The Jersey City Municipal Council held a caucus meeting on March 24, 2026, from 4:06 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Eight council members were present (Council President Ridley absent). The meeting covered department reports, resolutions, ordinances, and appointments. No public comments were taken. Key items included emergency temporary appropriations, affordable housing trust fund dedication, public safety updates, infrastructure projects, and reappointment of the HEDC director.
All right, good afternoon, everyone. We're about to get started. If we can find our seats, silence our cell phones, close the back door, side doors. I greatly appreciate it. Test. Clear. Hi. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. This is a municipal council caucus meeting. We had a scheduled 4 p.m. start. The clock on my cell phone is showing 406. PM may I have a roll call for the commencement of this meeting, Councilperson Brooks. Present. Councilperson Zupa. Councilperson Efros. Present. Council person Little. Present. Council President Pro Temp Gilmore. Present. Councilperson Singh. Present. Councilperson Griffin. Present. And Councilperson Levaro. Here. Council President Ridley will be absent for the meeting. So we have eight council members in attendance at 4.06 p.m. And in accordance with New Jersey laws, pamphlet laws, 1975, Chapter 231, the Alban Public Meetings Act, also known as the Sunshine Law. Adequate notice of this meeting was provided by email or to um by electronic to the Bergen record and also the El Specialito. In addition, and assigned its preparation, the agenda of this meeting was similarly disseminated on Friday March 20th, 2026 at 9.05 p.m. To the mayor, business administrator, municipal council, and published in the newspaper. So we are so I can certify as our total compliance with the sunshine law. So I'm gonna turn the meeting over to our council president pro temp Gilmore. Thank you, Sean. The first speaker, uh first presenter finance cow. Good afternoon, council. I have uh three items for the finance department. I will start with 10.1 resolution 2612. This is a resolution authorizing emergency temporary appropriations for calendar 2026. Uh this is just an extension of our temporary budget while we continue to work with the state and the mayor's office and the business administrator on putting together uh final budget to bring the council for introduction. Uh the total appropriations here will be 423 million, which is 53 percent of what our prior year final appropriations were. But the idea here is to fund us through the end of June. Uh what we did on the salaries and wages is we took the current projections through the last pay period, projected that out through June. Um other expense items for contracts. We did some outreach to the department directors to see what they may need to uh extend existing contracts or come to council for new awards. And on the other end, there are debt service obligations that we need to account for and some statutory obligations as well, such as pension payments and contributions uh that are due April 1st. So if there's anything particular, uh the council has questions on, there is a memo provided as well, which highlights uh the methodology that was used uh by the budget officer in preparing this and some of the contracts uh that we are requesting funding for alternatively.