Good afternoon.

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Newark Municipal Council on Wednesday, October first.

Please stand for the National Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance, an invocation by Imam Muji Hadim Mohammed.

Liberty and justice is all God, with the name of God, the merciful benefactor, the merciful redeemer.

We gather here today in the spirit of unity.

A city built on the foundation of your sacred covenant.

As we stand before you, we seek your guidance in our discussions and decisions.

Grant us the wisdom to uphold justice and compassion, reflecting the values of our covenant with you and with one another.

Help us listen to each other with open hearts, cultivating the environment of respect and understanding.

May our efforts contribute to the flourishing of our neighborhoods, the safety of our families, and the prosperity of Norfolk.

Instill in us the courage to face challenges with hope and resilience, and inspire us to work tirelessly for the betterment of all.

Bless our leaders with discernment and our community with harmony.

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.

Roll call, please.

Council President, Council members, for the record, Councilman Silva's on excuse absence to prevent roll call from continuing to mention his name.

Mr.

President, if I may I just want to apologize for US.

All right.

Thank you.

Duly noted.

You look pretty cool by the way.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Council members, we are on page three of the agenda item five, reports and recommendations of city officers boards and commissions.

Council as a whole to adopt.

Roll call.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Raymo.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Ordinances on first reading.

6 FA is an ordinance to amend mandatory recycling regulations to revise the hours of placement on the curb of recyclable materials prior to collection.

Council as a whole to adopt.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

The ordinance adopted today on first reading will be advertised in accordance with law.

And a public hearing will be held at a regular meeting on October 22nd, 2025, or as soon thereafter as practical in the council chamber.

Public hearing, second reading, and final passage.

Is there anyone wishing to be heard on this ordinance?

Seeing none, public hearings closed.

Oh someone say something?

Yes.

Exchange land.

Thank you.

What you're exchanging?

Do the residents know about what you're exchanging?

That's all I'm saying.

Can you give an explanation?

Whoever um supposed to come up here and do a presentation.

Because a lot of things is it says public hearing?

And uh the public is at work, unfortunately.

So can somebody explain on national uh on TV to show what this what's this exchange is gonna be about and why you exchanging land and a lot of land that we need to exchange is to exchange land to build um low income housing for the residents, and that's what we need a lot of uh land up for.

So is this exchange gonna be uh beneficial to the lifelong residents of the city to the working people of the city?

You exchange and all you do is just vote on exchange and stuff, but nobody knows what you're exchanging.

So I'm asking and requesting for uh explanation for the public who are not present because you know is trying to, you know, you got some out there, you know, a lot of them working, hustling, you know, trying to survive and make a living, and you just vote on things that nobody knows anything about so I humbly ask you, because you know I can start yelling to have someone come up and explain this.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

Good afternoon, Austin Singleton, and I'm kinda because I just went and looked it up on the um website, and it doesn't say what these lands were going to be used for, what was the plan?

What was the plan?

It's just a swap deal for it.

Like, didn't y'all get in trouble swapping when it came to the gateway building and the Newark Housing Authority?

Didn't y'all get in trouble for that a couple of years ago?

Hmm.

Because y'all swapped with Victor.

Come on, Pat.

Stop looking down at help me out, bruh.

At the end of the day, y'all swapping and y'all not telling the city what's the benefits of swapping land?

Now, what's the benefits to the residents?

Because y'all work for us.

Let's be clear about that.

So anything Tom we come up here and ask you for an ordinance that had needs an explanation, or we should have some pictures, or is it transparency?

That's all we asking for.

And nobody has came and said anything.

Only thing you told us is that y'all swapping land from Pennsylvania to Wright Street with no explanation.

What if the person didn't watch yesterday?

Because I didn't watch yesterday.

Should come and explain to the public what it is about.

Not for you to come up here after us after we done stated our claim to what we assume it's about.

That's how the council meeting is said.

That's what your rules state.

I keep telling you what your rules state, and we're not abiding by them.

So if you break the rules from now on, so will I.

Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

Seeing none public speaking is now a public hearing is now closed.

What I will say is that for the benefit of the folks here and for those watching on TV, is we have pre-meetings which in which we discuss these matters, and uh questions are asked and answered by the council as well as an explanation given by the administration on many of these matters uh that are going before us, whether it's initially first communication, first reading, and second hearing.

But we've had discussions on this matter.

What I will do for the benefit of this one is just ask for the uh economic and housing development just to come up and give a another brief explanation on the swap.

Good afternoon, Brandy Daniel, legislative coordinator for economic and housing development.

The reasoning behind this swap is that the former owner of the Pennsylvania Avenue address.

Um, this is to avoid um excuse me, uh litigation.

Um, unfortunately, the city uh did take this particular uh property from a developer who actually owned the property.

So to avoid litigation, we are swapping properties with that developer for them to redevelop again.

Thank you.

Any questions from the council?

Thank you, Miss Daniel.

You're welcome.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Yes, Kelly, yes, King Pana.

Yes, Raymond?

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Klump.

Yes.

B is an ordinance granting a 30-year tax abatement to 1007-1009 broad development urban renewal LLC for a project to construct a new six-story building in the central ward.

Is there anyone present wishing to be heard on this ordinance?

Good afternoon, Felicia Austin Singleton.

Now, when we say in affordable, we got 48 apartments.

So we all know that goes by the inclusionary zoning.

But the AMIs are still messed up.

Y'all went from the project in the northward.

30, 40%, 60%.

So now we're back to 80%.

When we're saying that it doesn't work, when we're saying that the average Newarker cannot afford an apartment off of the AMI of 80%, here we go again.

Here we go again.

I keep telling you what the inclusionary zoning means and how it's supposed to be implemented.

I don't care what the designee or the mayor's assistant or director, deputy mayor, come up here and say, I am a contributor to the inclusionary zoning.

So she don't know it better than I do because I went through every line.

And it's actually backwards.

I keep telling you this.

The AMI should be 30%, 40%, 60%, and then market rate.

The 80% was set by the New Jersey Supreme Court as a minimum of what you could do.

Each city's supposed to get give their fair share of affordable housing, yet you giving 20% set aside.

It's supposed to be 80% set aside, and the AMI is supposed to be 30 and 40%.

You make it up.

You guys can change it.

I'm not talking to Eric Penitent, Kenyatta, MIDI, or the mayor.

I'm talking to the council.

You can make the legislation.

You create the legislation and make it right for the people.

Let's go everything under 50%.

50% of the AMI, and we're going down from there.

Because you know and I know that the average person here does not make 150,000.

Matter of fact, the average renter, low-income renter, is making 30% of the AMI.

So how will they afford the 80% that you're giving more apartments to?

You gave one apartment to a 40%.

One of all of us, we ain't making it in there.

And I'm talking about your staff too.

They ain't making it in there.

But maybe after all these severance packages, y'all gonna give out and raises that y'all probably gonna try to get in and sneak in for the 2026 budget.

Maybe they'll make it then, but what about the residents who vote you in?

Come on, baby, it's election time for you too.

Everybody's watching from now until next year.

And if you don't think people are watching, I can show you my inbox, and I can I promise you, everybody up there they talk about.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

Lisa Parker, let's start with everything that has urban renewal LLC automatically gets a tax abatement.

I've been coming in here for years talking about the legislative body to extend tax abatement for preservation of communities like mine and Society Hill.

When you look at these development deals, and I'm gonna use a classic example to reference what I'm referring to in this ordinance.

Kowie Eda Towers sold for 23,000.

We settled over a half a million dollars in legal litigation, sat in Invest Newark Land Bank, never paid taxes.

Over 10 years, the city paid for scaffolding around it, and this past week you demolished it, and I want to know who the new developer is and how we paying for a developer's failures after you gave them a tax abatement, and it didn't do no development in 18 months as required by your rules.

All of this here, when you talk about affordable, hear me well residents, when they talk about property tax increase, there are developers here that are not paying their fair share of property taxes, and when they impose a 24% by next year tax increase on to the homeowners, it's people like urban renewal LLC and all the other ones that are not paying their fair share while the burden of taxpayers is to pay these increases, not developers.

Now let's talk about affordability.

The affordable for who?

$3,000 a month rent.

It's not affordable for people making $50,000 and less and the municipal workers relying on subsidies to help them pay their rent.

These are your homegrown residents of Newark.

How is that helpful?

All of these properties have income limitations and requirement.

If you don't make $87,000 a year up to $120,000 in a year, it is not affordable.

It's market rate.

And why aren't these developers coming in with their own money?

Like the failed Halo building is sitting there collecting dust with a 25-year tax abatement.

Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

First of all, I'm gonna continue to say there needs to be a moratorium on long-term tax abatements.

A moratorium on long-term tax abatements because New Organs are not getting their fair share in equity.

Talking to you all, telling you that if developers come into his East New York area where he's the assembly person, they cannot bill anything, they won't pass anything until Newgers or New Yorkers get their fair share equity.

Y'all heard him, right?

And then I sent the legislation to you all, right?

And also Congresswoman Yvette Clark, she put a bill together to slash the area medium income that y'all continue to keep on pushing here that's not beneficial to Nework residents, and you did nothing, a bunch of nothingness like uh Lisa Parker continue to say, and all of us slashing the area medium income, right?

You can't build here unless Charles Barron, unless New Orkers benefit with equitable housing and jobs, and also pre- and post-construction, and you done nothing but sit here and continue to pass.

And then you had this man here on this floor when he campaigned.

He was gonna address him and Ramos, revisiting the tax abatement, having done nothing, nothing to build equitable housing for the lifelong residents of the city, and then you wonder why it comes out loud and mad when we come to this mic, right?

And when we call you failed leadership, no other way to describe you, and when we call you demonocrats, demons, okay?

Then you sit there, you know, you want to point the finger and you know, blame us.

You can't, you have you're incapable of doing anything for housing here.

Incapable.

You incapable of passing anything.

That's why we need a moratorium and we need intervention to come in here and take over this housing development.

Because you're useless.

No, you I think you spoke already.

Yeah, I did.

I thought y'all was on C.

Good afternoon, George Tillman Jr.

Uh Central Ward, Council Candidate.

And we've had some discussion regarding particularly the projects that's going forth in the Central Ward.

We are one month away from the election.

And one of us is going to be the Central Ward representative.

In our conversations that we've had since yesterday, we're going to have some ongoing discussions.

We're going to ask that you defer these issues, these projects that's in the Central Ward until this election is November the fourth.

These developments that's going forth in the Central Ward, the candidates are not in agreement with these projects.

That's why we're asking as Central Ward Council candidates.

We've been made certified by the residents here that one of us will be the rest representative of the central ward.

So we're asking that all these projects going forth from the next 33 days leading to the election that you defer them to after the election.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Seeing none, public hearing is now closed.

Any questions from the council?

Anything from the administration?

Oh, Councilman.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzales.

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Dana?

Yes.

Ramos?

Yes.

Scott Roundtree?

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

C is an ordinance amending and supplementing soil erosion and sediment control.

Is there anyone wishing to speak on this ordinance?

Can we get an explanation for it?

So I appreciate it if you don't yell out.

What I'm already going to do is going to ask the director to come up and in the future.

And like I said earlier, we have pre-meetings that we discuss these matters.

