7M Anna would you please read the open public meeting Z ocate notice of this meeting has been provided by foring a copy to The Courier News Star lend and posting on the township website at least 48 hours prior to the meeting only in accordance with the open public meeting act this meeting will not substantially go past 10:30 roll call Madam CL Mr Kudo here Mrs Donnelly here Mr Foster here Mrs zillis here Mr Machado here Mrs pop here mayani I'm here we all rise for the blood I pledge aliance to the unit stes and to theice okay tonight we have the honor of uh claiming three different championships um I'm gonna ask council president Foster to uh meet me up front here and we're going to start with the JV hockey team so if the JV hockey team members and coaches would come forward Proclamation Township of Berkeley Heights whereas the 2024 Governor Livingston junior varsity hockey team coached by head coach Matt alamir and assistant coaches Travis Delo and Carson wallers are they here this evening uh is it congratulations to the coaches is it talented group of players who aspired to play varsity hockey whereas the governor Livingston junior varsity hockey team has won the county Cup in three of the last four years well and whereas the GL JV hockey team was undefeated in the 2020 2021 season beating Westfield in an exciting overtime finals win and whereas in the 2021 2022 season the fourth seated gjb hockey team upset first seated Summit in the semi-finals but then lost a heartbreaker to Cranford in the finals we don't look like losing to Westfield or Cranford any sport ATL whereas in the 20122 2023 season fif seated GL up upset first seated Cranford in the semi-finals and went on to beat Westfield in the finals and whereas in 2023 2024 GL JB hockey was seated number one and defeated Westfield in the finals go guys love to hear that whereas the coaches and members of the governor Livingston junior varsity hockey team have brought recognition to themselves their school and their Community now therefore be it resolved by the mayor and the township Council of the township of Berkeley Heights that the governor Livingston high school junior varsity hockey team be congratulated for its consistent athletic achievements over the past four savings we'll take a quick picture with the we have Westfield and softball tomorrow so okay [Music] of the members of the varsity hockey team all right we ready Proclamation Township of Berkeley Heights whereas the 2024 Governor Livingston varsity hockey team coached by head co coach Greg Jensen and assistant coaches Matt alare Travis dulo and Carson wallers completed their season with an impressive 215 and one record is impressive and whereas the governor Livingston varsity hockey team shed out Bon and Colonia early sectional tournament play and defeated Hal and manisan leading to the championship game and whereas the GL hockey team played against Morris nolles on March 4th in the state championship game in front of many excited Highlander fans and whereas the governor Livingston hockey team lost the njsi AA South sectional Co-op state championship in a Heartbreaker by score of four to3 this game marked the third year in row going to the state finals very impressive and whereas the coaches yeah and whereas the coaches and members of the 2024 Governor Livingston hockey team have brought recognition to themselves their school and their Community now therefore be it resolved by the mayor and the township Council of the township of Berkeley Heights that the governor Livingston High School varsity team be congratulated for its outstanding athletic achievements during the 2024 season all right we'll take a take a quick picture we make like a view guys congratulations now members of the marching band am pill in here there's a lot of you he kicked in a c with the wow what a crowd shortest to tallest you guys just like to that right are you serious okay Proclamation Township of Berkeley Heights whereas the 2024 Governor Livingston Highlander marching band under the direction of Nicholas o solivan and Joseph Ellis is renowned for its performances during football games and band tournaments and whereas the Highlander marching band has a stellar performance record winning first place on two occasions September 30th at the JP Stevens njm BDA competitions have to tell me what that means in October 1st at the Madison to competition and second place on three occasions at competi competitions in West Orange Wayne Valley and mouin and whereas the Highlander merching band braved rainy conditions to compete at the NJ mbda state championships at the College of New Jersey on October 29th and proudly placed second out of 12 in their extremely competitive AA category and whereas the Highlanders band Fab competition season culminated in gs's F first ever participation in the famous New York City St Patrick's Day parade on Saturday March 16 2024 the band consisting of drum Majors color guards back papers Woodwinds brass and percussion instruments marched down the green line on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue from 42nd to 82nd streets the Highlanders band performance witnessed by an estimated 2 million Spectators was televised on W NBC and shared locally on social media I saw it was amazing whereas directors instructors musicians and color guard members at the 2024 Governor Livingston Highlander marching band have brought recognition to themselves their school and their Community now therefore be it resolved by the mayor and the township Council of the township of brookley heights that the 2024 Governor Livingston Highlander marching B Be congratulated for their outstanding performance during the 2024 band competition season and their first participation in the St Patrick's Day Parade you guys have so many I'll take a picture St Patrick's Day Parade was amazing those pictures in the video that remarkable it had to be something you guys are the rest of your lives I would think thanks for up there appreciate it keep them straight I him to the right you're wearing I I want to mention one more thing with the band um this this whole season started with a trip to Nova Scotia where they performed and I want to get this correct but they performed at the military tattoo which is held up there it's almost the same as they do in Scotland that we went to in 2018 and they performed prior to the tattoo and they were excellent up there so that's all that's how the whole started the all right great job guys thank you anyone who doesn't get I think she did exact number yeah sure just yeah yeah thank you all for coming tonight tomorrow you guys can stay the building's been already okay um that was uh that was great to honor honor those students that's always a nice part of our meeting when we get to do that reverse the uh moving into conference session we're going to reverse the order a bit and we are going to start with the Westside drainage public hearing we have two representatives from neglia up here um so Jamie me and microphone just as an intro so the we're doing this presentation because as a um requirement for our first $500,000 Congressional appropriation they require you to do you know at least one public meeting as well as a bevy of paperwork and other requirement so this public meeting um is a requirement of uh that Grant which we are still working on I'll turn it over than you may counto Hernandez as mentioned with Nea very closely with as well be taking time to discuss so I'd like to start off by just giving a brief history of uh how this project started and uh get into where we are today so you draw an pretty silly honestly overview of have number of sides [Music] okay3 became the first is 25 L 2 what's theimer 12 toic condition of e e e e e e s e allow to drastically change by today's standards you know 100 years ago different different story nobody really paid attention to that kind of stuff um there's a lot more oversight on that you're not really allowed to significantly alter the pattern something water let's say from one side of your property to another and S you know putting a problem for your neighbor but generally just in this area there's about 180 foot elevation change from our uppermost point on edmerson to our down analysis between somal dry and Hamilton so this a significant great change there and there's not much you can really do to change that water's going to run run downhill so there's a significant uh grade there so I I think it's more of a matter of when new houses are built drainage needs to be put in because you know whether it's an addition or you know pool or whatever all that reduces the amount of lawn and and perable surfaces on your property and that water has to goild somewhere and it ends up goinging again sending more water downhill uh to our storm sewers and that really is what exacerbates the flooding so that it's 185t elevation change where the water going right it just increases the volume of water being you know thank you what we have shown here uh it's it's a preliminary layout of what we're calling phase one of the wests side trans Improvement project in total uh we estima the project would be about 2ed it's obviously a big number uh and an effort to minimize impacts and alleviate burden to the taxpayers we want to break this up into smaller phases uh so this first phase is starting from our most Downstream Point uh between s drive to Hillcrest Avenue uh this also coincides with taking the most amount of flow you want to work Downstream to Upstream that way we don't create bottlenecks and sending a lot of water now down to a a small pipe and you have you may have the worse condition so you want to work away down up in this case so this is our first phase riming it to be between and half to $2 million in in cost for this first phase aside from the obvious of increasing the pipe sizes uh within this system and you know just creating a better uh just layout of the of the of the network to flow more efficiently also going to include roadway restoration building and Paving within the limits that we work in uh curb repairs and installations for some areas that there are no curbs uh we'll be we'll be putting those in new catch basins and just general restoration within the Disturbed areas there's going to be some areas where we may need to you know do work within private property because and this network does approach into private property so there's going to be coordination and restoration required there as well uh but this is this is our first phase and as have mentioned we're really working back and forth coordinating with State agencies to get funding where we need as well as permits to do the work um so it's it's an ongoing effort there but um you know that's what we're looking to to accomplish first and uh as we continue with the process well the township form and U right up so that's basically what I have prepared can you just repeat if you've already um given us the what is the timeline for this just this phase call the S phase yeah like if we got like say we got funding tomorrow so this is that the federal funding Appropriations process is either way I think I sent a letter yesterday yes um that takes a lot of time let's assume we have funds in hand um from the moment we go out to bid till completion like what do you think those timelines are well assuming you know going out the bid uh and you know to to construction and completion uh assuming we have everything we need permits and funding is in place another big hurdle permits yeah yeah yeah so assuming all that's that and you know set ready to go uh construct completion of phase one uh you know probably take about three months to to complete um you know plus or minus you want to you know just have your infrastructure installed but then you also want to allow time for those that infrastructure to to settle uh you don't want to go and just start repaving the road because then you know could be a week it could be three months from then you'll have a dip where we're put structure so don't have lot of time to get the infrastructure in maybe even a month but just settlement period uh or more this is a significant upgrade from what's there and uh allow that allow that to kind of just sit and settle does that include AR because um typically when we get you know storm events say in August in particular um the water washes down we've tried to R it we've tried using the sewer jet to figure out what's going on and it really it hasn't taken up large chunks of the roadway and ardan is is just perpendicular to um Sawmill so would there be a a provision to repay ardan as well I know they ask us and we say jumps the road keep pulling up every time it rains so it doesn't really make sense right now right I think we're going to try to pave that this year even though because it's so bad um that waiting until this is done until like you know summer of 2026 is a little too long so we're try to do that I have two questions so um how many phases are you looking at because if it's only it's a 1.5 to 2 million now is that mean it's going be 13 phases is or as it moves on the phases might be bigger yeah it may be bigger it really depends on the allow funding as as we get it um obviously try and get as much done as we can uh within each phase I don't necessarily think because the first phase is say 2 million then it's going to be 2 million per phase that parceled out like that okay I just it's it's I think the goal is to get this done and see how well it works before sort of reevaluate spending yes yes maybe it works in a way that's different from what's anticipated and maybe that alters our plan a little bit for the more Upstream version but nothing can happen until we enlarge this area you can I'm sorry go ahead questions you don't foree any issues with the property owners um not allowing you onto their property to do the work do you I'm ass assuming that would all want this I assume they'd be in favor you know it is an issue uh with just general flooding in the area so I'm not aware of will the any potential hang up on that side but there will have to be coordination and agreements put in place because there really aren't many if any at all easements that the township owns in this area just you know have the right to go to the world private property so you know those Agreements are going have to put in place and you know what the rest is like and that's that's going to have to be all worked out on an individual basis but this is a significant Improvement public I would think so you just you know I'm just curious thank you um the your estimate of approximately 2 million for this section does that include the um professional fees the design costs as well construction con just Construction Construction cost um so has the detailed design of this section been completed well it's it's been worked out on our end but we have to get permits from the state think to be essentially okay with what we're doing before we actually do