good evening and welcome to the Bedminster Township committee meeting this is our regularly scheduled meeting which is on a Tuesday rather than Monday in honor of the President's Day holiday recognize that we have a full attendance by bmin Township committee here in person committee woman Gina Fernandez committee woman Renee Mor committeeman Colin hickey joining me in person and attending via Zoom is committeeman Doug Stevenson M Ray may we please have the open public meeting act statement yes mayor adequate notice of the meeting of this meeting of the township committee was sent to The Courier News Somerville fville news whiy and to all subscribers and posted the Township Municipal Building on January 5th 2024 great thank you please join me with the Pledge of Allegiance I plg to of the United States of America and to the repblic for it one nation under God indivisible okay before we start the meeting just want to give out um some congratulations um first to Bedminster Police Department um as you may have seen it both in a press release and picked up by uh the Burnville news uh there was an incident um over the last week I guess uh that was the weekend before this weekend before that's right um there was a a potential um situation um bmin please responded um and did so in a most prudent manner uh Chief will talk about it a little bit later in the meeting uh but I certainly want to give um kudos to all the beder officers who were involved in responding to that incident um also want to give a special recognition to Bedminster Public Works and put a great job in dealing with the snow events we've had um roads were cleaned up quickly very roads were were were I mean they were roads were great shape just like while the snow was coming down and afterwards certainly the B roads I traveled on that day were were great and I did drive around town to see how everything was doing so well done to uh to public works now it's the time of the meeting we open it up for public comments um there are no public in attendance here in person and does not look like we have any public participating via telephone or Zoom so we will move on with the rest of the meeting uh we have one set of meeting minutes to approve that's February 5 2024 that's our TC meeting any comments seeing none take a motion to approve so moved second all in favor I thank you we have one permit to consider tonight which is an annual seasonal Farm permit Mark Farmers wait Farm Market permit uh that's for Donlon Brew Works LLC doing business as sunken Silo and their permit that they're submitted is to attend the bed Mr Farmers Market River Road Park and that'll be from May 25 through December 7th uh so once again this um is a permit that would allow uh sunken Silo to sell their beer at the farmers market any comments or questions saying none take a motion to approve that permit so moved second all in favor I I thank you okay monthly report discussion by subcommittee chair committeeman Stevenson uh thank you mayor good evening everybody remotely um on um DPW obviously thank you mayor for recognizing Kevin and his team uh for their they've been working really hard to keep the snow removed from the streets and getting everybody cleared up um Kevin met with the contractor for the Pavilion down on River Road uh so that's proceeding um obviously been doing a lot of Maintenance with the dirt roads doing some patching of potholes with in the asphalt obviously with the plowing that comes with that so he's got his team working on that they continue to work on our street lighting issues um and um you know that's just keeping them quite busy for the time time period uh we had a store preservation meeting this past go around um one of the applicants that is currently going before land use um you know we'll be going back to the land use board I guess there's a bit of uh disconnect there between what those two boards are doing but I think we got that figured out hopefully U the L use board will be able to hear that application um and then the other thing I just want to put on our our Collective Radars to think about as we move through budget season uh and it's coming out of HPC is the sentiment that do we need the rhetorical you do we need a full-time zoning enforcement officer or are we okay with what we've got um some of the folks on the committee seem to think that some of our enforcement is falling by the wayside some so I think that's a conversation for uh a further conversation let's put it that way but it's something that they've asked for us to uh to at least consider uh moving forward okay thank you you're welcome do you have more no you're welcome okay okay committee man hickey thank you mayor good evening all uh Board of Health met last Thursday um as I had mentioned at the last meeting they had previously discussed partnering with the county and rers Cooperative to sponsor some nutritional education Vice chair Dr agathis has taken the lead and review what some of the other towns in the area are doing to determine what might best serve our residents also the board discussed promoting radon detection kits in conjunction with the county um one idea that kicked around or may have been suggested was getting a table to Farmers Market so that might make for a great venue to educate folks of the danger posed by ridon and the need to get your home tested so they're going to follow up on that more to follow probably at the next meeting great have Moman meski good evening mayor good evening everyone um real quick on the environmental commission we swore in a new commissioner Susan Wagner um uh they reviewed some of the uh projects that were going on such as having Birds of Prey um some uh budgets I mean um grants uh but didn't have very much information so all those things were tabled um from um Jacobus Vander house however Laurel and Craig two of the uh the board members did come and uh attend the EC to talk about the Salem oak tree that uh the state had given away a couple years ago that was supposed to be given away on Arbor Day and then covid hit um so fortunately for us Whit Parker has been babysitting this tree and even though it's still a little tiny stick it's doing