And so I my hope, and I say this to the public watching as well as the public here, that those who are interested in these matters, please look at the pre-meeting or come to the pre-meeting, and then we get a full explanation of all these matters.

So let's let's uh no, we're not gonna call out.

We're not gonna do that.

Director.

Good afternoon, Council President, Council members.

Um, Dolores Martinez Wood and Department of Engineering director.

Um the soil erosion um ordinance is lacking a um comprehensive fee schedule.

Um it is very outdated.

Um also there is no clarity on uh how much we're charging a small dwelling versus a big building.

Um so what we're doing here is just um implementing a comprehensive fee schedule.

So when um residents are developing or doing work in their property, they understand how much they'll have to pay um ahead of time.

Thank you.

No problem.

Any questions before?

So let me let me just say this.

So it what it does is it provides application fees, correct?

Um, and and for smaller developers, the fees are lesser than they are what the fees are lesser than they are for the larger uh uh developers in the city.

Correct, and then it it also goes by square footage, which was not provided before.

So it's both for the application and the inspection fees.

So it's both for both.

All right, thank you.

Mr.

President Councilman Ramos.

Yeah, just one quick thing through you, Mr.

Chair.

Is there um a comparison with what other municipalities charge for for this in your um backup?

Okay, I didn't I didn't see that.

There's no comparison.

What we're aligning with is the um regional soil erosion, uh, which is the Hudson Essex Um and Passaic uh County Soil Erosion Authority.

So we're aligning uh with with what their their fee schedule looks like.

Yeah, can you just forward that to us when you get a chance to thank you?

All right, anything else?

All right, thank you, Director.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Felicia Austin Singleton.

Now that we have that clarification on what's going on, so the soil erosion and sediment control, you're now making the fees lower for homeowners.

It shouldn't be nothing for homeowners.

Y'all ain't fix the infrastructure that's gonna cause a whole bunch of these soil erosions to go down.

What about the East Ward?

What about the Northward over there by 21?

What about West Side?

I mean, up in the West Ward, up there by um Seaton Hall.

What about over here in the Southward under that train station?

When you have bad infrastructure, it's gonna be soil erosion.

It's separating from the ground.

It's moving it back, pushing it over.

That's soil erosion.

You set it down, you let it, you let it sit.

It hardens, it gets there.

But with all these floods that we've been having for the last two years, and now somebody wants to build something, you're gonna say that they're gonna have to pay for what?

The poor infrastructure that's gonna cause the soil erosion.

It's not just wind, it's about water.

Or the sedimentation control.

What are we doing?

Are you you can't say, oh, I'm gonna pay less for something if they're building when you know that there's a problem.

You have an infrastructure problem that clauses flooding in this city when y'all put them water pipelines down, you only have flooding in the east ward, over there by 21 in the northward, and over there by weekway underneath that bridge by the park.

Now it's flooding all over the place.

And now you wanna set up some more fees.

Who is coming to do oversight to make sure there's no soil erosion or sediment control?

Who's doing that?

Because we know they can't even pay streets.

They can't even get it right when the clothes are building and people are put out, but yet they still living in condemned buildings.

So we expect that department to oversee the accurate scoring for money and the accurate scoring for if there's soil erosion.

I don't understand.

Please make me understand.

Please let me know what you understand what she just said.

She don't even understand what she just said, but it's all right, director.

I still like you, but poor job.

Poor job.

Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

Lisa Parker.

You know, every time I turn around, y'all are adjusting the fees for one thing or the next.

The developers are burdened with all of your fees, your shakedowns by your people to get things done in this city.

We had shop right development where you allowed them to bore into the land and compromise the homes that resulted in a sinkhole of our 40 homes with no oversight.

So help me understand how you're tailoring the fees to align with what you're determining is sedimentation and erosion when you don't even have the proper individuals here, the inju engineers on staff to go out and and do the inspections and the quality assurance of what's of what this development or whatever land you're trying to operate on.

How about this?

How about you start hiring people with the credentials that are qualified to oversee all of these operations?

How about you do some quality assurance to ensure that the developers that's coming to do business here aren't being shaken down by your staff for fees, applications, permits?

Why don't we start there?

Instead of bringing all of these things up here and making stuff up as you go along so you could continue bringing in resources that we never see the bottom line in your budget.

That's why the city broke now.

That's why the city's broke from incompetence to malfeasance to corruption.

And once again, here's more fees, and you can't explain or align it with it, the purpose of why you're doing it.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Good morning.

I just want to get a point of clarification.

You said something regarding the pre-meeting yesterday that we could have got an explanation of this on the pre-meeting.

Is the pre-meeting broadcast on the website?

And uh is it taped so that if you don't view it at 10 o'clock in the morning, can you watch it later on that evening?

Because you know, I just don't, I didn't see it.

Okay.

I didn't see it broadcast, I didn't see it uh anywhere on the website at all.

So could you please answer that?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next if it's on YouTube.

Next speaker.

This is about the ordinance.

This is specifically.

Who told me it would be on YouTube?

Next speaker.

Not YouTube.

Here we go again.

Increasing the fees.

While y'all increasing your salaries, right?

But anyway, um homeowners.

She never she never said what the fees were.

Are they a thousand, two thousand, three thousand?

She didn't explain that.

See, we're not against you generating revenue for the city.

But there's a lot of developers that tell me what was that 1.5 from one that owe the city money?

1.2.

And it's a list of people that owes far as corporations and developers that owe uh water bills and and the list could go on.

Are you generating that income for the city?

Huh?

No, see, nobody's answering because they're not.

Well, that's the BA to answer.

But anyway, um, what is the fees?

Because she just it's this, it just says fees.

Could you tell the listening audience who are homeowners, developers, you know, local developers?

What's gonna be the fee?

See, I came to the meeting yesterday, and you was over like within 45 minutes.

You went through this budget.

Let's see if you go through it to hear the uh the speakers on the list within that neck of time, but um tell the public, because this is this is public hearing, second reading, right?

And the public, like I said, I'm uh gonna continue to say some of them struggling at work, you know, elder elderly people, elderly homeowners, elderly people can't make it down here, and they could sit and watch.

They didn't watch yesterday, but they probably watch it today.

Talk about the fees for them.

What is the increase that you are um proposition here?

And then when you're gonna generate the revenue from the other sources that need to return our money back into our coffers.

When you gonna do it.

See, we're gonna you're gonna do it when we vote you out.

You're gonna come up with all kind of election uh gimmicks for election.

Won't this be one of your gimmicks to come up with is to get return on our money that is owed to us by developers and slum lords, and the list could go on.

Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

Good morning, Donna Jackson.

Great topic.

As Roman is tearing up South Orange Avenue, side blocks, and not properly putting the soil back because y'all ain't watching nothing.

They are filling in landfills in front of people's houses when they putting these pipes and stuff in, and they're throwing sandbags in there.

That's not legal.

You're not watching.

So now you're gonna have these homeowners because you've done the they're doing the lines and this one doing this one, and y'all don't care because it's all play to play.

I don't know what uh Roman and uh Montana give y'all to make sure they always get the contract, but y'all causing people big problems, big problems.

So we're talking about soil erosion, and the soil is also eroding because they're putting the pipes in, not correct, connecting them properly, and the water's still dripping with the new pipe.

You did that to a whole bunch of seniors, whole bunch, and then we told people, oh, you did it, you didn't fix your pipe, it's brand new pipe.

How 97 year old senior, how 90 year old senior, how 85 year old senior broke a pipe under the ground after you guys put the new one in there, and this is happening.

So now you increase the fee.

That's now gonna be applied to Donna Jackson, 128 Smith Street to get my sidewalk done again because it's sinking because you wasn't watching Roman in Montana.

I mean, every chance I get, I go out there with my TV camera on my live and show y'all what's going on.

They tearing up South Orange Avenue right now.

Nobody's watching.

Y'all got the cops out there doing outside employment like they the daggone manager of construction.

They not the supervisor, they have no idea what to look for.

So we are the city personnel from the Department of Engineering checking any of this.

I done told y'all this for the last seven years when they was putting the other pipes in.

Jazz Group ain't the only one.

Montana enrolling didn't fix all the couplings either.

Matter of fact, didn't do all the pipes.

Because a whole bunch of people don't have a new water meter line in their basement.

But y'all don't care.

Y'all don't care.

You don't care.

Because y'all done gave out the millions of dollars.

We don't care about whether people complete a project or not.

We don't care when there is a flood on 19th Street, Sanford Avenue that never happened before.

What's going on out here that's causing it?

Y'all letting these contractors pour cement in the sewer.

I don't want to hear nobody else from this city with their ignorant behind telling me, oh Donna, they can wash the truck off.

They don't do it in South Orange, they don't do it in Maplewood, they don't do it in Cherry Hill, they don't do it in the white neighborhood.

They wouldn't dare.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Say none.

Public hearing is now closed.

Anything from the council?

Anything additional from the administration.

Come up.

Council President Council members.

I just want to make one quick clarification.

Soil erosion permitting and inspections only gets triggered by the disturbance, disturbance of uh dirt in a property.

Okay, so if you're building uh brand new and you're disturbing the ground, this kicks in.

If you're doing any work in your home, um it, you know, it's irrelevant to to the discussion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Roll call.

Wait a minute.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

I really didn't hear what her explanation was.

She said it so fast.

So before I vote, I want to really hear her again explain what she said about being irrelevant to the homeowners.

I missed that.

I heard it, but I just could you speak it more in the mic?

I can't really hear that.

I heard her come up and give an explanation.

And I know that the director of the water department is here.

This is only when the ground is being disturbed.

I got it.

So I heard her say something about being irrelevant to the homeowner.

I didn't quite hear the whole explanation.

If you are doing repairs for your house, I'm not moving the dirt.

It's irrelevant.

Yeah.

We're in the roll call, Councilwoman Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Cromwell.

Yes.

D is an ordinance amending smoke shops by amending the rules and regulations sponsored by Councilman Ramos.

Second by Councilman Silva.

We need a new sponsor.

Second.

I'll second it.

Thank you.

Second by Councilman Gonzalez.

Second by Councilman Gonzalez.

Is there anyone wishing to speak on this ordinary somebody speaks?

Councilman Ramos.

Yeah, um Clerk.

I know we received um email from the engineering department making some suggestions on increasing the fines, which I don't have a problem with.

Um, I wish they would have provided those comments sooner so that we did not have delays in adopting this important ordinance, but but I'll accept the recommendations, and I I would like through your chair and the clerk that we send out a reminder through the BA that when we uh work on these ordinances and ask for comments or suggestions that we get those back timely from the departments because this is an ordinance that the police division in particular has been aggressively working with us because these smoke shops are creating uh some major quality of life issues in our neighborhood.

So we're trying to get this adopted as soon as possible.

So but I will accept their suggestions.

I think they're good, and uh hopefully we can get this adopted at the next meeting.

All right, thank you.

So we're gonna defer it.

Yeah, we'll defer it based on the suggestions that were offered from the law department, increasing fines, and um hopefully we could get this back quickly.

So um we'll defer and then we'll re-advertise for the next meeting.

Council as a whole to defer, yeah.

Council, yes, Gonzalez, yes, Kelly, yes, to defer.

Quintana, yes, Ramos, yes, Scott Roundtree, yes, President Crump.

Yes, to defer.