it so so you need the you have a concept I'm thinking you have a concept not the actual construction documents we're not we're not we're not there yet we need to get the permits from the state saying that okay they're okay with what we're doing agree we're complying with all the state regulations and then we can proceed with finalizing those into construction ready ready documents which the funding to get this project to the ibank for the professional fees is already it's already funded from last two years ago budget yes so that funding is there yeah no to get they have to get this project to the ibank for approval if we need more funding but the money to get it to that point where everything is in order where the permits are in order and the the planning documents are done to a sufficient level where a state agency can review them the costs for that are all already budgeted for so how long before the permits are applied for well I guess I'm I'm not I I see that this is going to be a three to six months you said three months I wrote six months um for construction but where are we today being before starting this construction yeah so right now we actually submitted to the state U for review comment iank um waiting to receive those initial comments um it's hard to say I mean just generally speaking now on smaller projects uh you can have a three or three to six month period just reviewing with the state theep for to get your permits so can said keep that in mind before you can even start finalizing to do so you know we're far on our end but we really have to work with the state and their timelines can be they got better since there's no Wetlands um I don't believe I don't believe so but there there may be some okay and hopefully where um two questions one um can we get a copy of the report I don't think I have one this with the maps and everything this yeah yeah oh yeah yeah okay um and the second thing is um just reinforcing what Susan said about the easements on the properties we don't have the old easements yet or that's still that's still being worked on and from what I understand some of the current easements are 15 foot wide easements and you're going to have to expand them all what 25 ft maybe yes there may need just for Access purposes just for Access purpos and the size of the vehicles yeah may have to be wide you know 25 depending on where you are pipe sizes that'll be the next phase okay just general access so just to give an idea our Downstream most pipe is about 96 in wide so this a significant pipe that needs to get installed how the pipe line next to the other H dog dirt on the side and everything else there a fo not enough rearange to okay and you and you well you've already highlighted the properties I'll take a look at the properties and the map and I might have other questions I'll email you but thank you any other question questions from government okay just one second I always allow the members of the public to come forward and ask any questions before we uh allow our e our experts to leave does anybody have any questions okay thank you very much good presentation thank you so much thank you for keeping us in compliance with the grant by coming here this evening and it's good for the general public to hear this so it's yeah it's been a while since we've had an update since night to here for all of us included right to hear what's going on good thank you okay next up we have the NW Financial Deb presentation Heather you're up next um are you comfortable being or whatever yeah debt analysis yes and um the debt analysis has been updated since you last saw it since the capital requests have decreased um so on page two we have a summary of the Township's current outstanding debt um General obligation bonds there's 37.4 million of principal outstanding um those deals mature in 2027 2037 and 2052 and then there's four different infrastructure bank loans which those are 50% interest free um 50% market rate um it was all mature by 2029 you have one dropping off this year and then there's one Bond anticipation note which is a a one-year note that matures in July of 2024 for 2.1 million um so the total outstanding principle uh on your debt is $41 million the next slide a quick question sure the the general obligation mon series 2023 does have dat oh there should there should be one there well I'll take a look at what that is can provide it to you uh the next slide just graphically shows you um when all the debt matures um actually we can see in 2023 matures in 2033 that was a 10-year transaction thank you um so you have a significant drop off in 2033 when the 2023 bonds um mature and then uh another drop off in 2037 um when the 2019 bonds um drop off and the 2022 bonds um that was almost a 30-year financing um and that was the the main purpose of that financing was the municipal complex so that's why it goes out very far so let's talk about the town ships um Capital needs uh typically on an annual basis you um borrow for maintenance the wastewater treatment plant um roads any drainage needs and any equipment um for the township as discussed previously of one note maturing for $2.1 million in July at that time um the township decides whether to permanently finance that debt into bonds or to roll it over another year um for a one year note and then for 2024 the capital plan is just over $2 million and that would be to fund roads curbing sidewalks um equipment needs um and some wastewater treatment plant upgrades um over since we've been doing this I think since 2018 um we've been looking at debt um a along with the uh the new pilots that have come online for redevelopment projects um those Pilots were being led at to offset some of the debt of the township so there's six um pilot projects madna at Berkeley Heights which is also known as mil Creek Berkeley Terrace uh which is the locker movie theater clar Stratton house also known as kings 100 Locust Springfield Avenue Berkeley Florida forest and then Berkeley Crossing to urban renewal um some updates to some of those projects the madur Madura project received its full occupancy in 2023 um so the township is receiving its full pilot payment um stting each year Berkeley Terrace um that is also completed and the is receiving its full pilot payments CL Stratton house um that project should be completed in the fall 2024 100 v um the full coo was received in 2023 uh same thing with Springfield Avenue Berkeley Flores that also was received in 2023 and Berkeley Crossing to the mandelli project uh you're currently receiving the full pilot um revenue for that project and over 30 years because all of them have 30-year Pilots um the total revenue to the township is approximately $ 69.7 million and then there's two additional Redevelopment projects that are paying conventional taxes um that was looked to offset debt that's conell Park and Hamilton Avenue Toll Brothers um conell Park the um projected completion for that is in 26 um or 27 and then the Toll Brothers project um six market rate units uh were completed in April of 2023 uh with a a couple of additional units completed at the end of 2023 and the remaining units will be completed in the fall of 2024 and over 30 years the um additional tax payments for those two projects um are approximately $18.9 million the next slide just shows you by project what's expected to um come in annually for for each of the projects um we included the 2023 number so you can see what was received in the 2023 budget so that was $797,000 it's expected in 2024 that that will increase to1 M 380,000 and then in 2025 um to 188,000 or 1,888 th000 and then in 2026 to just over $2 million um and obviously that's projected Revenue because some of the projects aren't completed and we'll update this on an annual basis so you can see uh expected revenues all right so for the 2024 financing plan um we're proposing to roll over the 2023 outstanding notes for $2.1 million and then add in the 2024 Capital requests of , 72,5 180 um so that would be a total one-year note issuance of $ 423223 um the market uh currently for a one-year note is anywhere from 3 and a half to 4% there's been some increases in rates over the last couple weeks since we last spoke um and typically when you're doing any new money financing when you haven't spent the funds he would do a short-term borrowing because if you get any grants that come in because I know you guys work really hard at getting grants that would be you would offset the debt and decrease it in a previous year if you issue bonds you can't do that because it's a long-term set schedule um so next year I think we would start looking at potentially doing a bond financing to set a maturity schedule rather than taking interest rate risks on one year notes makes sense um the next chart um I just kind of wanted to show you what the market has been doing uh municipal bonds and notes are priced off of the MMD y curve which is um Municipal Market data is what MMD um stands for and it's a collaboration of AAA deals that get done in the market and it's set on a daily basis so we put a chart together since 2016 what the rates have been doing um and you'll see that during uh the pandemic the rates were at its lowest um in 20 to early 2022 and then they started to Rise um the right side of picture you'll see in March of 2024 um the two bottom lines are actually the five and 10 year rates um and then the one-ear rate is actually higher than five and 10 year rate so we're in an inverted yield curve so it's better to actually issue bonds versus notes um but you have to pay principal as soon as you start um uh doing bonds you would if we issue bonds this year you'd start paying principal next year where as in notes you don't pay um principal for three years statutorily um so during construction period you don't pay for principal when you issue notes so the next page is um some projections on um your existing Debt Service is all the way on the right side of the page and then um moving towards the uh the right side of the page you'll have some of the projections so you have your total um outstanding debt service for your Bonds on the left and then what you pay what you're paying in interest on the 2020 three notes um followed by what the projected uh interest on the 2024 proposed notes are um we do 3.75% on that and then right next to that is your 2023 uh infrastructure Bank projects um that are currently in the construction phase um once the construction is completed then a bond financing through the infrastructure bank will be done so that's the projected Debt Service on $8.8 million of projects that were authorized last year and then we have $2 million for the Westside drainage project that was just discussed um and a second phase of $18 million um assuming construction is completed in 28 and Debt Service starts in 2029 um for this purpose we assumed the issuance of $2.5 million of new uh Capital each year through 2027 and then it drops down to $2 million there on out um and we just assumed uh perally financing to bonds um your notes from 2023 to 2026 you would Finance them perally Finance them in 2027 um so obviously this will change all these projections will change on an annual basis depending on the market and what um the township actually authorizes to issue um and further to the right are just uh projections of bond issuances to uh Perman perally Finance some of your notes as we get later on further down um when we get all the way to the right hand side it's the existing Debt Service that you're currently paying on plus then all of these projections so right now you're at $4.6 million in debt service in 2025 increases to 5.2 million um and then on the two slides from now we'll just we'll take the revenue from the Redevelopment projects and offset The Debt Service and see what the tax impact is the next slide is just the assumptions that I went through um in R form so you have them then on the last side gives you the total existing and projecting Debt Service from the previous slide less the projected pilot Revenue um of 86.6 million to give you what the net Debt Service after the pilot revenue is um and then further to the right talks about the the annual um on the average homeowner um based on the projections of debt issuances with Westside drainage and your annual Capital needs so is this presuming that all of the pilot revenues are going to Debt Service yes for those six projects plus then the conell park and 12 others can you explain why there's such a large jump in 2029 2029 that is when the second phase of um West drainage comes online and that's $18 million so that's where assuming we're not getting any more Federal funding and things like that and the worst case scenario correct and if there's multiple phases which the um they just spoke about um then it could be smoothed out but when you do a large a large project and there isn't debt dropping off then it's a larger hit so so if we um broke that up potentially into a couple of other chunks then that would help yes we do it over multiple years which means that it wouldn't hit all the month correct Y and hopefully be offset by as well and I also was um pretty conservative on um the debt issuance the interest rates used on one your notes I was assuming 4% um were in a high interest rate market for a short-term debt right now um but it's still not at 4% um and then for Bond transactions um we were uh very conservative on useful life you finance based on the useful life of the assets that you're financing so we were assuming 12 years in a lot of cases um the longer the asset um then the longer you can Finance something so it wouldn't you could spread out The Debt Service as well so we were pretty conservative in that instance because you do Finance roads which have a 10year use of life and a lot of equipment is between five and 10 years so we wanted to be more on the conservative side um as far as looking at like Bond financings like that strategy you know 2024 you don't show any annual budget increase percent change or effect of there's no numbers there there's nothing like so is it going to be 0% like it is in 26 yeah so um from last year's debt um to this year's it was like pretty it was pretty level when you take into account the additional revenues coming on from Pilots because you didn't really have that last year there was a big jump in Redevelopment revenue for this budget now the the one point the 162,000 in 2025 we don't have anything big coming online that would that affects those as far as um any these projects I think if you if the projects come on quicker than they would or if rents are higher um than what was projected so a lot of Redevelopment projects in New Jersey when they were first contemplated the rents that they're receiving Now versus what they were contemplated are a lot higher um I think for this analysis you want to be a little bit conservative as far as that's concerned so next year we've been doing this presentation on