September 17, 2025

Council president council members we're in the hearing of citizens portion of this meeting where each speaker will have five minutes to speak Once your name is called, please approach the podium and address the council members The first speaker this evening is Gail Cheney Phil Jenkins I'm sorry Gail Cheney Phil couldn't be here tonight because the scheduling conflicts But I do hope you join me in supporting Gail Cheney Phil Jenkins for the Central Ward for F Goodday criminal cult this running out government Please join me in reaching out to the Attorney General in Washington to request a forensic audit of all of Newark's municipal departments Budget for mismanagement and wasteful spending That is the budget hearing if you are a renter business or homeowner the budget with tax increases Seven percent in a third quarter this year in a proposal for nine percent in Yet there's no relief for hard-working families retirees seniors and small businesses This administration from day one has lied cheated stole from the people Through mismanagement and wasteful spending From the lead in our water to the pipe replacement to the selling of the land Raising our taxes our water bills. There are no public safety lawsuit settlements we're going bankrupt in mismanagement by this administration and The people the hard-working people are the gonna want are gonna be the ones to pay the bill There's no accountability from this administration from the BA To the clerk's office and to some of those that are sitting here on a dais Why is the city borrowing 52 million dollars from the state to cover expenses for 2024 and 2025 Where are the revenues that's supposed to come into the city? Starting with the 24 hours of foolishness money from vendors t-shirt sales the Latin Festival the We had crowd sizes for a concert yet. We didn't have public safety Why are we spending on garbage and police? For the celebrities when residents can't get their garbage picked up Explain that one you pay overtime into a budget for all of these festivals Then nothing is coming back into the into the city Why does the the the mayor and the chief of staff and the celebs get to rent RVs for what? Big ball and on out tax dollars the permits Department code enforcement churches businesses And and and slumlords are not paying their fair share taxes You got Smitty on my block. Oh you 1.2 million dollars in taxes from 2011 and yet. He's still there Make him leave we want him out of the neighborhood Why is every budget top-heavy with salaries yet? We are borrowing money to operate departments Every branch of our city government is broken and the lawless governing body aren't following the rules You had three deferments that's supposed to go back to the administration And yet you have these ordinances here with four and five deferments that never went back Then the public has a right to a 30-day review of your budget you supposed to make Viewing at a night meeting at a weekend meeting not on a Friday at 12 o'clock Then nobody knows that the meeting is even being held the city clerk as well as the BA a Negligent they have been compromised by this administration To ignore the law that they're supposed to follow and enforce Mark the date September 25th to come down here for the budget here And make sure you have a night meeting and a weekend meeting and the ample time for people to look at the budget And review it vote November 4 for F Gail Cheney field Jenkins for real leadership

Thank you for your comments next speaker. Felicia Austin singleton appearing You know I love you so you can't get mad and anything I say I'm talking to the councilman not my Reverend So council people here we go again. You don't follow rules You did and even you gave an excuse to the chief of staff when he tried to do the mayoral budget But you don't even follow your own council rules that you only have for the conduct of us Council rules it says when an ordinance or resolution Submitted by the mayor or business administrator fails to gain necessary votes for adoption during three meetings of the municipal The agenda shall not include such ordinance or resolution for a time period of one year Immediately following the date of the third meeting and the municipal council without the prior consent of the municipal Council see you just said two municipal councils right there is from your this is from your rules Such legislation shall be returned to the original agency So you have three deferments on two things It's not whether it should be deferred again. It's not whether oh should we hear this out and vote on it It should be returned back to the administration according to your council rules So if you're not gonna follow the rules that does not mean that if I stand up and say That's right. You're a liar this and that in this council chambers You have nothing to say cuz that is my first amendment, right? We're gonna follow the rules. Are we not gonna follow but I'm gonna tell you one thing you need to follow if Walks out this building after me like he did yesterday after I said he was incompetent Broad and green I did back on him when we got downstairs to go out the building and went out the green Street side he comes all the way to the green street corner I promise you that anything that anything happens to me or any advocate that comes to this mic I'm going to Eric Pinnerton can y'all to stew it midi Baraka because we know that he's the puppet master and Mayor asked J. Baraka. I don't know what Marquis think he was doing, but I'm gonna tell you one thing Ask some southern person they'll tell you they'll definitely tell you what it means. It's sad. It's ridiculous Y'all run this like it's a circus. This is government. This is our lives We come and plead to you we plead for residents to get apartments We plead for everything and it goes on deaf ears But y'all took at least 30 minutes to talk about some services for street pavements some services For what we gonna do on a budget had about a whole five hour session here And you ain't getting nothing done. You ain't said what come in but go out what should be accounted for what needed to be? But everything according to Mary Baraka stays the same isn't that what he said nothing changed But nobody came down here to say how many tax abatements have got collected revenue from from these people that y'all gave tax Abatements to nothing. That's the budget. It's not 30 minutes for a department. Y'all are a million dollar One billion dollar corporation we should have in going out going what needed to be done What jobs we have available who fills the jobs currently? But y'all sure made sure that marquee said he was a just assistant chief of staff of recreation Yet y'all wanted to put him illegally on a housing authority Who did you pick Louise to be at sitting on housing authority? Ramos Quintana Crump Kelly, we know you picked Carter Gonzalez and Pat who did you pick you get for? the governor gets one the county gets one and us and the state gets one and you get four and If the county doesn't want to who they go to Eric

