Bogota Council Meeting

 20-August-2021

   On Thursday-19-August the Bogota Borough Council held its meeting for the month of August. At the start of the meeting Bogota Mayor Chris Kelemen asked for a moment to honour former Bogota High School teacher,  and Basketball Coach, Mr. Les Brown who recently passed away.  He also asked that the people of Afghanistan and Haiti to be  remember.

    During the Public Comment session many resident voiced concerns over the need and location of a planned Recycling Centre for Bogota. This item was table from the agenda during the last meeting in July. Over the last month Mayor Kelemen  contacted other nearby  municipalities about their recycling centers. One town was the neighboring Village of Ridgefield Park. After talking with their Department of Public Works officials, Mayor Kelemen informed the Council that Ridgefield Park is open to offering the use of their facility for Bogota. The  Ridgefield Park centre does offer more recyclable items to be collected than Bogota.  With this announcement it was proposed that the agenda item, about Bogota Recycling Centre, was to be left of the agenda in order to learn more information about the Ridgefield Park offer. This time is scheduled to be used to agree on the cost of the shared services, and access to the resident of Bogota.

 The location of the current Bogota is on the property of the Outwater Plastics building, which is only a temporary site. The recent sale of that property is causing the Governing Body to place a new a recycling solution to the forefront.

  Next the council heard from the Borough’s tax assessor about the need to update tax map of all the properties in Bogota. This is to show how each parcel of land is being used currently. One main example is the land of the Atwater Apartments was once the Hess Oil Corporation, and an Auto dealership. So that parcel changed from Industrial use to residential use.  The results of the new tax map will not lead to a increase , or decease of Borough Property taxes.  

  Then the Council voted on the items on the Consent Agenda. All resolutions were passed mostly by a unanimous vote.  Items of note was to approve the amending  of the agreement with the Bogota Board of Education about adding a fourth Special Law Enforcement Officers-class 3 (SLEO-3) for the Public School. This officer will be hired by the Bogota Police Department and paid by the Bogota Board of Education. This officer will be assigned to the new Bogota Middle School opening this year. 

   During Council reports it was announced that a new New Jersey Green Acres Change In Use Public  Hearing for the proposed Recreation Centre needs to be scheduled.  The original CIU  Public Hearing did not properly included the parking lot space to be used as part of the Recreation Centre. The governing body does not expect this new hearing should delay the construction of the building. 

    The next Bogota Borough Council meeting will  take place on Thursday-2-September.  This will be virtual meeting starting at 7:30p . The Public is invited to attend. Log-in information will follow. For addition information  please visit the Borough’s website at:   https://www.bogotaonline.org/

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