annual basis so next year we'll look at the 2024 revenues that were actually actually realized and you'll have two years of real Revenue coming in from projects um so that could change this also that could change yes and most of the agreements have 2% escalators in what you receive um but budgetarily you want to be conservative in your budget because you don't want to owe the developer the next year there there's like a true up every year that you do so you Bill out um what you're going to collect from the developer and then you get an audit from them and you do a true up based on the audit of what actual Revenue was received and when you're budgeting you want to be conservative on the budgeting side because you don't want to owe in next year's budget you don't want to owe the developer a credit on their pilot payment you'd rather see receive additional oneone so it's like a year lag can I um can I go back to page nine for the uh the rates you saying the five and 10 you're it's better to I don't want words in your mouth so just help me out with this it's better to bond than to note is that right based on that yeah so when you just look at the rate perspective it's better to issue longterm right now because there's an inverted yield curve where a one-year note has a higher rate than let's say 10year Bond so do we however okay sorry you have to look at what the budgetary impact is because when you issue bonds there's a New Jersey law that you have to pay principal one year um from the closing of the bonds so you would have to start paying principal payments in next year's budget if you did a bond financing for a note financing you don't start paying principal until the third anniversary of the rollover so next year you wouldn't have to pay any principal if you do notes so yeah you're paying a higher interest cost but you're not paying any principal next year but in bonds You' be paying principal and interest so it will be higher budget impact so the percentage If the percentage is higher the note in three years wouldn't it be cheaper to pay it off in the first year if the percentage is less am I am I not hearing that correct if if if the one the one-year note is higher right or the one but you're only paying interest next if you issue a note this year you're only paying interest in next year's budget so if you issue bonds then you would have to pay principal and interest in next year's budget which would increase your budget appropriation okay so we wouldn't be saving money going that route compared to the other way it's probably easier to to go with the note and add three years off before we corre so bud budgetarily with paying PR principal and interest it is more expensive to issue bonds even though the interest rate is lower okay that's what I that's what I was looking for if the interest rate was lower would we be saving money by doing it that way than doing it the other way where we're waiting on it and then getting hit three years later like we've done that before we permanently finan some of our de in 19 and 20 I think because last year actually because it was to your point yeah more cost effective just like you ask the question I get around to it eventually to the question anybody have any other questions all right anybody in the public have any questions for our finance advisor on the service right thank you so much always good to see you every year person Zoom that's thank you and finally for conference session we have Bill swier fromone who is going to give the 2024 Municipal budget presentation about it yeah okay we're going to tag team this a little bit and my mic seems to be the loudest I'm not sure if that was planned or not but you don't really have to yell into it um okay so this is our 2024 Municipal budget presentation um just for a little bit of narrative and comment commentary uh as everybody knows this is a time of growth for Berkeley Heights but also extraordinary budget challenges with that growth uh the main goal is really to provide our residents with a budget that maintains means a level of service they're accustomed to yeah one that provides uh the township with necessary funds without a significant tax increase and to anticipate as best we can future needs of our town with increased development this particular budget includes a ma major investments in our wastewater treatment plant to not only bring the plant into and Stayin D compliance but to ensure all priority infrastructure upgrades are completed as soon as possible all required Financial matches for all Road drainage and other infrastructure grants to be completed in 2024 including the pic River flooding in the Riverbend Area Deer Path uh Safe Streets to school sidewalk on SNY AV and more uh certain Capital items are being funded out of current operations to better manage our debt service and we have increased revenues some of which Heather just spoke about including pilot revenues from Redevelopment projects and increase sewer connection Fe fees from large building projects that are being used to help fund some of these Capital items instead of just increasing taxes uh Bill all right this is just giving you a picture of what's happened with your Appropriations and your revenues from 2023 to 2024 uh you can see the Appropriations for 2023 adopted budget were a little over 27 27 m673 th000 our 24 proposed introduced budget Appropriations are 31,1 2016, on the revenue side obviously your budget has to uh has to agree your uh revenues last year 27 m673 th000 and then this year 31116 for 2024 uh like Liza said uh the Appropriations are up but you have new revenues in the form of your pilot and your connection fees uh so the the taxes are are not up significantly even though your Appropriations are up uh this is a budget overview that the state budget document has nowadays it's a little bit more a little bit more detailed if you look over at the comparison of revenues and appropriation side uh it gives you the uh the budget year for 2024 compared to uh 2023 um the the major increases you see on the revenue side are your surpluses up significantly the use of surplus our local revenues which is which is included is the pilot revenue and the sore connection fees uh and then your federal state Grant funds is your other third highest increase on your Revenue side on the appropriation side uh you can see the three highest are your federal state grants your capital and your debt service which was talked about before below that it gives you your condition of surplus uh in the prior year we started the year out with a little over $6 million in Surplus and we used 2.9 Million uh to balance the 2023 budget uh this year we have a surplus of 8,301 and we're using $4,440 th000 to budget uh to balance the budget for 24 uh the local tax levy and assess values uh it's shown once again 2024 year uh 14 14, 944 th000 compared to the prior year 14, 804 uh a change of 140,000 uh your local tax rate is going from 0811 up from 0805 and your net net value assessed uh increase from 1 b840 to 1 B uh the next uh portion of the slide has your your caps uh the first cap is your Appropriations cap uh you're allowed this in 2024 you're allowed a 2.5 increase in your cap uh if you guys pass the cap Bank ordinance tonight that'll increase your cap up to 3.5% and if you go to that your Appropriations within cap would actually be under the cap by almost $650,000 so well well within the cap and then uh further to the right is the 2% Levy cap uh once again you guys could go all the way up to 16.5 million this year's Levy is only 19.4 million so you're under the cap by a little over 1.5 million uh both both of those excess that you have will go into your bank so you can use that going forward and down below uh the final piece is your percentage of of collection uh your collection rate uh for the current year is 99.33 your collection rate from the prior year is 90 9.42 uh and your reserve un collected taxes for 2024 rate is 9854 and for the prior year was 9942 B can you just it seems to always come up can you just give a quick explanation of the l cap and the uh the annual cap the ordinance and the resolution that we typically pass sure uh the first one your your Appropriations cap that started in 1977 uh each year the state comes out with the cost of living increase uh anywhere from zero up to 3.5% uh the past year they said it was 2.5% so you're allowed without having to pass any ordinance you're allowed to do raise your inside cap Appropriations up to 2.5% with with some exceptions uh and but they give you the I call a pool to if you pass the cap Ang ordance it allows you to if needed raise your ra up to 3.5 but more importantly if you don't which you guys didn't it allows you guys to bank that for next year if there's some sort of shortfall last year or if the coal comes in very low next year it gives you guys the ability to to manage that uh so that's on the appropriation side uh the levy cap uh came in I think 2010 uh that's just all for your local Levy has nothing to do with the library Levy same kind of same kind of concept where there are some exceptions to it but overall you're not supposed to incre you're not allowed to increase your Levy above the 2% or you are allowed to have EX and you do have Bank from prior Years also so once again by you guys not going up to the bank you're going to have a healthy Bank moving forward which going give you guys a lot of flexibility and we had two exceptions this year DCA approved to move outside of the cap and one was insurance and the other was um I think you guys have well Li Li we didn't follow do the liability but the insurance the insurance you did an increase okay thank you all right we're fine all right uh the next side is just showing your estimated tax uh tax impact uh like I said before your valuations UH went up from 1 Point 1,840 up to 1,842 uh your amount to be raised for your current operating budget from 23 was 14, 804 in 24 is 14 14, 944 uh your library which is a set set Levy you know set by the state of New Jersey uh based on your valuations went from a million 231 to a million 329 uh your estimated Municipal tax rate will be 0883 that is up from 0872 which is an increase of 0.0011 and then down below it's just a five-year uh look back as to what your what Your Average Municipal tax was for the average home should have made that bigger 1.99% that's under 2% with yes I didn't know how to make that the lowest in the last four years want to read or you want me to read oh I think this kind of I think it's kind of just goes over what I kind of I chatt before you kind kind of stole my thunder but just sa to say that you're you guys are within both caps and and you have good good C Bank moving forward um just to go over some of the budget challenges and why that 1.99% is a miracle in some ways um uh we have a lot of wastewater treatment plant um infrastructure issues which is what we've been discussing for the past few years the township has been diligent in recent years in addressing crucial parts of the sewer infrastructure most in need of upgrading we've been working closely with the D um so the budget has been a little bit of a moving Target in the past few months because as the D has prioritized what they have wanted to do we had to change our budget priorities based on their Direction I mean we don't have a choice uh even though um we invested almost 10 million in 2023 unfortunately it doesn't really make a dent in the project s that need to be done but it's all about prior prioritizing um and we can only borrow so much money um given our other infrastructure needs as well but the waste order treatment plant does um need significant attention we also have major major drainage projects to address in town one of which we heard about tonight which is the Westside drainage and have been tackling them as Grant monies and capital funds allow um as noted you know the Westside drainage project has a $ 225 million price tag um the ibank is reviewing it but the focus is um on The Sawmill portion was really you know a good way for us to sort of alleviate a little bit of the the Hefty debt that taxpayers might be feeling a few years from now and to just make it uh into a more chunk project which also granting agencies tend to look more favorably on if they can see that their money is going to go toward actually completing a project some of them are more likely to grant us that money um and just for for reference you know a single pump at the uh Waste Water treatment plan can cost N9 $90,000 not 900 not 9,000 90,000 uh and with current Supply plan supply chain issues we need to ensure we have extra parts on hand as needed because if there are major delays in any delivery times it could actually result in catastrophic failures at the plant um we also need to complete certain projects to stay in D compliance L the township does get fin so we are working diligently um on this um the next slide for uh budget challenges upgrading Road and sidewalk infrastructure um while it's wonderful that we have more than million in Grant liabilities alone to fund this year that means the projects have to be funded this year so the way we approach this budget is we prioritize the waste water treatment plant um projects per D compliance issues um we also had to prioritize those grants that we had to complete um by the end of 2024 so we don't did not lose that grant money uh we continue to seek more grants to pave more roads improve sidewalks and increase pest pedestrian safety storm water runoff continues to erode streets and increase their lifespan we have a new New Jersey state mandated storm water ordinance coming in 2024 to help mitigate that as well because if we're going to put money into Paving roads and improving drainage we want to make sure that the uh the lifespan of those roads is going to last as long as possible um also we don't have any more Federal art funds these were covid funds where in 2022 and 2023 the township received covid money from the federal government that did help offset some of those costs and as everybody who goes grocery shopping knows the costs of everything have increased that includes Material supplies um um and chemicals so we are not immune to uh the inflationary effects that residents are feeling and once again this this is just another smaller snapshot as to you know what's going on with your Appropriations going from 27 million up to 31 million uh this next slide is uh is kind of a snapshot of where you're at financially uh on the leth hand side it's your current fund balance sheet uh if you look towards the bottom you'll see your Surplus number is is the 8,301 uh the the chart to the right kind of shows you how that was generated over the last two years uh in the in the year 2022 you started the Surplus out with uh a little over 6.7 million uh after your revenues and uh Appropriations were taken into effect your ending Surplus was 6,199 that rolls forward to your beginning of 2023 and