact that these other boroughs said that they brought them in, they did some initial work for them that they needed to get grants, some they need it to get grants the first couple of months, and some they need it to get grants the first nine months, and in either side of the spectrum they're happy. He was talking with to guys from Bloomingdales, Mr. Wilkes who was very pleased with their services and over at Wood Stanley they were very pleased with their services. At Bloomingdales they were talking grants of $753,000 a year. That must be way out there, that's a terrific case for him. Whereas the other side it took some time. He thinks that the planning up front seems very reasonable to him. He knows that for professional services there's certain ground work they have to do and he want's the people of the Council to feel more comfortable that he's checked his references. Councilmember Bialowarczuk asked if there were any other companies doing the same proposition. The Mayor said that he was sure that there were numerous. He said that he was approached seven, eight years ago by Bill George to do the same thing, but he didn't have the expertise that was necessary to do something like that nor did he think 4. "-'~ - "'---- JULY 16, 1997 that it was above water at that time, and it proves out that it was not all above water. This is a company that just does this for a living as he understands. DI5CUSSI(l~ Con't Attorney Craig Coughlin said that it's essentially a thirty day contract. The Mayor said that the faze one will take them a couple of months. An unidentified man said that if terminate them, we have to give them thirty days notice. The Mayor said why would we want to terminate it until we at least get faze one is done, but theoretically if tomorrow we find out that your not above water we could terminate you within thirty days and not pay you a penny rrom tomorrow on either, just put you on notice, stop right where you are at. Attorney Craig Coughlin said that he thinks that the Council's main concern is that we could do the initial assessment pay for that and then not do any work and we would have lost the benefit of doing the tinancial needs of the initial assessments. He thinks that this is something that should be addressed in terms of revisions of contract remember that this is a sample contract that's been provided by the company. He wouldn't look at this as binding in any way. He thinks that in any comments the Council has will be useful in terms of his review and suggested modifications and he thinks that is a good point and so we should make sure to include some language that would provide for a rebate in the event that there is a cancellation ofthese assessments The Mayor asked if anyone had any other questions. He asked if they wanted to incorporated in the professional services resolution in tomorrow's Council Meeting, providing Craig works out the terminology on the termination. Attorney Craig CougWin said that they could have the resolution subject, typically we could do the contract the day after. Councilman Failace said that he spoke to Patrick. .....(inaudible), and said that we could incumber $5,000.00 right at the moment and that seems like it would take care of the faze but come November we do it to make up the difference. He said that he wants everyone to understand, that in fifty (50) days.. The Mayor said that they wouldn't spend $5,000.00 in fifty days. Councilman Failace said that he wanted to state that we do have $5,000.00 and that's up front. 5. The Mayor said that we're going to incumber $5,000.00. That gives you an initial start and in November we'll be able to transfer it into that, but you won't spend that until November anyway. He said not to get ahead of it because you'll get a problem. A;~· >'-,> ,< "}',-;"-i~," ',~ JULY 16, 1997 DISCUSSlOO Con't Councilman Failace spoke but was inaudible. The Mayor said that if you're going to get ahead of it and let's say tomorrow morning you come up with something that you think could be a substantial grant to us. We'll put in an emergency insertion in the budget. He said that he didn't want them to be held back because they can't transfer money until November. He said that they can make an emergency appropriation so if a grant comes available, we want it. If it's just the initial assessment and nothing comes available, then just use the money as you see fit. Councilman Failace asked what would happen if as a result of your efforts we don't get any money. The Mayor said that we would loose $15,000.00. Councilmembers Failace and Fazekas spoke but was inaudible. Attorney Craig Coughlin said that if we're going to develop some specific proposals in terms of that. He thinks that it would be better to do that, because it would get prejudice on negotiating position in the intent that there is dialog. Councilman Fazekas said that it could work in reverse also. If we're going to set that kind of limit then what happens if they are able to get us three, four hundred thousand dollars. Do we give them more money, you're going to taking a chance. He said that he's looking at it as an opportunity one as faze one in the case, looking to see our needs. That is really critically there, and the next thing is yes we're going to take a chance, and it's proved out for other boroughs. He said that he understands spending but he means that the money is out there and we have to apply for them. He understands there concern. Councilman Feingold asked him if he thought that the boroughs that were unable to get funding are listed in his references. He just thinks that it should be taken into considerations, but he does agree with him. He is all for it. Councilman Fazekas said that specifically one of the objectives is to look into the grant money for the police for the radios and that's key right now. The Mayor said that they will put it on for a resolution for tomorrow night and they'll bring it up for a vote. Randy Gottesman asked if his presence is needed tomorrow night. 