City Council

The Regular Meeting of the City Council of the City of Hackensack was held at City Hall, 65 Central Avenue, Hackensack, New Jersey, on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 9:02 a.m. Deputy Mayor Canestrino called the meeting to order and the City Clerk Deborah Karlsson announced that the meeting was being held in accordance with the Sunshine Law, notice having been published according to law, with a copy on file in the City Clerk’s office, and a copy posted on the bulletin board in City Hall. Attendance Ms. Karlsson called the roll: Deputy Mayor Canestrino, Deputy Mayor Sims, and Councilman Battaglia were present. Mayor Labrosse and Councilwoman Von Rudenborg were absent. City Manager Ted Ehrenburg was present. City Attorney Steven Kleinman was present. Deputy City Clerk Allison Saabye was present. Flag Salute Proclamations and Presentations – None Approval of Minutes – None City Manager’s Report – None Resolutions Council Intr Secon Abstai Absen Recuse Member o d Yes No n t d Von X Rudenborg Deputy Mayor Canestrino X Deputy Mayor Sims X X Battaglia X X Mayor X Labrosse CITY OF HACKENSACK RESOLUTION NO. 60-20 RESOLUTION AWARDING BID CONTRACT FOR MAIN STREET STREETSCAPE PROJECT – BERRY STREET TO PASSAIC STREET TO NEW PRINCE CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION WHEREAS, the City of Hackensack desires to improve the condition of Main Street by implementing a comprehensive Streetscape Project; and WHEREAS, the City solicited bid proposals for the portion of Main Street from Berry Street to Passaic Street; and WHEREAS, the City opened bid proposals on February 4, 2020 and a total of five (5) bid proposals were received; and WHEREAS, the Mayor and Council of the City of Hackensack now wish to award a contract to the lowest responsible respondent. NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Mayor and Council of the City of Hackensack, County of Bergen, as follows: 1. New Prince Concrete Construction of 215 Eileen Terrace, Hackensack, NJ 07601 is hereby awarded a contract in the amount not to exceed $415,935.72 for the Main St. Streetscape Project for the portion from Berry St. to Passaic St., in accordance with the specifications proposed. 02/19/2020 1  2. A Certification of Funds has been prepared and authorized by the Chief Financial Officer for the said contract assuring that there is a sufficient appropriation in budget account C-04-19-028-000-200 to fund the purchases authorized in this resolution as an express and mandatory condition of the award of this contract. 3. The Mayor and Clerk are hereby authorized to sign the contract documents necessary to effectuate the award of this contract. The City Attorney shall review any and all contractual documents prepared in furtherance of this award. Public Comment A motion to open the meeting to the public was offered by Deputy Mayor Sims and seconded by Councilman Battaglia. City Attorney – I will note because this is a special meeting, the Council should not engage in detailed colloquy. They have their three minutes to speak but since we did not advertise further discussions, it should be limited to what is essential. Bridgette – Hackensack – I am here to speak about this special meeting that needed to take place this morning because of an emergency cancellation of the regular meeting for this company New Prince Concrete Construction Company. I believe this is a continuous challenge and practice in the City of Hackensack and I want to make sure our city works for everyone. Does New Prince Concrete Construction have any African Americans or minority workers in the positions of supervisors, trained skills, or any other decent paying labor jobs? City Attorney responded – This is a contract for construction. The City has to follow the Local Public Contracts Law for construction contracts. In order to do so, you have to be the lowest bidder. The city does not just pick the company because of the diversity or anything other as long as it meets the qualifications and is the lowest responsible bidder and the city has no choice but to select this particular vendor. Under NJ contract law, they are required to have certain plans in place to ensure diversity in the workplace and that is part of the bidding process. New Prince would have had to have met those qualifications in order for us to select them. Beyond that we do not have the right to say we don’t think you are diverse enough. There are other contracts where we have more discretion. Bridgette continued – Are they here? Is there a representative from that company here? They are not here so that means that you followed the EEOC monitoring programs from the State when it comes to vendors and bids? If they have no representative here, I am going to ask the Council to get in writing that the community would like to see that they have African American or minority workers within their company. I would like to see that in writing. City Attorney responded – As part of any bid package, that documentation should be part of it, or they should be registered with the State of NJ. The bid package is I am sure available if you would like to submit an open public records request. Victor – Hackensack – What you are saying is not totally true. Your contract is a negotiation, correct? Whatever vendor you choose you negotiate the price. Even though it is a low bid. City Attorney responded – No, that is not correct. Victor continued – You are saying that if they are not incompliance with the law then that is okay. When you negotiate the price when you put these bids out there, you put stipulations in there. 