Council Meeting

17-Jan.-2013

In the first regular meeting of the Bogota Borough Council for 2014 there was more heated discussion on who the Borough should hire to handle their profession business.  Each year the Mayor must appoint individuals, or companies to fill  post paid for by the Borough. Some of those positions range from the Borough Attorney, Public Defender & Borough Prosecutor to Borough Architect & Engineer. Mayor Tito Jackson wanted to ask all members of Council their thoughts and reason of why a person or Companies answers to the Boroughs  Request for Qualifications (RFQs) should be considered.  Councilman Jorge Nunez wanted to know know what the Mayors appointment where so the Council could vote on them. Councilwoman Lisa Kohles also wanted more discussion, and insight on what other members of Council thought of the RFQs the Borough have received. After a long and sometime confrontational debate the RFQs will be brought up again at a special Council meeting on 30-Jan. At that time Mayor Jackson must submit his appointments to Council for a vote, and if  Council does not approve them, they would have 30 days to appoint their own choice for some of the post.
  In Borough business at the start of the meeting an number of resolutions were table from voting including the new policy on the use of Borough owned vehicles, the purchase of a new bus for Senior Citizen transportation, and to a revise the agenda format. Councilman Nunez made the motion to table those resolutions in order to give the Council members more time to study them. Another resolution was tabled by a motion by Councilwoman Kohles about awarding a professional contract to Benecke Economics also to allow Council to study it further.
 One of the Citizens remarks was to change the current practice of using Public School building for voting while the Students are in attendance. It is a concerned that this may cause a unsafe condition in the school when a large number of people will be enter the building. The mayor said he would bring this up to the County Board of Elections for advice.
  In some of the Committee reports Council John Mitchell talked about how a number of  Bogota Emergency Volunteers live a distance away for the Borough, and would like to seek a way to encourage the student of the High School to join one of the organization  of  Bogota.
  Councilman Evaristo Burdiez Jr. wanted more accountability on why some of the fund budgeted to the Bogota Green Team had been use for other budget items.
  Councilman Chris Keleman talked about a number of items including to inform the Council that the Board of Education has vacated their building and has a temporary offices  in the High School. This is to start the replace of their old building. The new Board of Education offices is targeted to be opened by the end of this school year. Another building issues Councilman Keleman addressed was the move of the DPW to a temporary structure on Cross St due to the unsafe conditions to the current building cause by Hurricane Sandy. There had been talk of purchasing an old Hess garage for a new DPW building. The Council heard from DPW supervisor Gordon Kohles  to express his option that replace the current building with a new structure at it's current location may be more cost effective. Mr Kohles reasons were that to clean up the Hess site, along with upgrading the infrastructure of that building, and the purchase price of the Hess building it's self would be more than a new structure on Leonia Ave.

Councilman Chris Keleman addressing a Citizens concerns
about  about having the public schools use as polling places.

DPW Supervisor Gordon Kohles asking Council to fully
 replace the DPW garage with a new structure.