Transcript for Piscataway Council meeting on November 6 2025
Note: Transcripts are generated by rev.ai and may not be fully accurate. Please listen to the recording (below) if you feel any text is inaccurate.
Speaker 0 00:00:05 Recording in Speaker 1 00:00:06 Progress. Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided as required under chapter 2 31 PL 1975, specifying the time, date, location, login or dial information, and to the extent known the agenda by posting a copy of the notice on the municipal Building Municipal court, and the two municipal library bulletin boards municipal website, providing a copy to the official newspapers of the township and by filing a copy in the office of the township clerk, in accordance with the certification by the clerk, which will be enter entered in the minutes. There will be a public comment periods for both remote and in-person attendees separately. Each member of the public shall only have one opportunity to speak during each public portion. As the technology does not allow us to know if there are multiple callers on an individual phone line or logged in, logged in user account. We ask that if you wish to speak that you log in or dial in separately so that way we can recognize you as a separate individual should you have any further comments or questions. The Township Council is always available by email and phone, and you can always call the mayor's office during normal operating hours. Speaker 1 00:01:15 Me roll call please. Speaker 0 00:01:18 Council member Cahill. Council Member Carmichael Present. Council member Liebowitz Present. Council Member Lombardi. Here. Council Member Rashid. Here. Council member Rin. Here. Council President Espinosa. Here. Speaker 1 00:01:35 Join me in saluting the flag. Everybody Okay after that one, right? Boom Moon today. Okay. Are there any comments from the administration and council regard regarding adjournment of any matters on this agenda? Open to the public comments regarding item number seven, consent agenda. Items for efficiency items have been consolidated into a consent agenda to be voted on together. Speaker 1 00:02:51 Apologies. Wrong one. Yep. Open to the public, open to the remote attendees. If you wish to speak at this time, please raise your hand either on the Zoom app or by phone by pressing star nine. When it's your turn to speak, you'll receive or hear a request. To unmute yourself, please click the prompt or press star six on your phone to unmute yourself at that time, please state your name and address and know that you have three minutes in which to make your comments. The council or administration will respond if necessary after you have completed any comments or questions. Msea, do we have anybody in queue? Speaker 0 00:03:27 Council president. There are no individuals with their hand raised regarding this agenda item. Speaker 1 00:03:32 Thank you Ms. Cedar. Closing to the remote attendees. Opening to the in-person attendees, if you wish to speak at this time, please come to the podium, state your name and address and know that you have three minutes in which to make your comments. You may take a seat at the completion of your comments or questions and the council or administration would then respond if necessary. I see no one at the podium closing for the in, in-person attendees for efficiency. I'm sorry for efficiency items have consolidated into a consent agenda to be voted on together and the materials for these items have been distributed to the council in advance of the meeting. May I have a motion please? Speaker 0 00:04:30 Motion. Second. Councilwoman Lombardi. Speaker 1 00:04:35 Thank you. Roll call please. Speaker 0 00:04:37 Council Member Carmichael. Yes. Council member Liebowitz. Yes. Council member Lombardi. Yes. Council member Rashid? Yes. Council member Ern. Yes. Council President Espinosa? Yes. Speaker 1 00:04:56 Mayor, we have a resolution for the fire District number one. Commissioner's Comp Commissioner's compensation. Okay. May I have a motion please? Speaker 0 00:05:26 Motion Liebowitz. Second Carmichael. Speaker 1 00:05:32 Thank you. Roha. Speaker 0 00:05:33 Council member Carmichael? Yes. Council member Liebowitz. Yes. Council member Lombardi Abstain. Council member Rashid? Yes. Council member Ern. Yes. Council President Espinosa? Yes. Speaker 1 00:05:51 Okay. Item number nine. Announcements and comments from our officials. Council Councilwoman CAO is, is not here tonight. Cons. Cons. I'm sorry. Council Member Carmichael. Speaker 2 00:06:05 Thank you President. I just wanna say thank you once again for the township coming out and supporting the Piscataway Civil Rights Advisory Commission's. First Mult Multicultural Festival at Riverside Park on October 25th. It was a great representation of of different cultures in our community and an example of how our town can work together, live together, play together and support each other. And I thank the mayor and our, the Business Administrator and all of our leadership of our Town Parks and Recreation, department of Public Works, the police, the fire department, everyone who came out and supported it was a great event and I do appreciate everyone's support and I'm looking forward to doing it again. Thank you. Speaker 1 00:06:56 Thank you. It was an excellent event. We were all there. Thank you. Council member Liebowitz. Speaker 0 00:07:04 Good evening everybody. Since we last met, it was my pleasure to help pick up some litter on past down in Possum Town. It's also my pleasure to attend both the Senior Center Halloween and veterans parties and I commend their staff and of course our enthusiastic seniors. The second point I wanted to