October 20th Meeting Summary

We had a short meeting on October 20th. Here is a summary of what was discussed.

We passed our 2025 and 2026 salary ordinance for exempt employees. Their salary increase matches our recent union agreement with the OPEIU, which is 2.75%.

We introduced two ordinances regulating massage parlors, barbershops, hair salons, cosmetology, and nail salons. These ordinances will allow our Health Department (for which we contract with Bloomfield for these services) to conduct necessary health inspections on an annual basis. The fees for annual licenses are set at $25. The implementation timetable was adjusted based on my feedback on the original draft of the ordinance to allow more time for businesses to comply. If you are a business owner in Verona, I suggest you review the ordinance drafts and send us any comments on our before our next meeting on Tuesday, November 10th.

Under resolutions, we submitted a resolution of support that Essex County will use in it's application to the DEP to be allowed to lower Verona Park Lake in the event of extreme rain events. We renewed our contract with the Land Conservancy of New Jersey, our consultant on open space work. We awarded a contract to the Mac Group to replace the roof of the Community Center and Stanziale Construction for the Linden Avenue road improvements, which will begin construction in Spring 2025. We canceled some unused grant funds for pedestrian and traffic safety projects.

We approved a resolution to display the armed forces flags on Veteran's Day. In new business, we discussed an ordinance to add these flags to our pre-approved flag ordinance list. This ordinance will be introduced at our next meeting.

In new business is also discussed codify parking and traffic rules for the parking lots at the Verona Community Center, Liberty and Freedom. As part of the discussion I asked for the introduction of this ordinance to be delayed to December so that the Neighborhood Traffic and Safety Committee (NTSC) could have a chance to review at their next meeting November 18th. They have been very involved in providing feedback on traffic and safety issues at the Community Center. Unfortunately the majority of the Council members felt that this ordinance introduction could not be delayed. This ordinance will be introduced at our next meeting on November 10th. If any residents have any feedback on the proposed rules, please email the Council prior to our meeting by going here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.

Our next meeting, which is after the Town Council election, will have a lot of topics on the agenda. It is our only meeting in November. Hope to see you in person or online on November 10th.