[0:02] Uh, roll call, please.
[0:03] Mr. Lerner.
[0:04] Here.
[0:04] Ms. Dolan.
[0:05] Here.
[0:05] Mrs. Jeffrey.
[0:06] Here.
[0:07] Mayor Morgan.
[0:07] Here.
[0:08] Mr. Kamisky.
[0:09] Here.
[0:10] Mrs. McKnight.
[0:11] Here.
[0:11] Mr. Gardner.
[0:12] Here.
[0:13] Let's salute the flag.
[0:14] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
[0:20] and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with
[0:26] liberty and justice for all.
[0:28] This is a public meeting of the Borough Council of New Providence, County of Union,
[0:31] State of New Jersey, and proper notice has been given in accordance with P.L.
[0:35] 1975, Chapter 231, with the annual notice of revision to the act.
[0:41] Okay.
[0:44] We have a presentation from Chief Sidner Bell about amending ordinances.
[0:53] All right. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, Mayor and Council.
[0:55] Thank you for having me tonight. It is a wet one out there, and it has been quite a
[1:00] day.
[1:02] It has.
[1:02] But so tonight I'm here to present a presentation regarding
[1:08] our ordinance revision proposal for Chapter 51 and 155, which I'll
[1:14] explain in some detail here. So I have a few slides to go through.
[1:18] Please, if you have any questions, feel free to stop me.
[1:20] I'm happy to answer whenever I can. So without further ado, I'll go right into it.
[1:26] Just a little bit of background on why I'm here and why we're proposing this.
[1:29] So, this has kind of been a multi-year journey.
[1:33] It started under my predecessor before I became chief, with the fire officers at
[1:38] the time. We had a recognition that we needed to start to evaluate and put
[1:44] together some type of plan for the sustainability of our volunteer fire department
[1:49] for the future years to come. Traditional recruiting campaigns
[1:54] are steady but slow. It is getting more difficult. This is a national problem.
[1:59] This is not a New Providence problem.
[2:00] Volunteerism is on the decline, and it is harder in all agencies
[2:07] to have that pipeline that once was.
[2:09] So we started to evaluate different options that departments have looked at or have
[2:14] implemented both in New Jersey and nationally.
[2:19] And we kind of found certain ones check certain boxes, other ones check others, but
[2:23] nothing was really our fit. And we finally found it in a department close by
[2:29] that had successfully implemented a plan with similar challenges that we did.
[2:33] They were probably six to seven years into their journey at that point.
[2:38] And this plan, once we met with them, we quickly discovered that it checked all our
[2:42] boxes. So we pursued it more, we researched more, we met with them
[2:47] further, and then we started to design it around New Providence.
[2:52] I don't want to say it was perfectly plug and play.
[2:54] Every plan has its differences that fit us the best.
[2:58] But like I said, this checked all the boxes, and then we began to design it and
[3:03] present it to the Public Safety Committee as we saw best fit for the borough.
[3:07] So fast-forward from 2025 to 2026, we've gone through multiple revisions, multiple
[3:12] research, multiple presentations with public safety to get it in a good place where
[3:17] we feel comfortable with our proposal to the greater council here tonight on these
[3:21] proposed changes in a way to sustain the fire department for the future.
[3:27] So a little bit of background for the fire department, and I've paralleled on the
[3:31] slides. I could have made it bigger, I admit but under the Fire Department and
[3:35] Bureau of Fire Prevention coinciding to the ordinance changes.
[3:38] So you have Chapter 51 and you have Chapter 155 are the two ordinance proposed
[3:42] changes in front of you. On the operations side, that is what everybody probably
[3:48] knows and recognizes with the fire department.
[3:51] That is our 100% volunteer fire department providing 24/7 fire and rescue services
[3:57] to the borough and neighboring communities. We have all hazards capability.
[4:01] We have a team of fire officers and dedicated volunteer personnel that dedicate an
[4:06] incredible amount of time and effort to making sure that the community is safe.
[4:10] And we cover all those in the final bullet there under operations.
[4:13] We cover all those areas. What's lesser known is under Chapter 155, which
[4:19] governs the Bureau of Fire Prevention, which is a bureau within the fire
[4:22] department. So these are related to code enforcement and enforcing that code from
[4:28] the uniform fire code within New Jersey as well as the borough ordinances that we
[4:32] have. So that code basically covers all occupancies other than one or two-family,
[4:38] owner-occupied, single-family dwellings.
[4:42] So anything else is covered and enforced within that bureau.
[4:47] As well as public education, and you'll hear me say community risk reduction a lot
[4:51] tonight. That is another major piece that this bureau is intention on doing.
[4:58] So why are we here? Why are we here and going back to the slide I just presented,
[5:03] keep both of those areas in mind as I start to get into our current and emerging
[5:07] challenges within the fire department because a lot of the high-level topics are
[5:13] applied to both areas. So it's no secret that the borough has increased
[5:18] development. We're seeing increased multiple housing dwellings, multiple housing
[5:23] units come aboard here in New Providence. We know we have plans for more.
[5:27] And with that, there's just general growing demand.
[5:30] Not only are these developments coming into New Providence, but they are more
[5:34] complex developments. We have multi-story apartment buildings.
[5:38] We have healthcare facilities, and quite frankly, we have healthcare facilities
[5:41] within multiple story apartment buildings.
[5:44] Any area of the code that can be covered is certainly seen in the developments
[5:48] we've seen in the past 10, 15 years.
[5:51] So once again, that comes to our growing demand and increasing requirements both on
[5:55] the Bureau of Fire Prevention and the Fire Department side.
[5:58] It takes 325 to 350 hours to get a volunteer through the door through basic fire
[6:03] one and two at this point. It's an incredible amount of time it takes just to get
[6:08] to that point. And then you have fire officer requirements that are coming through
[6:12] the state. You have continuing education courses that are now required on both the
[6:17] bureau and the fire department side. So there's more training.
[6:20] All the challenges that are pretty well documented nationally on the fire service
[6:26] we're feeling very much. So with all of these current and emerging challenges, we
[6:32] basically have the same volunteer fire department, more or less, that we've had for
[6:36] the past 125 years.
[6:39] Fire prevention resources, very similar.
[6:42] They have operated under the same bandwidth of personnel for probably the past 20
[6:47] to 25 years. So our supply is what it
[6:52] is, and our demand continues to grow year after year.
[6:57] And that was our recognition that it's just not sustainable.
[7:01] You have two arrows going in opposite directions, it becomes unsustainable after a
[7:04] time. So we're looking, and that's why we evaluated from a proactive posture, an
[7:10] option to preserve our volunteer fire department.
[7:15] So like I said, we have a strong foundation, but it becomes difficult to sustain.
[7:20] I have an incredible core group of volunteers here that are giving it their all.
[7:25] They are giving every moment they have away from their jobs and their families and
[7:29] all that life throws at us in the current age to this department.
[7:33] But like I said, they reach a ceiling and the demand continues to exceed it.
[7:38] So again, we're trying to mitigate against both our current and future demands and
[7:43] a future crisis by putting a proactive solution in place.
[7:49] Choosing to not do a proactive solution is certainly an option, but the reactive
[7:53] options, as you could imagine, become disruptive to the community and frankly much
[7:58] more expensive and cost prohibitive than the plan we have proposed through these
[8:04] ordinances. So that is something that needs to be known.
[8:09] That reactive is a different choice.
[8:14] And this is all about just putting in a bullet there, responsible and proactive
[8:18] investment to preserve the volunteer fire department.
[8:21] I think if there's one key takeaway, it's that we want to preserve what we have.
[8:25] We just need to augment it a little bit with some strategic investment.
[8:32] Okay, so fire off more challenges.
[8:34] I've talked about some of these, but I do want to go into a few of them.
[8:37] Fire officer succession challenges.
[8:40] So what does that mean in the bandwidth for administrative responsibilities?
[8:43] I kind of touched on that earlier, that the administrative responsibilities when it
[8:47] comes to reporting and plan reviews and all the things that we're required as fire
[8:53] officers to accomplish for the operations of the fire department is increasing.
[8:58] And to get someone now through training, so get a volunteer in the door now, get
[9:04] them through training, now get them experienced after a few years.
[9:08] Now ask them to take on more as a volunteer from a fire officer perspective.
[9:13] Teach them that, get them experience in that.
[9:16] It takes many years, and our succession challenges are becoming very apparent to us
[9:21] as our officers continue to meet and discuss and evaluate these options.
[9:26] And incident volume with broader incident types.
[9:28] I talked about being that all hazard agency.
[9:32] It's no secret, we're going to floods, we're going to fires, we're going to gas
[9:37] leaks. Everything is increasing, and when you need help, most of the time
[9:43] it's falling to the fire department, frankly, when you think about some of those
[9:47] non-mundane calls. So,
[9:51] our daytime volume is specifically our weekday daytime volume is our busiest time.
[9:57] So, I do have a metric about that. I looked at incidents per weekly hour.
[10:03] So basically, what I did was I took, you think about your 9:00 to 5:00, 40-hour
[10:07] workweek. You look at that block of time, and then you look at all others, nights
[10:12] and weekends. And you say, how many incidents in the past four or five years have
[10:16] we done in those two blocks of time?
[10:18] And what it has yielded is we're doing about 21 incidents per weekly hour in our
[10:23] 9:00 to 5:00 period, if you will, and we're doing about 13 incidents per hour in
[10:28] the nights and weekends period block of time.
[10:31] So that metric is directly showing us that we are busiest during our most
[10:37] challenging manpower periods of weekday daytime.
