Mayor Council Meeting, March 24, 2009

Meeting 03-24-09 "We want to thank you for coming out tonite" was the gracious welcome given by almost all of the Council people. The prime announcement was the budget and that a meeting would be held at 5 PM on Monday, March 30th at the Borough Hall. The second most important announcement was that by delaying pension payments and seeking other less important cuts, the Paramus family of employees would not have to worry about furloughs and days off.
Councilman Hayo described the ongoing work at the Municipal Pool and the efforts to open it by Memorial Day. He feels they will succeed!

Mayor Tedesco gave special recognition to John Foster, our resident engineer. John has been the backbone of many projects, items like the pool and overseeing the recent installation of a new sprinkler system at the Walter Behnke Senior Housing Complex. The latter was essential to the well being of the senior residents.

In the past, there have been many false alarms at the Senior Complex due to the type of sprinkler system. Pipes would break, pressure would drop and the alarm would go off. It happened so frequently that like the boy who cried wolf, the residents became immune to the alarms and many would stay in there apartments. With the new system in place, there was an alarm and residents took heed. Gratefully, it was only a smoke problem due to a resident burning food.

The installation went very smoothly. Unlike the previous company who left gaps in the ceiling where sprinklers had been replaced, this company installed a covering flange to completely seal off the sprinkler opening. John Foster deserves a lot of praise.

Mayor Tedesco announced that 2,000 jobs had come to Paramus recently, most of them at the Bergen Towne Center where Target, Nordstrum Rack, Whole Foods, A soon to open Bobby Flay's Burgers accounted for most of the jobs. Fairway Market, at the Fashion Center, brought 350 new hires to Paramus.