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HomeMy Public PortalAbout1996/08/29 The Agenda Meeting of the Mayor and Council of the Borough of Carteret preceding the Regular Meeting September 5, 1996 was held on August 29,1996,7:00 P.M., Council Office, Municipal Building, 61 Cooke Avenue, Carteret, New Jersey. The following were noted present: Councilmember Bialowarczuk " F ailace " Fazekas " Feingold " O'Brien " Vesey Noted absent was Mayor Peter 1. Sica. Also noted present was Borough Attorney Robert A. Hedesh. Mailed to The Home News and Tribune, TheStar Ledger and posted on the bulleÙ¡ board on August 23, 1996. Officers Kitz and Spolizino. a) Borough Engineer - He spoke inaudibly then he spoke about Middlesex Water Company which was also inaudible. He then spoke about the Borough Hall parking lot being paved. Councilmember O'Brien said it will be ready to park again on Tuesday. Mr. Parmar asked Attorney Hedesh about the Sabo Pump Station. Attorney said he had a suspicion that there is a problem with the Sabo Pump Station. He asked Parmar if we had a survey done on this and a Lot and Block. Mr. Parmar said we did. 1 AUGUSf 29, 1996 AGEWA MEEITNG August 29, 1996 PRESENl' SfATEMENl' OF MEEITNG NOITCE CERTIFICATES OF MmlT 10 ADDRESS GOVERNING BODY Borough Engineer AUGUSf 29, 1996 Borough Engineer Continued Tom Watkinson .{'-' "T'. '-iI Attorney Hedesh asked him to fax that to his office tomorrow and he said he would do a quick title search on it and then what will happen is if it isn't in our name, then if the owners agree on it , we will just get an appraisal rate and buy the thing. Mr. Parmar said in the Chorme area the sewer lines are started. Mr. Wanskus has now taken the revised floor plans and drawings rrom his office. Today he will vote that accepting six (6) items on the (inaudible) item on the code and the rest are tentative. He said a letter is being submitted to submit the tentative drawings by September 9th. Attorney Hedesh said to let him send the letter and he will send it to Council. Mr. Parmar spoke about a Handicapped Parking Space approved on Union Street for a lady and now she moved into the Housing Authority and she wants one there and the other one cancelled. Attorney Hedesh said that is private property and we can't issue a Handicapped Parking permit on a parking lot. He said he would think the Housing Authority would issue a resolution and do that. It is on their property. b)Tom Watkinson - He said back in 1993 we started with a reassessment of the entire Zoning Ordinance and Zoning Map. Generally what we wanted to do is update the Zoning Map to have it conform to our Master Plan which is the general guideline to the town, the Zoning Map is the actual law for zoning of the town and generally you want it to conform to the Master Plan since it is your general planning guide. We have made currently only a dozen to a half a dozen specific changes on the maps and generally we took some areas that were zoned that were used out of business and zoned them business and vice versa, but there weren't any real significant changes to the maps. He said he sent all the Governing Body copies of the proposed map and he suggested for them to look at it and see if they had any questions on it. He said the Zoning Ordinance had a significant revision to that in the text. Basically we try to refer to certain :BOCA Documents and just modernize the Zoning Ordinance which has not really been changed since maybe 1977. There have been ordinances over the years added to the Zoning Ordinance, making specific changes to the text and the new graph of the Land Development Ordinance incorporates all previous miscellaneous ordinances and puts them all into one. If this is approved his recommendation is that you have it codified that its (inaudible) ordinances so that is all that has been documented. Right now you have the two (2) documents. You have the existing document and they have a document which is the proposed revisions to the ordinance and the actual text of the proposed revisions is almost as massive as the existing ordinance itself When you combine the two it will be exactly the same size because there is a lot of existing that gets thrown out. If you have also distributed, not only just recently, but along the way, as he has been working on this, drafts of the revisions and it is pretty much self explanatory. 2 ,'I¡;{J,f:~,¡,,:.~,ti'~~;, ~ 1 Tom Watkinson said the draft will sell you a certain section that will change and describe how that has been changed and how it should now be. Again if there is any questions on why. He said he had a consultant work with him on this. He made all the presentations and did all the work with the Planning Board, which is a body that actually reviews and oversees the revisions to the ordinance and the map and then passes a resolution making it recommendation to the Governing Body for them to either advertise and adopt a new ordinance. Since this was distributed, which he thinks is back in the middle of July, he has had a meeting with the developers of the proposed new mall area. It was their intention as far as their application to come to the Mayor and Council for a zoning change, only because if they didn't they would then go to the Board of Adjustment for the Site Plan