[10:41] And then general call volume. For 10-year period, we're up 59% from 2015 to
[10:46] 2025. That is significant, and it was approximately 12% in the 10-year period from
[10:52] 2005 to 2015. So, it is no secret that we are a busier department,
[10:58] and it used to be the volunteer fire department does, oh, a call a day, seven calls
[11:03] a week, or something like that. I mean, we've just did four today alone, and we're
[11:08] on September 1st. So, we are a busier department, and we are busier during our
[11:13] challenging times. So parallel to that, what about the Fire Prevention Bureau?
[11:18] Where are their deficiencies? It's the same thing. It's their nature of their work.
[11:24] They have an increased workload because of these complex occupancies.
[11:27] There's more code to enforce. They're bigger buildings.
[11:29] There's more people living in there.
[11:31] There are higher life hazards,
[11:34] and yet they're operating basically with the same staffing over the past 25 years.
[11:39] And, I talked about community risk reduction.
[11:43] I would speak a little bit in detail on that.
[11:46] We've had to suspend or reevaluate some public safety programs.
[11:50] We used to help older adults with fire prevention reviews and emergency planning of
[11:56] their homes. One of my elementary school memories is the fire department
[12:02] coming and doing fire prevention week.
[12:05] We've had to scale that back to just doing a weekend open house for people to come
[12:08] to us because the bandwidth has gotten incredibly hard, and the people that were
[12:12] once involved and had maybe some of that bandwidth to do that have moved on.
[12:18] And so, that community outreach is important to us.
[12:20] We value ourselves as a community partner, and when we have to come short or
[12:24] augment that in different ways, it becomes challenging.
[12:29] And I think most importantly, the third bullet here, lacking ability to pre-plan.
[12:34] Complex environments that I've talked about and complex occupancies, we need to
[12:39] know from fire department perspective how to go in and manage an incident in those
[12:44] areas. If there's a fire on the seventh floor, the fifth floor, the underground
[12:47] parking garage below grade, whatever the incident may be, maybe it's not a fire,
[12:51] maybe it's some type of medical assist or gas leak or anything, that all hazards
[12:56] approach. That requires pre-planning.
[12:58] And that takes an incredible amount of bandwidth and something that makes the
[13:02] community safer and the fire department safer, our volunteers safer.
[13:05] And, we're struggling to do that, and we want to do that for all of the reasons
[13:11] I just discussed. And I talked about the increasing training responsibility on the
[13:15] previous slide, with the hours and continuing education.
[13:21] So, I've outlined the challenges. Now it's the how. What is our proposed plan?
[13:25] So like I said, we want to preserve the volunteer fire department by investing in
[13:29] administrative bandwidth to just catch up to where we're falling short and then
[13:34] become proactive in our operations.
[13:37] So, the investment in the Fire Prevention Bureau is to expand the workforce, to add
[13:42] hours and inspectors, to be able to accomplish all of the things that I've talked
[13:47] about that were in areas that were falling short for that bureau.
[13:52] And then synergizing that bureau back to the fire department.
[13:58] We want those fire prevention inspectors that are volunteers of our volunteer fire
[14:03] department to be working in New Providence doing fire prevention inspection
[14:07] activities. And when there is a call during the weekday in our challenging time, we
[14:12] want them to be able to drop and go volunteer with us.
[14:16] We want to synergize these two departments to make it safer and improve public
[14:20] safety. So, this allows us a new operational foundation.
[14:26] If we're able to synergize these two pieces, we start fresh, and we're able to
[14:30] scale. And I think that is another extremely important part of this, is that our
[14:36] community will continue to grow. It will continue to get complex in different ways.
[14:40] We hear from you at various meetings about planning board applications and what's
[14:45] coming and how things will change.
[14:46] Like every one of those applications and approvals, they affect the fire
[14:50] department. They affect all of public safety in some way, shape, or form.
[14:54] So as we continue with this plan in place, as we continue to see that, we will
[14:58] scale to that. We will be able to adopt this plan to scale to those challenges and
[15:02] those changes. So, what is our investment, and how are we doing this?
[15:07] So, we're combining investment responsibilities for revenue generation to minimize
[15:12] our taxpayer impact on this plan. And then we have the investment measures.
[15:16] So, I'll talk a little bit about the left side of the slide in revenue to support
[15:20] the investment. So, easy low-hanging fruit, we're going to update our inspection
[15:25] fees. We did some research on surrounding municipalities that have updated their
[15:30] inspection fees in recent years, and we have a benchmark, and we're looking to
[15:34] bring our inspection fees up to that benchmark.
[15:37] And we're expanding our inspections with a multiple unit dwelling program.
[15:42] And when I say multiple unit dwelling, I mean apartment-style complexes,
[15:48] where we're going to do a more thorough inspection within these units and within
[15:52] these complexes, so we ensure that these
[15:57] complexes are compliant to code and that we're doing it thoroughly for the safety
[16:02] of the residents within and the volunteers that may be called to answer an incident
[16:08] there. And on the fire department side, the billing, we have various billing
[16:14] options as part of this plan. So, insurance billing for motor vehicle accidents.
[16:20] And I'm going to kind of group one and two because the reason for billing, and even
[16:24] three, the reason for billing under the first three, so motor vehicle accidents,
[16:28] hazardous material incidents, and other large-scale cost recovery.
[16:32] Hazardous incidents, car accidents, they require a decent amount of manpower,
[16:36] resources, and equipment. There's a price to that for us to bring that back and
[16:42] restore that once we return from a call from both a personnel and equipment
[16:47] standpoint. So, we're looking to start, which is not uncommon within Union County
[16:52] and the state of New Jersey,
[16:55] billing insurance companies just like the tow company would bill an insurance
[17:00] company, just like various other agencies will bill for the cost of doing service
[17:05] to an incident. ... hazardous material even greater, right? It requires resources.
[17:10] They're usually larger incidents or longer duration events, and that would be a
[17:16] cost recovery option for us to generate some revenue as well.
[17:20] And large incident, that could be something more of a commercial basis.
[17:24] They're kind of synonymous, typically to hazardous material incidents, but it is a
[17:27] catch-all for other things, again, using bandwidth resource, both personnel,
[17:32] equipment, and some of our consumables as well.
[17:36] And reoccurring nuisance alarm billing.
[17:39] There needs to be accountability for property owners that neglect systems,
[17:45] that if we're going back to an address for the same issue, that could easily be
[17:50] fixed by just addressing that issue. That's a burden on our volunteers.
[17:54] It's a burden on the bureau and the taxpayer.
[17:57] Going out every time that fire truck rolls out the door, there's a cost to that,
[18:00] right? So, under certain conditions, nuisance alarms will be enforced by the code,
[18:05] and we will be able to bill in cost recovery to that.
[18:09] What I want to make sure is clear on the billing side is that this is not turning
[18:15] into a
[18:16] billing service for residents. We are not going to start going out to single-family
[18:21] dwellings for fire alarms or for fires or any incidents for people in our community
[18:26] and hand them an invoice two days later. That is not what this is about.
[18:30] This is strategic revenue-generating activity that we feel is best suited to
[18:36] offset some of the investments that we want to make.
[18:39] So, what are the investment measures, right?
[18:41] So there's three main components to this.
[18:43] One and two have to do with the Bureau of Fire Prevention, right?
[18:46] Like I spoke about, increase the amount of fire inspectors and their hours to
[18:50] address our personnel challenges and our fire prevention challenges, right?
[18:54] By having these fire prevention inspectors within the bureau and having the fire
[18:58] official the bandwidth to implement components of this proposed plan and the
[19:03] revenue generation components of this proposed plan, we now have more volunteers
[19:08] available to handle incidents during our most challenging times, because the
[19:12] working hours for fire prevention inspectors are going to be during those times.
[19:17] And then the appointment of a full-time chief of department is the third investment
[19:21] measure that we would take as part of these proposed ordinances.
[19:24] And this addresses basically everything that I've talked about in challenges,
[19:29] right? It's personnel. It's another volunteer that's here to answer the call during
[19:33] weekday hours. It's taking all of that administrative responsibility that is
[19:38] currently spread among all the fire officers, and it's bringing it up to that
[19:42] appointed full-time chief of department to handle, and it allows the other fire
[19:46] officers to focus on training our members and training themselves to make a more
[19:51] efficient and safer fire department, right?
[19:54] All of my officers, we get so caught up in the administrative duties just to keep
[19:59] up, that sometimes you neglect the things that you shouldn't, right?
[20:01] Just to keep up with deadlines and things that you have to.
[20:05] We want to reorganize that, and we want to be able to put our people in a good
[20:09] position with that.
[20:12] Just a-
[20:13] Yeah.
[20:14] Under the,
[20:17] you talk about expanding inspections within multi-unit dwellings.
[20:20] Mm-hmm.
[20:21] I believe there is a state mandate on those inspections. Is there like a minimum...
[20:26] Sorry, Alan.
[20:28] You talked about
[20:31] expanding inspections for multi-unit dwellings, right?
[20:33] Mm-hmm.
[20:33] Is there a state mandate? Is there a minimum amount of inspections?
[20:39] And if the answer is yes to that, just expand a little bit on what you mean by
[20:44] expanding those inspections.
[20:45] Sure. So right now within the fire code, the enforcing agency, the
[20:51] local enforcing agency, which is our Bureau of Fire Prevention, under that code,
[20:56] they should be going into the apartments.