bring up is that since we last met, I heard from a number of residents regarding challenging access to parking on Saturday October 18th, accessing both the voting box and the front of this building. I understand our town and police were very busy with Rutgers Homecoming freedom of speech events and possible bad actors. But I do think that we need to be sensitive to the messaging and our actions as a township so that we can be inclusive, welcoming, and safe all at the same time. Finally, I'm happy to share that in this season of Giving, the Township is supporting the Hearts and Hands Toy Drive, along with Woodbridge Township and other local service organizations to provide toys to children in Middlesex County who are being serviced by DCP and P, formerly known as Fuss Piscataway always steps up for its neighbors and I know we will do so for this initiative as well. Speaker 0 00:08:28 I have a flyer for each of us. I'm gonna pass it around. There will be boxes in this building as well as the community center and the library. There is also an Amazon wishlist, which will get shipped directly to the DCP and P office in Woodbridge. It's an incredible initiative and I'm very excited that we can participate. Thank you. Speaker 1 00:08:53 Thank you. Councilman Lombardi? Speaker 3 00:08:57 Yes, good evening everyone, and kudos to Sharon again on your very, very successful event. I'd also like to congratulate some of our police department promotions, Sergeant William clu, who's been a vital part of our speeding and driving and youth organizations it within the department. So he was promoted to, let's see, sergeant and we also promoted a new police officer and his name is Speaker 3 00:09:35 Perez, right? Yes, I believe. Yeah, Nelson Perez. So he was also promoted yesterday evening, so congratulations to them. And I'm very proud of a few things that the police department is implementing at the moment. I read recently that if you are away for the holidays, you can call our police department and they will check on your home while you're away at the holidays. So they are doing a lot of very, very good things and I think it's not going unnoticed. At least I don't want it to go unnoticed. So kudos to the police department for all of the new and exciting ideas that they're implementing. Thank you. Speaker 1 00:10:21 Thank you Councilman Rashid. Speaker 4 00:10:27 Good evening. First I'd like to congratulate Councilwoman Sharon Comar. It was a successful multicultural event celebrating our diversity. I also want to take a moment to highlight all the efforts by our neighbors to help out at the different food banks. We had a food drive last weekend and we were able to collect a lot of nonperishable items for fish and our local food pantries. The township has provided a list of local food pantries where people can donate and we're also, you know, open to anyone working and helping out volunteering. I want to do a special thank to thank you to Ralph Johnson who delivered all the bins to all the Piscataway schools. We have a bin in every school where they're collecting non-perishable items for the food pantries. And it is a challenging time right now, but it is really heartwarming to be in a community where everybody's stepping up and working together to help our neighbors. Thank you. Speaker 1 00:11:39 Thank you. Councilman rn? No comment at this time. Council president. Thank you Mayor. Speaker 5 00:11:48 I had a, at the request that Councilman Espinoza, I, I had Senator Smith set up a meeting today with the DOT commissioner in regards to over in the Possum Town and Wynwood area where people are using their ways apps and trying to circumvent the, the roadway during the rush hour times. So we have the contact person now at DOT that we're gonna work with our traffic safety vision to contact the, the various apps that have the driving capabilities. So we'll see if that helps. Speaker 1 00:12:23 Thank you Mayor for that Business Administrator, Paula Castelli. Speaker 6 00:12:31 Thank you council president. I have a few things for tonight. You heard me talk about the fact that the township applied for H-D-S-R-F money. That money is brownfield's money that the state DEP has in order to remediate contaminated lands. This is about the ecological park. So there was a whole process involved. Well, the township was now confirmed to receive $289,000 this year and will receive absolutely the $2.9 million next year. So I will be busy requesting that 2 89 this year. And then we can continue as the process continues to ask for $3 million each year. But I think we'll probably be pre be good next year. Speaker 6 00:13:23 Just a quick update about the park. We did award the project. There is a bit of a delay because we need board certification for freehold soil to accept the soils from the park and we're just waiting for the board to get that on their agenda and approve that. Also, I just wanna point out on the consent agenda, you will see a couple change orders, decrease change orders in a good amount of money. I just want to say that is not a result of a mistake or one of our contractors being benevolent to the township. That is the result of our workforce that the DPW in engineering departments that, that inspect these jobs every day and they make sure that they keep the task and that unit measurements are properly calculated. So I'd like to say thank you for that. We also mja the CFO and I spent a considerable amount of time meeting with each department respective of their budgets. Speaker 6 00:14:24 I just want to thank each department for taking the time to consider budget request respective of taxpayer dollars. You know, we're looking for a