Live here at City Hall with a few updates.

As always, I ask that you just give me a few moments to ensure that we could share this to various pages in order to maximize or be most efficient in communicating the information that we want the community to have.

Of course, we want to ensure that you can share it as well.

So please, when you get a chance, let people know either now or afterwards.

Okay, let's compare unbok of information specifically the uh the current.

So we'll be sharing it from uh the computer directly as it is that a feature seems to have changed, and we cannot share it directly here.

But if you can assist us in sharing the information, as I do not have access to the live here presently, so I'm unable to see if there are any comments.

But I do want to share some information with you.

First, I wanted to give you an update regarding uh the specific fire that we had on New Year's Eve in the city of Passake, and located at 361 Madison between Gregory and Paulison Avenue.

Unfortunately, we experienced a serious fire, which resulted in the tragic loss of life right before leaving the city of this unfortunate 361 Madison between active.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all those that worked collaboratively to ensure that we can get residents back in to the building today.

I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge our human services, our office of emergency management.

I want to highlight Judith Sanchez as well as Walter Porto, as well as our chief of the fire department, Patrick Trenicos, our construction official, Alberto Ventura, all of our firefighters, our police officers, our Red Cross, Nancy is always your remarkable asset to our city, as well as our code enforcement and all those that work to ensure that we can get the families back into the building today.

Of course, we don't want to see anybody's life lost under any circumstances.

And it is, I believe the book of Ecclesiastes says that there's a time for celebration and a time for mourning, a time for laughter and a time for tears that a span of one day, which covered two years.

But we were able to mediate most of the issues.

So I passed others.

So information.

Okay, I can now see some of the comments here, but I wanted to give you that update again.

Ladies and gentlemen, residents of the city of Persake and neighboring municipalities and anyone watching.

Your very first response when you smell smoke or believe there's a fire is to get you and your loved ones out safely, to respond immediately.

There is a misconception.

That is not the case.

Sometimes we perceive a fire to be minor or something simple to resolve.

And what occurs is in the process of trying to address it, we lose those crucial moments where you can get out safely and immediately an apartment or a home can be engulfed in flames, and in other cases because of smoke.

So per favor, like investigating this, because I also want to remind everyone in terms of renters, insurance.

Sometimes the fire may not directly impact your uh apartment or where you live, but water damage and result of fires, uh firefighters combating the fire can cause a great deal of damage.

And if you have renters insurance, I've seen individuals receive up to 40 to 50,000 from the insurance company because of their losses in a fire at an apartment.

It's extremely important that you cover these things.

Again, these things can be replaced.

Life is sacred and priority.

My goal as your mayor is to inform you that your first response should be to get out of any situation that you perceive to be dangerous, whether fire, electrical fire, or if there's some kind of disaster or flood or any issue, to get to safety.

All material things can be replaced.

So I wanted to ensure that you receive that.

Let me just confirm that people can hear that the volume is fine as we have resolved some of the issues in our city.

Okay, now I want to go to some of the announcements in regards to city functions, activities, and events.

Many of you know that New Year's occurred in the week on Wednesday.

Those who have their recycling scheduled for Wednesday, I remind you, your recycling will occur tomorrow, Saturday.

All those that were scheduled for recycling for Wednesday, your recycling will occur Saturday.

So please put out your recycling this evening or tomorrow in the morning, but do it early in the morning as the recycling company will be going out for all those scheduled Wednesday.

Those who have regular pickup for Saturdays, you can put your regular pickup out.

Alright, with that stated, I also wanted to share with you.

Um City Hall will be closed on Monday.

Monday, City Hall will be closed for three Kings Day.

We will have suspended alternate side of the street.

There will be no alternate side of the street.

Monday, the schools will be closed for three Kingsday, and City Hall will be closed for three Kingsday.

Again, alternate side of the street rules are suspended.

You can leave your car where it is.

However, regular garbage and recycling pickup will occur on Monday.

So I wanted to share that with you again.

I have instituted a free bus shuttle.

That means you will be able to travel around the city for free.

We will begin on Tuesday.

We will have a live demonstration at 12 p.m.

12 p.m.

This is the flyer, but I'm going to post up the flyer later.