[20:59] The code encourages that they review all of the dwelling units within that
[21:04] apartment complex. Right? Now, under our current state, there's no way that our
[21:10] current bandwidth and labor force within the Bureau of Fire Prevention could cover
[21:14] that in addition to all the other needs, right?
[21:16] We've already talked about stuff that they've had to scale back, never mind trying
[21:19] to cover that. So it does allow that, and we want to bring that back to allow for
[21:24] the hours to be there for the increase in inspectors.
[21:28] And then part of the ordinance proposal is actually creating that cyclical time,
[21:33] right? So I think we set it at, for multiple unit dwellings specifically, it would
[21:38] be every 24 months. Right? So our ordinance sets the frequency, and that's part of
[21:44] the proposal within that. I think that hopefully that answered your question.
[21:47] I think what you're really saying is that there is so much high
[21:52] density going to be built in the next five years,
[21:57] we don't have the capacity to do all this unless we make these changes.
[22:02] And I do want to be proactive in this, because we're seeing it, I've seen it time
[22:07] and time again. Things aren't done until it becomes a problem.
[22:13] I want to get ahead of a problem. And we look right at where the Boyd property is.
[22:19] There's 192 extra units right there.
[22:25] And I don't know how long it takes for an inspection, but I got to think it's about
[22:31] a half hour.
[22:32] Yeah. And I'm glad that you actually brought that complex up because, we haven't
[22:37] even taken that complex on, right?
[22:39] Right.
[22:39] They just started occupying this year.
[22:41] But next year, that now falls to the other side of the code book.
[22:45] That's going to fall to the Bureau of Fire Prevention to handle.
[22:47] So right off the bat, 192 units that they now need to support, Bureau of Fire
[22:52] Prevention now needs to support.
[22:53] And I was just notified today that
[22:58] 121 Chanlin over there and up on 100 Mountain,
[23:03] that they're looking to start construction, so-
[23:09] Mm-hmm. Now it's-
[23:12] We've had this discussion.
[23:13] Yeah. No, it's the reality. And that-
[23:16] And we,
[23:17] I understand we have to do something, and I think that your plan that you
[23:23] stole from Scotch Plains is probably the best one.
[23:27] Collaborated.
[23:28] Collaborated. Thank you.
[23:30] You know what? You don't have to
[23:34] remake the wheel.
[23:35] We created it.
[23:36] And
[23:38] now I know John, you and Vinnie have been looking throughout the country, looking
[23:43] for hybrids.
[23:44] Mm-hmm.
[23:44] And, we're trying to find the most cost-effective way to do it and
[23:50] still maintain service.
[23:53] How long has Scotch Plains been implementing this new program?
[23:57] I would say they're probably coming up on eight or nine years at this point.
[24:01] Have you spoken to them about any sort of hiccups or bumps in the road from this?
[24:06] Yeah. So when we initially met with them on their journey through this, which is
[24:10] not exactly the same as our journey, but like I said, it's parallel enough that it
[24:15] checked all our boxes. We actually questioned them on what we
[24:20] anticipated were maybe some hiccups, right?
[24:22] Like how will a property owner react to a multiple dwelling program like that?
[24:28] We would assume that there's a cost incurred to that, that probably no one likes
[24:33] increased costs, right? And honestly, they came back and said in some cases they
[24:39] actually prefer it because you're offsetting CCOs and there's a whole science to
[24:43] that, that is a little bit beyond the scope of this discussion right now.
[24:47] But they're used to it in other municipalities, right?
[24:50] This is not something that is just done there.
[24:53] It's done in typically larger city or urban environments already, that they may
[24:58] have properties in that they're used to, and they have a way of working within
[25:01] that, that they're already used to. So they say, "Oh, okay.
[25:05] That's similar to our other property in another municipality."
[25:08] So it's a win-win for everybody.
[25:09] Yeah.
[25:09] What I also like is that you're bringing up the insurance companies.
[25:13] Everybody else is billing.
[25:14] Mm-hmm.
[25:15] They're charging the insurance companies for the labor that you have to provide.
[25:21] I know rescue squads do it all the time.
[25:23] Mm-hmm.
[25:24] If you're not, New Providence Rescue Squad doesn't charge anything, but everybody
[25:30] else does, and they take a certain rate.
[25:33] So, unfortunately, it's a cost of doing
[25:39] business. And my main focus has to be the
[25:44] safety of our people in town.
[25:48] Mm-hmm.
[25:48] And these inspections have to be done in a timely manner.
[25:52] And it's not something that you can just shy away.
[25:55] And the mandates that come down are so much greater than they were 20
[26:01] years ago. So I really appreciate you going out there and doing your due diligence.
[26:08] And looking at all the options.
[26:10] Mm-hmm.
[26:11] John, have you thought about how many fire inspectors
[26:17] you would need?
[26:17] Yeah. So
[26:19] as part of the proposal, we've started to look at how would we... Oh, sorry.
[26:24] No, I'm sorry. Microphone.
[26:26] I was going to just so that Alan can hear me.
[26:29] Oh, sure.
[26:30] I asked about how many fire inspectors we would need.
[26:33] Yeah. No, that's a great question.
[26:34] So what we've started to do as part of the workforce plan, and that would be built
[26:38] into the implementation of this proposal, is take a look at how many hours we're
[26:44] doing now, right? And then kind of, all right, where's that bridge, right?
[26:47] And I do want to say that there's ramp-up time to this.
[26:50] If we do decide to move forward with this plan as a governing body, you decide to
[26:54] move forward with this plan as a governing body, it's not going to happen at the
[26:58] click of a finger. We expect a 12 to 18-month implementation time, right, for fee
[27:03] cycling and to get more inspectors trained and up.
[27:07] It's going to take time, but we believe we can phase in those hours, right?
[27:12] And it's more about the total hours as kind of a pot that we have, that we can then
[27:17] look at what workforce we're able to hire, right?
[27:20] So we may have a tier of an inspector may
[27:26] be employed to do an eight-hour a week tier, or a 16-hour a week tier, or a
[27:30] four-hour a week tier. And we're still kind of figuring out those details, but
[27:33] that's where we feel that the workforce plan is heading to be able to, again,
[27:37] accomplish the goals of fire prevention in their increased scope, but also
[27:42] volunteer.
[27:43] Mm-hmm. And is this position something that sort of already
[27:49] exists, or is it something that's going to be kind of created?
[27:52] Because it sounds-
[27:52] The fire prevention inspector?
[27:53] Yeah, it sounds like-
[27:54] No
[27:54] ... it's part inspector, part firefighter, part admin, part-
[27:58] No. The fire inspector is a current role that the bureau currently has.
[28:02] And they do all of these things?
[28:04] Yeah. They are currently inspectors of the bureau enforcing the code.
[28:07] They have an inspection schedule.
[28:09] They're under the auspice of the fire official, right, who's the administrative
[28:14] oversight and authority, which is also a position currently in the Bureau of Fire
[28:19] Prevention that oversees them. And they go out, and they enforce the code currently
[28:23] in our business. It is operating under that now.
[28:26] We're just increasing that, and we want to increase that with volunteers of the
[28:29] department so they're able to answer calls.
[28:30] And add the billing aspect.
[28:32] What was that?
[28:33] And add the billing aspect too.
[28:34] Yeah, the billing, a lot of the billing I spoke to with the motor vehicle accident
[28:38] stuff, that's really more on the fire department side, right?
[28:42] Billing for motor vehicle accidents is not found in the fire code.
[28:44] That is something of a revenue-generating activity that we're looking to, again,
[28:49] augment the investment options of this plan, rather than passing that burden onto
[28:54] the taxpayer in a certain fashion.
[28:56] John, did you say, what is our current number of inspectors that we have now?
[29:00] We currently have one fire official and two fire inspectors.
[29:04] And that's a lot considering all those units.
[29:06] Yeah.
[29:06] Yeah. And in addition to, we were just talking about the 192 units, that doesn't
[29:12] include the common areas you also have to inspect.
[29:15] That's correct.
[29:15] So it's all the units. So think about the two big apartment buildings that are up
[29:19] at Bard. You have to do all those units in there, plus the common area.
[29:23] And there's a lot of common area for those big buildings.
[29:25] Under this proposed plan, yes, that would be-
[29:27] It's a lot
[29:27] ... it would be both. And right now, the bandwidth allows for them to do the common
[29:31] areas, which is obviously one of the most important parts, right?
[29:34] Yeah.
[29:34] Yeah, that's where I was going with the-
[29:35] Exactly
[29:36] ... when you mentioned you were expanding it, that's where I was going was kind of-
[29:39] The multiple unit dwelling part is the expansion.
[29:42] The common areas is really what they're accomplishing now.
[29:44] Right. And if you could, I'm just kind of looking ahead a little bit and-
[29:48] Sure
[29:48] ... I'm sure you were going to touch on this, but just want to mention,
[29:53] what's the difference between going fully paid versus
[29:59] staying volunteer, and what would be the ramifications of staying volunteer
[30:05] in our existing state? So those are two of the things that we could kind of touch
[30:09] on. And again, I know you kind of have some benefits at the end here, but.
[30:14] Yeah. So if I understand your question, it's more of where would we get to if we-
[30:20] So let's start with this.
[30:20] Yeah.
[30:21] What is the difference if we had to go, and I know you know this, so don't answer.
[30:27] I'd like them to answer for me. What's the difference of going to a paid
[30:33] system, right?
[30:33] From a financial perspective?
[30:35] Yeah. He knows the answer because you're talking.