You thank you for your comments next speaker Deborah Salters Let's have some quiet please so we can hear the speaker Deborah Salters city of Newark You know Newarkers are you ready for change? That's the question and I know the people out there are I get questions from the residents all the time like people all over Anytime anything's brought to this administration. It's well other municipalities and what they do over here in this city We don't care about any other municipality Because our eyes are on Newark. This is where we live. This is where we pay our taxes So no matter what country city or state I'm in Newark is the topic of conversation all throughout the papers Fake loans that we don't have to pay back to the governor because he spent so much time in Newark The 1.5 billion for the school budget all of these things Right someone said to me the other day. How can they have a 15? It was actually last night $1,500 a plate ball and we can't even live we're homeless. We're doing this These are the people in the city that you all show no regard for So that being the case then they asked me other questions. So today you all were talking about was it 7r8a? Documentation that you want passed and again you all for the first time And again, you all fight for undocumented and illegals, but you don't fight for the Documented and legal residents here. You're talking about kidnapping them off the street My son was kidnapped out of his house. Not one of you came and had a word to say the corruption that's in the Internal Affairs Department the corruption that is in the Professional standards they're all hand-in-hand So you call on one they send it to the other one and they play ping-pong back and forth and nothing gets done You asked to speak to the head prosecutor theater Stevens. Oh, we can't give you that so we'll give you a captain Meanwhile, they're playing ring around the Rosie. I'm gonna get kidnapped off the streets You don't care not one of you has had anything to say about it But you can stand up and fight for undocumented and I have nothing against them But if you come what country can we go into as Americans and Demand to be treated like we're a citizen nowhere You learn the language or you you have have your paperwork or you get out or they jail you There's no there's no other way around it Brazil Italy anywhere in the world. They're not letting you buy land if you're not a citizen None of that then you talked about Kintana brought up. Oh, well, you know the federal government They're now that they don't want to have the undocumented get health care Look at the health care that the city workers got to pay out their nose for You don't fight for we the people who live here So line by line, you're giving this information every day every time we come up here and you look at us like we have Four heads so I'm asking you norcers. Why would you vote any one of them up here back in office? When you talk about the corruption and you can like who you want to like actually like a couple people up there But if you're not getting a job done, you got to go do something else You got to do something else because this is not it We don't benefit we're losing our city is in a shambles Y'all don't have anything to say the thing with marquis. So can time Gonzalez has questions Oh, oh you mr. Bowtie, uh crump. Well, no, no, no, I don't think you should ask him that He has a right to answer then you give him the answer You get people that you want you make the way for them to have the position. I'm just sick of it The people are sick of it. They're hurting. They're dying. Our city is broke. It's broken Our culture our community you've destroyed it So what I am saying to you all if you are serious about change What has been obliterated destroyed and broken it is now time to fix You vote deborah saltus from mayor in 2026 You want some change? Let's make some change People ask me well sister they have to talk about vote them out. What happened when you had to recall? When everybody had an opportunity to get on board Those of you jumping up talking about you running for office you sat by and watched our city burn while you waited for your turn Run for what office for your chance to get in the seat and be just like the people that's here Especially those that where are men now you want to jump out here and run for some office How about you run somewhere else because you sat by watched our city burn while you waited for your turn When you had an opportunity to make a difference Thank you for your comments next speaker No, i'm talking i'm gonna speak I need to have I gave you nine those papers that that's each one You got nine up there including the papers with the clips on each one's with the clip Good evening. Uh alif muhammad court towers alif muhammad the president found alif muhammad near school And from ruckus with it in tax law and taxation Larry take the mask off. You're not larry krump anymore in that mask Only to be your father somebody that you was in Playing high school basketball or whatever How dare you how dare you stop him when you run for public office or anything public? This is how it goes. You your life is open and when a person come and they're a candidate for something You're allowed to ask any questions what color is your underwear You can't and then you're going to jump in and stop and say it's inappropriate. That was protected of maracas And that's why I say take the mask off the larry. That's fair that you want to be it's not you Marquis could not come on there. I taught him ethics He taught me a lot of things, but I taught you ethics and you only have one person employee Also, whenever you work for the housing authority you have to be gone for one year In order one year in order to come back and if you do business with them or like consultants two Two years now, let me explain something to you about marquis No, i'm not going there marquis was the president of the notebook education. We got our Marquis was working at the house and starting recreation head of recreation. He was doing a good job But we had a meeting one time and then the meeting was eddie and you could call him up nasa with midi because I had a Marquis said he wanted to raise and this is all public dache said i'm not giving you nothing because they got a problem From when they were both sat on the board education He said I want 90 grand. I said you can't get 90 grand bro He got the 90 000 and he was put in residence service Now residence service is not supposed to be ran Midi sent 20 people down there and they put all the residents That's got to stand up and tell y'all the truth Now this is the assessment what they said in the assessment and this is for y'all it says y'all are not vetting That's what hud said read it you're not vetting your candidates Why you think the house is thought he got problems now you have to go and vet your candidates You got to go in and see how we're gonna do you got to do that The budget thing and this guy gets up. That's the infernal reaction and he says We got two people in the museum working. There's a hundred people down there We got uh one person there the other said we got oh man. We're doing it I was so embarrassed and I was in my office. What kind of guys are rising then? Louise trying to tell him you only got five people last year get the other five people. We're doing great Am the affirmative person and I got two people at the museum And that's a hundred people working there Louise you got to be careful with the hatchet you got up there Uh, you got up there and you said about amena on city time Okay, so you be careful because I begged them not to file a thing with electoral It's called a hatchet. Thank you for your comment. Somebody teach you with the hatchet. Thank you for your comments next speaker Good evening council. That's a packet of It's basically transparency of what i'm talking about Hours, yeah, can you pull the mic closer to yourself? Thank you. That's the paychecks hours and etc