02/19/2020 2 City Attorney responded – There are bid specifications put out saying this is what we would like to contract for. I believe all of our bid qualifications contain the language ensuring anyone who bids on a project complies with the NJ laws and regulations dealing with minorities and diversity. Victor continued – You are not taking it to another level. You have a diverse community. Why don’t you talk to whoever wins these contracts and tell them we have residents that need jobs, a large minority community in Hackensack, why don’t you negotiate that? Any contract is negotiable. City Attorney responded – It is important that people understand this. When we are doing a construction project, the rules are limited because they want to make sure the taxpayers get the best possible deal. We get sealed bids. We open them up and whoever is the lowest, as long as they are in compliance and unless we have legal grounds to disqualify them, we can’t say to them legally we think you need to do x, we don’t think you are diverse enough. If they meet the state rules and regulations regarding diversity, we do not have the right to do that. There are different types of contracts with different bidding rules. Everyone who bids has to meet the state rules and regulations. Victor continued – Did you do your due diligence to try and find a minority firm? How do you go about this? Just put it into the paper? City Attorney responded – We can not simply say only minority firms can bid on this. That would be a violation of the rules. We develop bid specifications; they are publicly advertised. Any qualifying public entity can bid on the project including those with minority leadership. To be honest, this company may be amazingly diverse. Anybody can bid on these things. It is all posted. It is available to anybody and anybody can apply. We have given any minority or majority vendor every opportunity to bid. Deputy Mayor Canestrino – We went out to bid, the lowest bidder was selected. We followed the letter of the law. I thank you for your comments. Randy Glover – Hackensack – I just want to pick up on what they are saying. It seems we are living in Hackensack, Alabama. I don’t know what you guys believe your legacy is going to be but it is not a black or white thing because all of the people in this town are being disenfranchised. No one is going to move into a $1,700 studio apartment. I think that if you guys were voted in for us, you should be protecting us. There is a way to develop responsibly in this town which will encompass everybody. I think what Mr. Geddis was trying to say was that there has been no reasonable effort to have any outreach to minority vendors or vendors in general for an opportunity to bid on these projects. There is no need for anyone to be contentious, we want to work together and have a voice in what is going on in the city. This city is made up of 60% minorities but if you look around there is no minority representation. I think there needs to be some sort of method for us to be included in this town, not the wealthy people because it seems like we are really fighting for the wealthy developers. People who grew up here have so many ties to the community. I know every single person here and I have nothing against any one of you. It is all about starting to do the right thing, including the people in the communication, including the people in how this town is going to be shaped for the future. I would love for you guys to have a positive legacy and I think it is only going to get more contentious if we don’t work together. Deputy Mayor Canestrino responded – I have lived in the same house in Hackensack for 47 years, so I am very proud of our town. One of the initial goals we had coming forward was to stabilize taxes so everyone can afford to live here. One way to do that was to maximize our return on investment and bring new revenue into the city. We are looking to bring the most into our city. We are looking at the downtown. There were not many apartments down there. How can we bring money in so that everyone benefits? One way of doing that is to freeze 02/19/2020 3 the tax rate for last year and the next four years to give everyone a breather. When you rent, it is the same issue. How do we get the most revenue into the city to help all our residents? In conjunction with that we need more affordable housing. We have been working on it. We met with three different organizations. It is a lengthy process. One of the organizations has three projects and we are trying to pick the best to get the most tax credits. They are interested in more than one project. We are trying to support that financially and with a much lower PILOT to help them. It is a difficult process. As far as selecting companies, everyone is free to submit a bid regardless of what your ethnic background is. All we see is a sealed bid and part of the requirements is to comply with the state regulations for equal opportunity employment. This is taxpayer money so by law we must select the lowest bidder that meets the criteria. If they