[30:37] Are you talking about the fire chief specifically?
[30:40] No, no. So-
[30:41] You're talking about fire department.
[30:43] We can start, let's back up a second.
[30:45] Yeah.
[30:45] Okay. Let's talk about currently we're in a volunteer state.
[30:48] Mm-hmm.
[30:49] Fully.
[30:49] Mm-hmm.
[30:50] And if we stay in this volunteer state, okay, you're foreseeing a lot of
[30:56] issues with the department and being able to do that. So I want to touch on that.
[31:01] Mm-hmm.
[31:01] And from that,
[31:03] switching to this hybrid, which is what we're talking about now.
[31:06] Mm-hmm.
[31:07] And then compare to if we don't, and if we can't stay as a volunteer, and we have
[31:11] to go fully paid department-wide.
[31:15] Mm-hmm.
[31:15] Right? What does that mean? So I just want to make sure that that's something that
[31:18] we touch on. So I know Al's talked about this, we've talked about this from an
[31:23] administrative perspective, but I really think it's important to mention those
[31:26] things.
[31:27] Yeah. So, if we choose to stay fully volunteer and maybe not
[31:33] implement this plan, right, I think that our challenges will continue to diminish
[31:39] the integrity of the volunteer fire department, right?
[31:41] The burnout that we're feeling at the officer level and at the volunteer level, and
[31:47] the call volume will continue to go up.
[31:48] That all those challenges that I've outlined are just going to keep layering on
[31:53] each other and exponentially compound to where we're in a reactive state where the
[31:58] bureau will need to make a decision, right? So now jumping to the next one, right?
[32:02] Going to this plan, we stop, we make strategic investment on this plan.
[32:08] We recreate our foundation with our volunteer fire department, right?
[32:12] We just augment them to feel less burned out by taking some of that administrative
[32:16] off. We create a way to do it while increasing public safety, right, with all the
[32:21] measures of the bureau, and we do it at a very cost-efficient,
[32:26] revenue-generating to offset vehicle.
[32:30] Mm-hmm.
[32:31] Fully paid, right, or more of a paid option is a seven-figure number probably.
[32:38] So that is something that would be a taxpayer burden.
[32:43] That's what it would be.
[32:46] You're going to be hiring a numerous amount of firefighters for a numerous amount
[32:50] of shifts.
[32:50] Mm-hmm.
[32:51] And the administrative personnel anyway to implement that plan.
[32:58] But that price tag is-
[33:00] Exponentially higher
[33:02] ... exponentially higher. Yeah.
[33:04] Perfect. Thank you.
[33:05] So could you give us that number again, the percentage for call volume increase
[33:10] over the last 10 years?
[33:12] 59%.
[33:12] 59%. So, this is
[33:17] in response to an incredible increase in call volume.
[33:21] Mm-hmm.
[33:21] It is the fiscally responsible thing to do. It is the proactive thing to do.
[33:25] But the thing that, and one of your chiefs mentioned this to me, and that I can't
[33:30] get away from, is the people who volunteer for this department, they want to
[33:34] volunteer to help people. These are people who volunteer to run into burning
[33:39] buildings, right? They don't volunteer for the administrative overhead.
[33:43] So what I love about this plan is that it puts the administrative tasks on paid
[33:49] staff, and it lets the volunteers do what they signed up to do.
[33:53] Exactly. Exactly. Very well said.
[33:57] John, you want to add?
[33:58] I think it shut down on me. Yeah.
[34:01] You shut it down?
[34:02] Yeah. It shut down.
[34:02] We got the gist.
[34:05] That was the final slide. It was up there in the slide.
[34:07] That's what.
[34:09] Actually, my final slide was thank you, and I was going to use my 10, 15 minutes of
[34:13] fame. I had the NPFD recruiting email address, and that we are accepting
[34:18] applications for volunteers. So that was actually my final slide.
[34:21] I was going to use my moment of fame for-
[34:23] NPFDrecruiting@gmail.com.
[34:25] That is it, yes.
[34:26] Yep.
[34:28] Everybody's been wondering, we had a serious fire today.
[34:32] We did.
[34:34] Can you just give us a little background on what happened?
[34:37] Sure.
[34:38] Because I know they have questions.
[34:41] Yeah, sure. So earlier today at around 9:30, I don't remember the exact time off my
[34:46] head, it's been quite a day. I'll say around 9:30 AM this morning, we were alerted
[34:51] for a commercial structure fire at a downtown business.
[34:56] Myself and Deputy Chief Naso were on scene within the first four minutes, confirmed
[35:00] a working fire, and transmitted what we call a second alarm, which brings in
[35:04] numerous neighboring communities.
[35:06] We had a heavy smoke condition on the first and second floor of that building.
[35:10] Our volunteers during the weekday went in, stretched a line, and knocked the fire
[35:14] down and contained it to the general area of origin.
[35:18] And with the augmented help of neighboring communities such as Summit and Berkeley
[35:21] Heights and Chatham Township and Springfield and Scotch Plains,
[35:27] I think I got almost all of them that.
[35:29] We were able to complete the phases of the fire, knocking down the fire, doing
[35:33] searches, ventilation, investigative, and that was our morning this morning.
[35:39] That's amazing.
[35:39] There were no-
[35:40] Talk about mutual aid, right?
[35:41] Yeah.
[35:41] Yes. Every department needs it. Every department-
[35:44] Yeah
[35:44] ... has it in place, and we were fortunate there was no injuries to civilians or
[35:49] firefighters.
[35:50] Well, thank you, John.
[35:52] Thank you.
[35:52] And I want to thank all the firefighters here. You do an incredible job.
[35:57] Sure do.
[35:58] Like I said, when it comes to public safety, I trust myself and my family with all
[36:03] of you. So thank you so much.
[36:05] Thank you. Well, I appreciate it.
[36:06] Great job today.
[36:07] Thank you.
[36:08] Thank you. Thank you for that.
[36:08] Thanks, John.
[36:10] I want to say thank you as well. As a matter of fact, just to add a little personal
[36:13] story, last week,
[36:17] the fire department was at my house at 4:00 in the morning.
[36:21] Nice.
[36:21] I had woken up to smoke in the house, and we had a steam generator that just went
[36:27] off in the middle of the night, and
[36:30] thank God we were home and my wife smelled it, because if we weren't, the house
[36:33] probably would've burned down. But we called 911.
[36:35] They were there right away, very professional.
[36:38] We found the issue, researched the issue, and it wasn't like, "Ah, it's just this.
[36:43] You guys, you're fine. Let's go home." No, it was, "Let's open up the steam
[36:48] generator. Let's look in the wall.
[36:49] Let's make sure there's no issues." And they're just very thorough.
[36:53] And here's the thing that people just don't understand.
[36:57] It's 4:30 in the morning on Wednesday. I'm exhausted.
[37:01] I'm like, "Gonna get up and go to work." These guys got to get up and go to work,
[37:05] too, right? So, to your point, Al, I trust them with my life because I've had to
[37:11] use them on multiple occasions, unfortunately, when a car crashed in my house a
[37:14] couple years ago, right? I see Cap back there. He's one of the first guys on scene.
[37:19] And he went away and went up 50%.
[37:21] Yeah.
[37:22] Yeah.
[37:22] He's like, "I'm not driving. I just live there."
[37:25] He was at Mrs. Kominsky's house.
[37:27] But these guys, he's a teacher in town, and-
[37:31] He is, yeah
[37:31] ... he's at my house at 2:00 in the morning.
[37:32] So, I couldn't appreciate you guys more than anything in the world, and I do want
[37:36] to thank you for everything you've done for my family, for sure. So, appreciate it.
[37:42] Well, that's part of the trick, right?
[37:43] Not only is the call volume up, but the technical complexity of what they have to
[37:47] deal with-
[37:48] Right
[37:48] ... is just huge. I think you said the other day, back in 1985, there were 18-ish
[37:53] different types of calls, and now there's 120-some-odd types of calls.
[37:57] Just in terms of types of things that they have to deal with, it's just crazy, the
[38:02] technical complexity.
[38:02] They don't even want to tell you about hazmat.
[38:05] No.
[38:06] That's a whole thing in itself.
[38:07] Yeah.
[38:08] So.
[38:09] John, quick question around the training that you guys go through.
[38:13] You talk about,
[38:15] is it a year one, year two, or level one, level two, something like that?
[38:20] Yeah.
[38:20] Is that overseen at the state level, or are those federal firefighter requirements?
[38:25] The short answer is it's overseen at the state level, right?
[38:29] The state division of fire safety sets training and certification requirements, and
[38:34] then those are passed down through curriculum to the county fire academies, which
[38:37] is predominantly where we go, various county fire academies, to actually execute
[38:43] the training for our members.
[38:44] Mm-hmm. And has the number of hours required to complete these training programs
[38:50] increased over the years as well?
[38:51] Yes, significantly. Like I said, basic Firefighter 1, which is Firefighter 101 for
[38:57] lack of a better term, is up to, I believe, around 200 and something hours now.
[39:03] I feel like when I did it, it was 100 something. So, it is pretty expansive.
[39:07] And again, it goes to Brian's point.
[39:09] There's more in the curriculum because there's more to accomplish, and there's more
[39:12] to respond to now.
[39:14] Right.
[39:14] Different safety measures, building construction, different types of construction
[39:18] materials, synthetic material that, all these safety and thinking things and
[39:22] incident command structures that are now built into the curriculum.
[39:27] It adds up very quickly from an hours perspective.
