01/24/11 Meeting

As I sit here listening to Obama's State of the Union Address and the Republican Response, I am even more galvanized to ensure that Livingston's Town Council can provide the best services possible at the lowest possible cost and to make those hard decisions to limit government and keep the tax burden from growing.  Low taxes, reasonable regulation, sound money - I love it (at least the Republican part of it)!

Well, in the spirit of limited government, our meetings last night were fairly short and to the point.  [Maybe having one less councilman present helped make it go more quickly; and Rudy is definitely great at keeping us all on track.]  Our conference meeting dealt with more legal fees  incurred due to both COAH and construction litigation.  As everyone knows with litigation, the only ones who win are the attorneys - but we need to continue as this is what has been mandated by YOU and is ultimately in the best interest of the town.

Various housekeeping items - literally - were discussed, including the award of cleaning supplies contracts.  There was actually very little comment from either the attendees of the Conference meeting or the councilmen and we went into Regular session at 8 PM with little ado.  The proposed ordinances were passed with little comment - with the exception of the kudos received from the Township Safety Committee for us passing the Stop Sign ordinance for S. Ashby Avenue.

The resolutions regarding both the change notices and other contracts award did raise an interesting comment from Larry Kohn regarding additinonal grounding work to be done in the radio building.  Mr. Kohn quoted a number of other change orders which also called for additional grounding work and wondered if we were not only paying to have it done but to have it corrected and done again.  If nothing else, the number of change order related to grounding must mean that the building is well grounded indeed!!

We did go into closed session but ended with a short open session regarding two other traffic ordinances relating to no left turn onto Madonna Drive and placing another stop sign on Fairfax (? - not sure and don't have data in front of me).  After some lively discussion, we agreed to allow the two ordinances to go for public hearing as recommended by the Township Engineer and endorsed by the Township Safety Committee.

No rest for the weary - more budget meetings tomorrow night!  Stay tuned.

Budget season has begun!

This morning, I and my fellow councilmen met with Michele Meade, Bill Nadolny, and various department heads to discuss their programs and budgets for 2011.  First up was the Police Department whose major requests included bullet proof vests, a weapon unloading station, a continuation of the program to upgrade police car video systems from VHS to digital, and beginning to upgrade the police radios from analog to digital.  Having just returned from the SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade) show in Las Vegas, I was able to bring back some knowledge of body armor and its costs and will be providing this information to the Town Manager and Purchasing Agent.  The police were budgeting approximately $555 per vest; I had been quoted costs in the $325-$350 range.  As I am acutely aware, just because it's part of a State contract, doesn't mean it will be the lowest bid.

Next meeting was with Jennifer Hessberger, the director of SYLS - under whose purview both the Senior Youth and Leisure Services fall as well as the Swimming Pool Utility.  The major purchase discussed was a new Senior Bus.  Given that the Senior Bus had been out of commission for a period this year, causing some hardship for the seniors within the community, a new bus has been determined to be needed and the 'old' one will be held as a backup. The good news is that 75% of the bus cost will be funded through a State grant.

The Town Council had discussed the new pool fees proposed by SYLS at the 1/10 meeting.  At that meeting, we had requested that the fees for 2011 be held at the 2010 level for senior couples - with a maximum of $2 increase for individual seniors.  There were also nominal increases for families and individuals.  This fee schedule was confirmed today.

The Township Clerk's budget actually showed some opportunities for savings.  In this budget, all the cost for postage for all Township mailings are accrued; but as the VAST majority of mailings are within the 07039 area code, we have an opportunity to get first class mailing at a very reduced pre-sort rate.  In addition, I provided Glenn with information on printing vendors who could potentially provide printing services at a much lower rate than is currently being budgeted.

Health & Human Services presented a very 'flat' budget and a substantial amount of their costs are covered through fees and/or State grants.  An example of shared services at its finest is Livingston's provision of Public Health Services for Milburn Township.  This is a great model which I know I am anxious to see proliferated through other departments.

The final presentation was that of the Fire Department.  The Chief and Asst. Chief both came down to discuss their budgets.  Of course, in all discussions with both the police and fire department, safety of the officers is paramount.  But it should not preclude us from questioning capital expenditures.  Unfortunately, one of my fellow councilmen thought it proper to chastise me for doing so.  The perception has been that if the police wanted to patrol on elephants, the Town Council would ask how many they needed.  NO LONGER!  Our responsibility is to know where the dollars are going and if we don't ask the questions, we are not fulfilling our obligations.  What I do believe, as has been evident in the meetings today, is that the department heads are acutely aware of the financial realities and are doing their best to keep requests reasonable and costs low.

Our next round of budget hearings is on Wednesday, January 26th at 7 PM.  I hope that my fellow councilmen will take the opportunity to review the budget in more depth so that they too can challenge how the taxpayers money is being spent.

Comments on 1/10/2011 Meeting - Part II

After the regular meeting, the Conference Meeting agenda was resumed in the Conference Room next to the main Council chambers.  Although the meeting was open to the public, no one who attended the regular meeting was aware of that; they all assumed that we were going into closed session.  I will make sure to announce the status of the meeting (e.g., closed versus open) next time something like this happens.

Various traffic issues were discussed as well as new proposed fees for field usage and the pool.  Also discussed was information that had been received from NJCAAN regarding proposed FAA modifications to flight paths from JFK, La Guardia, and Newark Airports.  NJCAAN indicated that there would be a tremendous impact on Livingston i.e., increase in decibel levels from the air traffic, due to the rerouting but, on VERY cursory inspection of the data, the facts did not support this.

