September 8th Meeting Summary

The Verona Town Council had it's one and only meeting last week. Here are the highlights of what we discussed.

The Verona Baseball and Softball League presented designs for a new Field House at Everett Field. They graciously have donated this field house - both it's design and construction, to help offset the costs of the field renovation. The Field House will be a two story structure with ADA bathrooms, a snack bar, announcing booth, and small meeting room, all behind home plate. The Council formally accepted their donation at the meeting.

The Administration presented to the Council a draft of a "Complete and Green Streets Policy". A Complete Streets policy makes sure our roads are designed and maintained to be safe and usable for everyone—whether you’re walking, biking, taking transit, or driving. It ensures that transportation projects always consider all users, so people of all ages and abilities have safe, convenient, and fair options for getting around. In addition, this policy goes further on just safety and also look to advance "green" streets which help with stormwater management.

The majority of towns in Essex County have a Complete Streets policy, and creating one is a goal in our Master Plan. This policy was drafted by the Neighborhood Traffic and Safety Committee. The Township Engineer went through the key features of the program as part of our meeting. He stressed that just because a Complete Streets policy exists does not mean every idea will get implemented. Some are just too cost prohibitive for the Township. In addition, he expanded that some of the "green" elements of this proposed plan are hard to do with existing rights of way.

The Council had a back and forth on the merits of adopting a policy, with some members expressing reservations on certain traffic calming measures and the necessity of adopting this policy. One of the members of the Neighborhood Traffic and Safety Committee, Elizabeth Hynes, provided public comment to help clarify any misconceptions of the purpose of the policy. This whole conversation was worthwhile to watch about 20 minutes into the meeting.

We introduced an ordinance increasing our Recreation fees for certain programs, something we have not done in years. These fee changes are to keep up with rising costs for our program, including instructor costs, salaries, and busses.

We have proposed the following fee changes:

• Youth sports program fee range will change from $10 to $100 to $10 to $130.

• Adult health, exercise and wellness and the youth art and dance programs fee range will increase from $10 to $100 to $10 to $120.

• Adult sports team fee range will increase from $200 to $400 to $200 to $500 per team

• An Individual Registration Fee for adult sports team will be $15 to $30.

• The Rutgers coaching class will be the cost of registration instead of a fee.

• Water Aerobics for the poll will be $105-$125

• Ski Trips will be $125 to $175.

• The golf tournament prices are all increasing. See draft ordinance for a summary.

• Summer playground fee will increase from $300 per child to a range of $350 to $650 per child. The Maximum Family rate will subsequently be increased as well to 2x the cost. As was mentioned in previous summaries, the summer camp program is understaffed and needs future cost adjustments to ensure safe staffing ratios. The Administration has assured the Council that future costs increases will occur gradually, but this new range allows for a multi year adjustment.

• The Late fee for summer playground is increasing from $30 to $50.

• A non-resident registration fee is being added of 25% above the current resident registration fee.

You can review the full fee ordinance on page 5 of the agenda here: https://www.veronanj.org/media/Council%20Docs/2025/090825PUBLIC.pdf. There will be a public hearing an vote on this ordinance at our next meeting on Monday, October 6th.

Under resolutions, we took pretty significant action on two matters. The first is that we settled a long standing lawsuit between the Planning Board and DMH2, and entity that owns 176-200 Bloomfield Avenue (the property next to Everett Field). The settlement will allow DMH2 to build a 28 unit inclusionary multifamily development, which will include a 15% set side for affordable housing. This property was previously approved for a mixed use building.

The second significant action taken was the authorization of an administrative consent order (ACO) with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection on our sewer treatment plant. The plant has been out of compliance with certain regulations, and this ACO is a settlement with the NJ DEP. As you see from the details posted in the agenda (page 11), the sewer treatment plan had a host of limitation exceedances for E.coli, ammonia, and nitrates.

As was previously mentioned in my updates, we have several projects planned and in the works to upgrade equipment and technology at the sewer treatment plant to address these issues. As such, the NJ DEP agreed that Verona will only need to pay a $35,000 penalty for these violations. Since we are entering into the ACO, as long as we stay on schedule with our projects at the plant, we should be able to resolve this matter without additional penalties from the NJ DEP.

Other items that we approved at the meeting include:

• Submitting financing to the iBank for the Fairview well rehabilitation (to remove PFAS from our drinking water).

• Authorization of a contact so that we can begin work on the Peckman for bank stabilization.

• Approving a vendor to do work on the Inclusive Healthy Communities project.

• Approving contract work to start evaluating the extent of repairs on the Derwent Sewer line and the development of a Watershed Improvement Plan (a state requirement).

• Contracts for affordable housing planning services with T&M Associates, All American Sewer for various repair work, Garden State Painting and Design for repainting of the police station, Gracie & Harrigan Consulting Foresters for planning work for the Shade Tree Commission (also required).

• Removal of a extraordinary tree on Oakridge.

Under new business, we made appointments to the Environmental Commission and Green Team, but deferred making appointments to the Planning Board.

We also discussed in new business the non-union salaries of our department heads . The administration is proposing increasing the maximum salaries 2.75% to match the increase that the OPEIU employees just received in their new contract. We asked the administration to scale back the ordinance to include 2025 and 2026 salaries only. It is our past practice to only approve salaries at one year at a time. This ordinance will be introduced at our next meeting.

If you have any comment on any matter, feel free to send them to the entire Council by using the convenient form here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.

Also, please note that in a previous update, I stated that the new pickleball courts came in under budget. That was an error of information that was in our resolution. I have updated my past post to reflect that change.