But I'm going to talk to you.

There will be a free bus shuttle.

So it's Tuesday, January 7th at 12 p.m.

The hours of operation will be from 10 a.m.

to 6.30 p.m.

Monday to Friday.

And it's going to go around places like Main Avenue, Market Street, Up Sake Ave, and different routes.

My goal is to eventually extend this to the weekends so that you can get to the small businesses on the weekends as well.

It's unratis para todos los que están in la ciudad.

Un autobus gratuito.

Gratuito.

Gratuito.

Gratuito.

That sounds like an Italian dish that I would eat with gravy and pasta.

But no.

No te will live in Atlantic City.

No one is a dental is gratis.

This uh this free bus shuttle, it's not gonna take you to New York.

It won't take you to Atlantic City.

It's not gonna take you to whatever vacation destination you're looking to get to, but it will be free within the city and help you get around.

It's gonna it's gonna spur greater uh business support as you can travel around our business district, our main avenue, our market street, our eateries, travel around, see some of our amenities at least throughout the day, and it's gonna help people get around.

So we're really excited.

I'll get you more detail, but I'll be posting this up.

I also wanted to share with our residents that on January 20th, 2025.

Our PASAC Mayor's Youth Council will be hosting a free college FAFSA application assistance program.

We encourage young people who want to apply for college.

Sometimes it's hard to navigate this process, the application process, understanding what should go in on it, maybe even ask some questions about scholarships.

Our youth council will be here to assist you and facilitate the process.

So we encourage students to come.

It will be held at our Pasik City Hall Senior Center at 330 Passake Street.

That will be January 20th.

I'll share the flyer.

So for home, nigga, family, amigos, or person who can be a launch, passing for this program to generate applications.

Alright, ladies and gentlemen, take this opportunity to see if there are any other questions, and I'm going to conclude with uh the announcements regarding our specific uh decorating contests.

It seems like there may be a frozen page.

Are we still on or is it frozen right now?

It's still on.

All right, may just be my phone, ladies and gentlemen, that needs a little bit of updating.

We were experiencing technical difficulties a few times a few weeks ago, but uh right now it seems like we're back on.

So as I was sharing City of Pisake, in regards to uh the announcements, many of you participated in our wonderful and amazing decorating contest, and I'm very happy for all those that participated.

But as always, I share with you that uh the judging process is the most challenging part.

And I stopped judging it because it becomes extremely hard to get the blame for those who didn't win.

So now we leave the judging to the community.

We will be posting up pictures of the homes, the businesses, and the faith-based institutions that uh that participated.

Hold on, there's a question or Jorgito.

After donde el bus, Senor Alcalde.

But the areas that we have to say the main avenue, La Market Street, La Pasake Street, La Monroe Street, the area of Comerciantes, don't we have access to the train or autobus for a transportation and as you go to one at the city for gratis, but the question was asked what routes will be covered in terms of the uh free shuttle?

And I just want to share with you that the areas that will be covered will include Main Avenue, Market Street, Monroe Street, Passake Ave.

We're gonna connect train station, bus uh stops, different business districts.

The goal is to have people get easy access to transportation within the city for free.

Again, I believe this is an amazing and wonderful new amenity from the city.

We're also working on a future partnership to see if we can extend the services from the county, uh, working from Patterson, Clifton, and Passaic, but not outside of this area, as we continue to provide opportunities to residents to get around.

Okay, hopefully that answered your questions.

Uh, I'll see if there are any other questions.

Again, I thank you guys.

And uh, I want to share very quickly regarding the uh the specific uh as I was mentioning the specific decorating contest.

So this year we opened it up to uh homes, businesses, faith-based institutions.

Padre Jorge de San Mary's.

Father Father Jorge from St.

Mary's trying to offer me food, rice, beans, pizza.

He tried to cover every culture.

I said, Father, I'm not judging.

I still ate the food.

But afterwards, I told him I'm not judging because I was hungry.

So you know, I didn't want to tell him that before I finish eating the food.

But afterwards, again, if you wanna if you want to judge, um, you are able to participate.

We're gonna put up the pictures.

I'm gonna show you some of the pictures.

