Common Council, Organizational Meeting

1. 0:17I worked myself in the eye with a poor little twig branch. >> Oh no. >> Yeah, >> you whacked yourself with it. going to call the meeting of the organized meeting of Hudson County Council for 2026 is now in session. Baptis for the future. United States. >> Okay. Not about the order country. So we call member
2. 1:22>> present >> here. >> Romy >> here. >> Far >> here. >> Foster >> here. >> Roberts here. Belton >> here. >> Here. >> Cousin >> here. >> Morante >> here. >> President Morris >> here. Okay. Um so this meeting is to go over the um rules of order for 26. Uh I have made some changes to the rules from last year. So I I'm going to go through them. Um before I do that, I want to give a very warm welcome to our three new members. Uh first wart, fifth ward, and third wart. um um you know any questions that you have just reach out to any of us happy to fill you in um on how we do and do not get things done here. Um but uh very warm welcome for our newcomers and welcome back to those
3. 2:25of us who are still willing to enjoy the fun. Um so the first rule of order did not change um other than changing the date of the meetings. So we have been meeting I believe on the third I brought um it had been uh the third Tuesday. So our uh meeting will now occur on the fourth Tuesday of each month and the Monday the informal meeting will occur on Monday 8 days prior. that language is a little different because it takes care of problems where Monday and Tuesday if the um month begins on Monday, you get into a problem where you're you have the Monday apart. So basically that is switching to the the fourth Tuesday of each month. I have it listed here at 6:00 p.m. but I do want to put it to you and we can make this change if you wish. Um it used to be a 700 p.m. meeting. Um for me personally it 67 doesn't make any
4. 3:28difference but I would like to ask the council if six is their preference would they prefer to go back to seven what are your thoughts and >> 53 >> so I'll go I'll go around by board so first board >> I'm sorry seven seven would be great please >> uh Gary >> six >> uh second 67 don't matter. >> Okay. >> Yeah. 5:30 would be the earliest that I could do just because I work. >> But do you have a preference? >> Uh I would prefer six but >> Okay. >> Um fourth and third Jason I could do >> either six. Seven is >> I'm sorry >> I said six. >> Six is fine. Seven. I don't sorry I just work till six.
5. 4:32>> Because because of one because of transportation, few because of I get out of work at 5 and come right over here for six o'clock meeting. I was I was start at 7 o'clock. That's a long day. >> I think most people seem to be happy with six. So we leave it at >> you far away. >> No. and my schedule is kind of working around this, but I'd rather stay and finish. But it's 5:65. >> Okay. So, we're going to leave that. >> Um, rule number two um uh relates to the quorum uh and in the absence of the president, the majority lead will take uh chair the meeting. That is the same as last year. Uh order of business for the formal session. roll call, approval of minutes, paying bills and resolutions, old business, new business to German. That is identical to last year. Um, number four, local laws and resolutions. And I wanted to talk about this because I uh some significant changes here. Um, one of the things that I think those of
6. 5:39us who have been here for the previous sessions uh have dealt with is that um we have things coming before us at the formal meeting where it may not have been sent to the informal meeting. Sometimes we will get things the same day as the formal meeting with the expectation that we are going to vote on it. So I have changed this to say that resolutions of the law shall be submitted in writing at the informal session for review and discussion before submission to formal. This rule may be waved when deemed necessary. However, only unavoidable or unforeseen circumstances will be considered and considered considering necessity. And I really think that we should have the discipline to try to hold to that. Um not paying attention to the fact that oh my god the meeting's coming up. It's not really a unforeseen uh thing. There will be things that will come up. There will be issues that will come up potentially from another office from another department treasurer being the mayor of
7. 6:41where we need to u waves that. But in general this is what we I think we need to stick to. Also new all laws and resolutions must have at least one member of the council as a sponsor or sponsors. Sponsors will be responsible for presenting the law or resolution, explaining its intent, intent and the reason for consideration. The reason I'm putting this in here and in many many cases I'm happy to be the sponsor and to research and present whatever we are looking at. Uh the reason this is here is again we have had situations where resolutions have been brought before us. We don't know who brought it came from and there's nobody in the room who can say oh this is something that I have been working on or my committee worked on. This is where it came from. This is what we're doing. So we need to sponsor for anything coming forward. >> I have a question. Yeah. So if somebody from the public were to submit something to you, is there instructions given back to them about the proper process that this is something
8. 7:42>> these rules are posted on the website and we'll come to communication in a moment. Um if somebody wants to bring something forward, what they would need if a member of the public wants to bring something forward, what they would do is approach their representative on council and say this is something that is an issue for me or for our community in in your district. I want you to take this out and take it to the council. And I've had things like that brought to me. >> No, I understand that. I'm asking for um clarification like there was I think at the last meeting there was a resolution that went just to the common council president. He didn't entertain it or tell the person that that process wasn't being commented. >> Which resolution are you talking about? >> The one you wrote for the power, right? >> Right. >> Yes. >> I'm just asking will you give them the proper steps so that they don't have to go look for it themselves? That's all I'm asking. Um we can communicate that to the desert. Um so the the sponsors are responsible for presenting and explaining. Um resolution present that the informal may be