when 20 2023 was uh said and done you end of the year at $8.3 million so you had a you had a good Financial year 2023 which set you up to manage this budget and next slide is just uh some of the some of the different revenues you have looker licenses fees and permits Pilots like we've talked before sore connection fees where we have increases in anticipated revenues there interest on investments we had a slight increase in the state aid for the first time in God knows how long uh uniform construction codes grants we look like we have a lot more grants in in the 24 year uh which is a positive hotel tax cable franchise fees sale of assets and more all right this is another Snapshot from the from the state budget document basically this is giving you a a ballpark of you know the county and school taxes the county school taxes are not finalized yet so these are really just estimates uh when you're doing your budget we always kind of estimate those to be a little bit higher than what they were last year uh when we're doing our calculations for our Reserve uncollected taxes uh and then on the right hand side it's your Levy chains uh based on your assess values um you know it's different different values whether it's 100,000 125,000 that is just your once again your local tax does not include your library tax and these this is just a snapshot of some of our cost reduction efforts that we have through shared services we have a share court with New Providence SE uh sewer with New Providence um we also bill for sewer from watchong Warren Long Hill as well um we share it service professional with the burre of Madison our health officers through Union County Police dispatch of the UN County we have a great vehicle maintenance program The Board of Ed um and our DPW uh and our police with some of the officers that are in the schools with a board of ed uh bhg LTV with Board of Ed and the salt Dome with Union County and these are just some more specific grants and the print cut kept getting smaller because we were adding to this list of all the grants that we're getting um which is you know Wonderful that's the only way we can do a lot of these projects um and not have it impact the taxpayers more and again this is just a slide this next one the various Services provided to our residents which every year we do try to expand um more and more once again if we get grants like for example we have grants that we continue to get for senior programming that allows us to do more senior programming than we otherwise might have been able to do um now we're heading into the last portion of the presentation with which is capital uh the capital Improvement program is normally um an estimated projection of capital projects for the next 6 years we don't get into that much detail in the specific presentation um about the projects for the next years but we do try to anticipate potential cumulative costs for certain projects um after this year if we can and this is also uh very much a changing Target based on um the state of our infrastructure in any given year um so the these are capital projects it's two or three pages just to give it you know the estimated total is in column three um column five budget appropriation that's how much we're funding um out of what's called like our our current fund so we're not borrowing money for those items it's these types of items were increased pilot revenue and Sewer connection fees allow us to pay for instead of going into more debt uh the capital Improvement fund uh represents a a down payment that we need to essentially make um for borrowing certain funds um and then column D represents the grants that we're getting for certain projects and column uh 5e debt authorized that's how much money we're essentially going to be borrowing for these projects so and these are just broken out um by construction Department engineering um we do have a new just per the new storm water permit requirements we do have um new storm water requirements that we have to do every year regarding mapping you know every storm water easement um every type of storm water infrastructure we do have in the township so that is a new yearly cost that we do have to budget for um and then these the costs are just continuing on the next page um just a note we did take out overall we took cut about $10 million from the capital budget um we cut at least 4 million uh off the traditional debt that we were originally going to borrow and 6.5 million um from the ibank and as mentioned this you know involved continuous conversations specifically with our we sort of treatment Engineers as they went from you know back of the envelope estimates as to how much projects would cost actually continuing to get proposals sometimes bids coming in so we could more accurately hone in on a number instead of just borrowing more money than we need to we really try to get it down to just the maximum amount that we would need to cover these projects um so that's the gist of these three capital um it's probably a lot more detailed I understand it's a lot more detailed than other towns get we like to give our residents as much information as possible when it comes to the capital projects that are going on in our various uh departments and this this lab was already covered so yes thank you the last one thank you was there tce again the res so 99.29% collection rate so thank you to our residents for their due diligence this will be website tomorrow it is awesome and I just want to say you Hadad of time that U this was a work in progress and I know how hard everyone in town worked to get this thing to work I know we at the council we did have quite a few discussions on this way back and forth was I didn't say it was a team effort and um it was a team effort more on the side of administration who worked really really hard Thana everyone else who I know night hours working the computer system to get these numbers right so with that just want to say thank you to acknowledgement I Echo that um it's definitely a lot of hard work from everybody teamwork was is perfect it definitely was teamw workk um it feels good to finally move yes thank you for everybody who was involved than e you mind on ordinance amending chapter 2.99 entitled senior affairs committee to modify the membership composition this is this is one we already adopted final oh final okay open a public hearing on the ordinances every by second stion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Mr Foster yes Mr zis Mr Machado yes Mr yes and I will read the instructions and then open up the hearing on that particular ordinance comments on ordinances of for final adoption are welcomed during the public hearing for each particular ordinance before making a comment all speakers must identify their name and address each speaker shall be limited to three minutes and the council president will keep time so with that ordinance number one public hearing is now we still can't figure out this sorry out is now open sorry don't let the lights scare you off did you uh yeah actually did okay I make a move the close to the public hearing on the ordinance ver clerk second any discussion roll call Mr Cuda yes Mr Anal Mr poer yes Mr villis Mr Machado yes Mrs po yes I move that the ordinance as read by the clerk and hearing held here on be adopted on Final passage and that the clerk be directed to advertise the same in The Courier News second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr fer Mr zis Mr Machado yes po yes and would you be most kind please an ordinance of the township of Berkeley Heights County of union state of New Jersey amending and supplementing title eight of the code of the township of Berkeley Heights health and safety to add a new chapter 8.33 lead base paint move to open the public hearing and the ordinances read by the clerk second that any discussion roll call Mr Cudo yes Mr donelly Mr fer Mr zis Mr Machado yes Mrs po yes the hearing on ordinance number two is now open okay seeing no one I move to close the public hearing and the ordinance as read by the clerk I'll second that any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Donell Mr buer Mr zillis Mr Machado yes Mrs Co with that I move that the ordinances read by the clerk and hearing held herein be adopted on Final passage and that the clerk be directed to advertise same in The Courier News second any discussion I just want to say that I think this is important um for the older homes that we have in town and for children so um proud of this addition it's a good ordinance uh roll call please Mr Cuda yes Mr Donal Mr Foster Mr zis Mr Machado yes Mrs pop yes one an ordinance of the township of Berkeley Heights ccy of union state of New Jersey repealing chapter 1 2.6 entitled trees and replacing it with a new chapter entitled trees in the quote of the township of Berkley Heights I move to open the hearing the public hearing on the ordinance as read by the clerk second any discussion roll call Mr Cuda yes Mr donelly Mr Foster Mrs zis Mr Machado yes Mrs poke yes ordinance the hearing on ordinance number three is now open might take a little more than three minutes but I got aot there you go I look through disin my concern whe it is the cost that it's going to put on homeowners compared to what we currently have so it's increasing the permits quite a bit Replacements now we're pulling on homeowners that didn't pull requir home owners to replace the trees and if there's no room it forces them they have no room on their property to plant trees forces them to pay through a tree F and I did some numbers on a permit I took out a couple years ago which I'm sure look at the end that CL is course of a two-year maintenance Bond so that's an additional cost and if you sell your property before that two years is up you have no right to go back to water those trees to maintain them or to replace them if they die so now you're forced to lose your bond Uh current ordinance allows five shrubs to count for one tree on your Replacements I don't see that in the new ordinance and they've lowered the diameter from 8 in to 6 in on one of tree counts to start pulling on dis ordinance uh the permit says 2/3 goes into the tree trust fund and a third goes into the general fund I was always under the impression that permit cost had to stay with that department to fund just that department it wasn't a like a to raise money uh it has a fiveyear tracking on the property so that it's cumulative as you'll see in the ordinance that your permit cost goes up and your replacement cost goes up uh I don't know how the town's going to track that and then what happens if you move the next owner is penalized because somebody did something beforehand they going to fall into that fiveyear window if they want to cut a tree down they could be at the top of the category for what it's going to cost them uh there should be some kind of a formula or a way to look at properties that are heavily wooded uh but you can go in and thin out the trees for proper proper forestry management uh at this point you're Penal realiz if you have the h b property because you have no place to replace the trees and whatever you're cutting down you're getting charge for there's a spot in the ordinance that says for planting along the rways like 30 foot spacing and I don't know if that's the guideline for how far apart trees should be when they get bigger but maybe they need to work that into somehow saying that if you have a heavily wooded part of your property you should get credit for that versus somebody's property with no trees uh maybe part of that could be like the building envelope part of your property is exempt from the replacement part and if you go beyond that then it kicks in uh but I think the big problem with this is the ordinance says this is to benefit the entire town which it does but the cost is falling on the people that are cutting trees down on their property why not pack on a $25 fee on your taxes over I don't know how many tax lots are in this town 5,000 and put that money into a tree fund and that between that and the grants they get that could fund replacement of trees versus putting a large cost on the people that are doing something on their property uh has been here four months to replace it replant the tree uh once it's cut down if anybody's doing construction on their house that's probably not reasonable because you might still be in a construction phase and you don't want to be putting a new tree and that's going to get ruined uh so the numbers I'm going give you I took I had a permit Tom B came to me because it was a tree that was he thought was going to FL on the street so said you got to cut all right so I to thin out some of the other trees so I cut down 13 trees this is a property up on gold Lane one was dead 12 were alive so I got credit for the one dead one I had paid for other and I paid to have the others down so the permit thing cost me $180 the tree company cost me $8,200 under the new ordinance the permit now will cost $1,100 for that same job a huge Jump The Replacements and if I look at the categories and split them up I think I did the right way I would have to do 49 replacement trees for what I took down now if you go up there I'll challenge any of you to go out there and point out where I took trees at you can't tell there's still too many trees in fact Tom today when I talk said I'm surprised you haven't cut more de there's no loan on the sides of the house or the back of the house because it's so shaved so now where am I going to put 49 trees it's impossible to put any there so now I'm forc PL pay into this tree so if I do the calculations in here it says the first two are $200 each after that it says at the going rate for replacement trees I could not find out what that number I asked Anna's office I asked Tom B don't know now last year the number of $400 was thrown out but I don't know if that was a number last year but at that $ 400 I would have 47 trees at $400 so my total replacement into this tree fund would be $199,200 now can any of you tell me that's reasonable for somebody that's trying to improve their property so I just went from $8,300 job $8,400 job under the new ordinance it's going to cost me $228,500 how can you go to a homeowner and say this ordinance is good for the town get the replacement part out of there and put a small amount on everybody's tax bill say this is pretty environmental commission to plant trees in town I can't see anybody arguing but to go back and do this for a homeowner is outrageous you just it's not realistic so I would hope tonight that board votes it down as the environment commission go back and come up with a P structure that's more reason reasonable for the homeowners because unfortunately I don't think most people even know this is on the agenda let alone what the impact is going to be if they have to cut trees down it's just unreasonable thought right thank you thank you um I worked on this ordinance