Yeah, and and through you, Mr.

Chair, and the clerk.

Can you just send out what those changes, proposed changes are so that everybody in the council knows?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Resolutions 7R1A is a temporary emergency appropriation for the Ryan White HIV AIDS related health and support services.

Council as a whole to adopt, roll call council, yes, yes, Kelly, yes, yes, Ramos.

Yes, Scott Roundtree, yes, President Crump.

Yes, B through K are all purchasing contracts, B is for furnishings of the Path Home Renovation Project, C is for six X-ray inspection systems, D is for maintenance and repair services for light medium duty vehicles, E is for radio communication equipment, F is for law enforcement firearms equipment, G is for automobile washing and specialized cleaning services, H is for plumbing maintenance repair and installation services, I is for street maintenance, snow and ice removal services, salt and sanding spreading.

J is for office furniture and installation, and K is for the police motorcycles sponsored by Councilman Council, second by councilman Kelly.

Council as a whole to adopt B through K with the sponsors for K.

Roll call president.

Uh Councilman Ramos first.

Um did we make it down to I lost you for a second?

Did we make it down to I?

Yes.

Okay, just a question through through, and I'm sorry I missed the pre-yesterday.

I senior event, but are these the only two companies that we're using for for snow and ice removal, or will there be additional companies coming before us?

Directors coming up good morning, council president.

Good morning, council members, cream and theme intern director.

That's the that's one of the contracts that was already ready to go to be approved by you.

There's other ones that we come into you.

So there'll be additional.

I'm sorry, you know, I'm a little hard of hearing.

So it's additionals in purchasing that and they're still going through the process, gathering paperwork.

Stuff that's needed.

All right, so so the overall amount that we have budgeted is the 6.75.

There will be additional vendors added to uh include as part of that overall contract.

Okay, cool.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions?

All right, roll call council, yes, Gonzalez.

Yes, Kelly, yes, quintana.

Yes, Ramos, yes, Scott Roundtree, yes, President Crump.

Yes.

7 R2A is returned to the administration.

Council as a whole to return to the administration.

Roll call.

Council, yes, Gonzalez.

Yes, Kelly.

To return.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

B through H our private sale and redevelopment agreement.

B is new construction of five two family homes to sell at market rate.

Is a motion to amend to remove 743-745 South 11th Street and Avon Avenue?

486 Avine Avenue.

Should have been 486 Avon Avenue.

Yesterday there was discussion to remove Avon and South Street.

Yeah, I think the information was incorrect.

She forwarded us some additional information.

She's so let's let's have let's have Ms.

Daniel come up just to afternoon again.

Brandy Daniel, legislative coordinator for economic and housing development.

Yes, that correction was made yesterday.

That property that should be removed is 486 Avon Avenue.

That was sent to the clerk's office as well as to the council members.

Thank you.

So first there's a motion to amend to remove the two properties mentioned.

Just the one, just the one.

Just one property.

Just the 780, um, just the 486 A bar.

December 3-745 South 11th will remain.

My apologies.

So roll call to amend to remove 486 Avon Avenue only.

Yes.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

Roll call to adopt as amended.

Rocco.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

C is to construct a four-story business resource center in the West Ward.

Sponsored by Councilman Kelly.

Second by Councilman Gonzalez.

We do D also.

Yes.

B is new construction of a three-family home to rent at 80% of area medium income.

Sponsored by Councilman Council.

Second by Councilwoman Scott Rountree.

Roll call to adopt C and D.

Council.

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

Next two items are motions to defer.

E is a motion to defer by Councilman Council.

Second.

By Councilman Gonzalez.

And F is a motion to defer by Councilman Kelly.

Second by Councilwoman Scott Rountree.

Council to defer with sponsors.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes to defer.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yep.

Yes.

Scott Rountree?

Yes.

President Clump.

Yes.

G is new construction of a 77 affordable unit transitional housing development with a retail space in a South Ward.

Councilman.

Sponsored by Councilman Council.

Second by Councilman Scott Roundtree.

Rocco.

Oh.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Clump.

Yes.

H, new construction of a three-family home.

Council as a whole to defer.

Rocco to defer.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

To defer.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

I acceptance of grace.

President Council.

Yeah, uh being that I wasn't here for the pre-uh.

I'm sure I don't know if this is going to resurface again, but the 7R2H, just a justification from the administration on the on the purchase price.

I know it's being deferred, but just in case it comes back.

I believe we may have gotten some email, but we're going to have to.

Yeah, I'll catch up with it.

Okay.

Thank you.

7R2I is acceptance of grant funds for the New Jersey leave funds to provide re-entry services.

Council as a whole to adopt.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

7R4A is stipulation of settlements for tax appeals.

Council as a whole to adopt.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Clump.

Yes.

7R5A is a contract with sub-recipient to provide Ryan White HIV Health and Support Services.

Council is a whole to adopt.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Clump.

Yes.

B and C are application acceptance of grant funds.

B is the childhood-led exposure prevention program.

And C is provide dental services.

Council as a whole to adopt B and C.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

7R6A through C are settlements from the law department.

Council is a whole to adopt A through C.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

D is a professional service contract.

The first amendment to the agreement to provide legal services concerning civil litigation matters.

Council as a whole to adopt.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Abstain.

7R8A is a ceremonial street designation for Sally G Carroll.

Sponsored by Council President Crump.

Second by Councilman Kelly.

ROCO.

Well, let's let's do let's do the next two.

Okay.

So B has to be amended for the D.

B has to be amended.

All right, let's do the one then.

ROCO on Council.

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

B is a whole harmless and identification agreement for the Newark DeWally 2025 as the typo.

Sponsored by Councilman Gonzalez.

Second by Councilman Quintana.

So we need a motion to amend to correct the date to reflect 2025.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

Now motion to adopt as amended, please.

Council.

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree?

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

C is a special event application for the annual Halloween parade and car show.

Sponsored by Councilman Quintana.

Second by Councilman Gonzalez.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree?

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

D is recognizing and commending resolutions.

And E is expressing profound sorrow and regret.

ROCO.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

F is authorizing the reading of the City of Newark's 2025 municipal budget.

It's a public hearing.

Is there anyone present wishing to speak on the budget?

Uh hello.

Lisa Parker to speak on the budget.

What budget?

You had an introduction on September 17th in the afternoon on a Friday at noon.

That there were no public speaking for the budget.

How were you combining a budget with a municipal council meeting with no public um speakers?

First of all, you're supposed to have a 30-day grace when you introduce the budget.

That didn't happen.

You didn't have uh a night meeting, you didn't have a day meeting, and you didn't have a weekend meeting to engage the public.

Then you had people coming up to this podium, department heads, including the chief of staff that represents the administration about the budget to tell us and the council president there that the dog ate his homework.

That is unacceptable.

That means that you are not in this administration is not taking the budget seriously.

Now, what I did for all of you was pull the budget from 2018 to 2024 to demonstrate and show from your budgets previously submitted that you had a $680 million debt and deficit.

And at that meeting on September 17, you attempted to get the um governor to give you an extension of a loan of 22 million to compensate for the budget you don't have for 2025, and add an additional 30 million dollars to that.

So you bonding us for an additional 52 million while you didn't give the citizens the benefit of coming and having a public hearing about the introduction of the budget.

Now, while all of y'all sitting up there that have failed in your fiduciary obligation for the city budget, the wasteful spending, the mismanagement of our budget, and the corruption in every single department with no accountability, no transparency about how our dollars are being spent, and no record of any of the rateables coming into our city.

How you putting this as an ordinance?

You got to be crazy.

Y'all lost your mind.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Where was the public speaking?

Where's the public notice?

One.

Where's the community notice too?

You all will be running for office in less than five months.

How dare you not tell your constituency this was going on?

How dare you hold a public budget hearing within the council meeting?

Two.

Not even finished contract negotiations.

No dollar figure given from the mayor's office on his budget.

Because see, what I wanted to know is how much executive protection money are we still using?

And you didn't show me that.

Because at one time it was almost 26 million dollars.

So if the mayor's scared to walk around the city, then he need to resign.

If whoever else has personal police, they need to resign.

Because if you need more than one person while you moving to and throw, then you need not to be here.

I don't got no executive protection.

Lisa doesn't have executive protection.

Didi, jaha, they don't have executive protection.

What are we doing?

And y'all allowing this.

Why the mayor got a roll with eight and nine goons with him?

They police, but I'm gonna call them goons because that's what it looked like.

Two cars pulling up, you ain't the president.

What was the executive protection budget for the president?

Because I'm we might be over that.

We got people out here needing police services, and this boy walking around.

Yeah, Corey started it.

But you doing the exact same thing.

So what's the amount?

Y'all have told us nothing.

How dare y'all insult us today doing this?

This is the disrespect.

You haven't even told the seniors and the homeowners in this town what y'all getting made due to them in taxes.

And you're gonna present this today?

You didn't tell the homeowners you was doing this.

Some people might have took off work.

Because we know how crazy y'all are.

Because we see what's happening in neighboring Urban's in East Orange, Orange and other urban municipalities with this BS revaluation that you're doing and all of this other stuff going on.

I tell you what, y'all better take a phase for them federal people.

Tom King, I ain't gonna call the other one because he don't do nothing.

I dare you.

Because we got multiple sources of income up there.

Y'all gonna be all right.

And if you don't, oh well, call your friend sitting next to you.

This gotta stop y'all.

Again, the disrespect.

Didn't you wonder why we come up here?

Y'all wonder why?

Oh, if I knew this was today, I swear to God, I'd have did a live last night and had at least a hundred people down here to cuss y'all out.

Because that's where we at.

We don't like RAS, and we don't like none of y'all either.

This next election go around this right here, y'all just sealed your own coffee.

Thank you for your comments, next speaker.

Good afternoon.

Gail Cheney Phil Jenkins, 88 Richmond Street.

This is really an embarrassment, but more so, it's sad for you all to allow yourself to be put in this position because the information was supposed to have been submitted to you all in a timely fashion.

And yet again, the manipulation, yet again, the rushing of this kind of thing is going to impact New Yorkers, especially homeowners and the renters.

It's going to be passed on to the renters.

And you all, the one thing I need to be able to tell you all today is prior to a couple of years ago, people used to always say, it's the council, it's the council.

And there was never a way of distinguishing who was a good council person or who wasn't, because they lump everybody together.

And rightfully so, because it's a legislative body.

But at the end of the day, if you all don't understand that you're going to be held accountable for the lack, the first responsibility of a council person is the budget.

That's your fiduciary responsibility.

There's so much waste and and misappropriation of dollars that exists currently in this budget.

And to be forced to go ahead and vote for this, because you're forcing yourselves to do it.

Because when you don't demand that the budget is sent to you on a timely fashion, and then when it is sent to you, you don't get it with all the paperwork that you need to understand.

You don't make any cuts.

Uh for allowing uh this budget to go through.

It seems like there's a collusion between the administration and the council when it should be.

Okay?

You should be acting as an independent body, scrutinizing the things that come before you instead of rubber stamping everything that this business administration and administration put before you.

Okay.

This is outrageous.

I mean, really.

And I really feel that certain people were sent here in order to relieve us of our property by going up every year in taxes.

They don't have any kind of idea of let's have surplus.