because some of the portions of the mall do not conform to the zoning of which the property is located. The property is actually located in an Industrial Zone and there are certain things that you are not permitted to do in an Industrial Zone not because it is going to hurt the Industrial Zone but they normally in the middle of Industrial Zoning wouldn't want a residential shopping center but this is on the outskirts and it really makes sense to rezone this property, which is what they would normally be requesting what the town do. It was his recommendation to them that they give us an idea of where they think the zone change should be and the Planning Board can make an amendment to the present changes of the Zoning Ordinance and then what he would do is again revise this and have the Planning Board resubmit it to the Mayor and Council so that everything is adopted at once and we don't have to go through two (2) advertisings for Public Hearings and Ordinances and all that. He said they could go ahead with this process right now but he thinks it would make sense to let the people who are going to be developing the mall area consider that zone change. He thinks that there is going to be a mall there so we should consider the zone change. We must see what they want first. It is probably compatible with what the Borough would want and he thnks it would streamline the process and save the Governing Body some time if we did it all in one shot and that is what we are going to do. 1 At approximately 7:20 P.M., Mayor Sica was noted present. L Mayor Sica said that is what we are going to do . We will wait until they say exactly what they want because if we change the whole thing now and they don't come in, which is higWy unlikely with all the money they are spending on it, why should we change the whole thing if there is industries that can locate there. They may turn around and rrom what he understands buy up all that land out there and eventually use the back part for commercial building that could be rented out to light industries. So we won't do anything until they come in with a detailed plan and then they will incorporate it all at one time. He asked if everyone agreed. 3 AUGUSf 29, 1996 Tan Watkinson Contimed Mayor Sica noted present .."... AUGUST 29, 1996 Tan Watkinson Continued Tom Watkinson said that makes sense. He said you go ahead and try and get this rolling now. The Mayor said yes. Mr. Watkinson asked if there was any specific questions. Mayor Sica asked if anyone had any questions. Councilmember Failace asked at this point what would the Borough do. Mayor Sica said we didn't have anything do . Councilmember Failace said not until the ball people come up. Mayor Sica said we don't know exactly the footprint of the building is going to be and how much of it will extend into parking. There may be pieces in there that we may never want to foot his business. You aren't going to put his business next to the tanks. There is going to be some kind of a buffer there, perhaps more economical to put a buffer there would be a light industrial (inaudible) rather than trees He questioned no one would see the trees but the tanks. He said we might as well get taxes rrom it so he thinks we should just hold off. Torn Watkinson asked if he wanted to hold off on this. Mayor Sica said yes. Tom Watkinson questioned if they should sit on this for a couple of years........ Mayor Sica said rrom what he understands they will be ready to move in December. Tom Watkinson said that is his feeling after meeting with them. Mayor Sica said they have a lot of money invested in this things. Tom Watkinson said they have their staff....... they have their consultants all on board working on it. They are very close to the DEP for getting their proofs for their closure ofthe landfill. Mayor Sica said so everything is moving but they are not going to say okay we are going to do this piece, this piece and this piece until they tell us what pieces they are going to specifically use for what they are going to specifically use it for. Then he thanked Tom Watkinson. 4 1 1 L 5 . -, ;;:/}f~""'", First Reading - Amending Fire Subcode Fees - Industrial Tanks. Mayor Sica said the next one he wants to hold for Executive Session and Harold wants to address the Council. Public Hearing - #96-22 Amending Salary Ordinance #71-9, Re: Mayor's AidelInsurance CoordinatorlUEZ Duties. Directing Issuance of Various Raffle Licenses. Award of Bid - Fuel Oil Award of Bid Gasoline Authorizing Rebid - Diesel Authorizing Re-advertisement of Property Auction, 3 Sharot Street. Approving ABC Transfer rrom Carteret Mall Liquors, Inc. to Sheenali, Inc. Approving ABC Transfer from Discount Liquors to A TMlY A, Inc. Appointing School Crossing Guards for 1996-1997 School Year. Budget Insertion - $16,764.00 from Municipal Alliance Program. Budget Insertion - $251,153.00 rrom Nursing Services, Non-Public Schools. Property Tax Cancellation. Clerk's Office - August 1996. Fire - July 1996. Carteret Volunteer Fire Department #1- Approval of new members, Roberto Tokeshi and Gerard Holland. NJ Planning Commission - Resolution clarifying the status and standing of the State Development and Redevelopment Plan. Washington Twp. & Twp. of East Windsor - Resolutions encouraging legislators to review