[39:29] Sure. Yeah, so anybody who's considering volunteering, it's making a big
[39:33] commitment. Not only a personal commitment to promoting
[39:39] public safety on their behalf, but also the time and effort to get trained in-
[39:45] Yeah
[39:45] ... the business of firefighting.
[39:45] I equate it to basically going back to college for a semester, right?
[39:49] Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay.
[39:50] That's pretty much what it equates to.
[39:52] So, it's very important when you've made that investment to get the training that
[39:56] you find a way to retain these employees.
[39:59] Yes. Exactly, because they've invested a lot in us, and we've invested a lot in
[40:02] them, and retention is probably one of, that's a future challenge that we want to,
[40:06] again, have that operational foundation as part of this plan to address those
[40:10] challenges, whatever they may be in the future.
[40:13] But recruitment and retention, which were once seen as the same, are now very
[40:18] different, complex challenges.
[40:20] Mm-hmm. And you mentioned that you've kind of touched on this idea within the
[40:25] department-
[40:26] Mm-hmm
[40:27] ... and it's being favorably received?
[40:29] Yes, it was favorably received. We did bring this to the department prior.
[40:33] Okay.
[40:33] Mm-hmm.
[40:34] Thank you. Good job.
[40:35] Thank you.
[40:35] You said something about a tax credit for some of the volunteers.
[40:40] Yeah, there are some tax credit things in different states.
[40:43] It's not so much seen in the state of New Jersey.
[40:45] I would say New York State has a program towards that.
[40:50] I believe they're actually looking to refine it.
[40:52] I don't know the specifics off the top of my head related to what they're looking
[40:55] to bring it to, but there are different credits and stipend.
[41:01] There are tons of different ways that different-- People have gotten creative,
[41:04] right? Because-
[41:05] Yeah
[41:05] ... there's an open book on this. There is no pre-plan, if you will, to the right
[41:09] answer. So, numerous departments around the country-
[41:12] We're one of the first ones who adopt the LOSAT program.
[41:15] Yeah, LOSAT is-
[41:17] For you in the rescue squad.
[41:18] Mm-hmm.
[41:18] John, at some point, no jury duty.
[41:21] No jury duty, for example.
[41:24] That's a big one.
[41:24] It's one of the only benefits left on the list.
[41:25] LErecruiting@gmail.com.
[41:28] Thank you.
[41:29] Thank you, John.
[41:30] Thank you.
[41:30] Thank you, John. Well done.
[41:36] Okay.
[41:36] Good job, Brian.
[41:38] We have ordinance 2610. Please read the title.
[41:43] An ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 257 of the code of the Borough of
[41:48] New Providence, entitled Vehicles and Traffic.
[41:52] What this is, is
[41:54] adopting more handicap parking down by Oakwood Park, by the playground.
[42:00] And
[42:02] I think we need it. We saw all the people there wheelie-cutty today.
[42:05] It was unbelievable. So,
[42:08] anybody wishing to address council on this ordinance, this ordinance only.
[42:14] Seeing no-one, I declare the public hearing closed. Roll call, please.
[42:19] I just get a motion, too.
[42:21] So moved.
[42:22] I'll second.
[42:25] Mr. Lerner?
[42:26] Aye.
[42:26] Ms. Dolan?
[42:27] Yes.
[42:28] Mrs. Jeffrey? Mr. Kominsky?
[42:30] Aye.
[42:30] Mrs. McKnight?
[42:31] Yes.
[42:32] Mr. Gardner?
[42:32] Yes.
[42:34] Okay, need approval of minutes of August 11th, please.
[42:38] So moved.
[42:39] Second.
[42:41] Al, can I just ask one question? About the temporary parking restrictions that
[42:45] were, I guess, on Park Place in Oakwood. Are those signs going to be removed?
[42:50] They're not temporary.
[42:51] Not temporary.
[42:51] So, well, it says you can't park on Saturdays, so that will remain?
[42:57] Okay.
[42:58] Yeah, just to give you-
[43:00] We'll get Dr. Kominsky
[43:00] ... Well, just to give you feedback.
[43:02] We used to have exit on Passaic for our DPW, but Union County came in and said no
[43:08] more exiting there. So now all of our DPW, anybody in and out, has to go through
[43:13] Park Place. So, the street's not wide enough.
[43:16] Okay.
[43:17] I know where you're going. I still have the same thing.
[43:19] It's like we have a beautiful park.
[43:21] It's going to be very, very crowded, especially on Saturday mornings.
[43:26] I'm talking Oakwood.
[43:27] It's
[43:29] an inclusive park.
[43:32] And we've made parking only for playground at that section.
[43:38] There's like seven spots, believe, there.
[43:39] Plus now this-
[43:41] Sure
[43:41] ... spot. So hopefully people that aren't using the fields won't park there, right?
[43:45] They'll leave that open for the playgrounds. But yeah, it's tough.
[43:49] And I was kind of fighting that one as well originally because it's going to be a
[43:54] crowded park, which we hope, right?
[43:56] Mm-hmm.
[43:57] But at the end of the day, if you drive on that street, if you park on the street
[44:01] and are driving down the street, you can't get out.
[44:04] Mm-hmm.
[44:04] So I kind of had to let that one go.
[44:06] Yeah.
[44:08] Okay.
[44:10] Correspondence from Assemblyman Alex Saucy.
[44:16] I have another one for New Jersey League of Municipalities, a audit report.
[44:21] A fire department resignation for Grayson Budish.
[44:25] Board of Adjustment hearing for 18 Porter Place.
[44:29] New Jersey Transportation Safe Routes to Schools, and Providence Fire
[44:35] Department
[44:37] resignation letter for Hunter Riley.
[44:41] About this time of the year, a lot of the juniors that were in there, they
[44:47] put in resignations-
[44:48] They're gone
[44:48] ... to go back to college.
[44:52] Any comments?
[44:53] No.
[44:54] Seeing none. We'll go to council business. Nadine.
[44:57] Thank you, Mayor. Administration, so Resolution 2026-294
[45:03] is a resolution approving requisition R2601790 for
[45:09] KC Sign & Awnings in an amount not to exceed
[45:13] $8,395
[45:17] for municipal annex sign, through the co-op. Number 24, 25 through 38.
[45:23] So if anybody was here last meeting, we had this resolution on for the
[45:29] sign, which we had discussed, and we were not comfortable with the price.
[45:33] So thankfully, our administration and our building department got back together and
[45:39] came up with this alternative. We're not losing any value on the sign, but we got a
[45:44] much better price for it. So again, we're very responsible with the budget and
[45:49] trying to make sure that we handle this budget like it's our own.
[45:53] So thank you to the administration and the building department for that.
[45:58] Okay. Affordable housing, Nadine.
[46:01] Okey-dokey. Resolution 2026-295 is a resolution of the Borough of New
[46:07] Providence, County of Union, State of New Jersey, endorsing the amended Housing
[46:12] Element and Fair Share Plan. So this resolution is a formal approval
[46:17] endorsement of the latest version of the borough's affordable housing plan that
[46:22] preserves the borough's ability to revise it if the final court or settlement
[46:27] determination reduces the borough's 201 unit obligation.
[46:32] So just something that we need to do to continue the process of round four.
[46:37] Okay. Community activities, Matt.
[46:44] Resolution 296 is a resolution appointing Ingrid Rowe as part-time program
[46:49] coordinator for the Community Activities Department for the Borough of New
[46:51] Providence. So we are hiring Ingrid as a part-time coordinator, and she's a
[46:56] replacement for a recent retiree.
[47:00] So we want to welcome Ingrid to one of the best recreation departments in
[47:06] all of Union County, if not New Jersey.
[47:11] Number two and three, we have an authorization to solicit proposals for basketball
[47:16] instruction services and an authorization to solicit proposals for bus
[47:21] transportation services.
[47:27] Our basketball program is actually very, very good. It sells out every time.
[47:33] And of course, we need our bus transportation for all of our
[47:39] team venture camps and other activities and things of that nature.
[47:42] So
[47:44] good luck to Allison with those.
[47:47] You might as well keep on going with engineering.
[47:50] Okay. Engineering is an authorization to bid NJDOT Maple Street
[47:56] Phase 2 improvement project. As you know, the Maple Street project we've been
[48:01] discussing for quite some time. We received a grant from NJDOT
[48:08] to improve Maple Street from
[48:12] Mountain Avenue to Central Avenue, and
[48:17] we have designed
[48:21] some improvements on that road over the last couple of years.
[48:25] We've worked with residents to make those improvements
[48:30] as best we can in terms of their impact.
[48:36] And our plans have been approved by NJDOT, so now we are able to go out to bid.
[48:43] And that
[48:45] grant was required, just so everyone's aware, to be
[48:50] bid by the end of October of 2026, and that is after two six-month
[48:55] extensions. So the timeline on that will be this authorization
[49:01] will probably go out to bid in early October for approval mid-October.
[49:09] Okay. Resolution 297 is a resolution approving requisition
[49:14] R2601894 for Argent Contracting Company for HVAC
[49:20] replacement at the municipal annex in an amount not to exceed
[49:23] $18,708.91. And the
[49:30] police moved into the annex. I went over there as they were moving in, and their
[49:34] windows and doors were open, and I was like, "You guys have all these windows and
[49:38] doors open as you're moving in because you didn't feel like opening them and
[49:40] closing them? It's hot in here." And they said, "No, the AC broke." So this is a
[49:46] replacement for that.
[49:49] And that's it.
[49:50] Okay. Finance, Lisa.