Okay, even if a budget, even if the tax, uh, excuse me, even if the annual financial plan is presented to them by March or April, you don't get around to talking about the budget until September.

Why is that?

It shouldn't have been you should have been talking about this in uh May or June.

April.

April.

I gave them, I gave them some leeway right there.

Okay.

But it should have been no later, no, no later than June, we should have been talking about this.

Okay?

And now, here we come, big tax increase on everybody, and renters, looking at this at home, you're gonna your rent is gonna go up because your landlord is gonna go to the court and say, Listen, I have these expenses now.

I have these expenses, and I need to go up on your rent.

So this is affecting everyone in the city of North.

Make no mistake about it.

Okay.

And I think this is really, you know, it's ridiculous.

Okay, it's late.

Well, the day is October 1.

We only have two more years left in this year.

Now we we're under the gun.

We got a gun to our head and we gotta do it.

That's not the way to govern.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Uh Jamar Youngblood.

Uh um, I'll be quick.

So I spent some time last night trying to go through the budget.

It's on a spreadsheet.

The font is really small.

I have an Ivy League education, and I can't understand this.

I'm just gonna be really honest with y'all.

Um, there's something on here that says other expenses for 297 million dollars, but I can't find any details on what those other expenses are.

So if you pass this, it's gonna be really weird.

And I just wanted to put this on record that I came up here and tell y'all that this is not a cool way, or it's not an easy way to share this information with um the residents, and there's so many other options on how we can share this information.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

None of us have an Ivy League education, so we know all though we don't understand it if he ain't understand it.

Police all of the single say, here we got.

Y'all introduced the budget on August 28th.

You did a budget hearing on September 12th.

You had incomplete paperwork and some budgets not even turned in.

But you're supposed to give us 30 days to review the budget.

So 30 days from September 12th, when you did the in the hearings of the budget, would have been October 12th.

So we're now on October 1st.

You hear that, Kev?

Yeah, they looking, they watching now.

You did it.

You let the chief of staff come up here and say, my person went on vacation, I don't have a budget.

This was on September 12th, remember?

But the budget was due in April.

Then my good friend over here says, oh, Gonzalez, we don't need to worry about when it's due, we'll just pay the 25 fee to find the violation.

At the end of the day, if you can't turn a budget in, but you going around shutting people water off, you locking people out their homes, how can we say that your records are good?

You can even present paperwork of the outgoing and the incoming of a budget, the income.

Not that not the miscellaneous, not the set aside, not what the bills are due every month.

You cannot say what grant you know who only do a good presentation?

Who does the best presentation?

The health department.

Always done it.

Always gave a good.

At the end of the day, nobody went and checked behind the health department.

What is she putting out there?

What are they doing over there?

Gave a full budget.

Yet you come up here and you do things for the library, they give a half budget, and their people are saying they don't even get paid.

You got DPW who done changed our rectors three times, so we don't even know what the true budget is there.

They could have probably took some paperwork home with them, and yet they're still not getting paid.

Because y'all funneling money from one pot to another to pay the people because you don't have no money.

That's what y'all doing.

Rob and Pete to pay Paul, meanwhile, while the residents are starving.

Cash rules, everything around me.

Cream, get the money.

Cash rules, everything around me.

What have y'all done to follow the money?

Nobody had checks and balances for this budget.

Nobody did nothing, but yet and still we still don't have a budget presentable to the residents.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

See no other speaker.

Mr.

Tillman.

Good afternoon, George Tillman Jr.

Um.

We're going into the same issues we had with the budget last year.

We talk about, you know, when we reviewing that budget, and Mr.

Youngblood is absolutely correct.

It's it's very difficult to uh manage that to look at that budget and give any sort of um input on it at all.

And that's that's very disingenuous for them to put that budget out like that and not give us an opportunity to look at it to give some really good input input on it.

But when we talk about some things, and it's very important.

I wanted to um talk about Newark Works, and that's very important that we talk about Newark Works because the money that that was discussed about those penalties and those contributions and those fees that are going over to Newark Works that were being collected from uh either the Office of Affirmative Action or the Deputy Mayor's Office, I don't know, but that money is not going into the city budget as revenue and it's not being accounted for, and it's going directly over into Newark Works.

So I don't know how that revenue that's been taken in from the Office of Affirmative Action is going over to a separate entity and it's not going into our budget.

So that's that's an issue that we needed to discuss in that affirmative in that special conference that I've been asking for, how these dollars are being going into these these independent agencies and they're not they're not tracked through our government, and it's not particularly that revenue is not going into our budget.

Also, we talk about the revenue and the money that's owed by these these developers for these tax abatements and um their taxes.

Why isn't um that money not been recouped from these developers and in our budget so that our taxes are not raised the way that they should they're they're going up?

So um, as I stated, the the candidates for the central ward, the the council, um we've had discussions, none of us would be voting on this budget at this time.

So without having some representation up there, is it's not really doing the residents any good because when you talk about some of the things that um that are affecting uh our residents, particularly the homeowners, we're talking about why isn't any of you writing any legislation for amnesty relief for our homeowners?

That that comes about in our debates all the time.

We've talking about doing legislation for homeowners, but why is it not that the current council is not doing any legislation for relief for homeowners?

That's a question.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Seeing none, public hearing is closed, Council President, Council members.

It is my understanding that the administration is waiting for additional instructions from the state so that this item should be deferred.

No call to defer.

No, they shouldn't have public comments.

Council, yes, Gonzalez, yes, Kelly, yes to defer.

Quintana, yes, Ramos, yes, Scott Roundtree, yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

7 or 9a is an appointment of special police officers, New York residents, council as a whole to adopt.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes, Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree?

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

7R11A is a memorandum of understanding with Newark Housing Authority for the Centers of Hope Programming.

Council as a whole to adopt.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

7R12 A and B are both professional services contracts to process operational improvements at the Pequanic Water Treatment Plant.

Council as a whole to adopt A and B.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

7R12 C is an intergovernmental agreement to provide a temporary construction easement agreement for the state construction project on Route 23.

Council as a whole to adopt.

Roll call.

Council.

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

D is a bid contract to provide maintenance and repair of cranes.

Council is a whole to adopt.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

Communications.

Item 8A is an ordinance granting a 15-year tax abatement to, and there will be a motion on the floor to amend it's actually SAT Urban Renewal Entity LL C for a project to construct a five-story mixed use building in the South Ward.

This is a motion to advance and adopt on first reading as 6FB, sponsored by Councilman.

Council, second by Councilwoman Scott Roundtree.

So first Council President, Council members, in a motion to amend on the floor removing the 518 before SAT Urban Renewal LLC.

Roll call to amend Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

Now a motion to adopt.

As amended on first reading as item six F B with the same sponsors, please.

Roll call.

Sorry.

I adopt that.

Rolls.

Advance and adopt on first reading.

My apologies, Councilman.

Advance adopt.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez?

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree?

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

B is an ordinance granting a 30-year tax abatement to new community homes development LP for a project to construct a new four-story building in the central ward.

Council as a whole to advance and adopt on first reading as 6FC.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly?

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

C is an ordinance granting a 22-year tax abatement to Gomes Generation Urban Renewal LLC for a project to construct a new five-story building in the central ward.

Council as a whole to advance and adopt on first reading as 6 F D.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana?

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

D is an ordinance amending and supplementing vendor license for the sale of food and merchandise at public festivals.

To establish a seasonal festival endorsement for mobile vendors.

Council as a whole to advance to first reading.

Roll call.

Council.

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

8E.

Council as a whole to defer.

Roll call to defer.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes to defer.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree?

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

F is an ordinance amending taxi cabs to add a penalty provision for violations of restrictive endorsements at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Motion to advance and adopt on first reading as 6 FE, sponsored by Councilman Quintana.

Second by Councilman Council.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes.

Gonzalez.

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana.

Yes.

Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree.

Yes.

President Crump.

Yes.

President.

Councilman Quintana.

Yeah, I'd like to thank the uh City Clerk's Office, the Business Administrator's Office, the Law Department, and the Newark CAT CAP Commission.

And I also would like to thank Pam personally for her work.

Her work, and she really spearheaded of this effort.

And this would not be possible without the taxi division and the Newark Cabs Association.

I just want to put that on record and say thank you.

For our outstanding job for a person in our city who works hard.

Pam, thank you so much.

All right.

Can't speak.

You can't speak.

Okay.

Thank you, though.

Thank you for your efforts.

And Mr.

President.

Council De Ramos.

Yeah, I know A D, we're advancing this ordinance that I guess allows the food trucks to sell at um festivals that are authorized by the city.

Um, but I'd like through your chair and the clerk for us to have some dialogue with the administrator about moving forward.

Um kind of limiting the number of licenses.

I think we have an overabundance of food trucks.

We have municipalities that surround the city of Norfolk that have created caps, and now a lot of those vendors are moving and applying for licenses here in the city of Norwork.

And and some of the folks who've been here a long time are getting muscled out uh in the process.

So I would like to maybe you could set up some kind of committee to work with the administration to see what we can do to um you know create a little more restriction in the process and then figure out a way to have some more enforcement because I know during evenings and weekends, um you you have trucks that are illegally operating around the city, and we have limited enforcement out.

You know, understandably so at that time.

So thank you, Councilman.

Thank you.

Let's councilman agrees.

Also thanking the Department of Public Safety who worked on this, Madam Clerk.

I I request that we also when it's final passed, uh, that we send a copy to the port authority to understand uh that's it said yesterday.

That the airport is a leased, it's not owned by the port authority.

Just want to put that on record that understand that our cab industry was is it cannot be a wounded again by other people coming to that airport and and utilize our airport for their own advantage.

Just gonna put that on record.

Thank you, Councilman.

Duly noted, Council President, Council members, the ordinances adopted today on first reading will be advertised in accordance with law, and a public hearing will be held at a regular meeting on October 22nd or soon thereafter as practical in the council chamber.

Council President, Council members, we have two added starters.

7R1 and MAS are both also authorizing the use of competitive contracting for workforce.

L is authorizing the use for the one-stop service provider under the workforce innovation and opportunity act, and M is authorizing the use of competitive contracting to award a contract for the youth service provider under the workforce innovation and opportunity act.

Council as a whole to adopt L and M.

Roll call.

Council?

Yes, Gonzalez, yes, Kelly, yes, Pintana.

Yes, Ramos.

Yes.

Scott Roundtree?

Yes, President Crump.

Yes.

Council President, Council members, that concludes the agenda.

We are at public hearing now.

We are in the hearing of citizens portion of this meeting where each speaker will have five minutes to speak.

When your name is called, please approach the podium and address the council members.

The first speaker is Alif Mohammed.

I thought I saw him, but I'm not appearing.

Gail Cheneyfield Jenkins.

Appearing.

Gail Cheneyfield Jenkins, 88 Richmond Street, Newark, New Jersey.

This election.

I was gonna say, yeah, uh, having trouble hearing you.

I don't know if you can well, no, it's not the mic, it's my voice.

Oh I'm sorry.

Got laryngitis.

I know you wish I could shut up completely, but it won't happen.

Um this November 4th election is bigger than any one candidate.

This election is about accountability and transparency.

It's about the public's right to know.

It's about independent voices that may or may not agree with the policies that affect the future of Newark.