with the um engineering the administration and the um environmental commission we are sensitive to the fact that there are properties that don't meet [Music] the as you said heavily wooded Lots but rather than accommodate each one of those conditions so another case might be somebody who has a very small lot and therefore they can't do the tree replacement so there is something that we added to the ordinance in section 126.2 200 exemptions it's item H that says a personal exemption may be requested by a resident If the previous exemptions don't apply so in your case where you took down 13 trees in a heavily wooded lot you would discuss that with the um tree inspector and you could request an exemption because of your heavily wooded lot that's example that you know would be fine and then the tree inspector would discuss that situation with you discretion is that up to his discretion the um yes if you can have a tree inspector today it's reasonable have one next year an absolute jerk and just says everybody P isal process process so if you request an exemption and the exemption is denied it does say in the ordinance what the process is then you can appeal that that denial and the appeal would go to the township administrator so if we have a switch in um in staff and the new staff you know resident feel is being unreasonable then you would take it to the township and you know the township administrator would make a determination what we determined was that most residents most individual homeowners don't take out 13 trees at a time unless they're doing some type of construction on their property so it's not normal that you would have a lot big enough to be able to take out 13 trees and not notice that they were gone 13 trees of the size specified in the ordinance we took out the bushes because um it's really about trees and not about bushes bushes don't take up nearly as much water as trees do and we have a continued problem with storm water runoff if there's more trees we have less flooding so we're I don't feel that we're going to get a perfect solution if you would like to forward your comments to me then I can go through them in more detail um we can certainly consider changes to the ordinance in the past but in the the shrubs where they took that out I know when I built my house last time you could landscape and people put a lot of landscape to make up for some of the tree so again you get into a situation where your lot is not big enough if you take down one tree and say you have to put five in for that you physically don't have to space so is that going to be an exemption that yes go look at and say okay you'll do what you can and not going to for you to pay that was the intention was that you know if you've got a small lot and one big tree you don't have enough space to put in the replacement trees right we really wanted to be you know sympathetic to the the regular residential homeowner the goal was really to make sure these developers that if they start clear cutting trees for no reason that we hit them in the pocketbook because you know they should be paying more money to take down trees especially ones unnecessarily that they might just be taking down you know out of convenience to get their equipment around um but so that is why you know in this ordinance we did set up all these you know exceptions and you know next steps if there is there are extenda um circumstances um you know some people just want to take a tree down because it's like not convenient because they don't like breaking up the stuff that falls through it that right if you're doing a single family lot I mean you try and save the trees you can but there's and most people do and actually when we did this and Margaret correct me if I'm wrong I think you went back and you got the records from the zoning off officer who's also our tree inspector to see okay how many trees have actually been taken down by residents in any given year so we had an accurate picture of how many were actually being taken down and and she's right you know most people are not taking down like 13 it's like one or too um so yes there generally if if what we found when we did the research was if that many trees were being taken down it was generally because a new house was being constructed on a larger a larger house was being constructed on that lot and it was easier for the Builder to just take down the trees because then they don't have to worry about it so one of the things is to incentivize people people to keep the trees instead of remove the trees so if you can put a you know a temporary fence around part of a wooded lot and leave those trees in place that's much better for our town because the trees that are being replaced are this big they're little trees we want the big trees to stay so we did do our best to do a balance to make sure sure that individual homeowners weren't unduly burdened but we wanted to disincentivize people that were building new buildings and houses and you know developments from clear cutting but if somebody's going to do a single l a single husband single L will Tom work with them on the trees because you you have to take a certain amount to build the house so they do that on every every construction project or somebody's doing addition or a new build like they work with every individual applicant and you they go over exactly what trees can or should be taken down and which ones we might request to stay so there tree planed for every alteration to a property but they in the past they've always counted whatever trees they say you can take out they Pi for that Fe get it seems like you know if you're trying to save a lot of trees there should do some give and takes to say okay you can take these out you save these and if you have room to PL a couple others but to say you just have to pay [Music] into I think then you have people paying into it who aren't cutting them down so then those people won't I think it's very mindful of the to benefit the town because again we have a lot of flooding issues in this town and those big trees are what sucks up all that water so I think it will help when developers or Builders come in and just want to make it convenient for themselves where you if you need to go to a hearing and or an appeal you can tell your case and see what happens you know if you only took down 13 trees you shouldn't have too many more to take down right surprise you have make morning there's no back LA or side because of the sh what tree you on so just another note on this we did have a conference session where there was um other public comments and that was I don't even know how many weeks ago um so we did a conference session before we introduced the ordinance and then we introduced the ordinance and now you know it's up for a vote so as I said if you'd like to send your comments to me I would I'll absolutely address your um comments and concerns if there's information in the ordinance I can provide to you we will also you know keep it on the list for potential updates in the future ordinance they can evolve they don't it's not set in stone forever and ever and ever you know things change and they can be added to or things get deleted sometimes so I I have a question Rich do your point of the escrow um as far as the the money that goes into that is there anything on the exemptions or the appeals covering that also that if something happens or people sell property are we covered or is that one of those I don't have the experience with Escrow because I don't remember when I did the construction of my house um Manny might know but basically however the H Pine and this is not legal advice any stretch of the imagination but I've been real estate for 40 years and something like that it's it's should be disclosed and then it's up to the attorneys or buyers and sellers to work out an agreement and sometimes they just have the new buyer assume it you as long as you disclose it the new buyer assumes the responsibility you say I paid $1,000 into into the fund that gets transferred to you and the new buyer assumes responsibility but it should be disclosed and should be part of the normal sale process of any real estate so hopefully you'll never have this thing when you're buying a house and you find this little surprise and hopefully you're not going to be forced to put a bond down and walk away because you didn't tell the attorney because the attorney would protect you on that would that affect any kind of needs on the property would the town have any issue with that as far as uh having record of that so there's no like mean on there should be a record and it would probably be pop for new construction like that with a lean or an escro it would probably appear someplace as a lean um and I'm going from experience I did some construction New York we built a home and the City of New York made us put a bond down for new for trees to make sure they survive and we paid into the we paid the bond it took us two years to get the bond released because that was the guidelines um but because it was new constructions different than existing construction and we carefully monitor those trees to make sure they survived and the City of New York came in before they released our bond checked the trees so they survived and released our bond so it depends on what you do and how it's done but it's is a realtor it's part of the negotiation process as long as it's fully disclosed and the new buyer assumes it he gives your money when you work a deal out or or whatever it is so that is that question for you or is that and it's not leg it for me because I understand it like you know if there's something out there you know because it also says in there that let's say after a year and a half that tree dies and you replace it the three your clock starts all over it's part of it's part of the bond process and again if if it happens like that when you sold the property the new buyer would be responsible for it so that you'd have again you negotiate it in the beginning and the tree dies a year and 11 months later and it starts over again because the new buyer had to replant it that's up to the new buyer disclose disclose disclose that was one of the major things in real estate when I'm doing a deal is I disclose as much as I know buyers get to go go and open the records in town hall to see what's available and if it's done for something like that I'm sure the homeowner who knows he has money tied up in his in his tree so hope you keep me an eye on it but also the main purpose of that had to do with large developments because what we found was that in number of developments in town trees were planted at the wrong time of year they weren't necessarily planted well the developer just stuffed them in the ground and walked away there was no you know follow up on maintenance for the trees and then Within you know sometimes 18 months to two years the trees have died maybe they need to tweet the ordinance single family verus so as I said you know send me your comments and you know we can take it from there but I do you know I will consider that and not excusing the new projects but some of the I don't know what told about the numbers but they almost replaced there two trees were R Tree took down same thing with Little Flower CU Little Flower had plant a whole bunch of trees in the back because they took down the trees to add on the addition so it's up it's Bak he's very good at his job he's part of the environment commission he's part of he's a tree guy and your secession plan is a great point to bring up but that's why we put in that's why it was put in for a review and appeal so it's up to him to make the decision if he's leaving and he becomes someone else who's more tree oriented and not as friendly then you have an appeal process in place and that would be the next Administration so the next level not Administration so are there any other resident comments on this 35 break some else someone I okay this turned out to be a good test I always thought the having been involved looking at the tree origin the current one the new one all the iterations that it's still pretty complex by contrast New Providence tonight at their bar council meeting is introducing their tree ordinance and look pretty much like the model ordinance they don't have a trust fund in getting into all that and pretty easy to read impressed resident actually went through the technical details and came up with numers and hopefully he's the exception that the exception will take care of because I I do recall a lot of controversy about this that's been stewing for years is the impact on the average citizen and um good reply to S race conditions or these these outside edge conditions that that don't don't exist for most um as far as anything else the only area of the ordinance that I'm wondering about because I do monitor the environmental commission and have seen the kind of issues they get into especially when involved money it's the provision in the ordinance that talks about how they um the owner manager and I'm not using the exact languages in the ordinance of the trust fund and I've always felt that there probably should be more specificity there's going to be some confusion about how that works so anyway and since you'll probably do nothing about that now you will see that come true uh because that's why should it be any different but that was the only other aspect that that stays on the top of my mind that's going to be kind of an operational issue that you're going to have to work through um passing this and my final comment is I am a little bit disappointed that the when when the ordinance came out it wasn't a markup I mean when you look at the 90 Plus page land use ordinance that was marked up um this as I suggested if it could be marked up in that exact format you know provide the citizen without having to go into the database pull out the ordinance from the online system to be able to actually compare now our resident did a nice job of noticing some key differences but uh he has some stake in the game I was motivated to look so please don't do something like this again especially if it's complex without showing what's changed thank you which is a 40 40 40 year of service the rescue squad 45 45 I only gave you the proclamation weeks I forgot okay so seeing no one else I move to close the public hearing on the ordinance is read by the clerk second any discussion Mr Kudo yes Mr Mr poer yes zis yes Mr Machado yes Mrs po yes I move that the ordinance is read by the clerk and the hearing held here on be adopted on Final passage and that the clerk be directed to advertise the same in the cier news second that any discussion roll call Mr Cudo yes Mr Donal yes Mr fer yes Mr zillis yes Mr Machado yes Mrs po yes Anna would you read the fourth ordinance please an ordinance of the township of Berkeley hides County of union state of New Jersey vacating a portion of Berkeley Avenue pursuant to njs 40- 