9. 8:44assigned by the this is same same as last year assigned by the president to a standing committee of the council or to an out committee or may be placed by the president on the agenda for the formal session. uh a petition by three members of the council to the full council would be sufficient to discharge draft our resolution and bring inp. So we may have something come up in the informal meeting and after discussion we will decide you know let's send this to legal or let's send this to finance or whatever that's the only uh votes of the council this the same as before um with with the exception of the fourth paragraph um all questions pertaining to appropriations I may vote shall be taken and name and uh the same shall be the record um and their you know absences are neither I's nor um however uh when you count whether or not something has a majority the full counter is the number that is counted
10. 9:47okay um every member doesn't win any question and I I actually sent a slightly modified version of this because I missed a piece of language um every member present when any question uh questions are stated shall vote thereon unless accused for conflict of interest or abstaining due to insufficient information is um and I put in language here to explain what constitutes a good rule for attention or recusal. In the event of recusal the member must state the nature of the contract and must also recuse themselves with discussion of the question. In the event of abstension, the member must take the insert of the information. So abstension is only to be allowed um due to insufficient. I'll come back to that moment. Uh in the event of abstension, the member must state the nature of the information that they require in order to cast a vote. The reason for that is that preferably we should vote I or yes or no unless we're
11. 10:53refusing. We have had situations again because material has been brought to us on the day of the vote. There hasn't been enough plan to actually know even what we're voting on. And so we have had some extensions in the past. My hope is that if we abide by actually bringing things through having a sponsor getting it a week before the meeting that we will not need to that that should be the last worst case scenario. you need to be specific about what information you like in order to cast a vote. Um the there was no change to um the language about law keeps the majority of the council. Sorry. >> Um what what would happen if someone insist on abstaining? >> They have to give a reason. >> What would be the consequence? >> There is no consequence. An abstension is a valid is valid. It's not it's not uh preferred if you have the information but How do people submit to
12. 19:35everyone? >> No, not necessarily. So if somebody submits something like I've had situations where somebody would submit a comment to me on a topic that's on the agender and I would send that >> right >> and I'll take the subject. >> Yeah. >> Or uh if I just go to I send it to everybody >> and then you say okay I want this to be for everyone. >> But what I think what we have to communicate to the public on the website is if you wish If you want to communicate, please specify whether or not you want this post and it should be pertaining to a specific topic on the we back. >> Yeah. >> All right. So, uh, rule number nine, presentations to the council. This is a new words. Um, and this is goes along with the idea of, um, resolutions and laws having to have a sponsor. So members of the council may request uh that a presentation be made to the
13. 20:38council. Again, it's like having a sponsor. Um and those presenters uh have to be sponsored by a member of the council. So this might be an outside group, it might be a grassroots group or you want to have a presentation. Um we will limit those to five minutes unless there's some reason uh to allocate additional time for it. But it just codifies rule for us to have a mechanism whereby uh entities can come and make presentations. Any questions on that one? Uh I made no changes to executive uh sessions. Those are pretty much specified by uh New York state law. Um paying of bills is the same. We have the bills are presented to the council for payment. Um and we have to have they have to be authorized and endorsed by two male council members. This is the fastest that we've had in place uh twice in time where two amendment passages sign off on the bills. Um I've made no changes to all three of the rules with
14. 21:41the two/3s vote a rule can be changed or amended. So as we've gone through them this evening um I am adding back in language for example because the consensus here is that we want to add in the language under rule number eight. So that would be modified. Um and then uh the next thing which is not a a um a rule that has so much let me see recess and the journal of order those are all the same. Uh designation of majority and minority lead um that rule has not changed from uh last year. However, in our caucus this evening before this meeting, um we have nominated Dominic Morante as our majority lead and uh Ronnie Muhammad as our minority to serve for this term. The one change that I did make here was to make the um term of majority and minority to run concurrent with the term of the council. So that we will not need to do this again in January unless I do decide to step down. um reasonable
15. 22:46accommodation. There is no change there. Um what is new is that we are now going to go back to having committees standing committees. Um and you see last couple of councils we have just had finance and safety. Uh the one term we actually had uh sorry finance and uh legal. One term we only had legal. Finance was brought back when Rich joined the council. Um so finance will be f will be treasur will report to finance we'll get monthly reports as how we always get and that will also hopefully incorporate some proposals and some focus on economic development. Uh safety will be the fire department and the Hudson Police Department. Um there may be some overlap between safety and other um other uh areas like an eagle um depending on what the issue is. Uh services is Hudson youth and senior centers um code and infrastructure office of code