well and um EC and jbh kind of agreed that that probably somewhere on the jbh property is probably the best place for that tree to grow um and Laurel and Craig will meet with wit and uh probably Dawn or Deb tabary from EC to find some place appropriate on the property and even though it's really small now they might find like a temporary place so that is protected and it can grow and then the thought would be in several years they'll replace that big tree that was in the turnaround in front of the building and put the Salem Oak there so that can grow and be nice but now it's so small they really want to find a nice protected place so that it can grow and as I said Whit Parker has been taking good care of it and uh he will he will make sure that it goes to the right spot on the property um that's about all that we did I have a jbh meeting tomorrow that I'm going to miss because of budget session but I'll catch up with Laurel and Craig after that and report back what happened great thank you committing woman Fernandez thank you mayor um well as far as wck our rec committee goes spring is in the air you know for the recommendation of the groundhog our spring programs are um coming out soon uh currently um the basketball playoffs are are starting this week and the basketball clinics will run until Saturday March 2nd the Easter egg hunt will be held on March 30th at 12:00 noon at the farhills fairgrounds camp registration begins April 1st the summer camp weekly planner was sent out last week and the program guide will be coming out soon soon um and there's some winter and spring programs taking place but the most exciting news is that a 20x20 Pavilion will be installed at River Road Park in the next week or two really and there currently the two composting restrooms are in production which will also be installed at River Road Park and the Pavilion and the restrooms were purchased after receiving the 2023 Recreation Improvement Grant from the DCA so that's all my updates for right now that's great thank you uh from my end um really no updates on Farmers Market just that applications for uh vendors for the coming year are being submitted Library board uh would meet tomorrow or that meeting will occur but committee men hickey and I will not be able to attend since we will be attending our budget session um land use board uh there was a meeting uh involved uh to two um variances uh so that matter was a zoning board application and committee M hecky and I were ineligible to attend so we missed that one and later on in the meeting I will be talking uh providing an update on the what we're calling what's what we're calling it again we're calling it The Somerset Hills Public Safety Committee we just poost another uh session with the Mayors from Bernardsville Bernard's Township Pac and Gladstone Far Hills and Bridgewater um once again regarding uh Public Safety uh car thefts um and the increasing um dangers associated with the um actions that some of the car thieves are taking so we'll talk about that under new business and right now we'll turn it over to miss Ray for the administrator's report um yes mayor on top of uh all the budget preparation work that's going on um last week um I attended a joint Emergency Services funding meeting with uh the Bureau of Far Hills as we're all trying to wrap our heads around a lot of the capital expenditures that are coming our way um and also uh coming up I've been planning for a uh meeting with all the other County administrators uh Municipal administrators and the County Administrator as well as um some folks from the Somers County Improvement authority to discuss funding the the radios which is a huge um Capital expense bearing down on all of us we have a so far the few that have responded we're up to 10 plus million dollars so far in needs for everybody has to exhaust on radio and that's only from Seven towns of responded so far so the numbers continue to climb so we'll find out more as we struggle to pay for these find out more on grant opportunities or for there are several several of the organizations are applying for the American firefighters Grant and if they do succeed it's only 40% of the funding um not everybody's going to get that Grant so we have to have a plan B and a plan B is um difficult on our budgets our Capital budgets at this particular point and um so therefore we're looking at a another option which would be a Somerset County um you know pulled grant program with all the municipalities pitching in and also looking to see if the county can provide any funding for this since it's their initiative so okay that's it good luck report find some money or or find a really good bargain right power and numbers um what I'd also like to do during administrative report is turn it over to uh Chief Bernardo uh to talk about community policing and uh perhaps the event from a week and a half ago yeah sure um we have a couple of events that we're planning one we're going to be doing the National Night Out on August 6th it'll be from 5:00 P P.M to 8:00 p.m. at the r Park we're going to be uh hosting it along with the Far Hills and peac and Blackstone police department and their Emergency Services uh we're coordinating the event with our rec director so there's more details to come we're just in the planning stages we're also going to be doing a police youth week um which is also currently in the planning stages it's going to be sometime in the summertime and it's going to coincide with summer camp and we're working with Neil as well um then I have a public service announcement um there's been there's a company that calls themselves it's Patrick construction that's been in the area and they're soliciting construction work um they're and they're doing it without a permit they're not licensed and they're not insured in one instance they took money from a resident they started the job a roof Roofing and decking job and then they completed some of the work and then demanded more money to complete the job um there's similar other schemes that we've seen in the past with Paving where they'll they offer you a cheap prices they say we're in your neighborhood Road and we have extra material