67-1 at sec I move to open the public hearing on the ordinances read by the clerk second that any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Thell Mr fer yes Mrs zillis yes Mr Machado yes Mrs poke yes okay uh the public hearing on an ordinance number four is now open one I move to close the public hearing by the clerk second discussion roll call Mr Machado Mrs po yes I move that the ordinance as read by the clerk and hearing held hereon be adopted on Final passage and that the clerk be directed to advertise SE in The Courier News second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Anal Mr buer Mr zillis Mr Machado yes yes okay and you're supposed to do the okay just realiz okay okay okay I understand and when youp up your look at 126 11 all the number numeric written don't match up okay I thought we had mentioned that last time discussed this so I guess it must must have slipped good point then thank [Music] you and then the attorney here too he prepared 12 what is it just like 10 [Music] 15 yeah you you just have to um this as I still have this you just have to read it as as like a Rance the C okay um okay introduction to 2024 mpal budget U bring forth resolution authorizing no excuse me no we have to do the cat Bank First oh oh ordinance yeah so I had you John Foster will do the introduction of the cat Bank ordinance first and then Angie will do introduction of the municipal budget okay eight number eight number eight yes we the C back right bill yeah that's GNA go first okay take get right um You have to read that right yes uh I'm introducing the C Bank coordinance and public final adoptions on June 11th calendar year 2024 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap Bank okay um I moved to open a hearing on the wrong one sorry um okay move to open a public hearing on the ordinances read by the clerk like it's introduction yeah it like an introduction it's an introduction this every year introduces everybody say hi to everybody hell hello Paul the same age we get each other all right GL didn't fall that to move the ordinance okay move the ordinance right by the clerk be offered on first reading and at the date June 11th of 2024 we S as day for public hearing and then clerk uh be directed to advertise him of Curry news second second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Donal Mr Foster yes Mrs zis Mr Mado yes Mrs po yes okay introduction of the 2024 Municipal budget Township of Barkley Heights introduction and approval of the 2024 Municipal budget pursuant to njsa 4A colum 44-1 be resolve that the following statements of Revenue and appropriation shall constitute the municipal budget for the year 2024 the governing body of the township of Berkeley Heights does hereby approve the following as the budget for the year 2024 revenues Surplus 4,444 th000 total miscellaneous revenues 10 million3 35,8 22.92 receipts from delinquent taxes $367,000 minimum Library tax $1,329 $329,600 3 local tax for municipal purposes 4,944 2447 for a total of 31,1 2016,2017 65,562 Appropriations excluded from the caps 11,192 46294 resered for uncollected taxes $1,158 867 for a total of 31,1 16235 62 be it further resolve that the budget be published by summary in the cier news on May 8th 2024 in compliance with njsa 40 40a col 4-8 a copy of the full approved budget will be made available for public inspection at the office of the Township Clerk located in the Berkeley Heights Municipal complex 21 29 Park Avenue Township website at Berkeley heights. goov notice is hereby given that the budget and tax resolution was approved by the governing body of the township of berley heights County of Union on April 30th 2024 a hearing on the budget and tax resolution will be held at the municipal building on June 11th 2024 7 o'clock p.m. at which time and place objections to the budget and the tax resolution for the year 2024 may be presented by taxpayers and other interested persons have a second second question roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Donell yes Mr fer yes Mrs zillis Mr Machado yes Mrs yes okay open the hearing on the agenda items only minutes for second roll Mr Cudo yes Mr Donell Mr yes Mr ma yes Mrs po yes comments are welcom during the public comment period during this meeting on any agenda item however if an ordinance is listed for its own public hearing on the agenda please hold your comments for that particular public hearing to make your comment the speaker must come forward to the microphone and state his or her name and address for the record each speaker is limited to three minutes the mayor council president will keep time please promptly yield on the floor when time is called and return to your seat your cooperation and adherance to these Rules of Order will ensure an orderly and respectful meeting so the hearing on agenda items only is now open hello again Steve Cara still at 35 sore Avenue um when I'm not here um as a pref to talking to something specific on the agenda item I wanted to just say um to talk about um people paying her taxes and people saying I'm a taxpayer well one of the things I did today and kind an announcement property taxes are do starting tomorrow as far as the day is concerned and I put it in the box outside way so I can say I'm real taxpayer real time thank you for thank you for your have to listen to me um let's see I'm I'm going to make a a question a few comments about resolutions 4 through S dealing with neg um now I know um when we first started using them was part of the notion of having been contracted as our Township engineer and then being able to draw on their larger services to do other stuff that's just not unique to the township engineer and there's been a lot of construction management or work and a couple these resolution to deal with more of that and I just want to I feel like Jeff berer in here I want to kind of ask this UIL question are you happy with based on past projects with their um construction management um performance as in you know they do things within their budget what you're looking for on time and the performance for the outcomes you're getting is what you're looking for well I gu you know have to address the day if you want to ask one to answer so here we go uh you know I think it speaks vol as to you know these four resolutions that are on the agenda and if we weren't satisfied with services that we would be looking elsewhere um that might be difficult with the nature but well we've done it before though we have we have done it with uh other firms on other projects and there are times that we cannot use neglia that we required to use a different firm because perhaps they've done the engineering and construction documents and it's not appropriate for them to oversee the construction management component of it um but from what we're looking at here tonight think I'm personally comfortable from Administration point of view and it's it's nothing is based on what they're going to do yeah maybe you know they done similar you have a good idea of track rate it's just kind of making sure that you know so gut gut check right yeah yeah and and and one of the things I add because my involvement in in that and similar dealings in engineering firms is when you get their proposal and and thank you for an for including all those proposals with the ordinance because some of them require looking into the actual proposal to see what the ordinance is really talking about um that you know after they give it to you you can say well we need this to be different and you real life all L Lear can put it into their new agreement and and I hope you take advantage of that when when you do have these lessons learn um what I in that context I I did say they they did a lot of uh they've done a lot of construction services work so you have a good idea of their track record and how they perform for the town I'm going to say regarding the last two um it involves tra and as it's called here traffic engineering work now I've been around since they've been working for us and far as there only one publicly known traffic engineering work they've done and work I've been disappointed in their performance from a um say much about nothing um presentation by you know one of their engineers and then even there U final output product did not meet the easy and Technical aspects of the law they had to work under so you know I do wonder about their future performance in that area now there's some optimism at least with one of these proposals for the uh the right turn on red assessment in the actual proposal they actually listed the section and the actual words from the manual on uniform TR control devices on what the criteria will be for evaluating that intersection now I know I'm going to get everybody in town really hes that it comes out that way because uh I know I don't think about it much because I use to Sherman Avenue bypass when I have to deal with that uh signal in the direction that it's it's CA the most half for waiting um and I'll just end with thing you can be assur we'll keep a close eye on any work to make sure you're getting the kind of U output you know the town need to reserve we have no doubt that you'll oversee with a careful watchful eye any traffic engineering that goes on um I just want to note that I think I think it's number seven also includes um the review of Park Avenue which is something the last or second to last meeting that some residents from the Park Avenue area uh asked us to investigate so um happily getting on top of that um tonight claring okay see no make a motion to close the hearing second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mrs Ann Mr poer yes M zis Mr Machado yes Mrs po yes resoltion yes on resolution one approving Bill list dated April 30th 2024 the amount of 479 61379 I'll second that any discussion roll call the discussion please just one question that was that's the amended or that's the that's the new amended without 3,150 taken out the we have to cancel the last last cancel we we approved another emergency appropriation last time didn't we last month oh wait it doesn't include the temporary Appropriations this one is just okay theill that we didn't need to pay for that's what you're thinking yes but now this is the correct after she pulled that off the bill list this is the correct amount for the bill list never mind yeah no no no you're thinking I know what your question is for for the next one just let him read that one too do it just I okay you you got the Mr Cuda yes Mr Donnelly Mr fer Mr zillis Mr Machado yes Mrs po yes now number I for resolution number two authorizing emergency appropriation in the amount of 17 m9560 and that's the one yes second second don't we all right any discussion okay okay so bill bill is going to explain what this what this is okay um so each year when you when you have your reorganization meeting you have a temporary budget that you pass because your budget is not adopted yet and if for some reason your budget is not going to be adopted in a timely fashion you have temporary emergency Appropriations to see you through until the budget gets adopted so this is just getting you through probably for the next you know few weeks to a few months in case for whatever reason that budget is not adopted so this is basically just increasing your Appropriations to let the government function for the next couple weeks to months and it's cumulative from okay not add think we okay big solution okay um we're good now got a second yeah second all right we did discussion right now Mr guda yes Mr donaly Mr fer Mr zillis Mr Machado yes this is poke sorry um I move resolution number three a resolution authorizing a First Amendment to the Redevelopment agreement with Berkeley Heights developers urban renewal LLC for the property known as block 702 lot 17 a portion and 18 the former King site second that any discussion and this is um so that we can get funds directly from the developer of the former property for the Sherman Avenue walking biking Park and all that good stuff um project so this is just amending it so the developer doesn't make the improvements he gives us the money and we make the improvements so roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Donal Mr bler yes Mr zillis yes Mr Machado yes Mrs P yes I move resolution four awarding a Professional Services contract to neglia engineering for surveying engineering and construction management services for improvements to Deer paath Lane in an amount not to exceed $89524 second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr donelly Mr poer Mr zis Mr Rado yes Mrs po yes I move resolution number five resolution awarding a professional service contract to megal engineering for engineering assessment and construction Management Services 2024 mccpc Road program- various streets comma in the amount not to exceed $40,000 $4,290 second any discussion roll Mr Kudo yes Mr Donell Mr Foster Mr zillis Mr Machado yes M po yes move on resolution six awarding of Professional Services contracted engineering for engineering assessment for no turn on red the Springfield Avenue plan Field Avenue Union County traffic signal and amount not to exceed $17 second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Mr cluster yes Mr zis Mr Machado yes Mrs POG yes bring forth resolution number seven awarding a professional service contract the ne engineering for various traffic engineering and circulation tasks receive the reviews and recommendations in the amount not to exceed $13,900 second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes anal Mr feris Mr Machado Mrs po yes sry I was making notes um I move resolution eight a resolution authorizing a stipulation of settlement for the property located at 40 Plymouth Drive second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Donal Mr Foster yes Mr zillis yes Mr Machado yes Mrs po yes I move resolution number nine proclaiming April 26 as Arbor Day in Berkeley Heights second so why is why have different day than isn't AR day last Friday of April so this was Friday this was his past Friday but we need it for our tree Grant I guess that makes sense I second okay um roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Donal Mr porer Mr zillis Mr Machado yes Mr Po yes I move inent agenda which has only one thing on it can end second any discussion roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr Foster yes MRIs Mr Machado yes Mrs po yes okay Township Council reports many are first I am first up okay first off the DBC met we discussed restaurant month after member review of positive feedbacks and new ideas from local businesses there a s restaurant month in September our new members and past experiences will help he us a much anticipated event in Berkeley Heights restaurant month is watched and supported by our by I and our surrounding towns restaurant month brings in Awareness to our town of local businesses and revenue as well and uh the second thing happened