June 3, 2026

We are in the 30 minute public comment portion. I'm going to record my votes for seven or eight, a B. I just wanted to, to ask the deputy mayor. Where are we with the, the change that I had requested of having more units Allison led director of economic and housing development. Yes, we have received the information from the clerk's office regarding the change to ISEO as recommended by council member Gonzalez. We are now preparing it to go to the central planning board for them to It's taking an apparently a winding road because that was, that was at the beginning of the year, I believe, or even last year that I suggested that. And it has taken six months to go from the clerks to. To the economic development. I, I, let's say. I understand that go over and move slowly, but I believe. We have some times to do something. Let's say a little bit more expeditiously. And this time I am going to be missing the opportunity of voting on that I will do all that I can to bring it to back to you before the July 15th meeting, which I know will be your final meeting. And we will at least be able to have you be able to look at that. June 17th meeting, sorry, July 15th, June 17th. I'll pass it on to the, to the council lady elected. So that she can vote for that and increase the number of units at 60% We can call it the Carlos Gonzalez ordinance. You know, not that you're asking me, but I will tell you, part of the reason was is that we were looking at other changes to and we were trying to decide if we should do just one change or do but I am willing to have us go in two steps and we'll be able to do the I want to see if we can, if I can just highlight. but these issues we're having with PSE and G. If we can send like a strongly worded letter on behalf of the council, they're doing a lot of these gas line replacements. Originally it was supposed to be done by a private contractor. Apparently PSE and G decided to split the work between the private Those areas that are being handled by PSE and G directly are a huge They have signage authorizing the streets to be blocked off for at They've been on lake street for about two months and you have to guess what day they're actually going to show up in front of your house to do And it's a huge inconvenience for our residents in the neighborhood. They're not doing a good job cleaning up after they do the, the gas light replacement. You know, I'm not, I'm not sure. If there's any kind of levers that the city has with this utility, but, better actors when they do work in the city of Newark and they have to clean up after themselves. If it was any other contractor, that we hired to do that kind of work and they left the kind of mess that PSE So I would ask through your chair and the clerk and through the BAs interference that we send something out to PSE and G, maybe have them appear before us like we've had so many times in the past. I know councilman Quintana has brought them in about lighting. We brought them in in the past when they installed these ridiculously large utility poles in our residential areas. You know, they, they, they have to do, they have to respect the city a little bit more than what they do. So that that's a continuation of a special meeting we were supposed to have with PSE and G optimum and Verizon around the hanging of these wires all on these poles, the looseness, the wires that are falling down causing problems all over the place. I'm not sure who to contact individuals should be, and maybe we need to begin to reach out to corporate to find a connection, but those individuals need to be in here, you know, concurrent to what council colleagues has said, they have to be responsible and accountable for the things that they're doing in the city and not just pass off responsibility. You know, public services. Oh, we rent, we rent the poles out. The other folks, they come in and say the poles don't belong to us. And there is really no real initial kind of directive of what is happening. But what is happening is a lot of sloppy work around the city, And we need to really begin to come to head with the execution of this We really need to try to schedule it as soon as possible. Anything else from the council to open it up council president council members, before we go to the public comment, I just want to state for the record that the ordinance adopted as six F a today will be advertised in accordance with law and a public hearing will be held at the next council meeting on June 17. We are in the 30 minute public comment portion of this meeting where each speaker will have three minutes to speak. Is there anyone wishing to address the council members? Good morning. Good morning, Donna Jackson, let me say it's going to be difficult for me to be a team player. I feel slighted today by the rushing of this budget. I have been a critic of the budget for the last three years exclusively. We are in some troubling times and I'm not going to sit back quiet. I'm not these public hearings that are supposed to occur on July 15th or whatever day it was. They're not going to be rushed either. The public is going to have an opportunity to have input last year. When we did this the year before last a fiasco, you're not going to do a whole budget. Every department in one day, some of these budget hearings are going to be in the evening because people and homeowners work and we cannot continue to do business as usual. We were getting ready to saddle these homeowners with this rebound and tax increase at the same time. And we can, we can debate the 1%. I'll sit down with Mr. Pennington so he can show me, but to have this introduced today with no paperwork again in front of you, I got a problem with that. And I know it's deliberate. I'm taking it personal. Yes, I am. Yeah. Everybody's gone. Oh no, we're not doing that. I don't believe it. I'm glad that they got it done in time, but you're rushing it because you know what's coming up there and it's going to be accountability and we're going to do it right. So please, when you're planning a budget hearing, don't do it in one day because I'm going to object. I'll bring the people down here and we're going to have a public hearing for real for the first time in 20 years because we're not going to keep pushing I hope that executive budget for executive protection went from that 20, $30 million range down to five. Cause if it didn't, that's the first thing I'm pushing for. I don't have personal protection. Nobody needs that much. Delaney Hall, a fiasco. How do we allow that? And why are we suing Delaney Hall? Where'd we get the money from for that? I hope that's not this contract today. I hope it's not. You shouldn't have allowed it to go that far. We should not have allowed for our police department now to go back down there and be in harm's way. I'm not having it. We're not doing that. The governor shouldn't have stepped in and we shouldn't have made this a You need to tell the mayor when he's wrong and he's wrong on this one. He's wrong. The council calendar needs to be restored. June ain't no summer month. School's still in. We still work it. Go back to the two meetings should have never been changed. You can get the one meeting for July, the one meeting for August, but not for June. It should be a day meeting, which should have been today. you need to really stop disrespecting the process. Gas and electric, PSE and G. Lastly, I'll close with this. The city had an opportunity to file for a waiver with the board of public utilities. And we are one of the only municipalities. Thank you. That did not do that. Okay. Thank you for your comments.

