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Record of Proceedings

Newark Municipal Council Special Meeting - March 24, 2026

Municipal Council — Tuesday, March 24, 2026

BodyNewark, New Jersey

SessionMunicipal Council

DateTuesday, March 24, 2026

StatusFILED

Video Record

0:00 / 4:35

Transcript — VerbatimClick a timed line to jump · ⧉ to share it

0:07

Good morning.

0:09

Welcome to the special meeting of the Newark Municipal Council on Tuesday, March 24th.

0:14

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.

0:26

In addition, the agenda for this meeting was disseminated on March 20th at the time of preparation and posted on the city's website.

0:35

Roll call, please.

0:37

Council members, present council, absent, Gonzalez.

0:45

Present.

0:46

Kelly here.

0:48

Here.

0:49

Raymo's absent.

0:50

Scott Ray, please.

0:52

Absent.

0:53

Soba.

0:54

Absent.

0:54

President.

0:55

Present.

0:56

Council President, Council members.

0:58

We have one item for consideration today that inadvertently missed the deadline last week.

1:04

It is six.

1:05

I'm sorry, seven R9AS, which is an acceptance of grant funds for police officer overtime to reduce motor vehicle crashes, injuries, and fate penalties from traffic offenses.

1:19

Council as a whole to adopt.

1:22

Roll call.

1:23

Council members.

1:25

Yes.

1:26

Council absent.

1:28

Gonzales.

1:29

Yes.

1:30

Ellie.

1:30

Yes.

1:32

Yes.

1:36

Absent.

1:37

Silva.

1:38

Absent.

1:39

President Crump.

1:41

Yes.

1:41

President, if I may.

1:42

Councilman Gonzalez.

1:44

Yes.

1:44

Hopefully, this will reduce the accident between police officers.

1:49

Because every every day we get emails that the police officer has had an accident.

1:55

So maybe we can train them how to drive it with this kind of money.

2:01

So hopefully, councilman, maybe in the future council meeting or conference, we can have the uh maybe not the director, but someone from his department to come in and we have some address here.

2:13

Oh, is he?

2:13

Oh, I didn't even see you in the corner.

2:15

All right.

2:15

Sorry about that.

2:18

Morning, Council President.

2:20

Council members.

2:21

I'm uh Captain James George from the Department of Public Safety with the police department.

2:25

Uh I second that uh that that sentiment.

2:28

Uh totally agreed.

2:29

There's too many accidents.

2:30

We are taking steps to uh to retrain and advise our people on when the appropriate response is to reduce the amount of accidents of public safety gets into.

2:48

And this some of them are very stupid accidents.

2:52

Uh some others are let's say a little bit more serious, but I believe that uh the younger people these days don't say don't think that they need a car, so they don't get licenses.

3:05

So I believe that we have to intensify the training because they have this is probably their first time that they drive.

3:12

Uh that's some of the problems.

3:14

Yes, that's that's correct.

3:15

That's a good observation.

3:16

Uh there's other things that and measures that we're taking just to make sure they know when to respond with urgency and then sometimes when it's not needed, why why bother?

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting

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Public Safety█████████████████████████████████████████████50%

Summary of Proceedings

Newark Municipal Council Special Meeting - March 24, 2026

The Newark Municipal Council held a special meeting on March 24, 2026, at 10:01 AM in City Hall. The single agenda item was the acceptance of a $50,000 grant from the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety (DHTS) for police officer overtime aimed at reducing motor vehicle crashes, injuries, and fatalities from traffic offenses. The meeting lasted approximately four minutes, with no public comments, and concluded at 10:05 AM.

Discussion Items

Resolution 7R9-a(s) 26-0226: The council considered a resolution to ratify and authorize acceptance of a $50,000 grant from the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety for police overtime dedicated to reducing traffic crashes, injuries, and fatalities. The grant period is October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026, with no city contribution required.
Councilman Carlos M. Gonzalez expressed hope that the funding would help reduce accidents involving police officers themselves, noting frequent reports of police vehicle collisions. He suggested inviting a representative from the Public Safety Department to a future meeting to discuss officer training.
Captain James George of the Newark Department of Public Safety acknowledged the issue, stating that the department is already taking steps to retrain officers on appropriate response urgency and safe driving. He noted that many younger officers lack prior driving experience and that the grant itself is not for training, but the department is working on the problem independently.

Key Outcomes

The council voted to adopt the resolution. The vote was 5 in favor (Amina Bey, Carlos M. Gonzalez, Dupré L. Kelly, Luis A. Quintana, and Council President C. Lawrence Crump) and 4 absent (Patrick O. Council, Anibal Ramos Jr., Louise Scott-Rountree, and Michael J. Silva). Councilwoman Scott-Rountree arrived at 10:03 AM and was present for the adjournment vote but not for the resolution vote.
The council then moved to adjourn, with a vote of 6 in favor (including Scott-Rountree) and 3 absent.

Public Comments & Testimony

City Clerk Kecia Daniels opened the 30-minute public comment period, but no members of the public appeared to speak. The public comment session was closed.

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