So we're gonna start with the homes, and I want to thank these homes.

As uh three Kings Day usually is the end of the contest, but most people leave their decorations up a little bit longer, but I want to go over some of the homes.

368 Van Howen Avenue.

I'll show you a quick image of that.

That's 368 Van Howen Avenue.

They went all out.

We also had 363 Paulison Avenue, 243 Burgess Place, 184 Gregory Avenue, 64 Linden, 35 Summer Street, 31 Van Howen Avenue, and 3 Henderson Street.

These were the homes that participated.

Again, we remind everyone that uh you had to you had to sign up for the contest.

We could not force your home into the contest.

You had to will willingly sign up because we didn't know if homes wanted to be included, and we couldn't just assume that.

But there were so many homes that decorated.

And next year I share with you next year we're gonna do a video of every single ward.

So we asked everywhere, we're gonna do award contacts next year.

We're gonna do award contest.

I was actually down in 6th Street with Miss Evelyn Robinson and uh Sixth Street, you guys did an amazing job decorating.

I told Miss Uly Robinson they gotta sign up for next year so we can do a housing contest, include housing.

But again, next year we're gonna do a ward contest and we're gonna we're gonna give a prize to the winning ward, and then the sign will go to the ward every year.

You'll get to choose which is the winning ward for the decorating contest.

Decorating contest includes the entire decorating.

I may include for the whole year.

We're gonna see because there's a lot of holidays.

So maybe we'll see if we include, but during this specific season, we have Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Three Kings, whatever you celebrate.

But maybe we'll we'll expand it and see how you decorate throughout the whole year from Valentine's to 4th of July to every holiday, and then whatever ward at the end of the year has been the most decorative ward, we'll give them uh a big sign entering into the ward, and it can move around every year to see which ward will have a little competition to see which is the most decorative ward.

But me can't come decorar on those cases.

And we also want to show some of the businesses that uh that participated.

And gold star jewelry at 687 Main Avenue.

Those are our businesses.

I believe we had two businesses that participated.

So you can judge out of the two.

One of them is getting first prize, one of them is getting second.

They're both gonna get something.

But uh, you get to pick which one will be first prize.

And then of the uh houses of faith and faith-based institutions.

We had St.

Anthony's of Padua and 10103 Myrtle Avenue.

We have St.

Mary's Assumption Roman Catholic Um Slavic Church, 63 Moreau Street with the Great Food.

Not trying to tip the scales, but if you stop by, you might get hot chocolate and food if you judge them.

Also, we have First Baptist Church of Passake, Iglesia Bautista de Pasic 150 Gregory Avenue.

They decorated it so you can judge their pictures as pictures are taken, and then Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, 226 Harrison Street.

And then Holy Trinity, Roman Catholic Church, 226 Harrison Street.

So these are the places that you can judge to see which ones are the ones that won.

These are the faith-based institutions that participated.

We put it out there.

We asked if your faith-based institution did not participate.

This year I'm receiving a number of uh of pictures right now.

Okay.

Um, Mrs.

McNair, thank you for the pictures.

I'm presently live.

I cannot uh entertain that right now.

However, we appreciate the food uh offering.

However, you cannot win the contest.

Plus, you didn't decorate, which uh I did share with you that you you were Mrs.

Calls today, but there was no decorations at your home.

I'm disappointed.

I had to shout you out and let everybody know that.

As I was sharing, please vote for your favorite home, um, whichever one you want, or business or uh faith-based institution, and then we're gonna announce the prize before the end of the year.

I also want to take another opportunity to thank Fiesta Nightclub.

Fiesta Night Club.

I'll be working with uh the newly elected sheriff in the longstanding tradition of providing the three kings toys to the community.

I will be sharing those flyers others.

With that said, I'm gonna thank you for this opportunity to update the community.

As I mentioned before, we continue to keep the families of those that were affected by the fire and prayer.

I thank all those that work so hard to ensure that we can get people back into the building today, the additional efforts of the Red Cross, our human services, coordinator Judith Sanchez, our OEM Representative Walter Porto, and all those who worked with us, our chief of the fire department, Chief Patrick Trenicos, our police department, our chief Louis Kuzman, our deputy chief Louis Gentile.