Other questions I asked at this meeting, once the agenda had been dispensed with included:

• Whether we can receive quarterly updates regarding Council Memo #169 which outlined the savings on energy we could expect to receive due to our expenditure on 'green' fixtures.  The ostensible payback period on the expense was less than a year; I want to have the expenditures tracked to see if the savings are actually realized.  I did not get a positive response to this request stating that it would be too difficult to do but they would try to track.  During the budget meetings, I will see if we can't put some benchmarks in place or at least budget $63K less in energy spending over the next year (equal to the expected savings).

• During Rudy's speech at the Reorganization Meeting, he talked about getting the Town Council meetings televised.  I raised this issue and wanted to see if we could get monthly updates on getting LTV to start both taping and broadcasting on a regular basis.  During the ensuing discussion, it was apparent that the council members would be very happy to have the meetings taped, but that a) LTV could not get enough people to volunteer to do the tapings and b) the Council could not ensure that the recordings would run on a regular schedule, e.g., every Thursday and Saturday at 9 PM, so that people would know when to tune in.  I think that we should advertise for volunteers to work with LTV to do the tapings; there are probably enough people in town who have sufficient interest to show up for a training session and then volunteer their time once or twice a month (or one or twice a quarter if enough people step up)!

• I had raised the issue with Michele Meade regarding utilizing an online bidding facility so that Livingston's municipal RFPs can be disseminated beyond the livingstonnj.org website and the West Essex Tribune.  By utilizing such a facility, costs for producing and mailing RFP's would be eliminated and would also allow for better tracking and management of bids and resultant proposals.  This was raised again - I hope that it helps the town.

The meeting ended after 11 PM - it was a very long day.  Looking forward to the next one on January 24th - hope to see you there!  Let me know if you want any issues or concerns raised.  Comments are always welcome.

Comments on 1/10/2011 Meeting - part 1

My first time as a fully fledged councilwoman attending the meetings was pretty awesome.  The Listening Post had a number of new people attending who raised some good questions.  NOTE TO SELF:  Need to follow up with an attorney to find out if documentation required to be disseminated to the public can be sent via email instead of 'snail' mail.  That's the first step.  If yes, then we need to start looking at giving people the option to get all Town correspondence through email instead of killing trees and wasting postage....

We had very little time before the Regular meeting to discuss the agenda items.  I was extremely concerned over the transfer of $85K to the Police Department budget to cover the replacement of three patrol cars.  While it sounded reasonable on the face of it - after all, who would deny the police cars to get around in? - why are we getting such a last minute transfer of funds without any opportunity to discuss it?  Some questions about this are a)  why did we not know about this earlier?  b)  why is there not a plan to replace cars in an organized fashion?  c)  did three cars really break down at the end of the year or was it an issue of "Hey, we have funds available - let's use them!"  I questioned what was being done with the cars that are being replaced and was told that they would be cannibalized for parts - so, in case you wanted to know, we do have our own legal 'chop shop'!  Another question - when this comes up again - is how many police cars do we need?

One other issue that arose at the Listening Post and which has been an ongoing problem is my perception - which has been expressed by many others - of how the citizenry is treated by the Town Council.  Quite often I have seen members of the Town Council be condescending and/or downright nasty to people who ask questions or challenge the stance of the councilperson. I can only state that I have a tremendous appreciation of the fact that I am the servant of the people and that I will endeavor to always listen with an open mind and open heart.  In fact, on the back of my nameplate I am putting a label "BE COURTEOUS" as a constant reminder when I am facing our constituents.  [But it may not necessarily be in the forefront when I look at my fellow council members ;o)]

An example of this arose when someone got up who wanted to express some concern about the salary of the Town Manager and the perception of a huge increase in her pay in the 5 years she has been employed by the town.  Unfortunately, the questioner did not have all the facts at his fingertips.  Again, he was belittled and made fun of instead of encouraged in a nice way to clarify his concern.  It doesn't take a great deal to just say "Thank you for your concerns".

Part 2 on the way shortly...  Tell your friends to tune in - and all comments welcome!

Now That the Reorg is Over...

I am taking a few minutes away from reviewing all materials for my first REAL meeting of the Livingston Town Council, and there's lots of interesting stuff... to put it mildly. It is unclear, for instance, how lots of these numbers (on the 1st-quarter appropriations resolution) were calculated, and I hope to have that clarified by the time we're done with the meeting tomorrow evening.

I am concerned about appropriating 26.25% (rather than 25%; one quarter of the year's expenditures) of the 2010 budget amount for the first quarter of 2011, as it presupposes that a 5% increase in budget for 2011 is already in the works, and that budget has not even been discussed yet. I am additionally concerned because some of the specific items on this appropriation are less than 26.5% of the comparable amount for 2010, while others are significantly more.

Couple other bits and pieces... Proposed change orders for the Taj Mahal (aka the Municipal Complex), for things like "sidewalks and curbs, as required by code..." Why weren't these in the original contracts? ... Why are we transferring $85K to the Police Department budget for 2010 - why aren't they keeping to the budget they were given?  What is the money for?  I have so many questions regarding the Regular and Conference Agendas that I sent them on to Michele Meade and Glenn Turtletaub.

Stay tuned for more comments after the meeting.  Hope to see you there.

ALSO - the next meeting of the Livingston Republicans for Change is scheduled for Tuesday, January 25 at 7:30 pm, at 28 Hemlock Road. ALL Livingston residents - both Republican AND Democrat - are welcome!  All that is needed is a sincere desire to see change for the betterment of Livingston Township.