school busing limits. Woodbridge Twp. Ordinance creating a Woodbridge Redevelopment Agency, Public Hearing - 9/3/96. Monroe Twp. - Mayor Sica interrupted asking to go back to the prior Communication. He told the Clerk to remind him that he thinks that someone should go to the Public Hearing. He said a lot of the redevelopment that they are talking about is the Port Reading Track. AUGUST 29, 1996 ORDINANCES RESOWITOOS lllilû<15 APPLICATIOOS aHtUNlCATIOOS AUGUST 29, 1996 <XHIUNICATIOOS Continued MATIERS FOR DISCUSSIOO ----- Mayor Sica said they put Island Transportation in there at one time and they could care less that all those trucks had to come through Carteret. We got the problemS and they got the tax ratables. They put Path Mark in up there. No trucks go through Woodbridge. All the trucks come through Carteret. They got the taxes and we got the problems. He said he has been trying to work with them on this Industrial Road. Parmar has talked and talked to them about sitting down and get going That we have out money ready. He commented that it has fallen on deaf ears over there. He thinks every member of our Council should attend the Woodbridge Meeting and tell them if they want cooperation they have to start giving cooperation, if they want the Industrial Road. Councilmember Failace said most of that stuff is going to corne through us........whatever they do. Mayor Sica said he had no problem with them doing that as long as we can put the next piece of the Industrial Road in because that is going to help us, but, they have to start moving. He said we want to go there as a Council and know what they are going to do and we want to have part and part in saying what it is. Monroe Twp. - Resolution in opposition to S-193, exempting municipal & governrnent owned facilities from the 25 temporary ABC permit limitation. Maser, Sosinski & Associates - Notification of application to the NJ DEP for improvements, Re: Arthur Kill Waterfront Facility. Borough of Medford Lakes - Resolution objecting to 60 Minutes coverage of League of Municipalities Convention. Mayor Sica asked if they covered it already or they want to cover it. The Clerk and Councilmember Failace said they did a long time ago Mayor Sica asked if they said it was a bunch of _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and then he agreed with them that it was and said to take it off he didn't want to hear about it. Joe Schiappa Esq. - Requesting authorization to waive variance application fees, 127-129 Markowitz Street. Resolution put on for this. NJ DOP - a) Certification of Eligibles for Appointment - Assessing Aide Provisional is Lisandro Villalba. A Resolution will be done. The Clerk said he is the only one on the list. 6 '--. BUSINESS TO BE ADDED: 1 Councilmember O'Brien - He said Dauman recently applied for expansion of one of their property. He said he would like to put on a resolution requesting the investigation ofDauman just to make sure any problems they have had in the past had been cleared up. That there is nothing going on down there. Mayor Sica said he thinks if they have gone to Middlesex County they have gone through that already. They couldn't get it rrom the Department of Solid Waste unless all of that was done. He said they better go into Closed Session, especially with litigation. Councilmernber Failace said the VFW has now come up with a complaint about there being no porto-johns for the kids playing baseball and the kids are trying to use their bathroom. 1 Mayor Sica said they can't put a porto-john in there because they will have to have a cop there twenty four hours a day. They will tip them over again. Until we get the Sports Complex built everyone has to work along with them. He then said he wanted to start tearing the buildings down over there so they can start building. He then said he was told Mr. DuPont and Gutowski went to the newspapers saying that there is oil tanks over there in the ground and they are waiting for him to take them out so they can report him to DEP. He said if he takes the oil tanks out he will take them out legally and secondly he might not even take them out and tell them Councilrnember Failace built the building. Councilmember Failace said he didn't think that was their contention. Mayor Sica said everyone all over town has been told that he would sneak over and take out the oil tanks. He is going to ask, when it is his turn, that a resolution be put on that we demand an investigation of how those gas stations were purchased by the Democratic Council with the tanks put in the ground. Councilmember Failace said somebody called him at home about a pit bull dog. He asked how he should handle it. Mayor Sica told him to call the Health Board. Councilmember Failace said in reference to the properties in the Library. He made a few calls and he wanted to see if there is anything he could do on this plowing down the wetlands and so forth because he understands that these fines are astronomical. L Mayor Sica said he came up with a map the other day of the Industrial Road being put in and it shows conclusively that there was a drainage line there that tied into our sewer line that dumped it into the river. Councilmember Failace commented that it was not wetlands. AUGUST 29, 1996 BUSINESS 10 BE ADDED Daunan Sports