16. 23:49enforcement and department of public works. So, for example, there may be situations where on a safety issue, you may want to loop in discussion with DPW, if you're talking about sidewalk, uh, you know, crosswalks and so forth if there may be some need to link those together. And we will continue to have people. Um Ronnie is putting together a uh a format which will go out to all of you and I'm asking you to select your first, second and third uh preferences for committees and also the number of committees that you're willing to serve on that we have five and we need at least three people per committee. That means we need at least 15 bodies, right? So a couple of people are going to have to do more than one committee. Um we'll try to honor everybody's preferences. Uh I think people do be their best work when they're working on something that interests them. Um none of the departments will be reporting to the informal meeting going forward. That meeting will be made up of looking at laws, looking at resolutions, having
17. 24:53discussion, doing the work that we need to do before we vote. Um then the the role of the committees will be to receive the reports and to actually do the work that needs to get done. So if you want to talk about a parking issue, if you want to talk about a safety issue, uh that's where that work would have to get done. Um and then the committees can develop resolutions for consideration for the full council. Um legal typically drafts local laws, code changes, and so forth. A lot of things end up going to legal um for review uh coming out of another committee. So it's not uncommon for something to get sent to legal for review. um chairs noted by the council at the informal meeting that some big issue has come up within their committee. So for example um uh we had an issue a while back with a an accident an ebike accident and that that is a safety issue that we really need to bring forward and write some some code relating to that. Um that is something where if the police were to report to
18. 25:56the safety committee we've had this issue we have have had another ebike accident then that's something that the chair of that committee would say this was the most salient thing that was reported in our monthly meeting and we would like to have legal take a look at uh working with us and with the police department to write code relating to that. That's how that should flow. Um [clears throat] committees will refer issues to other standing committees as appropriate. such as legal or finance depending on on what the appropriate thing is. So you will be getting between now and next week um from each grid put in your preferences so that we can um uh make you know make sure that everybody is working on something that is that they have some passion about and some background in um and that's those are the rules of work. uh questions other changes >> well the committees themselves determine what day and time >> yes the committees will need to determine when they wish to meet and what their schedule is and do that just
19. 26:59by looking at the calendar uh the city calendar come up and they will also elect >> so they'll just take it to me we'll start in February because we're >> yes we so we are going to have a regular meeting next week but that's going to be primarily uh for paying the bills and we may be addressing um the new club resolution that we had last December. >> Um that's currently being reviewed by the the agreement at least is being reviewed by legal right now, but that may be on the agenda for tomorrow for next week. That would be a very short meeting. We we are need I had intended not to meet but we need to meet in order to pay the vote >> and minutes are going to be done by in the committees. Uh Dinda Fenhoff has has she pretty much does all she shows the formal minutes. So it's basically the same thing. It's just going to be a a different time frame. >> Great. Thank you. And committee chairs would be doing the minutes for those committee. >> No pen, doesn't it? >> All of those.
20. 28:02>> She does. >> She's going to do all of the meetings. >> Yes, she does. >> She doing the addition of five more a month. >> Um if well some of them may depending on how you do it, they may be done exactly for example. Great. Um, and she's already like with the informal, >> that's a great change that >> the informal can go on for two hours. >> Well, that's a new thing. >> She does the minutes for all of those. >> Well, well, with the committees doing most of the conversation with the community and the work. Hopefully that doesn't happen. >> No, it will not happen. >> Department will not be. >> Does it imply that the department heads will be on the committees? >> Excuse me. >> Does it imply? No, the departments will report to the committees. So, at the moment, the departments report to the informal meeting. >> So, they attend every >> uh they will to DPW will report monthly tower. >> Monthly, excuse me. They will report to that. The fire department instead of reporting here will report to the city. >> Each committee will really just be three
21. 29:04to one. >> Three to five. >> Okay. All all council members >> all council members these are standing committees up to common council. >> Great. Any other questions? Okay. So with that amendment that I'm going to add in in rule number eight. Um do we have a motion to accept the rule of order? I'll make a motion. We have a second. I do either one. Uh all in favor. Any opposed? >> Okay. Who are those people? Who are those council members? >> Oh, sorry. >> Oh, and by the way, we will not be using theirs going forward. It's simply not my style. Um,
22. 30:08okay. I'm looking for the agenda. So, we have coverage the rules of order. Uh, we've designated majority minority lead. And now I think we just need a motion to >> motion. >> Oh, sorry. Hang on. We have >> comments [clears throat] question. So, so this new structure, so there's going to be standing committee. Can you Sorry. there's going to be um standing committees now. So if the public wants to get involved, the public can attend any of those meetings. Okay. >> And is that sort of the recommended way to get involved in a certain issue is that you should just show up to the committee because that's going to be the most conversational. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Either that or reach out to your council member. >> Okay. >> I was also wondering if there'd be agendas for the committee meetings kind of. Yes. >> I got a question. >> Yeah. >> You said that um the department will be meeting monthly. So those meetings there probably have more than one meeting.
