What Summit Residents Can Know Before the May 5 Common Council Meeting

Summit’s May 5 Common Council agenda is partly a continuation of the April 21 meeting and partly a new set of red flags.

A lot of the context for this meeting was put into play during the 04/21 meeting- rate increases for parking, road opening rules, new speed limits, Maple Street, Tier Garage, affordable housing with the exec session showing litigation and the fire house sale as agenda items.

The headliner is the budget which still lines up with what we covered in depth here; we’re going to focus on the rest of the agenda in this article.

Quikteks -the resolution that seeks to renew Summit’s IT contract runs from July ’26 through June ’27 with an NTE of $7800 per month (the staff summary says it’s $7,800 per year- obviously the former is the number to go with. The certification has the contract total at ~94K with nearly half of it tied to the current budget year.

Maple Street – The 04/21 ordinance had closures running from 06/12 through 09/7 and covering Union Place to Springfield Avenue and Springfield Avenue to 300/400 Alley. The ordinance that shows up here has them running from 06/18 through 09/7 and still references the 300 Alley/400 Alley area; the staff memo still has the original 06/12 through 09/7 dates and describes the second location as Springfield Avenue to DeForest Avenue. Proposal is contingent on NJDOT approval.

Surenian, Edwards, Buzak & Nolan LLC – affordable housing attorneys – adds to the 2025 NTE by $12,000 bringing the total to $112,000 with the reason indicated as final billing. Basically, it cost more than Summit thought it would.

Ashland Road Sidewalk Project is being sent out to bid- includes sidewalk installation on the south side of Ashland Road from Stacie Court to Tanglewood Drive and from Rotary Drive to Silver Lake Drive. The north side from Pine Grove Avenue to Linda Lane is included as an alternate bid while conversations with properties in the area continue — the memo doesn’t say what’s holding it up.

The Park Line Project Phase 2 needs more time; Summit got 500K for the job but the bid was unsuccessful (twice) so it was split into various phases and the city is now asking for an extension. Two failed bid attempts and now an extension – a little red flagish.

Onto Closed Session…

We see the sale of the old firehouse popping up again along with redevelopment litigation follow-up, Tatlock litigation, the Finger Lot amendment, St. Teresa’s parking agreement, collective bargaining, public safety, personnel and appointments.

The regular agenda then includes several items marked as pending closed-session discussion including appointment of a Deputy City Clerk, vacancies in the City Clerk’s Office, Finance Department, Department of Community Services, Parking Services Agency, and Police Department, Historic Preservation Commission changes, creation of a Technical Review Subcommittee for the Morris Broad Crossroads zone, the Finger Lot agreement, the St. Teresa’s parking agreement, and creation of a new Police Department position called “Addiction, Coordination & Treatment Officer,” or A.C.T.

That is a ton of public business sitting behind closed doors and while it might all be legal; residents have little information before the meeting on a lot of these items.

Bill List total $2,399,108.51 which is about $1 million higher than the $1.392 million bills and payroll we flagged last meeting – maybe it’s like a little competition.

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