[49:53] Thank you, Mayor. We have Resolution 298.
[49:56] It's a resolution providing for the insertion of any special item of revenue in the
[50:02] 2026 budget pursuant of NJSA 48-4-87,
[50:08] Chapter 159, PL 1948. This is the National Opioid Settlement.
[50:14] As you know, we've been getting
[50:19] small stipends from this settlement through the course of the year.
[50:23] So this is an additional one for $2,819.86.
[50:29] We have Resolution 299, which is the resolution authorizing payments of the
[50:34] attached bills payable list. The total amount is
[50:37] $7,502,296.31. Some of the more
[50:43] significant items are Union County for
[50:46] $3,825,248 for the third
[50:52] quarter 2026 purpose tax and open space.
[50:58] We have the New Providence Board of Education for $1,589,392.
[51:04] This is the September school tax levy.
[51:08] Ben Shafer for $565,060. That's for Oakwood Park.
[51:14] Horizon Healthcare, $170,133 is our August healthcare bill.
[51:21] The New Providence Library for $119,967.
[51:25] That is their September appropriation.
[51:28] We have CRT Contracting for $53,225, and that is for the
[51:34] EMS roof repairs, and then Suburban Disposal for $50,500,
[51:40] and that is our July garbage bill.
[51:43] Okay.
[51:44] Just because you mentioned Oakwood, the $500,000 sounds like a lot for Oakwood, but
[51:47] that was grant money.
[51:48] Grant money, yeah.
[51:49] And we're getting that check-
[51:51] We have to pay it out to get it back.
[51:52] We have to pay it, and then we get it back.
[51:53] In and out, but that was Oakwood Park definitely got a lot of
[51:59] grant funding, for sure.
[52:01] Yep.
[52:01] Yeah. Okay. Resolution 300 is appointing crossing
[52:07] guards at a rate of $25 per hour starting September 1st
[52:12] to December 31st.
[52:17] Ordinance 11 and 12 are repealing the
[52:25] Chapter 51 of the fire code, and the other one is Chapter 155, which we just all
[52:31] went over. So
[52:35] we'll go to
[52:38] committee reports.
[52:41] Just want to say that the police department made a great
[52:46] move. The roll-in,
[52:50] still a few boxes to unpack. It'll take them a while, but there was no disruption
[52:56] in service, and they seem pretty happy over there right now.
[53:01] So I was very happy about that, and I want everybody to realize
[53:07] that Academy Street now will be one way from Elkwood
[53:13] Avenue to Springfield Avenue
[53:17] So, I saw a couple people turning in and then turning around today, but
[53:24] the police are monitoring it, and they just want to educate people
[53:29] first. But they couldn't start today because of the threat of rain, so they'll be
[53:35] doing it when they get a dry day. So that's there.
[53:40] On stormwater, I just want to tell everybody that the pipes
[53:46] over at Maple Street have been cleaned up by New Jersey Transit, and that they're
[53:51] expected to... Did they put the grates in yet?
[53:54] Not yet.
[53:54] I didn't think so, because it's too wet.
[53:58] But they're putting up the grates, and with the grates there, it'll be a lot easier
[54:05] to clean. So hopefully that'll take care of a lot of that.
[54:09] Paul Hughes is still going around and mapping out pipes, and
[54:15] so far, so good. With the rain that's come through, we haven't had any major
[54:21] flooding. So close. Yeah, that one, that was pretty close.
[54:26] But I take a look at the other part of the county and the state.
[54:31] They're getting hammered. I mean, Linden and Elizabeth, and
[54:37] Hoboken and all of that. It was funny,
[54:42] Bernadette shot me an article. There's 21 towns,
[54:49] cities in New Jersey that have combined sanitary sewer
[54:55] and stormwater sewer. So when those towns flood, when they get
[55:01] a backup, they're getting sewage water now.
[55:04] Ugh.
[55:07] Yeah. So when we get a backup like that, it's
[55:13] rainwater. But they're getting sewage water, Elizabeth, Linden, all them.
[55:19] So, I
[55:22] don't know how they get away with that, how DEP lets them get away with that, but I
[55:27] thought it was an interesting article.
[55:29] And the other thing is with all this high-density housing coming in,
[55:35] it's going to be a lot worse. So-
[55:38] So is it safe to say
[55:41] that we're not done with our improvements-
[55:47] No
[55:47] ... but the improvements that we have done and the focus that we have put on it
[55:52] over the last year have made improvements?
[55:55] Yes.
[55:57] Okay, good.
[55:57] You really don't know until you get that rain where you get-
[56:02] We've had a lot of rain
[56:02] ... six inches of water
[56:06] in, what, two hours? I don't think anything's going to hold back.
[56:11] And I think that's what we're seeing all through the state.
[56:13] So-
[56:14] That way, it doesn't-
[56:15] It's been a tough summer.
[56:17] We've got a lot of rain, but I don't think we've had rain like we had-
[56:19] No
[56:19] ... last year in July.
[56:21] We've been very lucky.
[56:22] Yes, we have.
[56:22] Because we're getting, like tonight, we got some heavy rain, but then
[56:28] it went through fast.
[56:29] It subsides fast.
[56:30] So once it stops, the water recedes very quickly.
[56:35] So,
[56:37] yeah. But I know surrounding municipalities have been flooded out.
[56:42] Yeah.
[56:43] So hopefully that the work that we've done so far has at least
[56:49] made a difference.
[56:50] Yeah. A lot of good progress. More to go, but a lot of good progress.
[56:53] Well, I said it. It's going to take 20 years.
[56:55] Yeah.
[56:55] Yeah.
[56:56] So, okay.
[56:57] It's a project.
[56:58] Alan?
[57:00] Well, we're wrapping up the summer, so not really too much.
[57:04] We have our Board of Health meeting tomorrow.
[57:06] I guess the most exciting thing is Recycle Fall for
[57:12] 2026 is September 27th. That'll be in the community pool parking lot from 9:00 to
[57:17] 2:00, last drop-off is 12:00. And that's really all I have.
[57:22] I did want to say, school is going to be starting on Thursday, so be
[57:27] mindful. There's going to be a lot more precious cargo on the road, and good luck
[57:33] to everyone with their new year of school.
[57:35] Yeah.
[57:36] Eveline.
[57:38] Thank you, Mayor. The Diversity Committee had pretty much a hiatus this summer.
[57:44] Part of that was due to the departure of our co-chairs.
[57:47] We had two co-chairs, who one of them
[57:51] actually moved out of New Providence, and the other one has a family issue.
[57:55] But we are going to persevere. We have a good core group.
[58:00] And we'll just be regrouping and supporting local events through the remainder of
[58:04] the year. If you're interested in joining the Diversity Committee, of course, we're
[58:08] always looking for volunteers. So you can just go to the website, newprov.us, and
[58:13] search volunteer advisory committees, and you'll find a link to the volunteer
[58:17] application there. So we definitely encourage you to do that if you're interested.
[58:22] The New Providence Municipal Alliance is starting back up after they basically keep
[58:27] in sync with their meetings with the school year.
[58:30] Their first meeting will be Wednesday, September 9th at 7:00 PM in the Lincoln Room
[58:34] here in the Municipal Building. Again, this is a good volunteer opportunity.
[58:39] This group focuses on supporting substance use and abuse education and awareness
[58:46] activities throughout the school year.
[58:48] New Providence Community Pool,
[58:51] happy to say, I think they had a wonderful summer.
[58:53] They had an increase in membership from the previous year.
[58:58] And the weather cooperated. It was a very nice, warm, hot summer,
[59:04] encouraging people to go to the pool.
[59:06] So I want to thank the pool board and their summer help for making this a
[59:09] successful year.
[59:12] The Historical Society just celebrated its 60th anniversary in August.
[59:17] They do need a new treasurer, so
[59:21] it's probably not such a difficult job right now with all the apps that are out
[59:26] there to manage the budget. But if that's something that you would be interested in
[59:31] supporting, they could definitely use your help.
[59:33] So again, you can go to their website or their Facebook page, New Providence
[59:39] Historical Society, to connect with them.
[59:42] We have initiated negotiations for contract renewals for both the DPW and the
[59:47] police department.
[59:49] So we expect that to move ahead as anticipated.
[59:55] And then just in terms of the Stormwater Task Force, just to emphasize that it is
[1:00:00] important as now leaves are starting to fall a little bit and people are
[1:00:05] doing their fall cleanup, just make sure that the storm drain
[1:00:11] that's near your house is cleared of any debris,
[1:00:15] and get it up off of the street. Because these kinds of rains, they come down
[1:00:19] heavy, and the debris starts to move pretty quickly towards the storm drains.
[1:00:24] And it's
[1:00:27] just an easy five-minute thing for you to go and check that before we have storms
[1:00:30] like this. That's it. Thank you.
[1:00:34] Thank you.
[1:00:34] Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Pretty much the same.
[1:00:36] A lot of the committees are going to be teeing back up now that the school year is
[1:00:39] teeing up. One of which is the Mental Health Committee.
[1:00:43] So we are on September the 1st today, and September is Suicide Prevention Awareness
[1:00:49] Month. We don't have anything planned as a committee.
[1:00:53] But we will be participating or encouraging people to participate in
[1:00:59] Berkeley Heights. They are doing the Kimberly and Wilson 5K.
[1:01:05] The Wilson Foundation has been very instrumental in our Mental Health Awareness
[1:01:08] Month. They're the ones who purchased the big banners that go across this, Lead the
[1:01:13] Way. So I know the committee will be participating in that, and we encourage
[1:01:17] residents to as well. We'll put a flyer up with the video.
