October 6th Meeting Summary

Last night the Council had a meeting, where the most controversial action took place in the last 2 minutes of the meeting.

We started off with important conversations in new business. The first of which was a new ordinance regulating massage parlors, barbershops, hairstyling, cosmetology, and nail salons. Our Health Department Director, Maya Harlow, was present with members of her staff to discuss why this ordinance is necessary. In the interest of public health, it is a best practice to inspect these types of businesses yearly to ensure that state rules and regulations are followed. The state does not conduct yearly health and licensing inspections, so it's up to local boards of health to do so. Our Administration would like to start these inspections in 2026.

Associated with this new ordinance are proposed annual licensing fees. While the fees for barbershops, hairstyling, cosmetology and nail salons were proposed at $25 a year, the fees for massage and body work facilities was $250 a year plus an additional $150 a year for every licensed individual who work there. We spent a fair amount of time discussing why the dramatic difference in the fees, and we came to a consensus that we did not want to treat one class of business differently than another.

I encourage small business owners to review this ordinance and send us feedback as soon as possible, as the plan is to introduce this ordinance at the next meeting. You can see copy of it here. I advocated to the Administration to help get the word out to our business community on this change, as over 30 businesses will be subject to new licensing requirements. It's most effective to get feedback prior to the introduction of the ordinance, so please send your comments to all five members of the Council here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform,

We then moved into our first conversation on pool 2026 rates (about 45 minutes into the meeting, and it lasted for an hour). The Administration presented a summary of the financial of the pool season and recommendations for next year. Some key points they made:

• As was previously reported - memberships did decrease in 2025, but revenue from memberships increased by $45K

• Revenue was up $55K to $194K. Most of the revenue continues to be guest passes, but new revenue streams included family night fees, playground trips, and sponsorships

• The preliminary costs to operate the pool are $940K, but that number will likely increase as not all bills for electric and water have been received.

The Administration proposed the following for the 2026 season.

• A 2% across the board rate increase to all membership classes

• A payment plan option so that members can pay over installments, starting in February

• Increases to certain fees, such as Water Aerobics, Verona Waves/Mini Waves, Gazebo rental, Cougars Rental, and the summer playground trips.

• A new rental fee for the Recreation Tent for parties

• An out of town pilot program for up to 100 out of town memberships at $1,000 per membership for residents of contiguous towns.

They also proposed wage and staffing changes and for the Verona tax payers to officially subsidize the volunteer fire and rescue squad memberships. The Administration is recommending to covert the sand portion of the volleyball court to grass, as the sand is getting into the pool and damaging pool filtration systems. Finally they recommended changing the pool rules to add two adult swim hours on Saturday at 2 and 5 pm.

As you would expect, every member of the Council had a lot of say, and a lot of interesting new ideas were raised. Some of my peers, such as Councilwoman Holland and Councilman Roman, appropriately focused the conversation back to the rate study we conducted last year and asked for more financial analysis and proposals that get us back to pool profitability by 2027. In addition, the out of town membership generated a lot of discussion, including how to incorporate feedback from residents on how to provide memberships to family members who live out of town. Given the robust conversation, we will have several more discussions before we finalize a proposal for the season.

I want to make sure residents are aware that members of the Council did not receive the results of the survey of the pool membership until just a few hours before the meeting. The last question of the survey was open ended - and pool members collectively wrote 25,000 words to express feedback and provide suggestions. I want to thank residents for taking the time to do that. I pushed in the meeting for the Administration and my peers to actually read the feedback before we discuss the pool again. I am not sure some of the Administrations proposals reflect what members are actually telling us, and some Council members have been publicly pushing their own proposals on social media without reviewing the results from our annual survey first.

A will ensure a copy of the presentation to be posted here in the next few days. I recommend that everyone who cares about the pool watch the discussion when the video is posted.

The final new business item, which also had a presentation that I will ensure gets posted publicly, related to the introduction of a redevelopment plan for 383 Bloomfield Avenue, otherwise known as Hillcrest Farms. A redevelopment plan allows Verona to overlay our existing zoning for a site and replace it with new zoning that allows a project to be built. In this case, the plan is to allow for the development of a mixed use building, with retail on the ground floor and apartments for up to a total of four stories. Later in the meeting the Council officially introduced the redevelopment plan for this site. It now goes to the Planning Board, who will review it and take public comment. I encourage residents to review this new redevelopment and attend an upcoming Planning Board meeting where it will be discussed.

That leads me back to the big controversial vote of the evening. Councilman Roman announced that he resigned his position on the Planning Board. He has not been attending Planning Board meetings this entire year, leaving the second of two Council seats effectively vacant. The other Council seat on the Planning Board is held by the Mayor.

At the very end of our Council meeting, in an unannounced new business item, Councilman Roman recommended that Deputy Mayor Jack McEvoy take his spot on the Planning Board. The Mayor agreed, quickly asked for feedback, and then called for a voice vote. When you watch the video, you will see how fast this happened and how obvious it was that it was worked out in advance. I voted against the Deputy Mayor's appointment, and Councilwoman Holland abstained.

This is, unfortunately, another blatant example of the Council Majority exerting their power. Councilwoman Holland and I were not told in advance that Councilman Roman was resigning. To learn of this news during the meeting illustrates the lack of communication from the Mayor to all members of the Council. Normally, the appointments to boards and committee is a collaborative conversation amongst Council members, but in this instance we were completely excluded and overlooked. The depth of experience and perspectives we could bring to the Planning Board was not even given courtesy consideration.

I also have concerns with the fact that Deputy Mayor McEvoy is the husband of the Planning Board Chairperson, Jessica Pearson. I voted against him serving on the Planning Board as I am not comfortable with the impact of having both of them serve together on this critical Board, and my concern is compounded by the fact that they own key pieces of property in our town center zone.

In June, I dissented on voting for the Affordable Housing Plan, which was driven by this Council Majority. That plan is now facing several legal challenges. Last night was a clear message to the public that the power and control over the Planning Board rests with these three Councilmen. It's frustrating to be effectively be shut out of driving these key decisions that drive our housing and economic vitality when all five of us were equally elected. When I look at how little progress we have made on updating our zoning, which serves to both protect Verona from developers and drive necessary economic redevelopment, I am left to wonder how Verona is truly benefiting from the leadership of this Council Majority. There could be a more effective and collaborative way to lead.

Voters on November 4th will vote to elect three of five members of Council. Who is the Mayor and who sits on the Planning Board will be determined by the new Council that is sworn in after January 1st. The new Council will consist of whomever wins on November 4th, along with Councilman Roman and myself. This election is critically important. There are several ways you can learn more about the Candidates, which I discussed in a recent update here.

Finally, we passed several resolutions last night, including settlements with certain drug manufactures who produced opioids that resulted in well documented devastating addictions and deaths. We did not go into closed session.

You can send comments to the entire Council by going here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform. Our next meeting, and last one before the election, will be on Monday October 20th.