COUNCIL BUSINESS UPDATES – MEETING TOMORROW
It’s Council Time! Tomorrow night, we’re having the first Council Meeting in five weeks. We have quite the agenda. As usual, you can come to the meeting in person at 205 Claremont Ave. or you can watch the meeting on TV34 or on YouTube here.
The Four Headline-Generating Agenda Items:
- Tomorrow night we will not be taking any action on Lackawanna Plaza. We will be proceeding with introducing our revised plan on August 15th and then having a public hearing and vote on whether to adopt the plan or not on September 12th. I’m disappointed in this delay but I think for transparency purposes, it’s better to do this after Labor Day when many of you would have a better chance of being able to participate so the Council hears from you. The revised plan should be released before the end of the month and the Council will host a Town Hall to review it with the public. That awful parking lot idea has been killed and the Town Square is back.
- Last week, I met with about 30 parents, Board of Education Members, members of PTAC and others to talk about PILOTs. I also met with former Mayor Rob Parisi of West Orange to talk about his experiences on this issue and I have a one hour tutorial scheduled later this week to learn even more from a municipal finance expert on PILOT funding. I remain committed to finding a solution to the structural school funding issues.
- Tomorrow night we will take a first vote on banning gas-powered leaf blowers year-round. This will pass with at least a vote of 5-2, maybe more. Trust me when I tell you that we do not need an avalanche of public comment in support. It will pass. Last week I announced my intention to be the fourth vote to get this across the finish line. Next week I will be sending out a transition guide that some advocates are putting together to help the town make this transition in time for fall cleanup.
- We’re considering a contract with a third party to do three things related to Township Management:
- Place an interim manager in the role
- Begin a statewide search for a manager
- Consulting with the Council on governance during this period
Let’s go through a quick bullet list of other actions Council is considering tomorrow night:
- Creating a multi-way stop at Chestnut & Claremont and another at Glenridge Ave. & Forest St.
- Prohibiting parking on the west side of Christopher St. from Walnut to Oxford
- Creating special permit areas for:
- North side of Oxford between Grove & Christopher
- South side of Label St. between Christopher & Montclair Ave.
- East side of Seymour St. from the plaza to Roosevelt Place.
- Approving $1.2M in spending on various water distribution lines, system treatment and security upgrades and $1.15M for sanitary sewer system improvements and construction of a garage for our Flusher Truck (I bet you always wanted a flusher truck garage in life)
- $210K on re-striping, new pay stations, meters, cameras, lighting, security and EV chargers for municipal parking lots that are being re-done
- $15K to bring on temporary legal support to help us administer various Affordable Housing programs
- $720K for water mains, sewer pipes and other parts for our water infrastructure
- Accepting $246K from the National Opioid Settlement
- Renewing Sayola’s liquor license
- Approving the transfer of a liquor license to MHG Morimoto (yes, that chef – stay tuned)
- Considering a Resolution for a contract with Ambrose Group for an overarching Fire Department assessment – I will vote no.
Grants for the Planet (or at least Montclair)
We’re doing amazing on the Grants front. See below for some exciting updates with regard to Health initiatives too. Here’s what we’ve been awarded:
- $82,064 “Clean Communities” grant which we can use to clean up garbage in our brooks and rivers, abate graffiti, support weening off single use plastics and enforcing littering laws. It will be tough to figure out how to spend this but I’m glad we can check a couple of these boxes.
- $25,000 Stormwater Assistance Grant
- $2,500 to help residents learn about Sustainable Jersey / PSEG energy audits and efficiency programs. More on this soon but imagine PSEG coming and completely paying for insulation to help keep your home warm in winter. Exciting stuff.
Grants & Funding for our Health
A few months ago the Township made a terrific hire in terms of bringing on Amy Monaco to run our Health Department. In conjunction with our grant writers and the great work of the Council’s Education Committee (Spiller, Schlager, Price Abrams), we’re really trying to level up our Health Services. The below is in addition to a previous allocation to hire a new full time Social Worker to support our Seniors population. This is what progressive leadership looks like!
- We’ve received a $539,596 for an Enhancing Local Public Health (ELC) Grant. The goal of these funds is to support the development or expansion of long-term health infrastructure improvements with a key emphasis on health equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.
- We’ve received a $188,144 grant to help us prevent and respond to situations with children with high blood lead levels; specifically to help us identify, track and develop solutions for Montclair and the other communities that our Health Dept. serves including: Cedar Grove, Nutley and Verona.
- We’ve also received a grant for $406,046 to:
- Hire/Contract an Infectious Disease Preparedness Generalist
- Hire/Contract a Local Health Outreach Coordinator
- Develop our Outbreak Preparedness
- We’re also considering approval of a $40,560 allocation to hire a Health Education worker to make sure we’re getting out into the community with resources
- $10,500 Grant to extend the “Click It or Ticket” Seatbelt enforcement program
$1.4M Communications Upgrade
This year my colleagues and I decided to make a significant investment in our emergency communications hardware. This stuff doesn’t matter until it matters. This was one of my top priority items in our capital investment negotiations. It will provide a completely new system for the Fire Department; Water, Sewer and Fire Utility crews and our Public Works Department. This $1.4M investment should have a significant return on investment in many areas from keeping our employees safe on the job, to improving response times and eliminating redundancy, resulting in more efficiency and staff time saved.
Catch My Thread
For a long time, part of my brand was about tagging me on social media. You can still do that. You can find me on Threads and Instagram and in the new Facebook group: “Aware in Montclair” which is restricted to Montclair residents. In terms of engagement, I will always help if you tag me in a situation where government assistance is needed. But I will no longer participate in local policy debates on any social media platform.
13 Units for the Unhoused
We’re considering the acquisition of 34 Union Street for $1M to utilize its 13 units/rooms to create temporary housing for the un-housed to start to meet some of the need identified by the recently completed Montclair Township Strategic Plan to End Unsheltered Homelessness. I have some questions about the impact to the existing tenants and how they’re re-location and moving back will be handled as the building is renovated. I’ll decide how to vote on this at the last moment after I get more information.
Tenant Protection
In addition to trying to build record affordable housing at Lackawanna Plaza, and now permitting accessory dwelling unit construction, the other tool in our toolkit to try to keep some affordability in Montclair is the rent control law we passed in 2021. To me, the most important part of having a rent control law is making sure people know we have a rent control law. Please click, save, share this graphic with tenants in Montclair so that they know their rights.
Short Term Rentals Revenue
We have an opportunity to diversify some of the dwelling unit stock coming on board. Something the market seems to be demanding in Montclair is short term rentals. Tomorrow, we’ll consider a change in the Redevelopment Plan for the MC Residences (next to the MC Hotel) to permit up to 36 short term rental units. What I like about these is that we can collect at 3% occupancy tax (~$91K) per year on these and they don’t add kids to the system. This is a worthy consideration along with some at Lackawanna Plaza too. Think of masters students, professionals on temporary work assignments and a a couple separating with the hopes of keeping the partner moving out still close by.
Thanks, everyone. Have a great week!
-Peter
Our mailing address is:
41 Watchung Plaza, Suite 318
Montclair, NJ 07042