The Newark Municipal Council held its regular meeting on Wednesday, February 7, 2024, at 12:30 PM in the Council Chamber. The meeting included roll call (Council Member Ramos absent initially), approval of minutes, first reading of ordinances, public hearings, resolutions, and a public comment period. Key topics included tax abatements, community violence intervention grants, a dockless vehicle program, and a lengthy public comment session on lead in drinking water and a ceasefire resolution for Gaza. The Council also addressed the inadvertent broadcast of a prior executive session and moved forward with several redevelopment projects.
Several members of the public spoke during the public hearing for Ordinance 6PSF-a (20-year tax abatement for 5 Merchant Management Urban Renewal, LLC) and during the Hearing of Citizens.
Thou who has by thy might let us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray. We ask now, O eternal God, that you would bless this meeting. We ask now for your blessing that you would not only bless this meeting, but we are praying now that you would allow the agenda to be accomplished. We allow that you would we ask that you would not only bless us, bless our mayor, bless our city officials, and bless now this uh uh official meeting. We pray now that uh that as we are standing here today, that you would allow every governmental official who has been ordained by you for office to realize their purpose. We ask now that you would bless not only this city, bless our mayor and bless, oh God, those who will stand in this meeting and sit in this meeting. We ask now for your peace, for your protection, for your guidance, for your guaranteed mercy, for this and the saving, soothing name of our Savior, we pray in the name of the Lord. Amen. In accordance with New Jersey law, adequate notice of this meeting has been provided to the Star Ledger, the Jersey Journal, and the public at large, establishing the date, time, and location of this meeting. In addition, the agenda for this meeting was disseminated on February 2nd at the time of preparation and posted on the website of the City of Newark. Roll call, please. Council. Present. Present. Ray Mos. Absent. Scott Roundtree. Here, present. Silva? Here. President MacIver. Present. Just for note, Councilman Ramos will be joining us today. He's just running a few minutes behind. Council President, Council members, we are on page three of the agenda. Before we go to the agenda, I believe there is a quick comment or statement from the administration. Certainly. Good morning, Council President, Council members, Eric Pennington Business Administrator. Just wanted to address briefly what occurred with respect to the executive session yesterday. And to let the uh the public and others know that the purpose of executive session is to give the council and the administration and others involved the ability to have a confidential discussion based on either litigation, personnel, or some other emergent matter that needs to be discussed uh openly and fully at the time after the executive session when the information no longer needs to be confidential, it will be made available to the public. Uh for some reason, uh, which we will investigate. The portion of the executive session was allowed to be broadcast. Uh it appears that it was human error. We hope it was only human error and not by uh some intentional act on the part of someone who just who wanted to disrupt the uh deliberative process that goes on between administration and the council. If it is determined that there was some intentionality involved or gross negligence, the parties responsible will be held accountable. Um we can't have situations like this happen. It's unfair to the public, it's unfair to the council, and it's unfair to to the administration. Um I have spoken with the clerk's office already to uh help us determine what happened so that we can uh avoid a recurrence. Um we take this very seriously, and the issues that came out as a result of it accelerated uh information that we made available to the public. We wanted to be deliberate and make sure that we had appropriate information fully between the council and the administration before we made more information uh public. We have, of course, had a press conference uh yesterday led by the mayor, uh the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the Director of our Water and Sewer, Karim Adim, uh, to make the public aware that there were uh some I think three led service lines that were not fully uh installed properly. We have addressed those issues. There will be a continuing um QA assessment throughout the city. We uh the mayor's indicated that he believes that uh the vast majority, if not all the rest of the lines have been installed properly, but we'll make sure of that. The other most important factor is that during the pendency of the lead line replacement, and now there is a uh procedure in place where we have orthophosphate, which is a corrosion control inhibitor that prohibits lead from leaching into the system that is still working. The city has said eight consecutive periods of water testing by the state and federal government where we have it been in compliance. That continues to be the case. We will uh take the um the health safety and welfare of the residents seriously at all times, and that will drive what it is we do uh from this point going forward. All of that being said, it is still critical that when we have an executive session, it is handled properly, and that information like this is not allowed to leak out to uh provide the residents with an undue uh concern, and there is no cause for concern at this time. Thank you uh so much, BA.