23. 31:14>> The uh committees will meet monthly committ the two committees that are currently exist. So now we're going to have many more. >> How many committees are in >> well? There are going to be five. And if you're on one committee, you will attend one monthly meeting. >> I'm also being more than >> But you could choose and in this grid I put a column in indicate how many committees you're willing to test. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, just by the numbers alone, most people will have to be in team >> committees. I don't think so. with only 11 members that would have to be a minimum of three for five. >> Um, >> yeah, not hard. >> Well, especially if we do back to back >> five committees times three equals 15. >> For example, >> there was a minimum of >> three.
24. 32:23and and that will be a problem. >> That will be a problem because here I am on two and you're and we all have to get select the day that we're all available. That's going to be an issue. >> That's why it's better to have three people. It's a lot easier to choose a time. We will not you need 15 15 slots each five committees with a minimum of three people. There are 11 months. >> We will not all be serving on two and three. That's why I put them in saying how many are you willing to it'll be fine and if it's not we will return to the drawing this week. >> Yeah. Easy question. >> Thank you for the new rules. Uh the time that we had already discussed about 6 and 7. I if I can I speak to that a little bit? >> Sure. Um 6:00 is a great time, but if it serves the community better, it's not
25. 33:26necessarily what serves us better. If it's easier for the public to the majority gets out at 5, they might want to go home for dinner. They might have kids. They might have something to do. 7 o'clock. I think statistically it shows it is better for a community to be available. Not speaking to the committees of course, but a community to be available. All right, we're back. We're done. >> 6:30. >> Well, regardless of >> there, can you some statistics? I would be willing to change. >> I I will present the statistics, but that would be my >> I will Yeah, I think Well, I said in the beginning that I'm okay with you. >> Yes. And I understand that a lot of people are worked and some have different schedules but that the general public being at five that [clears throat] was and historically why the meetings were >> have a bigger come from >> I will I will ask Nikcom there for their data. >> So next week our meeting is so you can protect your data.
26. 34:27>> I will send it then are you joining the second word? Yeah. Yeah. I'll see you there. >> I haven't finished signing yet, but >> okay. >> Yes. >> Thank you. So, as a practical matter, I notice Linda's Lind is going to be doing the minutes. So, that would imply that there would be no committee would be meeting no two committees would be meeting at the same time. >> That's correct, sir. So, do you want to explicitly indicate that in the rules? >> We'll figure out the schedule once we get the responses from everybody. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, before we adjourn, >> uh I'm going to get to comment, I just want you to know that we do need to have an executive session this evening. >> Um so, >> Margaret, >> hi, it's Janice. I'm on. Hi, it's Janice. I'm on. >> Janice, can you mute your phone, please? Well, I need to
27. 35:32we're still we're still in our general meeting. I just wanted you to join and if you could just mute. Uh >> I understand that, but I'm trying to tell you something procedurally. You shouldn't adjourn the meeting. You should journ into executive session, come out of executive session, and then the meeting. >> We have not adjourned the meeting. >> We have not. >> I understand that. It sounded like you were going to adjourn before you went into executive session. >> No, I'm not the public. know that we to executive session and I we are not expecting any business after executive session because >> so that people know that they can leave and they do not need to come back because we have done the business of this meeting that is all on the communicator um you have something >> oh no um for question we had it before pandmic we changed everything in one informal meeting but before the pandemic we used to have a meeting uh in the same days like now from 6 to 7 then 7 to 81 it's like that time of 5 in the morning 6:00
28. 36:41and another meeting on 7:00 >> some some of them were done back to back >> because I've talked to the department heads about that very basic but it just breaks the thing up instead of it being threehour meeting Um, yep. >> Maybe in addition to what you're putting into your form, Rooney, maybe you can just put in what times were available. So, >> any I don't see any hands raised. >> So, um, we are going to go into executive session. We ask the motion to go to >> motion to motion for executive session. >> You need >> you need to say why you're going into the executive session. The purpose of executive is to discuss uh a a legal matter relating to one ladies and gentlemen.
29. 38:03I'll tell you this. I see some faces that I haven't seen in a while joining the community person.

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