6. The Mayor told him he could come and maybe answer any questions the public may have. ~~~~ JUT.Y 16, 1997 The Mayor stated that he got a letter today from Patricia Holden on the agreement purchased on 14 acres by Duie Pyle was done on Friday. It's coming up in front of the planning board, and what it is, is a cross stop shipping terminal that's going to probably employ a couple hundred people. In addition to that, through Weichert Realty we negotiated a contract for someone to come in and rent Herman's. A big company called Sea Jet they bring in clothes from China, Thailand and wherever it comes ITom. They bring it in bulk and containers, they then split it up and try and ship it to different places and a public warehousing. They hope to employ, they now have about 160 people they're going to go up to 200 people, but not all their people are coming with them. DISCUSSlOO Con't An unidentified man asked where are they now. The Mayor said that they are in Elizabeth and Brooklyn. They rented the Hennan's property, two hundred square feet so that is another one that we got In addition to that White Rose is going to put an addition on their building and looking at another guy that wants five hundred thousand square foot building. Councilman Fazekas asked if we're still pursuing the NJ Turnpike dividing that bridge. The Mayor said that was a done deal. Councilman Fazekas asked if they had started that. The Mayor said that Bellmead had already submitted all of the drawings to the Turnpike and the Turnpike has offered to cooperate fully putting in four new toll booths, a fly over going to the new shopping center. Councilman Fazekas asked if they had talked ahout a time frame or are we going to meet with them. The Mayor said that Bellmead wants to get started with the shopping center in September and hopefully all the traffic studies and all that other stuff thal the Bellmead engineers are doing with the Turnpike engineers will be done sometime in October or November aod approved. So that's all go. He said that someone also had approached him on the Robert's Chevrolet building, and they want to know what's the possibilities of putting a hotel up there. Councilman Fazekas asked if that won't interfere with the Turnpike plan. 7. The Mayor told them that they would have to give us ten feet. He said that there were a couple of people interested and one wanted to buy it and make it into a steak house. He told everybody that Plior to buying it they would have to understand that ten feet will either be taken by the city or bought by the city to widen that over there so that we can have two left hand turns getting on to the Turnpike, and they've all readily agreed. He said that a lot of good things are happening and Duie Pyle should be a good one they're looking at a $4,000,000.00 project in building there terminal alone and their corporate offices. JULY 16, 1997 DISCUSSlOO Con't Councilman Failace asked the Mayor ifhe had set up another meeting with Woodbridge. The Mayor said he would have Harold set it up for next week. The Mayor said that he wanted to update everyone regarding the Waterfront Development. He said that prior to making an application to the State of New Jersey this was all in our feasibility study of do this. It was all addressed by the State of New Jersey. He said that he didn't know who in Green Acres has just got in bugging them about that piece of property because when those to buildings were tested, fill tested there was no contamination of our land. There may be contamination next door but do you cut off your right harm because your left harm is hurting, he doesn't think so. He said that he's attempted to get in touch with that lady that sent that letter, unfortunately she's been on vacation she won't be back until tomorrow, but he fully intends to discuss it with her because if she looks in our application for the grant all of this was mentioned. He doesn't think that she has looked at the application for the grant where it specifically says that there was a sight next door that was being remediated; and in the grant it says that it doesn't matter. So lets be real careful before we kiss away that million dollars. Council President Gutowski said that he wasn't looking to kiss away anything. He said that he knew or he had a feeling that ifhe brought that up about the marina it would get everyone's attention, and the attention is that we need a major increase in capital under this parks department, and he has no idea how to get it. He said that he's sure that the Mayor has looked at the parks and has seen. The Mayor said that he doesn't think that they are going to allow, the Green Acres, that money came out of a trust to get more Green Acres land. The only reason why we were so successful in getting it is because we acquired the land. It's not coming out of the funding to upgrade existing. He's not saying that with new guides that they can't find some money in Green Acres though that. They might be able to, but that money came out of a bond trust of two hundred and some million dollars and that's how Woodbridge got some of it because they acquired some land through foreclosures, Perth Amboy the same way. He said that right now he is in negotiations with the City of Perth Amboy to purchase quite a big track their along their waterfront. They acquired that waterfront through condemnation through tax foreclosures, and he wanted to buy the piece in back of it, and that's how they're successful in getting that money out of that fund. So he doesn't think that they will let us take, first they're going to give us a million dollars then we have to borrow a million dollars from that fund at 2%. 