Canplex Pit Bull Dog Wetlan1s AUGUST 29, 1996 Wetlanls Continued Counci1member Fazekas noted Absent Oil Tanks ~-~~, Mayor Sica said that is correct. When they put the Industrial Road in they took it out and it shows that they were supposed to put it back in and they didn't put it back in. Councilmember Failace asked what was our next step. Mayor Sica said we are not ready for it anyway. He said we will go out for bids in two (2) weeks and then what we have already applied for a hearing. Plus if you at the thing out there you \vill see that there is a lake proposed there so that could be the wetlands, so he is not worried about ..... '- Councilmember Failace asked if we could trade it off Attorney Hedesh asked if they could go into Closed Session. He said he don't want to discuss a legal strategy. Vi " Councilmember Failace said he just wanted to get it on record that we are not doing anything illegal. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said she gave the Clerk two (2) more lists for certificates for softball. Councilmember Vesey said he gave the Clerk a couple of names to make a couple of switches in Departments. William Kolibas Jr. will go rrom Streets and Roads to the Police Department and Mr. Majors into Streets and Roads. He said William Kolibas Sr. has a suggestion about making Louis Street a one way. Mayor Sica said no way, that it would cause chaos. At approximately 7:42 p.m., Councilmember Fazekas was noted absent. Mayor Sica told the Clerk to look in the files at the purchase of the property. He wants to see how it was purchased and the tanks were left in the ground like that. Councilmember Failace asked if it was the gas stations. Mayor Sica said yes. He said somebody is going to pay for that. Attorney Hedesh asked what year that was. Mayor Sica said he thought it was in the early 1970's before 1976 when he was a Councilman. 8 J L Mayor Sica said he remembers they paid Mandelbaum a ton of money for one (I) acre and Turkey owned one acre over there and paid $1.00 for it and the Democrats paid them a hundred thousand dollars for that thing. Councilmember Failace said it was reasonable. Mayor Sica commented it was reasonable He told Attorney Hedesh he wants to get that whole file together so if they want to play games with tanks he will show them where the money got robbed all those years. He said actually on the deed it said it was purchased for $1. 00 six (6) months before he sold it to the city ofCarteret for $100,000.00. He commented that it was a rip off and a payoff and you will see people running for cover when he explains who owned it. Attorney Hedesh told the Clerk they had to address a letter He said the court rules have changed and everybody is getting really nervous about this. It has to do with Frivolous Complaints. There is a rule called Rule ll, which says if you file a complaint we sanction. Mayor Sica said the lawyer should be sanctioned. Attorney Hedesh said the first place that was actually sanctioned was Woodbridge in the sewer case. Mayor Sica agreed. Attorney Hedesh said now what they have done is they take Number II and put (inaudible) as of Monday. He said there should be a policy that we are going to put on notice that on down the line the Insurance Company will be able to rely on that notice. He said he would want a resolution but we need a policy. Mayor Sica asked why not put a resolution so all they have to do is look at it and say this is what we are going to do. He asked if he knew how long he fought for this. Attorney Hedesh said in one of our cases he had a motion out for last Friday but the other attorneys on the defense side were on vacation. After that we moved to the 13th, which is after the official ruling. He commented that they opposed his judgment to Summary Motion. Mayor Sica said we have so many law suits that we have no business being in. He said if something happens in the school they name us . We have no control over the schools. We put them on notice......either take us out of there or we will file a Rule II against them. Attorney Hedesh said that is the ones that everybody is worried about, the kind that you put the County in with the town. Counciimember Failace said the lawyers are the ones that said to sue everybody. 9 AUGUST 29, 1996 ,Oil Tanks Continued Frivolous Canplaints AUGUST 29, 1996 Hill Bowl License Liquor License Fees .., Mayor Sica said because they figure the more people in the pot if everybody contributes a little bit it is a whole lot. Attorney Hedesh said we need a resolution to retire the Hill Bowl License. This was the license that was taken for taxes. It was returned to us and we are going to try to retire it. He talked to the state and suggested that they let us auction the license off Whatever the Borough makes on the auction license, we will just take out the initial license fee and pay to the state the taxes on it...... Mayor Sica said they said no....... Attorney Hedesh said so if you make $2500.00 that is $2500.00 more than you have now because they put up auction and getting it (inaudible) now. Well the owner of this is trying to reactivate all of a sudden. He had the lawyer call him. He said to take his fee and make sure he gets paid . He told him to trust him and not take it on a contingency. He said but legally we