net zero to really look at your budgets. They came to the table with justifications for the budget requests, so I appreciated that. I just also would like to say that, you know, in negotiations for our health insurance, that's a big matter right now. I asked our broker to look at going up a total of 22.3%, but much better than the 37% that was originally slated. So I'd like to thank everybody that assisted with that. And we're very close to getting the $250,000 from the Department of Energy. They have been on my, they're very diligent. Very diligent. They have requested a lot of data, so they did inform me last week when I asked for a final, be able to draw down on the proposal. They said the government is closed. I, I received an email two days ago that the government is now open for me to request that money. So we're working to get that 250,000. We've received most of the rebates for our EV chargers, so that is very good. And these monies will obviously help offset our debt service and reduce our overall debt for the township. And that's it. Thank you. Speaker 1 00:16:01 Thank you so much. Township attorney Raj Kumar, have no comments. Thank you. Thank you Raj. Couple announcements for me. Our paper shredding events is happening this Saturday, November 15th at am eight 8:00 AM I like to use that. It's a free service. Just go there, make sure you show pro proof of residency and just shred your stuff. What is it? What's the, what's the motto there? Shred it and forget it. Yeah, that's it. Shred and forget it. Then the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission's Mobile is going to be here next, next Monday, I believe on the 17th for your real IDs, although I don't think we'll be flying anywhere pretty soon, but we'll hopefully we'll use 'em one day. So, but yes, November 17th at 11:11 AM You must register at their site. Soccer tryouts for the Piscataway Soccer Club are holding their tryouts for high school. High school age players. Speaker 1 00:17:03 You have to register at Piscataway soccer.org. I used to be a coach for the high school aged teams and it's, it's a great experience for those teenagers that are just coming out of their high school season, especially Piscataway High school season. And I heard they did well. So hopefully they'll, they'll continue on with our teams. And, and last but not least, as everyone knows, we had to set our clocks back, fall back. It's getting darker out there. So please be vigilant. Please, please drive safely. There are still kids out there coming, you know, especially teenager, teenagers coming back from work. So just be aware, especially I see some deer out there, so be careful with that as well. It's getting dark and that's all for me. Speaker 1 00:18:03 Okay, agenda session for November 13th, 2025. Currently there are no agenda items yet for November 13th, but they are working on some items for next meeting. Okay, we're opening to the public for remote attendees. If you wish to speak at this time, please raise your hand either on the Zoom app or by phone by pressing star nine. When it's your turn to speak, you'll receive or hear a request. To unmute yourself, please click on, please click the prompt or press star six on your phone to unmute yourself at that time, please state your name and address and know that you have three minutes to which to make your comments. The council or administration will respond if necessary after you have completed any comments or questions. Ms. Cedar, do we have anybody in queue? Speaker 0 00:18:52 Council president, there are no remote attendees with our hand raised regarding this agenda item. Speaker 1 00:18:57 Thank you Ms. Er. Closing for the remote attendees. Openings for the in-person attendees, if you wish to speak at this time, please come to the podium, state your name and address and know that you have three minutes in which to make your comments. You may take a take a seat after completion of your comments or questions and the council or administration would then respond if necessary. Good evening. Speaker 8 00:19:23 58. Curtis. This vinyl fence situation, the eight foot fence that some people put around their backyard. First complaint we got from residents who were pigs to begin with. Those people got evicted from 200 square feet of their property on Curtis and Mansfield. Not Mansfield Prospect. A recent resident moved in. There was a vinyl fence around the property. The front, the, I mean the backyard, 10 foot high. He has property maintenance to come and look at the property. Speaker 8 00:20:30 The guy was evicted 200 square feet. Plus he had to take down a vinyl fence from the corner saying, oh, it has an issue with visual. They can't see it's set back quite a bit. Harassment at 600 square feet. Residents had to evacuate. And what happens to those 600 square feet? It's abandoned. It looks like a mess. This part is Stefan's Burton. He's the one who's gonna go in between those two square feet, rake out, weed out. The burden is on him. The for sale sign is still in front of that property. Talked to the guy, he says, what a ugly mess. Now Dito, the guy on the corner of Curtis in Mansfield hired a lawyer is, I'm not taking these fence down. There used to be a wooden fence over here all these years. No one said anything and it was rotten. So I replaced it with the vinyl fence. Exactly the same height, the same location. No property maintenance says you can't do that. You gotta take that and give up 200 square feet off your property. Why are you people harassing us so much? Why don't you just do your job? Look at some common sense. Speaker 1 00:22:35 Thank you sir. Mayor, 10 foot high on a corner lot. Speaker 5 00:22:50 Oh you, you can have a six foot high in your backyard. That's right. But if you have a corner lot, there's side triangles and you can only have four foot high, 50% solid. Speaker 1 00:23:03 Yeah, I know that too. Well Speaker 5 00:23:04 Yeah. Speaker 1 00:23:11 Good evening. Speaker 9 00:23:18 Yourself with Speaker 11 00:23:20 Mr. Gu. Speaker 9 00:23:25 Concern yourself with common sense. Speaker 1 00:23:27 Good evening Curtis. That's my, how Speaker 10 00:23:28 Are you? It's my buddy Curtis. Curtis Grove. 