8. JULY 16, 1997 Council President Gutowski said what was eXplained to him by the people he spoke with was that we can certainly make applications to transfer the money if we so desire. Secondly when we use the money, we would for instance if we identitY say $400,000.00 of money that we want to transfer to the parks they would give us $200,000.00 and give us a loan of $200,000.00 at that point. They're not going to say here's all the money as a grant and you have to use that up and here's all the money as a loan. He said that it would always be half and half all the way down the line. DISCUSSlOO Con't The Mayor said that they have other funding in Green Acres to do exactly what he's saying. We could go to Green Acres tomorrow morning, without even getting a grant from them, and borrow money from them at 2%, that's not a problem, but he doesn't think that they are going to let him take the money out of that particular project now that money's been expected on it. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said that all the screaming and yelling, she spoke to the Mayor today, when they blocked off the pier this past week to cars . Councilman Fazekas said that he didn't want to get into the issue of the Green Acres money. He said that we're just reviewing the park. He knows that there has to be money and we shouldn't be talking about where we're going to find money....... The Mayor said that he didn't say that, what he is saying is that we should be looking at that venue right now because in the original application it specifically stated that land adjacent is in a remediation process. When that Fenner whatever her name is made it, this was discussed with the Green Acres people. He said that they change people down there like it's going out of style, and then some one comes in and says wait a minute the property next door is contaminated not knowing that the sixty-one acres was totally cleaned. Councilman Fazekas said that money there if it was set aside for that he's pretty sure the grants guys or we get more Green Acre money. He doesn't want to address the money issue, he doesn't want to address .... The Mayor said that we could technically loose that piece of property. Councilmember Bialowarczuk spoke but was inaudible. Councilman Fazekas said that this is not addressing the money, this is addressing the parks. It has nothing to do with the Green Acres right now, it's the parks. He said that we want to review the parks. Why are the parks in that condition because whatever money we applied for, we're not going to get it tomorrow it may be next year that we may get the money. What he want's to know is the immediate, right now concerns him. 9. Councilmember Bialowarczuk asked what was his point. Councilman Fazekas said that the point was that some of the problems can ----" JULY 16, 1997 mSCUSSlOO Con't be fixed by just pure maintenance. He said that each park has a problem and if he's wrong then let him know, but he said to look at one of the parks there.. ... Councilmember Bialowarczuk asked Councilman Fazekas how many men does he have in the parks department. Councilman Fazekas said he didn't know how many men there were. He said that if what she is trying to say that it is man power, he can't just say yes it is. What he wants to do is look at each park..... Councilmember Bialowarczuk said that you can clean that up .....look at all the work that was done down in Chrome Park when they planted flowers, people went and took the time to plant and clean. It was destroyed in a week. The Mayor said that he thinks the problem with the parks IS..... Councilman Fazekas said that he's gone to Carteret Park and there's been garbage all over the place Councilmember Bialowarczuk said that how many men do you need to clean it up now, six hours later people come and throw garbage everywhere. What are they supposed to do, follow people around. The Mayor said that now it was getting to where they're saying that the parks are not right. He said that number one, when he took over, the whole park was destroyed. He said that he could show pictures of a monument that didn't have a tree around it and there are people sitting in the audience that know this for fact. He can show us walkways that didn't even have walkways. We've progressed by putting in the walkways, fixing the band stand, putting in bocci ball courts, making a monument that's the talk of the County, the parks are clean. He told Councilman Failace that the pictures he took were on the 4th of July which was a four day weekend, on Monday morning sure it's going to look like a mess. He said that he didn't have a problem with them wanting to do work on the parks. The problem is that every time they build the budget, they put in money for the little league, softball league, summer recreation, they do all that. He said that they never put money in there for capital improvements in the park. He said that the only way we have been successful in the past couple of years, is by making any improvements in the parks by cutting down on some of our expenses and then at the end of the year or when we feel that we have $10,000.00, to put $10,000.00 worth of more