today which uh is Paint The Town green uh bill michad and I attended to ribbon tying and Bill thank you very much for the ribbons um kicking off Mental Health Awareness Month the event is supported by the rotary and started as a grassroot movement by a volunteer new Province this year has been expanded to surrounding towns Berkeley heads and Summit Scotch PLS has also started to mirror the same event after success in new Province the win's campaign includes green ribbons along Springfield Avenue signage on local uh businesses special offerings by some local businesses positive messages and chalk along walking pth to school um new provin has books available and their Library which can be checked out anonymously so if someone has issues they can learn about it anonymously U Berkeley heighton taking Port will be letting up town hall and Springfield Avenue and green there'll be green ribbons title along Springfield Avenue this event is part of the mayor's Wellness committee uh and campaign is it helps to Spur discussion and removal of some of the stigma and discussion of mental health I'd like to thank the DPW U the rotary the mayor werness committee new Province painted Town green committee who invited us in and Liza for making this our first year I think it's it's going to be a success the first year and hopefully expands and um helps someone along the way so thank you great update thank you for spearheading a lot of those efforts and collaborating with the province so we could get our own Pro program launched this year appreciate that um Paul uh so I unfortunately missed the senior affairs committee um so I don't have anything to report but I will get a report for the next time for you guys I attended the Rotary Club pancake breakfast which was a nice turnout and voice did a great job okay very good John okay uh I want to start off by saying that I think um all of my report is scen so you can correct me if I'm wrong Union County Master Gardener annual Spring Garden fair and plant sale is on Sunday May 19 bring props um from 12:00 to 4:00 at the trail site Nature Center um I have the fly up here if anybody want to see but uh there's going to be a large variety plants for sale soil test kits uh free ruter fact sheets plants and insect problems Clinic uh square foot garding display just kind of goes to our green theme it seems up here um uh it's also a great place to get native plants and advice from the Master Gardeners uh govern living high school was invited to dress down on Friday this past Friday in celebration of Earth Day which was 422 and Arbor Day on 426 uh they gave out some milkweed seedlings to plant it uh anybody's home uh because this is the host plant for Monarch butterflies also the environmental Club was collecting signatures for three initiatives the first one was the green Amendment which is uh sc43 and ACR 1119 which would amend the state's Constitution provide that every person in the state has a constitutional right to clean environment including the rate to clean air pure water and healthy habit healthy habitats the green Amendment would also require the state to preserve public natural resources and to prevent others from destroying or damaging public natural resources they also had two other initiatives getting solar in Berkeley Heights Public Schools and Energy Efficiency for our Berkeley Heights Public Schools uh this brings me to Earth Day which was celebrated April 22nd today to educate people about issues affecting the planet raise awareness for and celebrate the efforts in place to protect the environment um and since we brought up the tree ordinance this one fits in nicely um we usually celebrate Arbor Day in the last Friday of April and Arbor comes from the Latin word for tree the St is edicated to trees and plants for to help promote the importance of planting and serving trees you're all going to go home and you're all going to have trees in your dreams tonight okay uh the historic preservation committee is meeting on Thursday May 2nd at 7:30 our fall Festival which is going to be at the latel Lord property is still on October 19th 124 um I was um asked to stand in for the mayor at Vella is a new uh Salon that just opened up on Springfield Avenue so we had a ribbon cutting out there on Saturday and uh again May is mental health awareness month month and everything's in green thank youc thank you John Margaret um last month I attended the green Brook flood um commission meeting participating were representatives from many of the impact communities the majority of them at the um at the downstream and um the Army Corp of engineer is working with communities and has designed a variety of things such as levies flood walls and channel improvements for the lower basement Basin which includes towns like Greenbrook and other towns along the raway river the change to Berkeley Heights that's being proposed one of them that's possible is a celes pond and New Providence Road improvement improvement um this was discussed briefly one of the proposals from the Army Corps is to build a new dam to replace the one that's currently at cel's Pond the new dam will be is proposed to be approximately halfway down New Providence Road um and impacts the entire area so New Providence Road would be relocated into part of what's currently the Welden Quarry the exact route of the road is not yet determined there are a number of houses that would be impacted in the Diamond Hill Road Mountain Avenue or I'm sorry Diamond Hill Road and Valley area um the dam is proposed to be 200 ft long which is like a football field and a third just give you an idea and the retention Basin behind it is massive um so the New Providence Road will be raised which is a good thing because then that permits more um water to drain road so it's important for communities All Along The Green Brook um to invest in infrastructure that will prevent flooding however Berkeley Heights need to make sure that whatever is being done is also in the interest of Berkeley Heights or doesn't negatively impact berley Heights so the issues that I brought up during the conversation primarily related to um access because Diamond Hill Road to New Providence Road is a primary access route um for emergency vehicles getting up to the hospital and for people getting up to some Medical Group and you know that North South South Corridor and there were no answers to what was going to happen to New Providence Road um and how that that traffic in that Corridor would be um impacted so they haven't done the exact designs the Army Court did make a a comment that thought that on the upper Basin which is us it would be a non- construction approach except dredging C's Pond and um doing some maintenance on the the brook itself but what that proves to be I don't know so I think you know Berkeley height should be more active in that process and possibly even SCH try to schedule a meeting with the Army Corps in order to discuss the specifics of that they have had a number of public meetings they say that they're supposed to make a decision on the upper Basin design um this spring but I don't believe that they've had any direct conversations with F that could be wrong there because I wasn't on Counsel I think they have you think they have yeah okay so but it was very preliminary infancy stages was not as formed as what you're talking about at this point um so if anybody so who attend that meeting you know me oh you okay so you know I I'm suggesting advocating I got information on the meeting sent to me from Liza um so I'll continue to be in touch with Liza I'll keep an eye on you know anything that is going on with that if anybody would like information on that you know from my from the meeting that I attended I'm more than willing to share um I'll also work with laza to keep updated information on the website anytime there's a change and make sure that it's easy to find on the website there's potential is a huge project that will absolutely impact getting in and around Berkeley Heights so you know we have to figure this out um the economic development committee met this past Friday I didn't take note so I was hoping that Manny would do the update on that one but he didn't I did not do the update for have the update okay so Andel will do that one the grants committee didn't meet um We are continuing to look for Grants to meet the township needs focusing on infrastructure I attended the rescue squad annual dinner and want to say thank you thank you thank you to all of the members for their dedication to our community it was a wonderful event celebrating a group of wonderful people and dedicated volunteers um I also attended a meeting with Union County connects regarding vision zero and complete streets um which are two programs to assist in safer streets we'll continue these conversations to determine how these programs might be be incorporated into berley heads all for me very good thank you Phil um well I just wanted to bring out that um as an animal control officer I've been receiving a lot of phone calls from residents regarding foxes raccoons Brown Hogs and this is right now the height of the baby season uh rabbits um are a main concern I mean everyone uh should be aware that if you find a rabbit in your backyard or nest of baby bunnies uh try to leave it alone perhaps maybe put something around it to protect it uh I know that people have been saying that their dogs are getting at them uh landscapers are getting at them um by accident of course um but if if for any reason you may come across an orphan baby uh I'll be more than happy to step up so um please just keep me in mind when you have uh an animal related emergency uh I'll be more than happy to bring the animal over to the Woodlands Wildlife Refuge up in Woodlands um and I would also recommend if um if you can take a look at uh your roof line under your gutters the sopit areas if they're not bent down um um racons love going into those particular areas and making their home and raising their young in your crawl space so um uh and I've been getting a lot of that so um if you do have any animal related emergencies uh just don't hesitate to contact me and I will absolutely try to assist you thank you great good information appreciate it Bill Susan so before I tell my reports I want to remind everyone um idling is not only against the law it's bad for our planet so every day is Earth Day I want to remind you to turn off your cars um so the the grants committee is meeting on Thursday we moved it from last Thursday to accommodate um everybody's schedule so was tricky and tomorrow is planning board so there is a presentation by Harbor Consultants they're going to present the findings of the preliminary investigation of the area consisting of block 702 Lots four which is Springfield Avenue six which is uh 230 Sherman Avenue and 16 which is uh 414 to 424 Springfield Avenue so um they're trying to figure out if it's an area in need of non- condemnation Redevelopment and uh the planning will be considering a resolution so the meaning is at 7:30 tomorrow night right here uh mayor's Wellness will be tomorrow also have a busy day M um and I just wanted I'm joining the mayor's book club group and this is the book so the focus is on mental health and this book is by beray Brown I thought it was just me but it isn't so I'm looking forward to be finishing at this this weekend and join B on May 9th yeah and then the walk with the mayor I think you're going to talk about the walk with the mayor on the 7th or sure just quickly men all right so right for next week's council meeting I know it's weird we have two in a row but um if you want to come here at six o'clock by the flag pole we had a lovely cold walk last time I predict it's going to be a warmer walk this time I hope so and we look forward to everyone joining us as a chance to talk um one-on-one with the mayor and ask her some questions get to know her and join some of the rest of us walking um and with regard to the mayor's Wellness so I heard this thing that said it's okay not to be okay and I think that is the focus of what this group is trying to do it's okay not to be okay we can't be okay all the time so thank you and that's all I have thank you Susan uh mayor's report Administration mayor's report I'm going to try not to repeat what anybody else has talked about um but again tomorrow couches off Mental Health Awareness Month May 1st to the 31st really important a big ini of the May's Wellness committee but other things that we are also doing um subcommittees we have a we want to plan a self-care event um man mention pain the town green we are doing mental health segmentation spoke way too much today um so anybody who's interested in doing those just what you do for your own mental health your own mental Wellness um very quick video um and you mentioned the book club senior affairs committee we had a guest speaker from Union County division on Aging um they had very several very interesting programs but the one that really seemed to resonate with our committee members is called social 60 plus um it's a restaurant program seniors can apply it's not income restricted seniors can apply for three vors um to go to restaurants uh designated by Union County and they are uh really nice high-end restaurants are going to announce this year's restaurants shortly um we are also going back to the drawing board with our Union County College senior scholar program uh some of the the classes they were suggesting were very heavy so we're going to try to find something a little bit more laded for those seniors who want to be a Union County scholar um also we are doing a a great deal of uh baking for the senior information fair this is the biggest event the senior affairs committee does all year long it'll be this Saturday 11 to1 so stop in if you have um perhaps a parent um that has recently mov to town in the new age restricted housing um stop by and get some information about programs that we provide for seniors Years also the Veterans Affairs committee uh met we discussed the Memorial Day parade and ceremony the health of the Veterans Memorial Park Evergreen um and updating the veterans portion of the website which is coming along nicely um we had a new Committee Member Gail Bradford who is the Board of Education president um as our newest member and she's got an amazing story as it relates to her husband and herself and what she and her family have done for veterans um abroad and here at home in New Jersey um we also discussed uh ways to to keep our state designation we honor our veterans uh which will now include some stickers for local businesses that provide discounts for veterans or a veteran owned business we have an updated list of uh 400 veterans in town uh that we're going to mail to and try to get them involved in a um a mailing list with regular updates of things that we're doing for veterans the economics development committee did meet on Friday um we discussed