1750 West third. I just wanna say I'm sorry that I didn't get to do the cleanup on the weekend. That it was special due to the fact that I had a couple of senior citizens. I mentioned it to Frank that had a couple of my senior citizens that passed and I had to attend some funerals so I put it on the back burner. I did the next weekend and I had my bags and stuff out there and I had to call my friends at, at the public works. I said I got some bags, some tree branches. Can you please come get 'em? Just want to tell you best public works department in the state. They do what I ask when I ask and I do what they ask and whatever. But thank you for that. I wanna appreciate what they do for, for me. I know what they do for everybody else, but I know what they do for me when I need. So. But just wanted to let you know. Thank you very much. Thank you for everything. Speaker 12 00:24:43 Hello, my name's Christopher Myers, 1 1 7 Ernan Street. I just wanted to introduce myself. This is the first council meeting I have attended. I plan on being at as many as I possibly can from now. I want to say thank you to the lady over here. My eyes are not that good. I can't read your name. I believe it's Paula. It sounds like you are doing an amazing job securing these grants and these loans and I appreciate that. Multicultural Day was amazing. I was there also. It was a beautiful experience. But I do just want to let you know and I'll make myself be known of who I am. 'cause I believe Ms. Liebowitz slightly referred to possibly me as a possible bad actor. I may be wrong, but that's the assumption I'm getting. But due to, huh? No, no, but you've heard the story and you've probably seen everything. So I just wanna let you know that when during the, or before the no Kings Day protest, I did call the, I don't know, I talked to a police chief. I tried to call the mayor. I spoke to Gene Wilke who proceeded to tell me I was an anti-Semite for some reason. Speaker 12 00:26:14 But I guess that's coming from, you know, his buddy Adam Schiff. All I was asking was if there was going to be any extra security measures taken for the possibility of any violence. And I was met with, we have no idea what you're talking about. There is no scheduled thing. I said, meanwhile I'm seeing it all over the internet. You're lying. You know it's coming here. You've had three before. So I was the one on the internet organizing or stating I was gonna organize a day, a piece in the same area at the same time. But Charlie Kirk visit. And that's more of just a dig because I know I'm being lied to and I'm not going to accept it. I'm not saying that there was going to be violence or anything, but it is well known. We've seen it everywhere in major cities all over the place. Speaker 12 00:27:23 These can turn into a violent situation. And I was worried about the citizens of my town, but I was met with nothing. But we have no idea what you're talking about. They're allowed to be there. I know the law. I, yes, they can be there. I'm asking what you're doing, but you refuse to tell me. The only person that gave me any information was con, you know, was one of the police lieutenants. I believe it was Henry, but I could be wrong. He was the only one that told me what was going on and called me. Yo occasionally gave me updates. Speaker 12 00:28:02 And that's all I asked is just a truthful answer. It was not, you know, I felt like I was immediately when I asked about safety was met with you're a racist. This is that. No, I, I can see with my own eyes that violence occurs at these things. So I know I'm probably over my three minutes, but I will be here. Sorry, I had a little fun with you. I did tell the police lieutenant, you know, an hour or two before the event when he called me, he's like, how many people do you have coming? I always said me. Speaker 1 00:28:38 Thank you sir. I'll Speaker 12 00:28:39 Be walking through. That's it. No violence, no nothing. Just one debate. Speaker 1 00:28:44 Thank you. Speaker 12 00:28:45 Have a wonderful Speaker 1 00:28:53 You Cedar. I see no one else. I'm closing to the in-person attendees Speaker 5 00:29:00 Council president. I just want to let the record reflect, defend my staff. That was never the conversation that took place. And I think it was a little bit other way around. They were, he was accusing my staff of a lot of stuff. And there's one thing I don't put up with. When people make large accusations against my staff and the professional staff here in the admissible government, I don't care who you are. If they're wrong, I'll say they're wrong. But if they're being attacked just for the sake of being attacked, I'm, I'm gonna defend them. 'cause that's my job as the mayor. Speaker 13 00:29:33 Do I get to, do I get to No, you don't? No. Okay. Because because Speaker 12 00:29:38 I was told those calls weren't recorded. So Speaker 13 00:29:40 I want want to know how know what was actually said on that phone call because I would like to the recording, but there is recording Speaker 1 00:29:48 Mo. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Motion. Second. Thank you. Any opposed? Favor? The opposed. Thank you.