sidewalks, to put in a bocci ball court, to do more dressing up at the monument and all the parks included. He said if Councilman Fazekas is telling him that he wants to go with a capital improvement program of 10. . / ~, "'~.... , "". JULY 16,1997 $100,000.00 or $200,000.00 to make improvements to various parks, he doesn't have a problem with that, but he can not do everything that he wants to with the money that is put in the budget. DISCUSSlOO Con't Councilman Failace told the Mayor that he was missing the point of what they were talking about. He said that they damn well know that they can't go in and take a million dollars which they could probably use to do those parks. He said that the Mayor was a hundred percent right. What they are talking about is what they went through at Cornell Park and Shorecrest Park. He asked what does it take to paint a fence. The Mayor said that it took man power. Councilmember Bialowarczuk also said that it took man power and that they had four guys. Councilman Failace said that you have ten guys every summer for two months, you have ten kids. He said that one of the kids told him that they had them picking up all the garbage in all the parks, and he told them that's what they're suppose to be doing. The Mayor said that during the summer time is when the parks are used so heavily, and you can't have four guys cut all the grass, clean up all the empty lots, line up all the fields, unless you have summer kids doing that your not going to get it done, but if you're telling him that you want to go with a capital improvement program and assign so many dollars for this and we're going to fix this, then he said that he doesn't have any problems with that Councilman DuPont said that what bothers him the most is that... he went to his wife's softball game at a park with his twenty month old daughter, and she was constantly picking up glass and paper he couldn't believe it. He then realized what a mess it was and they went to each park. He said , \ .'" that there were three parks that he couldn't let Courtney walk around in because there is too much broken glass on the pavement. It's a mess and it needs to be cleaned and maintained properly. The Mayor said that the problem is that we clean it today and tomorrow they break it again. He said that the problem is that we don't have enough. . Councilman DuPont said that the Parkview Park is a mess. He lives by this park and it's been looking like a mess for the last year and a half, there's always broken glass in the court, it doesn't get cleaned up and it's always messy. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said that is because of those guys sitting in that park drinking and throwing the bottles all over.. 11. The Mayor said that he remembers spending $6,000.00 for trees in those parks that weren't worth six dollars, anå half of the trees weren't even put there and we paid for them, $175.00 a tree. ~. JULY 16, 1997 DISCUSSlOO Con't This heated discussion lasted for several minutes. Councilman Fazekas said that we should identitY the problems with the parks so that we know how much money we need to spend. Councilmember Bialowarczuk spoke but was inaudible. Council President Gutowski said that he would guaranty, he is the vice president of the softball league, if we were aloud to maintain the fields during baseball season for the baseball league and the softball league we would do it gladly. He said that they are not allowed to do it, he's traveled all over the State with the All-Star Softball Team and the facilities that these people have are nice. The Mayor said that he heard about those tournaments. He said that Council President Gutowski ran it so well that he was thrown out of one. He wishes that the newspapers had grabbed that one. Council President Gutowski said that the newspapers were here and that he could tell them. The Mayor said that he was going to make a statement on it tomorrow night. Council President Gutowski said that he could do that, that would be fine and that he would make his statement about the condition of the parks and how it's been like that for the last fifteen years and how nothings been done. The Mayor said that was no problem Councilman Fazekas said that he didn't think that they were getting any where with this This discussion continued for several more minutes. The Mayor said that what we should do is straighten out some of these other men that we have that aren't doing anything but picking scrap for themselves and all that stuff, now it's gotten out of hand where there is thirty people involved with picking scrap. There's thirty men robbing now Councilman Fazekas said that there is no witch hunt here let's just address the parks. The Mayor said that he has no problem with getting a committee and going to each park in the way it's supposed to be done, and say okay we have to pave this basketball court here, and we estimate it's going to cost us $5,000.OO,okay we assign the $5,000.00 all to the Shorecrest Park for that. 12. .