PERTH AMBOY – During the first public comments, Resident Stanley Sierakowski had a question about the City’s budget, specifically questioning Seabra’s Armory. “There is a little over $22,800 listed for delinquent taxes. That is under a $731,815 budget. The Armory Restaurant owes the City $496,000 over a two year period. Where in the budget is the account’s receivable in the Armory? Their interest would be over a million dollars. As far as the PILOT Projects, It’s the developers that are saving millions of dollars.”
Sierakowski then mentioned a letter sent from former Tax Assessor JoAnn Jimenez addressed to the Council President, Business Administrator and City Clerk. “In the letter, Jimenez said that they will look into that situation (developers wanting PILOT’s on land that they do not own) later.”
Stanley Sierakowski concluded, “Everything is a total lie, and you (the Council) should think for themselves.”
Resident Kenneth Balut had questions on the Seaman Street Property where a future elementary school is planned to be built. “The cause for the easement and storm water connection is still taxpayers dollars regardless of whether the Board of Education or City pays for it.”
Balut also had concerns about the school being built in front of the firehouse. “Look at all the traffic already on Seaman Street. Have you ever seen it how it looks when school is let out? We bought that property to get a developer out of trouble.”
Balut then switched gears and talked about the money spent to purchase of 52 Holiday Wreaths for $20,000. “Just because the bid for these wreaths were under the bidding limit, you okayed this resolution. During the League of Municipality Meetings, there were vendors there that had Christmas Decorations. You could have inquired about their prices.”
He then mentioned, “Even though JoAnn Jimenez left our town for a better job, she responded to a request from the Council because she still cares about the City. You are making all these bad deals.”
Councilman Irizarry had questions about some of Balut’s statements, especially about a $5 million (expenses associated with the cleanup of the Seaman Street Property) figure that Balut mentioned. Irizarry stated, “An estimate is not an expense.”
Balut then started to rattle off how he came up with the estimated figure of $5 million. “The specs on the 3 bids to clean up the Seaman Street property – if you want to go with me, we could look up the records. I spent 3 hours researching the Seaman Street Property. The same appraiser that did the Seaman Street Property also appraised the property on Washington Street. We used to have a school bus stop on Seaman Street when there was no one living there.”
Resident and Business Owner Susan Batista came up to speak about R-137 and R-138. “Who did this and how much do they (the organizers of the upcoming festivals) have to refund to the City? It looks like the one festival (Puerto Rican Festival) used the City’s Joint Insurance Fund. On Resolution R-138 pertaining to the Dominican Festival, it seemed like the numbers for the amount of people attending are askew. The Old Bridge Police came over to help cover the event. The attendance numbers for this year has to exceed the amount of people the have written down on the application. There a number of parks that can hold this venue. This is a Board of Education Property (Wilentz School) and you (the Council) may not have the jurisdiction to make this decision.”
Councilman Joel Pabon said, “That is a valid point where a resident made a comment about the Puerto Rican Festival probably using the City’s insurance instead of their own. Are they allowed to do that?”
DeCotiis Attorney Judy Verrone said, “All this Ordinance says is that the applicant must provide insurance for the festival. The Resident was talking about last year’s application.”
Council President William Petrick wondered, “Is it proper for the event to use insurance from the City’s Joint Insurance Fund?”
Pabon inquired if the City used their insurance to cover this event. “Was that correct?”
Petrick inquired, “Is it typical that a private organization can be covered by the City’s joint insurance fund for their private events?”
B.A. responded, “The City can choose to cosponsor an event.” Cruz then asked Verrone if she had any backup information on last year’s event.”
Verrone responded, “Yes.”
Petrick responded, “We (the Council) don’t have it.”
Cruz, looking at the document and said, “It appears the organization paid for their own insurance.”
When it came time to vote on the Consent Agenda, the Council voted collectively to approve R-129-3/17 through R-135-3/17 and R-137-3/17 through R-144-3/17. They were moved by Councilman Fernando Irizarry and Seconded by Councilman Jelmin Caba.
On Resolution R-136-3/17 – A contract with Brinkerhoff Environmental Service for a fee not to exceed $1,799,986.00 for environmental remedial investigation for the Second Street Park.
Council President Bill Petrick was concerned that no bids went out for this work.
Business Administrator Cruz answered, “LSRP’s (Licensed Site Remediation Professionals) went on this. This is to prevent any break in the service so that this company was allowed to continue the work on this property. The State of New Jersey approves this.”
Engineer Jeffery Rauch came up to give out additional information. “On the original RFP’s the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection authorized the work to be done, then there is a second step to developing a work plan for additional remediations. The original LSRP stays with the original company.”
In response to a question that Council President Bill Petrick had on the stormsewer connection on the Seaman Street School Property, Rauch said, “There are two lines involved. One is in the firehouse parking lot and second one is a line running from the 440 connector to Augustine place. There’s an underground stormwater retention which will be released.
R-145-3/17 – Consenting to the appointment of Emillia Perez, Esq. as Director of the Department of Law, effective April 1, 2017 and waiving the residency requirement.”
R-145 was voided on the regular meeting because of the withdrawal of the candidate.
Councilman Fernando Gonzalez was absent from both the 3/20/17 Caucus and the 3/22/17 Council Meeting.
