Montclair Council Meeting: Mental Health and Policing, Residents Call For Moratorium on Artificial Turf

MONTCLAIR, NJ - Three months into its term, the Twelfth Council of Montclair Township is still grinding slowly in public meetings.  Despite a modest agenda that included two presentations and three discussion items for the October 29 meeting, the Montclair Township Council’s October 8 conference meeting lasted for nearly five hours before the council went into executive session.

The meeting was noteworthy for the two presentations – one on mental health protocols observed by the police and another from Neglia Engineering (the township’s de facto engineering department by contract) – being, put together, shorter than the interminable public comment that followed.  The council also debated some of its agenda items at length.

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Chief of Police Todd Conforti, joined by Deputy Chief Wilhelm Young and Lieutenant Tyrone Williams, spoke about the way mental-health patients are dealt with when the police are called to investigate or respond to an incident involving a mentally ill person.  Chief Conforti, in addressing Mayor Renée Baskerville and the councilors, said that each situation is different, but the protocol is basically the same in all instances.  The police try to reason with a mentally ill assailant or suspect and encourage that person to accept a hospital referral.  Officers take the person to the hospital themselves, and they search the person for weapons or any object that could be used as a weapon to prevent the person from harming oneself or hospital staff.

The police comply with a since revised directive handed down in 2020 by the state Attorney General’s office in how to de-escalate a situation involving mentally ill subjects, especially in situations where a mentally ill person might barricade oneself against law enforcement.  All police officers are required to have crisis intervention training to defuse situations as they come, and the police are working with mental-health workers in how to deal with those who need help.

Fourth Ward Councilor Aminah Toler asked the police officers if there was any way a resident could leave paperwork at their headquarters to alert them of a family member that is suffering or has suffered from mental illness so that they are aware of these patients when calls come in.  Lieutenant Williams responded that the police do collect such information and have expanded to information regarding anyone with special needs that are not necessarily related to mental illness.  Addresses of such individuals are entered in a computer database, so the police know what to expect.

Lieutenant Williams also testified that the police are vigorously responding to hate and bias crimes or threats of such crimes.  The assistance received from the U.S. Justice Department has been problematic; the federal grant to help fight such crimes was not approved until May 2024, when it was only good for three years beginning in September 2021, hence it had only four months to go before expiration.  Councilor-at-Large Carmel Loughman asked about extensions.  Lieutenant Wiliams said that the grant can be extended, but only for one year before any three-year extension can be considered.  The lieutenant said that the problem is that Washington more or less shuts down in the summertime, as many federal-government employees are on vacation.  He hopes to get the grant taken care of, however, and he stressed that the police work with local groups and civilians to foster and continue dialogue between different groups in Montclair.

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Norberto Hernandez, the Neglia engineer contracted to working for the township, followed with a presentation about the rising threat of floods exacerbated by climate change, regarding the new storm water regulations from the state.  He explained that precipitation rates in northern New Jersey have gone up noticeably since 1999 – as much as a 15 percent increase in terms of 100-year floods – and the increased flooding has inevitably put a strain on the township’s sewer system.  Hernandez explained that many houses that were not in areas that routinely flooded twenty-five years earlier, when Tropical Storm Floyd struck New Jersey, would be in a flood-plain area now, and that rules for storm sewers would inevitably take all that into account.  As effective as Hernandez’s presentation was, though, it turned out to be the wrong presentation.  Councilor Toler had asked Hernandez to lay out the impacts that increased precipitation rates would have on development, which Hernandez had not prepared for.  In an effort to recover from his faux pas , Hernandez said that state regulations would cover areas slated for development while noting the need to maintain the streams that flow through Montclair’s neighborhoods.  Hernandez said that the township can easily take care of the banks of streams the flow through township property but local homeowners who have streams running through their yards must take responsibility for maintaining them.  Interim Township manger Michael Lapolla said that he is already planning to meet with officials from neighboring Glen Ridge and Bloomfield to discuss working together to assess and deal with flooding issues common to all three towns.  The meeting is set for Thursday, October 10.

In public comment numerous residents spoke out in favor of the resolution regarding artificial turf scheduled for a vote on October 29.  The resolution would place moratorium on the installation of artificial turf on athletic and recreational fields.   The residents reiterated the dangers from PFAS, the leading chemical in artificial turf, such as decreased fertility, increased cancer risks, accelerated puberty, and a higher surface temperature than natural grass.  A few residents, however, took issue with the proposed moratorium, saying that the artificial turf was better suited to sports activities.  Later, in discussing the resolution for October 29, the council could not agree on the exact wording of the resolution that would be voted on, and Mayor Baskerville and the councilors agreed to discuss it further.

The council also voted to extend the Vision Zero task force through April 15, 2025, and it tabled a resolution awarding a fair and open contract to H2M Associates for the environmental remediation project at 399 Orange Road for a planned park when Councilor Toler indicated that she wanted more specifics on funding.

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