---x';/- '---~ --. JULY 16, 1997 He said that we should detail each park. DISCUSSlOO Con't Councilman Fazekas said that's what they did and he agreed with the Mayor. He said that if they have to put a committee together then they'll do that. The Mayor said that the first thing to do is to detail each park and then we put a budget together for each park, that we're going to do this and this to that park, we're going to put a fence on that park, some of these fences haven't been replace in thirty years. We're going to put a new fence here, we're going to put a basketball court over here, we're going to put the next skating court over here. He said that he has no problem with that and that's the way it's supposed to be. Councilman DuPont said that the last thing he wants to do is to put a lot of money into these parks and then go back to the same thing of not having the ability to maintain it. He doesn't want to put $100,000.00 in to the park and then because we can't maintain it, so let it go to hell until we can figure something. The Mayor said that it's not the ability to maintain it, the ability to maintain it is there. He said that the problem is that we can't assign each guy, we have four guys, if over the weekend they break beer bottles and soda bottles in every park, first we have to pick up all the garbage cans in every park twice a week. We can't assign a guy there just to pick-up the glass, some of these things are caused by people. He said that the people have to take a better interest in it. We painted the old bathrooms down there..... Councilman Fazekas asked what happened. The Mayor said that what happened w!l~ that the paintwasp\dry yet and graffiti was painted on it the next day. He said that was exactly what he said would happen. His opinion was to tear it down, why leave it there, why won't anyone agree with him to tear it down. The Council agreed to tear it down. Councilman DuPont said that something that was very disheartening for him was the monument... The Mayor asked if he new how many times they spent money trying to clean otfthat graffiti on the monument. Councilman DuPont said that it's the 4th of July and the monument looks like hell. 13. The Mayor asked how do you send a man in there and spend the whole day just doing that, when there are so many things that four guys have to do, how do you do it. Councilman Fazekas said that he thinks that this is what we have to _J'/' "",....~. JULY 16, 1997 DISCUSSlOO Con't address and say that if we have to make the improvements, and we don't have enough man power then we need some more man power, but let's address what needs to be approved. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said that she thinks that each one of them should spend the day ..(inaudible). Councilman Fazekas said that no matter what you have to..... The Mayor said that he is willing to go with two people, to each park, write a list whether it be a wish list or whatever estimating what it's going to cost for each one of those things .. An unidentified person spoke but was inaudible. The Mayor said that is not what needs to be done. He said that what needs to be done is we need to go to each park and look at it and see what we can do and how much money we're willing to spend and the things that we do are they going to be things that are going to be meaningful or are going to be destroyed tomorrow again. Councilman Failace said that with the ten and twelve kids that we have working for, why don't we say this is what we're going to do now since we never had.. The Mayor said that every time you assign those kids out to someone, you have to put a parks guy in with them. That's the hold. Councilman Failace said that just for the hell of it go to Parkview and spend the day cleaning it and let's see what it looks like tonight. The Mayor saiò he didn't have a problem with it. Councilman Failace said that it's fine. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said not tonight let's try tomorrow at 6:00 tomorrow morning Councilman Failace spoke but was inaudible. The Mayor said that still doesn't get us to go there and say okay Cornell Park needs a new surface on the basketball court, okay it's going to cost us $4,000.00 so we write that down. Then we go to the next one, go to the next one, and then if we come out with a number the we can work with and do out of our capital funding.. then we don't have a problem with that. 14. Councilman Failace said that he thinks that is the way that it ~-..,-; JULY 16, 1997 needs to be addressed, then let's do that. DISCUSSlOO Con't The Mayor said yes and he asked when did he want to do it Councilman Fazekas said that it was the Mayor and two other people we've got the basis here, we can go through it and we can start. The Mayor said anytime except for tomorrow. He said that Friday was okay with him. An unidentified person spoke but was inaudible. The Mayor said that it wasn't a problem, they could all go and to make it for Friday at five o'clock. He said it should only take about a half hour or an hour to go around to these parks. The Council said it would take more than that. The Mayor said to leave it then for Saturday morning at eight o'clock at the City Hall, but he said that they would have to understand that they would have to do this out of capital money and there's way of doing this. The Mayor said that a company approached him, Matzel & Mumford they're builders and they do very nice work. They are looking at the possibility of buying the eight and a half acres across the street from Columbus School, and putting in a.. they don't sell they only rent, a town house type of development but up scale like a $1,000.00 and up a month rent He said that they seem to think that there's more than enough potential .... Councilman Fazekas asked if it was like the other town houses they have, , . . . . . ,. cause there are other town houses down further. The Mayor said no that this is a rental unit. This is Matzel & Mumford from the brochure they gave him and from what they are talking about, they are the only class act. . Councilman Failace asked how many units were they talking about. The Mayor said that they don't know what they can put on eight and a half acres He told them that they can go three stories over there. Attorney Craig CougWin said that they were a client of their firm and that they do a lot of quality work. He said that they have won awards in a number of places, they do multi hundred thousand dollar homes. 