It's about being voices of the people, being a voice for the people, and not just an echo for this administration.

It's about good employees who have to work every day alongside incompetent, arrogant, nasty, selfish, lazy employees who still theft of time.

And I notice one of them here, Mr.

Marquise Lewis, who is an employee who's been here at this council meeting.

I'm going to make sure we open his time sheet to make sure that he works.

Because he's been here at every council meeting, and he's sending text messages in regards to team Baraka.

Because unfortunately, y'all don't understand I'm on that text thread, so I got it.

So they'll know it was you.

Uh you just sent it.

I just got it.

So it's about the residents who can't make a call down here to City Hall and help get things done because the employees don't show up because they think COVID is still around.

So City Hall is vacant with the employees who don't want to work.

This is about the theft of time.

This is about the criminality, this is about malfeasance, it's about misappropriations.

It's about the arrogance of this lawless administration and their cohorts as well as their subordinates.

This is about the divisiveness that's being employed to try to split the Hispanic community against the African American community.

This is about the Us Against Them mentality.

This is about all of us.

And at the end of November 4th, this is going to be about what happens in 2026.

And at that point in time, the convergence of right and wrong will take place.

At that point, everyone will be held accountable for their actions.

And the residents deserve leaders who are going to work together, who are going to make sure that they try to soften the hurt because that's what government is supposed to do.

This is about imposing your self-interest or your selfishness and robbing this city of the resources of the talent, because when you have garbage sanitation workers who are being forced to work without good equipment, without having to have the adequate equipment to do the job properly and getting blamed because the streets are filthy.

This is about the saving of the city.

This city, one of the things Mayor Sharp James, the late Mayor Sharp James said, you can't take credit for the good and don't take responsibility for what's bad.

You have to take responsibility for that which you all can change and which you can't change.

You have an obligation to at least let people know that you're thinking about them, that you give half an ounce of a damn about them, because right now it doesn't seem that way.

And that's sad because Norwich has a lot of potential.

We were 57th in the world economy before 9-11.

In the last 10 years, we've gone backwards, not forward, and if you keep going forward, we're gonna take everybody off the cliff.

At the end of the day, everybody has a responsibility to put their hand to the plow and participate in the rescue of this city of Newark.

You can do it as a team, or you can do it as an individual, but do it you must, because the citizens voted for each and every one of you.

And they want to see their city come back as a renaissance city, and they want to see progress, and that is the responsibility that each and every resident has is to participate in the rescue of the city of Newark.

I'm willing to do it.

I hope you all are as well.

My name is Gail Cheneyfield Jenkins, and I approve this message.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Lisa Mitchison Parker.

Appearing.

Good day, criminal cult that's running our government.

I Lisa Parker, residing in the city of Newark, and requesting a forensic audit of every municipal department for mismanagement, wasteful spending of the budget, and I need this forensic audit to be done by the attorney general in Washington because we don't have a government here.

When let me just start with the city clerk, the council president, the business administration.

Why are you not following the rules for public hearing, for order here, for governing?

We don't have a budget.

We don't have speakers to engage about how you're spending our money.

How does Silva call in to vote while he's on vacation in Portugal to give the Riviera Hotel a 40 million dollar 10 year contract and yet that was deferred five times and never returned to the administration, but yet he's absent for the municipal budget budget.

This is what you call malfeasance from an elected.

They're supposed to represent the people.

Incompetent persons at the helm, no respect for unions, labor, giving folks a living wage or benefits.

We can't afford the mayor to select who we vote for, to put another puppet on the council that don't represent or advocate for the people.

Kelly, a rap video out of your office, really.

That's what you call a violation of the hatch app.

We are the largest city in New Jersey.

Our children's future.

Kids can't pass state exam, and y'all trying to extend Roger Leon's contract.

Are you kidding me?

No employment opportunities, no fairness, no equity, no no budget, nothing for a flat tax for seniors of a certain age and a certain income, so that they could be maintained in their household.

No creative thought or caring for the people of this city.

And yet you have all these operatives telling y'all how to vote, what to do, and no advocacy for the people.

And no revenues coming into the city, nobody paying their fair share from the developer's capacity.

You still selling land dirt cheap, even on this agenda.

Today, I say, don't look at what's happening down in Washington.

Look in your own backyard.

The only difference is a black face imposing the same policies here in Newark on its own people.

Please join me in supporting Gail Cheneyfield Jenkins for F for a better Newark, a candidate that reps represents the people, seniors, students, residents.

Don't allow misleaders to have your vote.

4F for the people.

Newarkers, we deserve better.

And at the end of the day, I'd like to say you are following your own rules of conduct.

You are following your own rules of governing.

You are disrespectful to the community, the advocate, and everybody here that comes to speak on behalf of the residents.

Everybody but you on that dais.

It's your time's up.

Time to go.

4F for change.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Felicia Austin Singleton.

Appearing.

Oh, I don't even know what else to say.

That was a lot.

That was a mouthful, especially what was coming from over here, too.

The disrespect that comes from this administration staff is outrageous.

As a resident and a voter, I have a right to display my displeasure, my disappointment with anyone up there.

Also with this administration.

And I said it like that because you're a different branch.

What y'all don't understand is that this city laws and what makes it run comes from you.

You can create the legislation.

You do not have to wait for Eric or anybody from the law department, can yada or anything to come from next door.

You can create the legislation for the residents.

You can do that.

But shoot.

If I believe Mr.

Mr.

Youngblood over here couldn't read the budget, I want to know what y'all thought of it.

Because you can't understand it.

We didn't have a tutorial on it.

You didn't introduce the budget as it was on your website.

What they gave us here does not coincide with what was on that budget.

Yet, yet you want to do public hearing, go ahead with it, and then say you're gonna defer it.

So you got public hearing out the way, but we don't even have all the documents.

So we'll be doing that again, probably, because I'm gonna send that on over too.

It is ridiculous how y'all just do things, and it's just like we don't care because we have power.

Residents of the city of New York, and I'm speaking to everyone across the city.

The power is ours.

We vote them in.

They are our employees.

If they don't do what we say, then we should get rid of them.

That's it.

That's the bottom line.

At the end of the day, we got someone over here gonna run for counsel, but you sitting here talking disparagingly to people.

You can't do that.

Rolling your eyes.

You're not a celebrity.

Humble yourself.

Only celebrity we have in here is Mr.

International, the rapper, my councilman, my councilman.

That's the only celebrity we got sitting up on that day.

But right now, his current role here is to serve Felicia Austin Singleton in the West Ward.

Know your roles.

Play your game.

Cause when I call on you, I expect you to answer.

When I ask you for something, I don't come ask you for nothing for Felicia.

It's all for the residents.

Respect it.

I try to respect everybody, but when they get out of hand, I'm going to cross the line too.

My mother said, meet people where they are.

So sometimes I might have to lay down on my back and lay beside some folks and help them up.

And then sometimes I'm gonna just sit there and stomp my foot on their throat.

Because I'm tired of it.

The disrespect that you are teaching young folks, young folks.

People like you say they watch us.

I don't know how many people young folks come to you, but they sure come to me and Lisa.

And they acknowledge what you were saying was right.

They disregarded you.

They did not respond to you.

They didn't do anything to you.

You showed us the information.

What are we to do?

Vote them out.

If you're turning 18, come and we'll teach you how to vote.

It's not who I want.

Because I'm gonna teach them how to go through it.

Look at their candidate.

Look what they have to offer.

Look where their mindset at, how they dress, how they act, how they engage in people.

We've come up here with housing problem after housing problem after housing problem.

You got pilgrim village over here, you got George King Billet back there, you got St.

Mary's Villa over here, you got all the way over there back in the South Board, Brunswick Street.

And it's still nothing.

I'm going to the FBI when they come, just raise your hand.

I know Felicia sent you.

I toll on every last one of the person who voted on stuff, because you got something right here with 30% and 50% for new community, and you're saying it can't be done.

You allowing the rents to be so high.

You could bring it down.

You could tell owners and developers, but no, we got two, a couple of them sitting back here, right?

Yeah, we know y'all don't come in here for nothing.

I ain't never seen them people in my life.

But we know they come to ask you for something.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Jamar Youngblood.

Good afternoon.

Afternoon.

Jamar Youngblood.

I want to talk about three things.

Our city's partnerships, our proposed budget, and the upcoming Central Ward election.

Uh last week I had an interaction with Councilman Kelly.

I saw him in the Haynes building.

We spoke, and afterwards, I went to his Instagram page where I saw his new rap song.

I then shared it with my audience on Facebook.

In his song, he gives a shout out to Prudential, a global company right here in our city built on one thing.

Managing risks.

A prudential uses compliance monitoring, accountability logs, risk dashboards, they prevent violations that will cost them in fines, lawsuits, and wasted funds.

Recently, Councilman Kelly courageously admitted that taxpayer dollars are being wasted by city employees collecting overtime pay without actually doing the work.

On top of that, the city has already paid $2 million this year in lawsuits using taxpayer money.

So I have to ask why isn't our local government learning from our major companies and institutions that are right here in our city?

A prudential could help us build compliance dashboards, train our staff, set up contract oversight systems, and create reporting channels that catch misconduct before it turns into a lawsuit or wasted funds.

Every dollar saved on lawsuits and broken systems is a dollar we can invest in our future by uplifting our youth, breaking the cycle of poverty, and ensuring our seniors live with dignity.

North residents uh deserve a government that safeguards their tax dollars with the same care prudential gives as shareholders.

Um now I want to talk about the city budget.

I told you I spent time going over the very difficult to understand a proposed budget.

I discovered a line item called other expenses for nearly 300 million dollars, but nowhere in this public document does it tell us what those expenses actually are.

Nearly a third of our city's operating spending is hidden behind those two words, other expenses.

So I'm asking this council and the administration to release the full department by department breakdown on what's inside that 300 million list of vendors, contracts, and line items so residents can see exactly where the tax uh the tax money is going.

Councilman Crump, this past April, the Patterson City Council president was indicted for voter fraud.

He was indicted for allegedly stealing and falsifying melon ballots to rig the election in favor of his candidate.

With so many photos of our council members alongside your preferred candidate, I hope you all will commit to avoiding anything like what happened in Patterson in our upcoming election.

As Gail Cheney Foe Jenkins has mentioned several times, I'm asking for federal oversight in this upcoming election because our current system is not equipped to prevent what happened in Patterson from happening here in North.

For anyone who wants to support this request, contact the U.S.

Department of Justice Voting section at voting dot section at USDOJ.gov.

The phone number is 202-514-3847, and their hotline is at 1-800-253-3931.

You can also call the U.S.

attorney's office for the District of New Jersey at 973-645-270 and let them know you are requesting DOJ modern for North's upcoming election.

Our city deserves transparency, integrity, and fair elections, not voter fraud or background politics.

Lastly, I support George Tillman's request to hold off on giving any tax abatements in the central ward until after the election.

He told me that many North residents have lost their lives because of the negligence of these developers.

So I think the days of us giving our tax abatements to slum lords must come to an end.

Thank you all.

Next speaker.

George Tillman Jr.

Good afternoon, George Tillman Jr.

Good afternoon.

So I'm gonna continue from yesterday when we were talking about the new community development.

So again, I had a discussion with uh councilwoman Cheney Phil and Jamar Youngblood concerning that that particular um development.