they start the job and they never finish the job and then they demand more money so if anybody solicits work at your door please call us because if they're not they don't have a soliciting permit they haven't been run through a background check and you don't know who you're dealing with um and this is prevalent it's not just in Ben Mis this one company's been going around um all over the state do you want talk about the press release yes please okay um on Friday February 9th um a mail caller contacted our police dispatch advising that he had a gun to someone's head members of the vmin attach Police Department along with the members of Far Hills burough the pack and glone and burn police department they responded to the made Field section of the hills the suers county SWOT team was also activated um our officers of observed the mail he was later identified as Jered wo in the front door of one of the units and he was waving what appeared to be a handgun in the direction of the officers and making threatening remarks officers communicated with Mr W and later determined he was holding a power tool in his hand um our officers approached Mr White and he entered the residence and locked the door our officers were able to breach the front door and subsequently subsequently placed Mr W under arrest prior to the arrival of swap he was charged with with um a lot of um offenses and subsequently lodged in the somerson county jail pending a bail detention hearing and there was no reported injuries um I just wanted to highlight how fortunate I am and how fortunate we are to have a professional well- trained and experienced group of officers in the Ben police department they demonstrated once again how well they handle stressful situations in with a lot of restraint um fortunately they were able to to resolve a very volatile situation with the zero [Music] injures I also wanted to highlight how fortunate we are to have great relationships with our surrounding police departments um officers from Far Hills pack and glass and burn Township have fonded immediately and they assisted our officers um so it's it's almost like having Force multipliers when you have such a nice Mutual a relationship with the surrounding towns and then lastly I wanted to highlight um a generous that the police department received um IR Catz he's a longtime F Minister resident and and he was a business owner of dep Pharmacy for many years he generously donated $4,500 to the police department um for us to purchase breaching tools to outfit our entire fleet uh he he really is a big supporter of all of the Emergency Services even the first a squad this kit is going to include a carrying backpack with such Hammer Vault Cutters and hallan Tool the halling tool is um Comm you can see a firef carrying to breach the door window um shouldering or trying to kick a door in an emergency is unsafe and usually not an effective method so this is going to provide our officer officers with the right tools to put them in a better position to succeed if they need to reach a door window or any point of entry in an emergency which they had to do in the incident that we mentioned in the police department the press release right all I got thank you Chief yeah and and just so everyone knows I asked the chief that so for meetings going forward since community policing is such a big component of what the TC supports and certainly what uh Chief Bernardo and Lieutenant fedo um have been promoting and and really getting their officers on board with community policing and one of the things that uh Chief had sent around I think we all saw it were photos um of Bedminster officers playing in the snow with uh some kids in town so they've pulled their vehicles off to the side and engaged with uh uh with the kids just throwing a ball around I don't believe there were snowballs being thrown a football game little little football game kids [Laughter] won and it's interesting because community policing doesn't always have to be you know a big presentation at the condos or the church or or something like that but it could be just something as uh pulling over just an engaging kids or engaging famili it's just like that um so once again great job Chief and just want to um continue to highlight all those community policing efforts um at our TC meetings going forward we have no ordinances to introduce for for public hearing we have four resolutions on the consent agenda do any members of the TC want to pull any of those items off or individual consideration seeing none take a motion to approve the consent agenda so move second roll call vote Please Mr Stevenson hi Mr hickey hi miss moraski I miss Fernandez hi and mayor Jacobs I thank you and we do have one resolution for consideration which is a resolution that accepts the resignation of Peter gianetti from The Board of Health and appoints Vincent D Martino who is serving as an alternate to Phil Peter G's position and his unexpired term any questions or comments seeing none I will take a motion to approve resolution number 20 24043 so moved second roll call vote Please Mr Stevenson I Mr hickey I miss moresi I miss Fernandez I and mayor Jacobs I thank you and I'll take a motion to approve the billis pending review of individual invoices so second roll call vote again please Mr Stevenson hi Mr hickey hi Miss moresi hi Miss Fernandez hi and mayor Jacobs hi thank you old business uh do improvements uh right now we're focusing on the discussions with do uh to improve the safety at the route 206 and lington Road intersection by the library so Chief I think at the last meeting we um talked about the response back to Meredith Hammond at do um saying from our position go ahead and extend what see what they can do to extend the uh pedestrian travel time um do we know if and well hopefully it's not an if hopefully it's a when yeah I didn't get a response okay let's uh let's just follow up on that with Meredith Comm many men hickey updates on utilities mayor believe it or not I have no new updates on okay any of it I don't believe that uh pman Park Housing um sounds like uh Robin you and John Bardo and Doug Stevenson may be um talking offline about some