15. The Mayor said that he tried to get some information for them but he didn't have a whole lot of time today. He thinks that it's seventeen units per acre under our zoning. They were looking for something like twenty, twenty-two units per acre. He told them that if it's done right he doesn't care about twenty-two units per acre, if it's going to be an up scale -"'" ---- JULY 16, 1997 DISCUSSlOO Con't development, they seem to thinks it's going to work and as a matter offact, they went over to the realtor who brought them and took him over to Cleveland Arms and looked at that, they want to break Nathan Hale School and do it there. They told him that they won some kind of awards, two for rehab in old buildings so he said to them that if we can make some kind of a thing, we would like to look at the feasibility of them taking over even if it's necessary for us to give some of our RCA money and stuff like that down in the Chrome area and do some things do,^'I1 there and give us some ideas on it. He said that they were pretty good people from the way they talked anyway. So he told them that he would talk to the Council first and then because of his relationship with the guy that owns the land, he would try to get them a better deal then that's on the market for, it on the market for he thinks 1.2 million so your talking a lot of money. but if it just sits there right now it's nothing but a nuisance, and he called YC. and of course he was in Taiwan but he spoke to the daughter and she's going to talk to her father and see if we can get them the better deal, if we get them the better deal they may come in and do it. He said that just so that everybody knows we have that going, we have Duie Pyle going, and he told them that Duie Pyle was coming up the street, and they said that they didn't have a problem with that. The Mayor said that with that the meeting was adjourned. Council President Gutowski said to wait a minute he had two more things to discuss. He said that the Clerk called him today and told him that someone's been complaining about the bus stop down on Randolph or Harrison and Roosevelt. The Mayor asked what they were complaining about. The Clerk said that they were complaining about it being dirty and the garbage around it. She said that NJ Transit called and asked if we could do something about it. Council President asked if it is NJ Transit's responsibility to clean since it's their bus stop. The Mayor said that it is their bus stop, unless their talking about the parking lot. The Clerk said that no they told her that it was the shelter. The Mayor said that he would look at it, and if it's dirty we'll clean it up. Council President Gutowski said that the other thing is that there was supposed to have been a Recreation Committee meeting and once again he wasn't aware of it, he doesn't know if any of the other members were aware of it, but one person 16. I' ."~~ìi'i"' ,..;-',....."'...- JULY 16, 1997 showed up. He said that they as a Council need to do something, and the Mayor. He said that he doesn't know how they could do it either. He asked the Mayor ifhe could call a meeting ofthis Recreation Committee DISCUSSlOO Con't The Mayor said that he was going to, it's just crazy enough.... Council President Gutowski said that he isn't even a voting member. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said no that he is the Commissioner of Parks. Council President Gutowski said that he understands that. The Mayor said that now it is to late to have the Soap Box Derby Council President Gutowski said that the Soap Box Derby we already have a date for. They just need to get the flyers and everything else.... The Mayor said that he will call a meeting next week of the committee, and we'll see what's going on. Council President Gutowski said that we have to find out exactly who wants to stay on this committee.... The Mayor said who ever doesn't should get off Councilman Fazekas said that last night one person showed up. The Mayor asked who was supposed to send out the notices. He said that he's never gotten a notice. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said that Beverly Hedesh usually sends out the notices, but she resigned. Councilman Fazekas said that she stated that she sent out the notices.... Councilmember Bialowarczuk spoke but was inaudible. The Mayor said that we'll have to see what is going to happen with it, if there not going to do it then we will have to get others to do it. Attorney Craig CougWin said that they had talked about how they were going to rewrite the ordinance..... Council President said that maybe we can find other people to do it. He said that he already had one person that is very interested. 17. Councilman Fazekas said that it should be done before anything else gets cancelled. So far we have the two events, we have the Little Miss Carteret and the Soap Box Derby The Mayor said he knew and that he already has a lot if money invested in that ramp .!~,,,--~- JULY 16, 1997 ADJOURNED There being no further business or discussion, upon MMS&C, by Councilmembers Failace and DuPont and unanimous affirmative vote of the six (6) Councilmembers present, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:00 P.M.. Respectfully submitted, KATHLEENM. BARNEY, Municipal Clerk KMB/ht ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18.