have to retire the license. Mayor Sica said to retire it because they are not going to let us sell it (inaudible) unless we retire it. Attorney Hedesh said his proposal is that we just got the licensing fee and let them have the money. Mayor Sica said to let them just retire it . We have enough of gin mills. Councilmember Failace asked what was their contention. Attorney Hedesh said because the Department of Treasury is owed taxes. The Attorney General's Office is the one that went to the D.O.P and it is like the DEP fighting with the Treasury, you can't get them off.. He said the D.O.P. says here is the license, there is a lien on the license. The two (inaudible) fight. The D.O.P. will not agree to let the taxation be (inaudible) Mayor Sica said so we retire it, the State can't do nothing. We don't want the license anyway. Attorney Hedesh said the Clerk gave him something the other day and he gave it to one of them at the Council Meeting because he got tired of reading it. It was about license fees. Weare lowest liquor license fees by thousands of dollars in Middlesex County and this whole general area. Mayor Sica said it doesn't do us a bit of good now to do it until next year. He thinks in January of next year we can raise the fee because then it can be incorporated into our budget. He said we would only gain peanuts rrom it now. He told the Clerk to make the notation that at the first of the year to review raising the Liquor License Fees because then it can be incorporated in that budget and can be used in that budget. 10 "'~a.:t Mayor Sica said otherwise it is just going to hurt the little guys for no reason. The more licenses we take out the more valuable the existing license becomes and the more business they make, so the more they should pay. 1 Attorney Hedesh asked Counciimember Fazekas if someone could get him an answer on this Fire Truck. Councilmember Fazekas asked him if that was the one he got an estimate on. l Attorney Hedesh said he did not get an estimate. Our Superintendent got an estimate and it was right at the first of the year. He went to where we told him, he wanted to do it. He negotiated the settlement. for all the repairs he made plus leaving this without a release so anything, the rrame was bent or something like that it is open. The only thing with negotiating is there is a nick on the window, he wants to redo the side window, they said we will bump it out, if in fact we don't bump it out then......this is now at least March. He didn't want to do it because when they called in the repair people they said they can't do it until the summer time. He called them back and told them they don't want to do it. He said he didn't care if he is fired for doing these things. It is his responsibility to do it. He said he was going to go. He said he will negotiate the settlement with the insurance company so that if you get the repairs paid for, then who does them is irrelevant to him as long as it is done right. So now the insurance company is waiting two (2) months to get paid, they won't pay us and he cannot get a release. So now we are at the end of the summer and the insurance company is still calling. Mayor Sica told the Clerk to tell Mr. Greenberg to call Attorney Hedesh and get this thing straightened out. This is money that we could be having in the bank. Attorney Hedesh then spoke on a COREGlS letter they got. He said this is the one where the people bought a house in 1988. The Clerk said it was Fonseca. Attorney Hedesh said then they sold the house in February and they were saying that Ralph De Francesco and his department made them make certain repairs so they sued the Borough saying that in 1988 somebody should have done something when they bought the house. He said this is under our deductible. He just filed a motion to get it dismissed and it has been. L At approximately 8:05 p.m., Councilmember Fazekas was noted present. AUGUST 29, 1996 Liquor License Fees Contimed Fire Truck Fonseca Counci1member Fazekas noted present ,UGUST 29,. 1996 .Qrortm ~OO 4J.96-240 Closed Session Adopted ADJOURNED 10 CLOSED SESSlOO OFm SESSlOO ADJOURNED Councilmember Feingold said he read in the paper that you have to have a certain amount of Councilpeople for a quorum and you don't count the Mayor. Attorney Hedesh said he read it too and he said the law is different in that it is in a City Form of Government. RESOLUTION #96-240 was introduced by the Mayor and Council for action. Upon MMS&C, by Councilmembers Vesey and Bialowarczuk RESOLUTION #96- 240 'RESOLUTION TO GO INTO CLOSED SESSION was adopted. Upon individual roll call vote, Councilmembers Bialowarczuk, Failace, Fazekas, Feingold, O'Brien and Vesey voted in the affirmative. At approximately 8:00 p.m., a Closed Session was held At approximately 8:29 p.m., upon MMS&C, by Councilmembers Failace and Bialowarczuk and unanimous affirmative vote of the five (5) Councilmembers present this meeting was opened to the public. A motion to adjourn was made by Councilmember Bialowarczuk and second by Councilmember Vesey. At approximately 8:30 p.m., after no further discussion, this meeting was adjourned. Respectfully submitted, ~(;,~~ífY Municipal Clerk - KMB/lr .. - - -- ..- - - --- --. -- - .--- -- -.. --- -- -- - -- -- --- -- -- - ------ -- ----- -- - -- ---- 12