[1:01:21] It's on September 20th at 9:30 AM at Veterans Memorial Park.
[1:01:27] And it's really just a good time to be mindful of your
[1:01:33] mental health. It's always something important that we need to take care of, and
[1:01:36] this Suicide Prevention Month,
[1:01:39] we should just take a step back and evaluate and look around
[1:01:45] at our loved ones and make sure that everybody's doing okay.
[1:01:48] So we'll put the flyer out for that walk, and we encourage everyone to support.
[1:01:53] So more to come about mental health as we're going to be starting our meetings
[1:01:56] again. And pretty much the same with the other committees as well.
[1:02:00] So that's it for me today.
[1:02:01] Okay. John, while you're sitting there, when is Open House Fire?
[1:02:07] October 11th?
[1:02:08] Saturday, October 10th.
[1:02:10] 10th.
[1:02:10] 12:00 to 3:00 PM.
[1:02:12] Okay.
[1:02:15] Matt?
[1:02:17] Okay, so I'd like to start by just saying welcome back to Lamar.
[1:02:22] It's really nice to have you back behind the camera there.
[1:02:30] So, in regards to the PBA DPW negotiations, we did
[1:02:36] receive their first offer, and we threw it away. No, I'm kidding.
[1:02:41] We received their offer. We are reviewing.
[1:02:46] I'm new to the process here, but it was actually very interesting to sit with them
[1:02:51] and discuss,
[1:02:55] not discuss, but to go over the labor contracts that we have.
[1:03:00] And the reason why I mention it is, we just wanted to say the relationship that we
[1:03:05] do have with our PBA and our DPW is incredible.
[1:03:09] We have just great guys on our force and our DPW.
[1:03:15] And they've been working with us over the last couple of negotiations that I've
[1:03:20] been here. This is the first time I'm actually sitting at the table, but they have
[1:03:24] been very good. They have a great understanding of
[1:03:30] what it's like to live and work and play in a beautiful town like in Providence.
[1:03:35] And they do care about us, and they do care about the town.
[1:03:39] So,
[1:03:41] more to come on that. As the
[1:03:48] next sessions occur over the next couple of weeks, hopefully we can put this to bed
[1:03:53] and move forward. Ribbon cutting at Oakwood Park today.
[1:03:57] We had a really great, unbelievable turnout. It was over 100 kids, I believe.
[1:04:03] Mm-hmm.
[1:04:05] First kids to go and play on the park, and it was really neat to just walk around
[1:04:09] the park and see all the different types of slides, and the
[1:04:15] really most impressive thing is it's an inclusive park, right?
[1:04:18] So, kids in wheelchairs can access, and there's a merry-go-round that's in the
[1:04:24] ground. So,
[1:04:26] if you're in a wheelchair, you can
[1:04:29] wheel your wheelchair onto the merry-go-round, which is pretty neat.
[1:04:32] I was very surprised, to be honest, at how fast the thing turns.
[1:04:36] But,
[1:04:38] I was watching the kids on it, and the thing was flying.
[1:04:41] But, no, just-
[1:04:42] Me and Amy were talking about the old school ones where-
[1:04:45] Yeah
[1:04:46] ... they've just like, I don't know, they just grease like crazy and see how long
[1:04:49] you can hold on for.
[1:04:50] Centrifugal force is crazy.
[1:04:52] Yeah.
[1:04:52] Hold on for dear life.
[1:04:53] Yeah.
[1:04:53] Yeah, the park is beautiful. Yeah, I just wanted to mention it's open.
[1:04:58] It's open for business, so go enjoy.
[1:04:59] Hopefully,
[1:05:02] it's played on by thousands of kids for many years.
[1:05:05] And then just, Oakwood Park in general, I just want to say.
[1:05:09] We moved here 20 years ago, and Oakwood Park was just grass, and there was field
[1:05:15] goal posts and a backstop.
[1:05:19] We've come a long way in all of our parks and fields in town, and
[1:05:24] this council and councils previous have spent enormous time
[1:05:30] and effort-
[1:05:31] Mm-hmm
[1:05:31] ... with our borough officials, our recreation, and I believe that we have some of
[1:05:35] the best parks in Union County. When I coached all the
[1:05:41] kids that came to play, whether it was baseball or lacrosse,
[1:05:46] all the other coaches were always just like, "Wow, these
[1:05:50] fields are amazing. You guys really have great fields here." So, I'm really proud
[1:05:53] of that. And I just want to thank Allison, our director of recreation, as well as
[1:05:58] our previous recreation employees, our previous borough administrators,
[1:06:04] Bernadette and all her staff, this council, and all the previous councils who, like
[1:06:09] I said, over the last 10, 12 years, have really made a major effort in making our
[1:06:14] playgrounds some of the best in class.
[1:06:16] So, this playground is really just cherry on top.
[1:06:20] For sure.
[1:06:22] The police building. So, as we've been talking about, the police majority annex.
[1:06:27] So,
[1:06:29] the plans for the new police building are kind of tightening up.
[1:06:33] We're getting down to really
[1:06:36] what I was told, counting the number of outlets, so-
[1:06:42] Mm.
[1:06:42] It's getting
[1:06:44] good. Just want to remind everybody that there's a target completion for that
[1:06:48] building. It's 2028. So it's not going to be any time next year, or in eight
[1:06:53] months, or a year. It's a process. It's a brand-new building.
[1:06:57] So, it's going to take a couple of years.
[1:07:02] In regards to the academy one-way, I did want to just mention that
[1:07:07] I came out of
[1:07:12] Stop & Shop, and made a right and a left, and I didn't even think about it.
[1:07:16] Not today, but a lot of the police were moving in, and I just made this turn, and I
[1:07:19] looked, and I saw the police moving into the building, and I thought to myself,
[1:07:21] "Holy cow. I just made a left turn. I didn't even think about it." I literally
[1:07:25] didn't think about it. I just did it.
[1:07:27] And I realized how it's going to be
[1:07:31] important that people understand that that's a one-way now and you can't do that.
[1:07:36] And I'm not more concerned about people who are on Facebook or people who are on
[1:07:41] our borough website that can see the information that we've been putting out there.
[1:07:45] I'm really concerned about the kids.
[1:07:47] The 17, 18-year-old, and 19-year-old kids who aren't, or aren't paying attention.
[1:07:52] So I really, if you're hearing this message, talk to your kids.
[1:07:56] Mm-hmm.
[1:07:57] Make sure you let your kids know that you can't make that left turn, because like I
[1:08:02] said, we're going to do everything that we can to make sure visually that people
[1:08:07] don't do that. But, in the short term, just want to make sure we get that word out
[1:08:12] to those that aren't maybe seeing it on Facebook and on our website.
[1:08:17] And that's all I have. Yeah.
[1:08:20] Lisa.
[1:08:20] Am I the only one that comes from the other side of town that would be making a
[1:08:23] left onto the academy to get here tonight?
[1:08:25] Yeah, because I almost turned, and then I quickly swerved and went down Jane.
[1:08:30] But you're right, Matt, it's like an auto reflex.
[1:08:33] Easy to remember.
[1:08:34] Something that we're going to have to make an effort to remember.
[1:08:39] So,
[1:08:41] I just want to add about Oakwood Park, that even if you don't have kids or
[1:08:45] grandkids, just go check it out. It
[1:08:48] is so cool. It's so impressive, it really is.
[1:08:52] And the amount of kids that were there at 2:00 today waiting for the opening bell
[1:08:57] was amazing. It was just a fun thing to watch them whoosh-
[1:09:02] It was a stampede.
[1:09:03] Stampede into the park. It was so cool.
[1:09:06] So, just something that we should be really proud of, and we are.
[1:09:10] Other than that, I really have nothing because all of my committees and boards have
[1:09:14] been on summer hiatus.
[1:09:17] Nice.
[1:09:17] But, the work now begins again. So, stay tuned, as we say.
[1:09:23] Good. Brian.
[1:09:24] Well, no need for me to repeat what's already been said, so operation's normal.
[1:09:30] Oh, okay.
[1:09:31] Okay. Bernadette.
[1:09:33] Thank you, Mayor. Just a few things. Paving is complete for the 2026 season.
[1:09:39] We're still waiting on the stripers to come and do the stop bars, any markings that
[1:09:44] were in the street previous to paving, so they'll be probably in the borough in the
[1:09:48] next week or so. The rain is not helping.
[1:09:52] We're waiting on a timeline for the contractor for sidewalk replacement.
[1:09:55] The purchase order is in. We're just waiting for him to fit us into his schedule.
[1:10:00] The tree contractors are also in town taking down borough-owned dead trees around
[1:10:05] the culverts, parks, and neighborhoods.
[1:10:07] And last but not least, the borough invites the community to join us on Friday,
[1:10:12] September 11th, for a memorial service honoring and remembering the lives lost on
[1:10:16] September 11th. The service will begin at 6:00 PM in Centennial Park.
[1:10:21] That's all I have.
[1:10:22] Okay. At this time, we have public comments.
[1:10:25] Anybody wishing to address council, is there anyone to address?
[1:10:29] Yes,
[1:10:30] Alan.
[1:10:39] Alan Swanson, 47 Overhill Road.
[1:10:43] For anyone in the room who's not aware, didn't know that on the 28th of
[1:10:49] August, which was just last Friday, the Trump administration said that they would
[1:10:54] be filing an appeal against the June 29th ruling by the US District
[1:11:00] Court Judge Jeannette Vargas, that the
[1:11:05] President and the Department of Transportation can never remove-
[1:11:11] Can you speak louder, please?