You're welcome. Appreciate it. Next speaker. Action Jackson. Former financial director, Danielle Smith. Hope Browns for you listening. Okay. A couple of things, you know, I was all for, I'm all for keeping Delaney Hall open, but then I went and did my research. You know, why close Delaney Hall for what? All the jails in the state of New Jersey are messed up. All the state, all the jails, all the black people, all the jails are messed up. You know, not just Delaney Hall, you know, and then I got a question for you, council president, when you're dead broke, right? You got the Newark police going down there. Who paid, who paid for all that overtime? Is the governor going to write a check out for you? Cause now they're putting the Newark police department back down there. Who paying for that? I'd like to ask that to my friend, the BA, Mr. Pennington, because the city got to pay for it. Come on. Now they were in the mighty South ward on Freeland Heisen Avenue over there by the projects. And the Newark police did a good job over there. Councilman, I guess you sent them over there, you know, to get a straight now and they're over there, but I don't know if they still over there cause they weren't there yesterday, but you got to put the resources back up there to the mighty South ward, the Patrick council and the projects to stop all that drug activity over there. Not at Delaney Hall. This ain't about politics. Forget about politics. You got like a Hakeem Jeffries. He come over here, close Delaney Hall, go to Rikers Island. They got plenty of problems over there. You know, all the jails got problems. wish your man to come down here and my little brother born, born good on all that prison stuff, prison re-entry, you know, mad to get the young guy involved because wasting time at Delaney Hall. I mean, it's good. You know, you want politics and be on TV all day. That's slick, but it's costing, it's costing money. And I like how this council stood up today to the administration, deputy mayor lad come down here prepared. Why wouldn't you come down here prepared to this bonafide body? Don't come down here. Half step of being slick. Myles Berger and the burgers organization in the, in the powerhouse central ward, that's a great project. Every time when the tax abatement coming down here, I know you're going to have points going back and forth, making your adjustments, but that's a good product. Cause Donna said the medium income is cheaper than 86,000, you know, but you start, you got to start in part, stay in line with the budget council president. Thank you. Thank you comments. Next speaker. Newark resident and a chief of staff to out thing, Last time I came before this body, I talked about good governance, and it appears that we are lacking good governance. And I think it shows throughout the voting process, the low turnout, people are tired. People are tired of the rhetoric. And in my conversations with some of you in passing, I've said, you know, you get to the council meeting, you get before these agenda items, you make very good points. And then we hear yes, yes, yes, yes. And for this lad to come up and say, Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have this prepared or I'm not ready. It's just not showing good governance on the executive side or the legislative I'm familiar with because I worked there back in the day. What senior is going downtown to record street. What about the parking? What about the access? Those were problems when we worked in that building. Now, again, some of you may be privy to information that I'm not because I'm on this side. But has that come back to the full body? Was that discussed amongst you all? Clearly it wasn't because it was a lot of questions. It's not your problem that these folks aren't prepared. If you ain't prepared, that's too bad. It's not our problem. And what it seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, but it always seems like you all have to be stepped on and take the brunt of folks, for lack of a better word, preparedness or incompetence. I'm tired of hearing the same story throughout my whole adult activism life. It's always the same story, the same result. I know y'all got to be tired because I definitely am. So I'll say that to say this, the handwriting's on the wall. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker.