Monday night will be the first meeting of the Jerry Green
Council and a forerunner of the 2013 Council. The major difference will lie in
the person who is the Council President.
The Consent Agenda as defined in the Council’s meeting
agenda consists of “All matters listed are considered to be routine and non-controversial
by the City Council”. One would think
that any resolution involving contracts or expenditure of large sums of money
would not be routine.
However, consistently this Council as did its predecessors
will lump into those agenda resolutions that do involve high 5 or 6 figures.
Monday’s is no exception; R484-12 authorizes the acceptance of NEG funds from
the Union County Workforce Investment Board of 171,501.00 for storm related cleanup
activities.
R484-12 was not presented at the Agenda Setting Session
and it may be related to the R747-12 and
R475-12 which authorizes an emergency expenditure of $600,000.oo for according
to Section 2 of the resolve “the cleanup of Sandy’s damages” and the notes to
be issued for that purposes to be redeemed at the rate of $120,000.00 a year.
It was mentioned during the discussion on those two
resolutions that the City’s anticipated expenses for the municipal cleanup
although still nowhere near completion would not reach the 600K figure and that the money would be
available for use in the five year
period. As noted that is in violation of the specific usage mentioned in
Section2.
On the other hand RF484 although the resolution is not
specific may not be intended for the city’s cleanup but for individuals since
it notes that the money is to be allocated to 11 unnamed claimants. I would consider that their names and amounts received
would be stated. I would hate to believe that that omission and the placing
this resolution on the Consent Agenda were deliberate and not an oversight. Note
these funds are not from FEMA and the reported 1.125 million grant to the city
Director Restaino last Monday had no knowledge of the FEMA
grant and its purpose.
Another Consent Agenda Resolution, R485-12 is to approve the
amending the 2012 municipal budget by inserting items of revenue and appropriations
in accordance with N.J.S.A. 40a4-87(chapter 159). I think but am not sure that
there have been some additional sums added since last week None the less the
resolution as printed is flawed. It lists $406951.13 as revenue and $307,145.10
as appropriations. Moreover the sums involved add up to $406,991.13. I am sure that if this item was not on the
consent agenda any disr4peancy would be corrected before being approved.
Two other resolutions are of interest; the first one
is the awarding a contract to INSURANCE ARCHEOLOGY GROUP, to perform a historic
insurance search at the cost of up to $15,000.00. The search is to cover the
City’s Excessive Liability Insurance contracts from 1985 to 1993. This was
initiated as a result of some current litigation.
There are two kinds of liability insurance contracts; one
covers any occurrence that occurs while the policy is in place no matter when
the claim is made. The other cover s claims made when the policy is active no
matter when the incident occurred. It could be important to know what coverage
the city had and if the first type if the insurer is still in existence.
The other Resolution which I personally am not in favor is
the one to enable the Police department receive accreditation from an
organization sponsored by the State’s Police Chiefs Association. The cost the
first year would be $82,643.00 the first year and at least each subsequent year
at least $7723.00 each following year for software fees. The Rogers Group which
is the only organization in NJ that”prepares departments to receive
certification charges $47,000.00 for consulting and $$21920.00 for “training” which
I conceive may be a repetitive fee.
I did not hear any convincing argument that this was a
needed expense that would make our department more effective. My opinion is
that this is another ShotSpotter flight of fancy.
S
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