[1:11:12] Can never-
[1:11:13] Just closer to the mic, Alan, please.
[1:11:16] Can never... I didn't hear who was talking to me.
[1:11:21] The ruling was a clarification of the Vargas ruling that
[1:11:27] became necessary with the repeated efforts of the administration to remove the
[1:11:31] funding and, as the President said, terminate the
[1:11:37] project. And without going through a lot of other information about
[1:11:43] that. I really believe it's time for the council to stand up for the citizens of
[1:11:48] New Providence and be another voice to tell the
[1:11:54] administration to drop the continuing effort
[1:11:58] to, as Trump said, terminate the largest, most important infrastructure project in
[1:12:04] the nation.
[1:12:06] So
[1:12:08] I think it's a simple thing.
[1:12:11] I would ask that you just pass a resolution that
[1:12:15] states that you're in support of the Gateway Tunnel project,
[1:12:22] and that you would hope that the administration would discontinue their
[1:12:27] efforts to, again, as Trump has made it clear, that he wants
[1:12:33] to terminate this project.
[1:12:40] So that's basically what-- And
[1:12:44] for those who bring up that it's not a political issue, or it is a political issue,
[1:12:49] it's not a political issue. There are plenty of Republicans who
[1:12:55] live along all of the New Jersey Transit lines that depend on the
[1:13:01] tunnel, and we know what happens when the tunnel is out.
[1:13:08] Sandy is the best example of that some time ago.
[1:13:12] And there have been recently a lot of troubles with the electrical systems related
[1:13:17] to New Jersey Transit. It's a separate issue, but it points to
[1:13:22] how really disruptive
[1:13:26] it can be to the economy of our state and the people
[1:13:32] here that live in this town and other towns along the routes when these
[1:13:37] disruptions occur. And so honestly,
[1:13:42] I don't get it, the notion that we need to terminate, and it is unfortunate that
[1:13:48] it appears that
[1:13:51] there are political reasons that there's been that effort.
[1:13:55] But I just would like to think that this is one issue that you could go
[1:14:01] ahead and take a stand for the citizens of the town who really
[1:14:07] rely on New Jersey Transit and are going to rely on that tunnel, and
[1:14:12] disruptions in its construction aren't going to help anything.
[1:14:15] It's not scheduled to be finished till 2035.
[1:14:20] So I'm just asking if you would just go ahead and consider that, and I would even
[1:14:26] help you write it.
[1:14:27] Thank you for your comments.
[1:14:30] Anyone else?
[1:14:32] So how would I-- No one's responding, you're just-- So then I would just note that-
[1:14:37] Well, I-
[1:14:38] ... when asked, the council would not respond to a request to support
[1:14:44] the continuation of the tunnel.
[1:14:46] I, myself, am not getting into
[1:14:49] issues with Donald Trump or Washington.
[1:14:52] I'm just talking about doing it, Alan, and I know you-
[1:14:55] This is-
[1:14:55] ... bring this stuff up all the time.
[1:14:57] I'm worried about paving our roads, getting playgrounds open.
[1:15:02] I'm worried about stormwater.
[1:15:03] So you're not worried about the tunnel not being completed?
[1:15:07] You said 2035, it's supposed to be completed.
[1:15:12] If the construction stops tomorrow, it will not be completed, ever.
[1:15:17] The construction's still underway. The construction has not stopped.
[1:15:20] There's not a stoppage in the construction. It's going.
[1:15:22] There is a point.
[1:15:23] But we're not going to-
[1:15:24] The point is that there is an appeal that is being filed by the
[1:15:29] administration to discontinue the funding.
[1:15:35] Okay.
[1:15:36] After it's discontinued, you're-
[1:15:38] Where's the appeal that says?
[1:15:39] We'll see how that goes. The construction is underway. Thank you.
[1:15:45] Yes,
[1:15:45] Rosemary.
[1:15:51] Rosemary Barnett. I prefer not to give my address, if that's okay.
[1:15:55] You can come to me after.
[1:15:56] I'm really sorry, but Alan, I don't even understand what that was about.
[1:16:02] We could sit here and go back and forth regarding any national issue, and I could
[1:16:08] ask the council how they feel about those issues.
[1:16:11] So I don't even see what the point- It's not a national issue.
[1:16:14] But this is-- Rosemary, you have to address the chair.
[1:16:18] Alan, sit down, please.
[1:16:20] I don't see the point of why these things are brought up to the council.
[1:16:25] Your job is to take care of our town.
[1:16:29] I don't give a crap about what's going on nationally.
[1:16:32] Your job is to take care of the town.
[1:16:35] It's an issue that affects- That is all we are interested in ...
[1:16:37] residents of the town. Oh, okay. But the residents of the town need to be
[1:16:40] interested in the town. They are not in control of what's going on with the federal
[1:16:45] government. How could they control that? That's not in their control.
[1:16:49] It's not a question of control. It's a question of making our voices heard.
[1:16:52] So should I sit here and ask each of you how you feel about issues that I know
[1:16:57] concern me? I'd be happy to chat about it. But that's ridiculous.
[1:17:00] That's not your job. Happy to chat with you. Your job is to take care of the town.
[1:17:04] Perfect.
[1:17:05] It's a non-issue.
[1:17:07] This is a public meeting and-
[1:17:08] You're making issues, but you're making issues out of things that aren't an issue.
[1:17:11] Why would you have people coming up here to put them on the spot about national
[1:17:17] issues that have absolutely nothing to do with them?
[1:17:20] People can say whatever they like.
[1:17:21] It's a public meeting.
[1:17:22] They can say whatever they want.
[1:17:24] Amy said thank you for your comments.
[1:17:26] That's right.
[1:17:27] And that's it.
[1:17:28] It's ludicrous. It's a waste of time.
[1:17:31] Yes, we can address it.
[1:17:32] I'm sitting here listening, I'm like, "Wow, what a waste of time."
[1:17:35] Okay.
[1:17:35] It's ludicrous. It's insulting.
[1:17:38] Sorry. That's it.
[1:17:39] That's okay, Rosemary. Thank you.
[1:17:41] Anyone else? Yes, Brian.
[1:17:47] So to the woman behind me, I don't know her name.
[1:17:49] Name and address, please.
[1:17:50] Brian Haas, 49 Bradford Street.
[1:17:54] Thank you.
[1:17:54] She complained that it was a waste of time, but one could say that her standing up
[1:17:59] and speaking was also a waste of time.
[1:18:02] So it's kind of the same thing, and it's kind of hypocritical.
[1:18:07] Yes, it is a national issue, but it does affect people in New Providence, and there
[1:18:11] are many people that feel that things that affect the residents of New Providence,
[1:18:17] that the people that represent New Providence might want to
[1:18:21] weigh in on those things.
[1:18:23] I understand what you're saying, but you have to understand, there's a lot of
[1:18:27] people in New Providence that don't feel the same way.
[1:18:30] Mm-hmm.
[1:18:31] And when we sit up here, it's a balancing act, and for us to get
[1:18:36] entangled in national issues like this, it doesn't benefit the town for
[1:18:42] us to get involved.
[1:18:45] Right.
[1:18:45] And we represent the entire community.
[1:18:49] I understand.
[1:18:50] Not just a handful that come up and don't like what Donald Trump wants.
[1:18:55] Right. A week from Friday will be the 25th anniversary-
[1:19:00] Yes
[1:19:00] ... of 9/11. That was a national tragedy.
[1:19:04] I think we all agree on that,
[1:19:06] and it affected New Providence.
[1:19:08] Yes, it did.
[1:19:09] And I think-
[1:19:10] We lost six people.
[1:19:12] Right. So these national things do affect our town.
[1:19:15] But that impacted this town directly.
[1:19:21] And I think this would impact our town directly, too, if this funding was to be
[1:19:26] delayed.
[1:19:27] But you're missing the point. Not everybody feels that way in town.
[1:19:31] Right.
[1:19:33] There's probably not everybody in town feels the same way about anything, right?
[1:19:37] There may be people that didn't like the playground, right?
[1:19:40] Well.
[1:19:41] That's not true.
[1:19:43] And there's no comparing 9/11 to New Jersey Transit. There's a very big difference.
[1:19:49] Yes, there is a big difference.
[1:19:50] Yeah.
[1:19:50] But it was a national tragedy, and it impacted New Providence.
[1:19:54] Directly.
[1:19:56] And if that tunnel doesn't get built, that will affect New Providence directly.
[1:20:01] And the construction's underway. Thank you.
[1:20:08] Anyone else?
[1:20:11] Seeing no one, I declare the public hearing closed, and let's go to formal action,
[1:20:17] items one through 12.
[1:20:19] So moved.
[1:20:20] Second, sorry. Second.
[1:20:23] Roll call, please.
[1:20:26] Mr. Lerner?
[1:20:27] Aye.
[1:20:27] Ms. Dolan?
[1:20:28] Yes.
[1:20:28] Mrs. Jeffrey?
[1:20:29] Yes.
[1:20:30] Mr. Kamisky?
[1:20:31] Aye.
[1:20:32] Mrs. McKnight?
[1:20:33] Yes.
[1:20:34] Mr. Gardner?
[1:20:34] Yes.
[1:20:37] Motion approved.
[1:20:38] So moved, second.
[1:20:39] Any favor?
[1:20:40] Yes.
[1:20:41] So said.