um some discussions you've had so just once again those will be offline and then on new business I'm sorry old business um at the last meeting we talked about um how we convened in person with um the Mayors from our surrounding towns and S County and also with uh some of the police Chiefs and we did have a followup uh conference fall last week and one of the things that we did at that meeting is we discussed uh what Summit had adopted and and Summit had proposed and adopted an ordinance uh of Public Safety ordinance uh that would make it a municipal violation so subject to Municipal Court um for actions involving uh unauthorized individuals from going up to cars and trying to open up the cars or going to uh residential doors and trying to open up the doors with the intent of um trying to access keys or anything else inside the house with respect to uh the cars not being authorized to open up a car door uh with the intent of taking something from the car or taking the vehicle itself so um there seemed to be well I don't want to say there seemed to be there was um consent and unanimous consent from the Mayors once again of Bernardsville Bernard's Township Far Hills pack and Gladstone Bedminster and Bridgewater um to adopt something similar and asking our attorneys and uh the prosecutors to take a look at the summit ordinance and identify any deficiencies or weaknesses that could be done um to move that ordinance forward and so um both mayor AC um and I we both obviously we our towns have John Bardo as our attorney um so John is taking a look at that ordinance we've also asked um our municipal prosecutor to take a look at the ordinance as well and um the municipal prosecutor uh his Law Firm also serves as municipal prosecutor for a lot of other towns um in the Sher well all the towns in the sheriff court and also believe um that law fir musle serves as a prosecutor for Far Hills as well so we've got got similar professionals involved in this and uh one of the ideas that was put out there is since we do have a shared court and we are um we have just as the chief says we have great relations with the surrounding towns and that goes not to just to the police department but also to uh the governing officials as well and so we want to work together to make if we proceed and it looks like um we certainly have the consensus from the mayor to do so it's that each of the towns um moves forth with a very similar and perhaps it's more than very similar maybe it's exactly the same with an ordinance um so that we have one consistent Public Safety ordinance that would apply across all those municipalities also on the call we talked about coordination with the installation of uh license plate reading cameras um and to coordinate if if the towns move forward forward with that that we do so in a coordinated fashion uh so for example I think I mentioned this before along 287 and 78 many of the exits um you know you're not just getting into Bernardsville you maybe getting to burnard's Township at the same exit you may be getting um off in Bernard's but you know half the traffic maybe going to Bridgewater and similar with here in Bedminster um some of the folks who may be going to Far Hills or PG uh will get off in Bedminster and similarly with Bridgewater and so if there's going to be um these license plate readers deployed Let's do let's do it in a way that makes sense for all the municipalities and have those um cameras um and the Chiefs and the police department's all coordinated so they understand and the concept with the license plate reading cameras is that if there's a stolen vehicle or a vehicle that is wanted in connection with another incident drives through town that there'll be alerts given to the police departments and they'll know that hey a car associated with uh break-ins or thefts or anything else is in town and they can deploy the appropriate resources um there was consensus again from the Mayors on that approach as well um and uh Chief remember you were on the call and you also mentioned that there is an upcoming uh Chief's meeting uh with somerson County Prosecutors office that's tomorrow yes and there are certain issues that Chief Bernardo um agreed to raise with the prosecutor's office and get some sort of indication of recommendations um and Thoughts From the prosecutor's office as well as maybe from some other Chiefs that they' be attendance so that's the update on that issue um Robin you were attending the call in Chief you two as well so if there's anything I missed or overstated please let me know um the only thing I was involved some count sheriff's department and a concered effort right the only other case right so what Robin is referring to there's also issue about um you know could these uh C our towns um request support from the sheriff's department right so obviously these are we're all small towns and we don't necessar have the resources to put vehicles at the highway interchanges and just park them there on a uh we'll call them extended time period And so you're looking around what other resources do we all have in the county County and that is the sheriff's department so once again also for consideration and chief may be discussing this with um the other folks tomorrow is perhaps um reaching out to the Sheriff's Department to see whether or not they'd be willing to uh station a vehicle at those Highway interchanges essentially doing the same thing as the as the um as the cameras but perhaps with the more visible um identity in the form of a police vehicle and that's what we have for tonight's meeting so we will now go to Township committee comments and we'll start with committee Stevenson thank you mayor I have no comments mayor no comments thank you just a quick thank you to Chief Bernardo and all his staff for taking such good care of us and um I just love this community um policing I think is going to be fabulous for for our kids especially that's what I was going to say and I have nothing further to add it is 7:32 we do not have an executive session so I will take a motion to adjourn so move second all in favor I thank you and good night good night good night all good night thanks John just