Um I want to thank everybody, all of the residents who assisted, to the straight up riders again.

Thank you for your efforts that evening.

And for those at St.

Mary's General Hospital as I was in the hospital through that most difficult time.

Thank you for your efforts, your kindness, your compassion, and your understanding during these days of loss to all of the families you are going through so much.

I know that there is some assistance.

It's never enough when one loses those sentimental things, though they are material, they have real emotional value.

For those who are displaced during the holiday, beyond the fact that there was inconvenience, there was the concern of your neighbor who was lost, which was the most important thing.

We come together as a city with you.

We pray for you.

We're here for you.

As always, my administration and all those who work for me and with me.

We'll always be available to assist.

As long as I am here, I will ensure that you are first, that you are the priority.

No matter the situation, we will not rest until we address the concerns of the residents.

We don't always get it done immediately or perfectly, but to the best of our abilities, because that's our commitment to you to be responsive and to not stop working until we get it done.

So I want to thank you again.

Thank you again, uh residents for taking the time to hear this update.

And I just want to ensure if there's any information that I missed or any questions that we can answer.

Remember, tomorrow, recycling for those that were scheduled for Wednesday.

Tomorrow is your recycling day.

Put out your recycling.

Monday, City Hall will be closed.

School is closed, regular garbage, regular recycling for Monday, but alternate side of the street is suspended.

Recuerda.

Guys, that's for all to the side of the street is suspended Monday.

All to this side, don't go parking in front of fire hydrants, crosswalks, and stop sign.

The mayor said there's no tickets on Monday.

All to the side of the street, all to the side.

Alright.

Alright.

Thank you, bendiciones.

Thank you guys for joining.

Happy New Year to everyone.

May 2025 be a year of blessings and of joy and of unity.

2024 was a difficult one.

We experienced losses and hurt and challenges.

2025, we continue together as we've always done.

We can change that background just because it's whoever's ugly mug that is distracts me as I'm trying to think extemporaneously as to what to say.

I think that was a picture of me.

I'm not sure.

I can't believe you people have to endure that.

Back to what I was saying.

2025, I believe, and I'm optimistic that we will forge forward and good things are in store for our city, for our state, for our great nation.

We will continue to work together.

We will face challenges as we've done in previous years.

We will have difficulties, but we will overcome, we will triumph, we will see victories, we will go through the peaks and the valleys, but we will do it together as a community.

We will encourage our children.

We will look to our leaders and hold them accountable, but we will have hope that working together great things will occur.

We have record investment in our downtown and development.

We have policies and initiatives to protect our most vulnerable.

We continue to enhance our parks.

We continue to provide more services for our children, our seniors, and all of our families.

And in the next few lives, I will be letting you know of more plans as you see great development throughout our city.

So I passed a few año.

In the 2024, we have much pairs, much lágrimas, tristeza.

In the event 25, you are less of esperanza that there are bueno.

You have fe in Dios that we are united.

Much in the semana, we'll see, informando and I will conclude with the most important statement.

In 2025, at the stroke of midnight, I dedicated our city to the Lord.

Because when you begin with God, things go well.

If you try to labor without him, you labor in vain.

Shapes us, forms us, and helps us move forward.

We learn from the experiences and we do better the next time around.

It is by his grace and his mercy that things can go well.

It is because of him that we have success.

So give him glory and praise without reservation or concern.

Because it is interesting that we would want his blessings and not be willing to acknowledge him.

So we acknowledge him and thank him.

And as a believing Christian, I've shared always that I exalt the name of Jesus because it is in him that there is salvation and grace and life.

But to all those in our city, though we are not uniform in our beliefs.

We are united with a common vision that if we work together, our city will progress.

And know that this city is welcoming to all.

I share my belief to encourage you that you can share yours because our city is home to everybody.

No matter what you believe or where you stand, this is your city.

And your differences are in this city.

This city perhaps.

And my faith will motivate a discipline.

But see that Dios is the most important.

Alright, guys.

That's enough.

It is late.

It is Friday.

I will meet you soon.

God bless and thank you for joining us.

Yeah, this is the first.