didn’t meet the criteria then we have a valid reason to un-qualify them. We have to follow the law. There is no attempt to discriminate. There is always an attempt to be open and honest with the public and with the people we contract with. Richard Salkin – Hackensack – I wanted to direct this to the Mayor but he is not here. Some time ago the Board of Ed was looking to get faculty based on the population. Of course, there were restrictions on what you can do in terms of affirmative action but reaching out to the media that tends to be in minority communities is one way maybe to solicit. I want to talk basketball today. Remember before Carmelo Anthony was a Knick, he was on the Denver Nuggets. There was a dust-up at the Garden once and he came up from behind the Nuggets, sucker punched a Knick and ran back. It destroyed his street cred and was what was considered a “punk ass move.” When you take on someone that isn’t there, maybe it is the same move. Is there anything you want to say now that I am here, Mr. Kleinman? City Attorney responded – Not particularly, we are at a special meeting and you can comment on the agenda item. Mr. Salkin responded – I am comment on anything I want and the restriction you gave is bologna. You make up rules as you go along and that is a travesty. Regina Di Pasqua - Hackensack – What necessitated this special meeting? I know it was on the website, I think I am the only one who found it because it was hard to find. It was under headlines, not notices. It was not up top. It was in an odd place. I am floored that one block is a $400,000 contract. I expect to get an answer next time about the community garden. The flyer said it was limited to Hackensack residents only and it is a Green Acres park, so I don’t know how that is possible. I would like an answer to that. The gentrification of Hackensack is the issue here. The fairness to the existing residents and minorities are a majority of our population but they are not the majority seen in the work given out, the representation, and that needs to be looked at and changed. The redevelopment does affect the entire city. A house on my block can and is asking $4,500 a month rent and that is insane. They think they can do that in Hackensack. It is affecting everyone else because the rents in apartments are so high. That door has been opened and it will affect everyone. You need to look at the gentrification and the minority inclusion. Deputy Mayor Canestrino – We had several Council members ill and one member that had a prior appointment, so we did not have a quorum for the meeting. This could not wait until the next meeting because we have a timeline with the grant money with the State and we needed to get this approved to have it to the State on schedule. We had to have it approved by the 20 th of this month, otherwise we would have certainly waited. My comment about not affecting the other neighborhoods was meant that we are not building in those neighborhoods. For our folks that currently own properties, it is a positive thing that the property is increasing in value. We are still looking to maintain and increase our affordable 02/19/2020 4 housing. We are trying to help folks that currently live and own in the city and try to maintain the currently affordable housing and increase it as well. Guido Spinozzi – Hackensack – I just want to commend the Council for not raising our taxes in the past few years because you are doing a much better job than the prior Council. Thank you. No one else wished to speak. A motion to close the meeting to the public was offered by Deputy Mayor Sims and seconded by Councilman Battaglia. Council Comments Deputy Mayor Sims – I want to thank Regina for brining up the community garden and Green Acres. I am sure it will be addressed. I want to thank everyone who came out this morning. Have a great day. Councilman Battaglia – I want to thank you for coming this morning. We will continue to improve the city and we pay attention to all the comments from the residents. Thank you. Please keep my friend Emil in your prayers. Deputy Mayor Canestrino – I apologize again for having to have this special meeting, but things happen. We try not to have to do these things. We were in an un-avoidable situation. It is very important to keep moving forward with Main Street and get grant money to help get it done. Everyone is working together on an aggressive timeline to get this done which is what necessitated this meeting. We have to get this approved before the 20th to follow the timeline with the State. Thank you for coming out today. Email has been in the hospital since New Year’s Day, so I appreciate all of you prayers and your understanding for me not being around as much as I normally am. Thank you for coming. There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 9:33 a.m. Approved by Mayor and Council on March 10, 2020. ABSENT _____________________________________ Mayor John P. Labrosse, Jr. ____________________________________ Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino _____________________________________ Deputy Mayor David Sims ___________________________________ Councilman Leonardo Battaglia ABSENT ______________________________________ Councilwoman Stephanie Von Rudenborg ____________________________________ City Clerk Deborah Karlsson, R.M.C. 02/19/2020 5