It comes up on October the 22nd for uh I believe the public hearing.

But some of the words that were used yesterday were very disturbing to me when I heard the councilman and the councilwoman talk about how this developer stepped up in our community.

It was very disturbing, and it was very disturbing when I heard you say um, you know, they uh they just stepped up and you know they did their due diligence for our community.

Well, let me tell you, we have three buildings up there right now 140, 180, and 265 Morris Avenue.

Those three buildings are infested with seniors with drug addictions.

They've been managing those buildings for how long?

And they have a vested interest in our community, they want social services agency for uh substance abuse, domestic violence, and all those things.

But yet they have these buildings that they manage, infested with our seniors with drug addiction and not doing anything to try to help it.

You said that when they first found out about it, they stepped up and they did something about it.

This issue was six years ago.

So I said it was very disrespectful for you to say that they stepped up where six years ago those poor cords was an issue, and it wasn't until May 14th when we came here for this tax abatement that they finally decided to step up, and people died between those six years as a result of those poor cords.

People died in there from drug overdose, seniors.

Yeah, but we are praising these developers.

We gave a developer 1.5 million dollars, waived the debt, waived the debt, I'm sorry, for that developer.

And then we said that we're gonna give them the seniors these houses because they deserve it, better housing, but we waive the debt for 1.5 million for the seniors.

That's what said.

And we're saying now that we're gonna give this developer, who's been a killer in our community.

We're gonna reward this developer who've allowed through his negligence not to refix those pool cords for six years and those communication devices, negligence in our community, and we're gonna reward them on October 22nd and give them another tax abatement in our community.

So we're gonna organize myself, Councilwoman Cheneyfield, Jamar Young Love, we're gonna organize those residents over there to come here on October 22nd.

We're gonna do it together jointly as the candidates because we have a vested interest here in the central ward.

We don't think like y'all think about the vision for the central ward.

That's why we have new candidates here.

See, there's one thing I know for sure.

Signs don't vote.

You have to come before the public and give your vision for the central ward and your plan for the central ward, like all of us candidates have.

And so again, I'm gonna say to you again, this is a moral issue.

This is about morality, atonement.

People in our community have died.

We don't, we don't, we don't, we don't show them atonement by giving this developer rewarding them, praising them for killing in our community.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Say again.

Oh, I don't think.

If I care Bradley, not appearing.

Opal R.

Wright.

Not appearing.

Atisha Davis.

Miss Davis is appearing.

Good evening, Council President, members of the Council and Mayor Baraka.

My name is Atisha Davis.

I'm the secretary of village pilgrim tenant association, and I speak on behalf of the residents of Pilgrim Baptist Village in Norwich Ward.

We are focused to live in inhabitable inhabitable conditions, collapsing ceilings, sewage leaks, chronic water damage, mold spreading across our walls, and rodent infestations that threaten our health.

These are not minor issues.

These are daily hazards.

But the danger doesn't stop with the buildings.

It comes from the people who run them.

Management put hands on tenants, physical abuse, security illegally told and stole a tenant's vehicle, outright theft, maintenance called his own family members to the property to fight a tenant, inciting violence.

This is not management.

This is intimidation.

This is violence.

On October 15th, 2024, a code enforcement inspector, Fortinberry, who was directed under Ross Mayor Baraka himself, came into my apartment, saw violations, and called the owner right in front of me.

She demanded the repairs within minutes, contractors appeared.

Yet when I filed an open request, those violations were missing from the records.

Nothing is on file for October 15th at all.

Now code and uh when I found okay, yeah.

This is not oversight, this is a cover-up.

Violence is not only fist threats and uh threats, violence is when the city uses its power against the people by erasing records, ignoring complaints, and protecting landlords instead of families.

Mayor Raz Baraka himself has sat in two of our tenant meetings.

He has heard these stories firsthand.

He has seen the frustration in the room, yet management continues to abuse tenants, disrespect officials, and operate without accountability.

Council members, North cannot claim to protect this residents while families live with leaks, mold, rodents, and abuse inside of federally subsidized housing.

We demand three things independent oversight into code enforcement's handling of Pilgrim Baptist Village, a full unaltered public record of all violations from 2019 to present, accountability for management and security misconduct, assault, theft, and incitement of violence and failure to protect and provide safe housing.

Tenants deserve safety, dignity, and truth.

Every day this is ignored.

The city itself become complicit in the violence.

We are here today to put this on record, and we will not stop and to not protect the people instead of this landlords.

These are not allegations, these are not exaggerations.

Our next meeting is October 7th, 399 Bergen Street at Congregational Baptist Church, 6 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Celeste.

So good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Family.

I can uh counsel.

Um I want to talk.

I did, I want to talk about two things.

Um the conduct of the police and a uh professionalism with these young officers, and maybe not having enough supervising staff or elder officers on duty when they uh come to a job.

Um, it's getting ridiculous and out of hand.

And I don't want to go to jail for fighting no North Police officer, but most of them are younger than my kids.

And one thing everybody knows about me is I don't play with nobody, and I don't expect to be played with.

And I have everybody numbers on speed, dial directors, captains.

Um I kinda let it go and put it in uh councilman round trees hand, and also didn't call the police department back, the officers that I do know, because that's when community separates when they don't have effective communication, and I understand they have to do their job, and I want to be friends and be nice and unity in my community, but we gotta understand, and I need all of y'all up there to understand that we are all one race, whether we black and brown, Latinos, whatever, at any given time, any one of us could be a suspect.

And even with us being a suspect, we need to be able to still be respected because we are supposed to be guilty.

I mean, innocent until proven guilty.

And what I seen outside of Pilgrim Village that day with um them officers and the way they conducted themselves on a job, it upset me real real bad.

Now I'm getting to what I gave y'all.

I've been talking a lot about uh our returning citizens and people coming home, and I really wanted to resonate with y'all because the majority of the population in the New Jersey Department of Corrections come from North, right?

So we all have our different wards, and we know people is coming home.

I have had conversations with the Office of Islands Prevention.

I have had conversations with work first, and they actually gave me some data with some numbers, but it is not enough.

We are doing a lot of money.

Y'all just uh y'all have work first in the budget, and from me talking to different people and me having a son and knowing the different challenges that they up against, we need to do more.

Because at the end of the day, like even me.

A few years ago, I had my life together, had a business, everything.

Now I'm in a situation where I'm trying to figure it out.

So imagine a bunch of our young people that's been sitting in jail, not getting rehabilitated, but then they come home and they try to figure it out.

Y'all not gonna like how it looks.

If I really tried to figure it out, y'all would not like how it looks.

So that's why I come here.

And I bring the issues to the forefront so that y'all can understand where I'm coming from, because I'm not a regular woman.

I am a woman, but I am very respected in the streets where we actually got positions because that's like what we fighting for, resources, and we fighting for resources for people that don't actually know how to fight for themselves.

That's why I come down here.

That's why I'm so transparent with what I go through because I I don't look like what I've been through.

I'm thankful that I have not, I don't look like it, that I understand how to function and maneuver and all of that, but it's uh a vast majority of people that don't understand how to function, that's coming home, not getting rehabilitated in these places and bringing more trauma on their families and society.

So this is real.

It's very real in my life.

The things that I have to advocate for, and I get knocked down because people that's in position to actually advocate in a way or make legislation or keep people on their toes and make them do their job, it's kind of like not understanding how to move or maybe scared.

I get it, but I'm my back against the wall.

I have no reason to be scared.

I have no reason to sugarcoat anything.

I have no reason not to be transparent because God is looking at me.

So I fear him.

I don't fear the North Police.

I don't fear these different departments, the people I don't because I go through real life situations that actually got y'all paid positions, and sometimes three and four of them.

So when I bring something before y'all, if y'all gotta connect me to the right people so my trauma won't keep existing, please help me out and pass the budget, a good budget, a budget that we can respect, please.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker, Darnell Lee.

Appearing.

Um give a moment of silence for two people that gave their service to the city.

My cousin Crystal Price just passed at 1204.

She retired last week working for the courts in St.

Michael's 30 years, and she just died yesterday.

My other cousin Sheila Turner, my cousin Tara Turner's mother, my cousin Glenn's Turner's sister.

She passed.

I was a wreck.

I just left the hospital.

She passed at 1204.

I just threw on something.

My sister came and got me an eight this morning.

I wasn't gonna come, but I said I can't because they gave services.

So I wanna give a moment of silence for them both.

Okay, I wanna talk about, as George said, about giving um.

Betty Owens, leaves the picket.

The names I'm calling off next were all on my floor.

Most of them had cancer remission or whatever.

Robert Johnson, Beverly Wright, Dorothy Johnson, Miss May, Betty Crandall.

I can't think of the other ladies, I'm gonna call a lovely, and then Miss Hakeem Rosenberry Mother.

When this thing started with the mold, they had me down at the Robert Tree uh Marquise and I.

But when they did the treatment, they didn't do it professionally.

They opened my door, I told y'all, and they let it go and spread and took the wall that they broke down without no mold treatment.

Got the people from Home Depot.

The door was open.

I came up.

I said, What are you doing?

That same garbage they've been pushing and pushing.

So eighth floor, people died, so I knew it was something.

Since I got that, they did my apartment.

What's happening since June to date?

Seven days a week.

No rest, no Sunday.

Everybody's been working from Home Depot in our building since June.

But nobody speaks English when I'm asking them.

I came, what they're doing, I took because I do um investigation.

I got before and after Pat.

When they did my apartment and they dropped the floors and they dropped them on top of the molded floors, you let them know they were supposed to do that, and they pulled it all up.

Every part, I mean, excuse me, we just got a whole makeover, a brand new open day for the new community room.

Everywhere what I said, you can walk in our building, see the mold and the walls and the floors since Mr.

Sorello was there.

They painted it so many colors.

I would go back and say you can still see the mold.

They put the oil paint on the railing with the dust, no plastic seniors, people going back and forth to hospital.

I said you can't do that.

However, painted on it with no cleaning, drop floors, every floor.

You can see the cutting.

They changed colors.

I said you can still see the mold.

No bells has been working since I leave.

The alarms I'm scared because when Mr.

Sorello we got the car in the hallway, y'all pull them out.

When we first got them, the the bells in the basement.

When Miss Mohammed was there, I had to go to the hospital.

We call it didn't work.

It's in the basement.

If you get there, none of them probably don't work.

It's ran by batteries.

Mr.

Sorello wanted that removed.

They didn't remove it.

You got the elevator's been broke 15 times.

It's been brand new.

I want to ask y'all, do they come out free?

We got two repair manns.

I mean, two maintenance and one repair man.

He's been in one for three years.

Y'all gave us a third one.

They took them back.

We need help.

They dropped on the new floors, but the new floor, certain parts you walk is in it.

So everywhere you come, no treatment.

They covered up, putting the white all my apartment, everything came back.

Catelyn, I've been working with everybody.

Oh, I've been waiting for a test.

It went from 6,000 to 4,000, 500 for an air test.

Everything was patched up, everything came back.

Cold enforcer came out, they came back.

The mold that they scraped grew back.

Nobody wants to go up.

I'm taking pictures.

All I need is a test.

A mold test round tree.

She's been working on it.

She needs help.

She's doing her part.

A test.

Thank y'all.

Thank you for it.

Thank you for your comments.

Next speaker.

Deborah Salters.

Not appearing.

Raylor Adams.

Not appearing.

Donna Jackson.

Good afternoon.

Good evening.

Happy holidays, whatever's coming up, because I guess the holiday is we all about to be homeless.

Between the public service bill, the taxes, the mortgage, the water.

Y'all killing us.

And there appears to be no end in sight.

So let's just do a couple of things since we know that Esses County has the highest autistic numbers in the Northeast region.

If you don't believe me, go over to the people who don't really like us over at Ruckers.

They did a three year study on Esses County.

Unfortunately, they took an additional three years to put the report out because they don't care about black and brown.

And so here we are.

They connected autism to the MMR vaccine that is in that is given to our children at the age of two.

And that's when it happened for my granddaughter.

Two years she was talking.

Hello, who's on the phone, answering the door, etc.

etc.

She got the MMR vaccine around 26, 27 months.

And slowly, within four to five days, the speech was gone.

And that's the effects.

So parents, I'm telling you now to just be careful with what you're doing.

New Jersey is one of the worst and most evil states in enforcing those vaccines.

And I'm telling you, you don't have to take my word because y'all don't never listen anyway.

Go on the CDC website and they will tell you everything that is contained in these vaccines, including COVID, including the flu, including shingles, including pneumonia.

It's all to kill us.

It contains mercury and aluminum.

If I stick, now Larry, don't take it personal, but if I was to stick Larry with a needle with mercury in it, I'm going to jail for attempted murder or murder if he don't make it.

If I inject DuPree with aluminum, I'm going to jail.

So why are we allowing these folks in this medical industry who don't care about us to do this?

Family, please pay attention to your seniors in particular, but everybody's medication.

Y'all gotta start reading those side effects.

They're killing us.

No medication is curing nobody.

Get back to your cod lives.

Yes, it's nasty, but it works.

You'll be pooping a little bit.

Hey, that's all the bad stuff coming out.

That's my public service announcements for today.

But I also need us to extend the age of doing lead testing.

We are doing a great disservice that we no longer test children for lead after the age of five.

We're doing a great disservice.

Mr.

DePaul was 92 years old, kindergarten teacher at Avon Avenue School, and he was one of those who broke the story in 2015 when he came back, lead positive after visiting his physician.

And I'm talking 2016.

The elevators at 22 Franklin Street, you should all be ashamed of yourself.

I just took an elder, another one, to get a copy of police release, and we had to walk to the fourth floor.

This elevator has been broken for four years now.

Four years.

So I understand the compassion, but y'all need to understand the anger.

And why every time Donna stands at this mic?

I can't speak for nobody else.

I'm about to cuss.

Because all of this is preventable, and you are doing nothing to correct these things.

Nothing.

It is unacceptable that y'all got people walking to that fourth floor.

And the young man that I went with last week, he was 81.

Because he got told during street sweeping.

Because that's the only thing y'all got to kill us with.

Now, the city of Orange did away with the parking authority.

Just had a conversation with one of your staff members over here.

I don't know, you know, I understand what I don't, and I don't understand.

They did away with it.

I remember under Sharp James when Judge Allison Brown Jones used to give accountability of the North Court system.

There was in excess of 300 to 400 million dollars, and I'm talking about the 90s.

Y'all done just raised the parking tickets up to 95.

I already asked you when is the last time the North Police Department or the parking authority, because they seem to be parking authorities, wrote a ticket for don't block the box.

See, y'all let these people come in here and disrespect us and do nothing.

Nothing.

You cannot move in this city between 6 a.m.

and 10 a.m.

You can't.

I can't leave my house on Smith Street and come downtown in less than 45 minutes.

It ain't happening.

Especially when I get below Brooke Rose Street.

You're doing nothing to change it.

Bike lanes, these bikes out here, no regulations, the scooters, no rent.

Y'all just, oh, we should have scooters like New York.

We ain't New York.

Stop bumping out the damn curves.

Let's get some enforcement.

We not the suburbs.

You can't tell somebody have a car accident and do the state police for them.

What we paying for.

Y'all, we gotta fix this.

We gotta fix it.

Thank you for your comments.

You're welcome, sir.

And thank you for letting me stick you with the uh luminal.

All right.

Council President, Council members, that concludes the agenda for this meeting.

Thank you.

Anything from the council.

This point.

Uh Councilwoman Scott Roundry.

Yes, I do want to address Ms.

Lee, Darnella Lee.

I know we've been working uh diligently right here, baby.

Working diligently with you for at least a year or more myself.

Um, and director Caitlin Albrook.

She I know she's been doing her due diligence, but the last time we spoke, I don't know what happened as a result of that test piece.

So I'm asking um the director, I'll probably reach out to her and see how we can get an update on the test.

That is very, very, very important.

So I'll talk to her after this meeting and see what we can do before you leave today, so that you won't have to come back again.

At least we can probably get a date for the test.

Um, in reference to new community in the three buildings and even Pilgrim.

Um, when we know about it, and I know there's a couple of people in the audience that we've been talking to about the conditions of these buildings, not just today, but there's a couple of individuals that have had some issues with Pilgrim.

Um, at one point I even called um council president, the uh owner and spoke to them regarding issues that tenants um one young lady that's sitting here right now had an issue.

I called in reference to them.

I will be at the October 7th meeting, Council President, um just to see what is being said, what is being done.

Um back to new community, which owns more than three properties, which is a staple in this community, just as you are, Mr.

Tillman and your family.

Um, they go back further than this new development, they even go back further than those senior buildings.

When those buildings were built, of course, all of the buildings 516, 180, 140.

Um, you can go down to Central Board, you got 15, um, Hill Street.

You got all of these, but not 15, is it 50?

Lincoln, whatever it is, Douglas Homes, it used to be.

Um, you have one one Nevada, two Court Street.

We have a multiplicity of senior buildings that they were not drug addiction problems in when those seniors moved in.

That generation was a different generation.

Now, because of whatever reason, we have all of these other issues.

Social services is very important.

And it's almost like when we talk about the shelters, social services are very important.

If you have residents living in these particular in this environment that have addiction problems, then management, I'm sure has to be aware.

And if they're not, then I gather that's something that the council also can look into regarding the addiction problems.

When we came to New Community, we found that some of the issues were the tenants.

It wasn't so much the addiction, um, the people running in departments and and stealing and knocking on doors and letting people that don't live there in the building that sell the drugs.

It was a whole lot of stuff going on that we found out as a result of talking to everybody, not just the management, but the talking to security.

And when you talk to people without the tenants, there's not a lot, you get both sides.

Because in front of the tenants, they're gonna say one thing, but without the tenants, they're gonna say another.

So we do want to hear the whole story, which is why we met with management.

We met with the whole team first.

You didn't even know we were coming.

And we did that on purpose because we didn't want them to know or the residents to know, so we can address them.

And we'll be doing that throughout the city when it makes it to our desk.

Um, so I don't know whether the other council people, how they feel regarding of the development and in regards to the tax abatements.

Um, I'm gonna talk with the committee and see how we're gonna go forward.

There's been conversation about tax release for our elders.

I spoke to Michelle Jones over a year ago in regards to trying to find out how we can put together some legislation to talk about relief for our sea, especially our senior homeowners.

So I don't know what's gonna come of that, but we are going to work on it.

Ms.

Jones said she had some ideas, so I'm gonna talk to the uh council people and see exactly what we can do.

And talking to Councilman Gonzalez, which is our tax abatement chair, there's been some things that I was made aware of that the state holds the keys, supposedly, to our tax abatements.

I don't are our rules and laws, but I do believe that legally we can look into some things, and because we are the legislative body for the city of North, that we should be able to come up with something.

We hear the same thing over and over and over and over again.

And they, you know, so they say if you keep on doing the same thing, you keep going, keep on getting the same results.

We want different results.

And there's a lot, I'm not gonna say that I don't know when you don't know, you just be quiet until you find out and you learn.

And I'm learning a lot of things, and I do want to, and I'm hoping and praying that as we come together as a legislative body, that the people don't care about your degrees and how much they they want to know how much you care.

And that's a real famous quote.

People don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care.

If you're not showing that you care at all, then that's an issue.

We do quick care.

Queen Mother has issues.

We have residents that have issues that have not been addressed, the way that the public feels that we should have addressed them.

So we have to look into those things when they're brought to our attention and do the best of probability to make sure that their service.

Now, let me just stop right there.

And um, but I just wanted you to know, Miss Lee and um young lady from Pilgrim that we will be showing up.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Council President.

Thank you for your comments, Councilwoman.

Councilman Kelly.

Thank you, Council President.

Um, I just wanted to um first of all, I just want to say my condolences to uh Ms.

Danella Lee's family members.

Um, she seemed really shaken up about that, so I definitely want to send my condolences.

But I also want to um it was insinuated that I use the councilman office to make money off of hip hop, which is absurd.

You know, if anything, by me being councilman, I lose money from not doing hip hop the way that I would love to do it, because I am doing the work in our community.

Um I am from New York, New Jersey and was fortunate enough to be very, very successful with hip hop and a Miriam Baraka senior after a conversation with him and my management, Hafish Fareed, they made me realize that I need to give back to the city that I give so much credit to in my music and my art.

And this is why I continue to fight for Newark and utilize art to foster change in our community.

Um, like I said, I've been very successful in hip hop for a long time, so using the councilman's office to make money off of hip hop is really, really absurd.

Um I have always used my art to foster change.

Um, you know, and and the music video that he was talking about or that they were talking about.

It's not my video.

It's actually another rapper named Luce Cannon that I inspired, who now donates to baseball teams in the West Ward.

He is the reason for all of their summer lessons.

Um he is also the reason for all of the haircuts out of all-star barbershop doing 24 hours of peace.

So, yes, I did him a service by using my celebrity, as one of the people said, to rap on his song because he takes care of the community.

Yeah, yes.

Um give back.

You know, it it is definitely give back, councilwoman.

Um I wrote some notes down, and and he said that I shouted out prudential and he used a lot of things in prudential.

Well, I shouted out prudential because prudential just gave block grants to so many uh nonprofits and and profit groups, businesses in our community, several from the South Ward, several from the Central Ward, and a lot of them from the West Ward to help stimulate their small businesses.

I also shouted out a lot of other things in New York that he didn't mention, from Sarah Vaughn to utilizing art to foster change in our community to a Mary Baraka to university high schools, high school students, graduates to Westside High School, which is in my ward.

He didn't mention those.

Um also I want to say to Mr.

Youngblood in his own self-admission.

Um he's upset.

He's upset because he is too a rap artist.

He didn't mention that either.

Um, as well as the Central Ward candidate, and he won't, his team, self-admittedly to me, his team won't allow him to utilize his art to foster change in his community.

So I guess he attacks me for being a successful hip hop artist.

Um yeah.

So I, you know, I just wanted to say that, you know, sometimes things don't come in the packages that you want them to come in.

You know, um, and the way that I do art, the way that I was taught to help my community was through my art.

Even though I have a college education, people seem to forget that.

I'm not just a rapper.

I think that it is just the biggest thing that they can speak on that I am a rapper, and I smile that I am a hip hop artist because I am the first platinum-selling hip hop artist in the United States of America to ever win a seat like this to help their community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Kelly.

Uh anything else from the council uh before we go to the administration.

Uh, yeah, I just want to say one more thing.

I I heard a comment that just came back in my mind uh about addressing a developer as being a killer, or a the building being a killer.

I think we have to be very, very careful of the labels we put on individual when we start calling them killers specifically.

Uh, there are a lot of services.

We're going to talk about the bad.

Make sure you add some good because nothing is 100% bad.

And I think this was uh pertaining to as I look at my notes, new community, and nobody talked about new community with the job development, uh, the programs for the seniors.

The the I'm going to address because from my understanding, I don't know what their social services are, but they do have individuals that were at one time dealing with people with problems that had issues.

So I just I'm gonna look into that, Mr.

Tillman.

But I want us, and you have every right, everyone has a right to say the freedom of speech, come up to the micro on a spiritual level.

When we start calling people killers, we can also call them liars.

The truth of the matter is there is no level of sin that outweighs the other.

So we have to be careful of pointing the fingers at folks.

We can point out the problems, we can address the problems, we can bring the problems to the council and let us know what's wrong and see what we can do to hold them accountable.

When we start calling them killers and think we all have something, but let's be very, very careful that we have examined our own actions and our advocacy before we start pointing the fingers specifically and calling people names.

That's all I want to say.

Thank you for that.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Uh, anything from the administration?

Nothing.

Uh all right.

At this point, then I guess we'll go to motions.

Uh start with councilwoman Scott Roundry.

Me again.

No, people want to go home.

Uh, I do want to start out.

Uh Sheila James uh Turner, Sheila Turner, um, yes, Sheila James, uh Terrell Turner, Pat Prophet Terrell Turner's mom.

Um, just a shock, uh, Pat's pastor counsel, real shock that uh Prophet Turner and his brother Gerard, his mother is transitioning.

So I do want to, Madam Clerk, express profound sorrow and regret for they call her prophetess, Sheila James.

And of course, Crystal, um, I have two names for her, but I will get back to you.

I know Robin has family that's related um to her and my staff.

So we do want to express profound sorrow and regret, and I will get to her on that.

So we'll get resolutions and letters once all of the arrangements are made and sent to them.

I also want to express profound sorrow and regret to Mother Hinton, which is the mother of Pastor Matthew P.A.

Um, her funeral services will be on Sunday, October 5th, and I will get that information to you, Councilman Council.

Uh, yeah, Pastor Pier's mom passed evangelist.

So I'll get that to you as well.

Also, on this tomorrow, now it's been made public, so nobody can say they couldn't call the office for a ticket because there's no more tickets for the mayor's prayer breakfast.

I put it out real early over a month ago.

And so I don't want anybody say it's a public event and they couldn't get in.

There's only so many seats in the Robert Cheat Hotel.

And so that's tomorrow.

I want to thank all of the faith leaders that have put their time and effort into serving this community.

That will be tomorrow, 9 a.m.

Thank you all that are able to come and it will be shown live.

So you can watch our speaker to the Shearer's Buster Stories, and of course, every ward has a participant or culture that will be playing a big part in our 12th annual prayer breakfast.

Tomorrow evening at uh tomorrow daytime, not tomorrow, Friday, October 3rd, 10 a.m.

to 4 p.m., we will hold our Shawnee Barack Women's Resource Center annual domestic violence conference, our voice, our solution.

Guest speaker will be the Honorable Mayor Raz J.

Baraka.

And if you have seen or you know someone that you love or that you're just acquainted with that have been impacted by domestic violence, please join us to learn, heal, and be a part of the movement to end domestic violence.

Also on Saturday, October 4th, from 10 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

We will hold with my sisters lighthouse our 15th annual walk against domestic violence, which will be held October 4th, which is Saturday.

We will start the location of walking from City Hall Newark and Walter Military Park.

Our host will be Lenny Green from WBLS 107.5 FM.

And my co-host, along with Jackie Lime Host, is none other than the honorable council president, Lawrence C.

Lawrence Crump.

Cecil Lawrence Crump.

That's him.

We're holding once again open casting calls for various plays.

I've been doing this now for over a year.

I'm not the celebrity that I miss to do it all is, but we're trying to create some new stars in our city.

We know there's only one star, and that is God, but we can create other lights through opening up doors for singers, actors from all wards.

Initial productions have their open casting call for the upcoming stage production, City of Hope, which is our annual Christmas production.

It will be held.

The casting call is here on Saturday in City Hall from 1 p.m.

to 5 p.m.

That's next Saturday, October 11th, 2025.

We haven't done the women's meeting after we finish with the trying to learn.

They say being financial literate is one thing, but knowing what to do with your money when you get it.

We can tell you, we can tell you some things about being literate, but how you manage it is a whole nother story.

So we did a couple of cohorts of um with Buster Stories and First Lady Linda Baraka hosting moving women forward with financial literacy and how to manage your money through the D free movement, going from debt to dividends and we we just worked on that, and now we're coming back, and there's going to be a series of women's meetings, but we're starting with development and homeownership.

Adina Bayo and some guests from Invest Newark will be on October 21st, which is the day before our next evening meeting at the William Mobile Ashby Community Training Center from 6 p.m.

to 7 30 p.m.

There are many other things that will be happening.

Please watch the city website or you can call any one of our offices.

I will give you my number, 973-733-3794.

If you see something on the city website, or you want to know what upcoming events are happening, not just on the administration legislative level, but even on the administrative level, because we are all one city.

And whatever's going on with the administration regarding various events, assistance, we deal with mental health.

We deal with so many things, community events.

So even though legislative and administrative are looked at separately, at some point we all should be working towards the same goal, and that is the benefit of the people to improve the quality of life for the people.

And you can't separate that from all of the people that are serving in government.

That all has to be one particular thought.

We care about the people.

So thank you once again, Nork, uh, for listening to me.

Thank you to my council colleagues for the work that we do together.

Thank you for allowing me to serve.

And I want to also thank those who come up, our speakers, for what they share with us for their passion for the residents for the thing, the information that they bring.

And we're not a perfect people.

This city has over 350,000 residents in it.

And there's only seven with eight of us all together total.

So when you have eight people managing everything along with the directors and the managers of this city, no one will ever be perfect.

I hear people talk about the honorable mayor shark Jennings.

He was in government for 36 years, and there were people that still complained.

So I don't care if you're the best landlord in the world, somebody gonna find a nail out of place, but we're gonna try to do what we can to fix that one nail out of place.

God bless all of you.

Thank you so very much for letting me serve you and make sure you have a happy Yom Kipper, which starts this evening until tomorrow.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

There was a motion in there somewhere.

Well call council?

Yes.

Kelly.

Yes.

Quintana absent.

Ramos.

No, no, I'm kidding.

Yes.

It's an early meeting, that's why.

Got round tree.

Yes, ma'am.

President Crump.

Yes.

Councilman Ramos.

I have no motions, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you, Councilman Ramos.

Councilman Kelly.

Thank you, Council Prez.

Uh, just one quick thing.

I would like to um request um for engineering and uh code enforcement.

Well, code enforcement's under engineering.

I would let I would like to request a meet with them to set up uh a possible strategy for addressing these absentee landlords that we have in the West Ward.

Um there are a lot of that I've been complaining about for going over on that I've been complaining about that's going on over a year when it comes to um the occupancy of their of their uh properties.

There's you know, I won't put the the actual blocks on record right now, but there's there's areas in the West Ward where you have 30 people living in there and it's only zoned for 10 or maybe 12.

Um you have absentee ownership who leave the property filthy because they can afford to pay the fine or or they don't care about the fine.

So, you know, I get the blunt of all of those calls.

Um and when I when I reach out to the directors, uh, you know, or email the BA, and and I have to say the BA is very, very uh responsive to me.

Sometimes when I reach out to the people, you know, I don't really get the um the call backs or people taking care of the situation like I need them to.

Um, especially when it goes over for months.

This this one incident that I'm talking about in the West Ward.

I've been calling and reporting these people for probably over a year.

And you know, now they're reaching out to councilman council or my fellow colleagues because they don't believe that things are happening.

You know, if if you reach out to somebody and they don't do the work, you know, I have to, as a councilman, I have to call and I have to get in, you know, get out, reach out to the departments to get the people out.

And if they don't come out, then collectively we have to, as colleagues, get together to make that happen.

If that doesn't work, then I have to speak on this microphone just for something to move, and it shouldn't be that way.

You know, so I'm asking to set up a strategy meeting with um engineering and code enforcement, so we can come up with a strategy to attack these issues and address the situations when it comes to absentee landlords with uh pertaining to occupancy and pertaining to the trash that are left that's left on the side of their properties and a lot of time in front of their properties when they're doing construction.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So that's a second second, second by councilman Scott Roundtree.

Council, yes, absent Kelly, yes, Quintana absent Ramos, yes, Scott Roundtree, yes, President Crump.

Yes, Councilman Council.

Nothing.

I'm good.

Who are you?

Wow.

Thank you, Councilman.

All right, I have some I have just a couple items.

One is uh uh and similar to Councilman uh Kelly.

Uh for a while now.

We've been trying to get something done about 13 Hecker Street.

It's a building that is on the verge of collapsing.

Um there are rest there are houses next to it.

I've visited the location, sent pictures uh to uh engineering, at least one picture.

I have a few others to the engineering department, and I know there was supposed to be something done on it, but I don't know if well I do know nothing has because the owner has reached out to our office of the next door neighbors reached out to our office and is really upset and complaining about the fact that there's nothing being done over the course of several months, and he's met with me uh with a number of folks, and um 13 hectares street.

It's an it's an abandoned building, it's falling down.

The vegetation in the back is ridiculous.

I mean, it's it's it's rainforest uh looking, and really that's I think that's part of and in some cases.

Let me say I understand the no, I do understand the frustration of some of the folks that come to the mic because when we have an opportunity to do things, we should jump on it and and try to resolve it as quickly as possible, particularly in an instance like this where it can present a safety hazard to the residents living next door.

Um a letter or memo to the uh engineering department so that uh uh uh what do you call code enforcement as well as UCC, I believe, both should be involved, really investigate this matter and and provide some type of resolution for it.

That's the first one.

The second thing is just to everybody know that the Universal Circus is here in Norwork in Weekway Park, um, starting on the second.

I hope you get your tickets and you come out.

We had a great tent uh uh what do you call it?

Yesterday.

Uh so many people came by and we had a wonderful experience.

So there are a number of days or number of of uh opportunities.

I know there's there's Nort Day, there's uh one day I'm gonna be a ringmaster, there's uh uh clergy day, and then other all these other days for opportunities for you to go see the Universal Circus, have a wonderful time.

It's always a good time.

If you haven't been there, make sure you get there.

It's family, it's family uh oriented, so bring the kids, bring the older people, and we're gonna have a great time at the circus.

Uh with that being said, is there a second?

Is that a second?

Come on, y'all, stop talking.

Second.

Is there a second?

Second council McCouncil roll call.

Council, Dallas absent, Kelly, yes, Kitana absent, Ramos.

Yes, Scott Round, President Yes, motion to adjourn.

Council?

Yes.

Kelly, yes, Ramos?

Of course.

Scott Roundtree, President Crum.

Yes.

Jesus.