that there were no real updates from new Kia but we did discuss that Manny and I um went to chunes New Jersey which is a really interesting meeting chunes New Jersey is a conglomerate of higher institutions nonprofits and the business Community um that entice people to locate to New Jersey either internationally or um from other states um so there's some interesting potential projects that would fit great at noia if noia would uh work with us on that um Margaret Manny and I went to bellworks and met with and toured with the developer there Ralph Zucker who also would have a great interest in renovating the existing noia building to resemble the Bell Works um facility in homel that was a great um that was a a great trip uh hopefully some part of this some pieces of this come together um and then we're looking to do a h hopefully a farmers market we the library did some research and I passed that research on to Margaret she's going to try to see what we can do about a farmers market for uh next year hopefully you mentioned the vision zero um meeting that we had we're going to put together some sort of task force and finally well two three final things but I have to just thank Christa and Charlie particularly Charlie we have been trying to launch world taii day on April 27th for six years and we finally got it done this year it was amazing Charlie actually conducted three classes prior to Saturday had 30 people Christa 30 people attend I was amazed I mean people were begging us please continue this program we're going to talk about how to do that Charlie's giv his instruction for free so that's a huge benefit to the community we discussed the science behind why taichi Works um mentally and physically so thank you so much for doing that you didn't even know it I just announced it at a state of the township address um in January and you were a good sport to to play along so the the ages range from I'm just guessing at the ages probably 10 years old to yeah he was he was a little boy into the 70s oh well well and it went really well it was supposed to end at 10:30 on Saturday we ended up getting out of there just before 12 it was awesome truly awesome awesome um so in that vein I started my Master's classes today and the my Master's of arts and uh the signs of Happiness so I hope to bring some of those tools to the mayor's Wellness committee uh and finally the theme for May 2024 observance of Asian American Native wi and Pacific Islander heritage month is advancing leaders through Innovation I look forward we all look forward to to celebrating with our aapi community um and with that I conclude my room I can just go backwards for a second we have someone coming for the conference session next week on May 7th um and she is going to be speaking about um mental health as well yes thank you thank you for and we're looking for an affordable housing update hopefully our professions are available that will also be no that's okay just just a couple things oh you can also bring your dogs on the walk with the mayor um yes yes so bring yeah mention Bell Works in hell they allow not only dogs or cats into their facility but any pet hamsters pigs whatever it is that you I that so I thought that was pretty cool but so um we we recently submitted our $2 million appropriation request to Senator Booker's office for help with funding the Westside drainage project and worked with New Providence on a submission to Congressman Kane's office for help with reducing flooding along the River our Shera revitalization project uh we're breaking out pepperton Park that portion to finish that before the rest of Sherman Avenue uh breaking this out allows us to move forward more quickly on phase one because no federal funds are being um used for that portion so we can get that done a little bit quicker at less um more efficiently and with less money um the federal grants do come with more requirements so that um we should be going out to bid for that portion of the project this spring uh we submitted our Grant application for about $384,000 to latel uh for the latel Lord project it's a 50% match so if we get the whole thing it'll be over $700,000 that we get um we can continue to uh accept donations online or um via check all donations are tax deductible so thank you for everyone who's donating it to make this restoration possible uh we are trying to get some road paving done in June we're waiting for the road paving contractor this year to come and check out some of our roads to see how many we can get done with money we have available now um it is cheaper to pave in June so we are able to realize some cost savings for that so we'll try to do as many roads as we can is the with the money available uh until the budget passes and then we'll do another batch after the budget passes and that money um is available uh currently our spring chipping program is going on uh we are in section five this week and then DPW will be moving to section one next week please be sure to check our website Berkley heights. goov for the complete schedule um please don't put your sticks in the street I'm seeing people putting their pile in the street like the street sweeper comes by they won't be able to to sweep so just put them on the edge of your long closest to the curb please and that's and thank you for getting helping me get the budget done I'm going to go home and sleep for a week now so I'm still seeing Christmas trees appearing Road some people hold on to time yeah can you move to accept C I make a motion to accept councel second any discussion roll call please Mr Kudo yes anal Mr poer Mrs zis Mr Machado Mrs Co yes citizens hearing second any discuss R Mr Cuda yes Mr Donnell Mr poer yes zillis Mr Machado yes yes okay the citizens hearing is now open with the same rules in effect that I read earlier I apologize for the length of the meeting tonight and the fact that I made it so warm in here I tried to make it cooler again I apologize back you're back which B 68 that replac I know this probably not under your jurisdiction but you might want to look into it last night a lot of people got emails saying they're not getting busing for high school and I think Columbia and M Park how did the kids get to school there's no safe way to get them to high school the Emerson Lane those people there's no safe way to look so I don't know if you guys have a way to put some pressure on the board of bed that's a loaded question if you take their logic it's two and a half miles as they and it's by driving so if you take certain streets coming down Mountain like birkshire Cambridge Old Cannon if you live at the end of that street that's close to Mountain you fall under that 2 and a half mile and you got to walk if you live down at the end of those streets because you got to drive a little further you get the bus makes no sense now they say you can get subscription buses but they also say they're going to redo the roots once they I guess figure how many kids are going so maybe there's seats on the bus maybe there's not now let's say the bus is half empty so there's empty seats on so now you can send your kids there for a th000 bucks get a seat on the bus but wait a minute you already paid for that bus your tax money pays for the bus so that's a problem but if you've got to go to the high school how do you get there you walk down Mountain Avenue or is the police going to put crossing guards now at diamondo Road and oneide and 100 them I don't think any crossing guard is going to want to work there there's no sidewalks like part of the property of the Providence I don't think Berkeley ice could even put sidewalks in so I find it hard to believe that the police think this is a safe idea to believe that anybody would think this is a safe idea y they did well I may be able to direct comment to that um this is only coming from myself and the mayor have a monthly meeting with the Board of Ed president and at the last meeting we sat down with G and uh one of the topics we discussed was the busing with the busing The Bard of Ed went and did a survey of hazardous roadways based on the survey they found certain roads were hazardous for kids walking to school and can I just clarify that hazardous for busing purposes isn't hazardous yes municipal government it's do different things um and I confirmed that with the with the captain before I came to the meeting um from Captain Police Department Captain IES and the discussion went to fact that this was brought before the Board of Education and one of the stipulations for them voting on it was apparently the certain members of the Board of Education I don't know who they were there was no names discussed was that they company that they hired as PRI proprietary information proprietary technology or proprietary information how will they go about and learn about the streets and figure out the streets and from what we understand from Gail was that the members of the Board of Education wouldn't vote for this unless they got that proprietary information now the company who owns the information or owns the propriety in order for them to make money on it and were hired for this job they weren't going to turn it over to the Board of Education because then anybody you me or anybody in the audience could go out and figure out what's a hazardous Road based on you know their technology or whatever however they they did it their proprietary information so with that that's what you got in your email today now after that discussion with her we didn't have anything um I saw a couple emails come through today address that we should have some sort of to whole meeting or what have you I'll let the mayor address that I'm just addressing what we discussed with Gail as far as that goes so I guess what happened was that information came to a vote and the busing was voted down so we have from what I understand there was four members that voted turn down the busing okay right so you tell me those four members don't have enough common sense to tell us a dangerous Street fig Richard not for 28 years I can tell you I could I could tell you in one hand how many streets could be considered hazardous or dangerous I mean you're not going to go across the Route 22 in mid highway or Route 78 you know and I'm going to that extreme because they're major highways you wouldn't do that anyway nobody's going to let their kid cross Diamond Hill Road Diamond Hill Road M Avenue you know um out by I understand that the Board of Ed had the information and then from what I understand um there was some discussion after this was brought in to have the board Ed members go out with the company and drive the streets and they didn't want to do it did they tell them what streets are considered dangerous that's they can disclose yeah that would be for Gail to to it's a secret no it's I just I think the company doesn't disclose the C the pro proprietary information that John was speaking about I think it factors into those specific but what that company hired to do they were hired to do a hazardous hazard so they shouldn't they come back and say these roads are hazardous I think they did I mean we're a little bit in the dark here because it's not it wasn't our decision we don't have any Authority let me just say this we you know we walk the walk we have we have spent money we have we've poured over Grand Safe Streets to Transit Safe Streets to schools to try to improve sidewalks um it's accounted for in our budget we absolutely believe that you know we need a better safer Town however the decision for busing that had nothing to do with us I got the email as a parent just like everybody else may have gotten the email today you know as the mayor you know I you know it's it's it could put a 100 plus cars and you know you've got my concern is GL and Mary Kay it's already a really difficult place to drive and to do pickup you know the high school that's that's I have firsthand knowledge and experience of that um I'm concerned as is the police department about adding more cars in that both of those situations and I live near maray McMillan I run outside I see what goes on um so we're concerned however we have no authority over the decision that they made on the busing um I can tell you just from the high school alone going out there okay at 2:45 you couldn't get a fire truck close to the building if you wanted to people are parking under no parking signs everything else both sides both sides on on on mual Boulevard on watch on B it's just cars to that okay that's that you can't provide a safe route for the kids to walk to school how do they justify that that's a good question but unfortunately wrong people people people we're trying to build and just by talking with G I mean she understands this situation that there are hazardous roads in in this town and and there something has to be done about it you know but you can't let me just let me just chime in here for a second it's not practical I mean we planfield Avenue took us two years to build that sidewalk and $1.7 million and there are places like Emerson Lane I don't know that you have enough RightWay ever to BU the side but we're a very hilly Community there there are places where the incline or the decline is just way too steep to install sidewalks or you have encro encroachments that have happened from residents that you're not going to now you know take out part of their yard or the sh that they put or whatever the case may be even if we had all the money in the world right there are just situations where it's not practical to build sidewalks to schools or to Traverse certain areas to get to schol then they shouldn't remove the buses from those areas you're right they've been busting these kids for over 50 years you're absolutely right somebody wants to save a few bucks they can cut one or two buses off the off the routs we're going grew in the same POS I mean I don't have to worry about it my son drives but he just he just adds one more C to the high school and then I do cuz I drive out there separately but we totally understand that um the problem is is we have no control over that so the town can't put any pressure on the bard of bed to it's it's in their purview it's outside of ours they couldn't nominate a board president for two months you know and that's a really critical leadership position so you know it's and can I just interject because we can put on any I saw this stuff on social media over the weekend and if somebody from the Board of Ed wants to actually have a constructive dialogue with a Township pick up the phone send an email don't ping us on social media and draw us into something when a con constructive conversation hasn't even been had with any members up here like that's not the right way to go about it let me say too if if I you know there is no easy solution the easiest solution probably is busting to be honest with you and that's coming from both hats mom and mayor right um but I'm happy to work with anybody to sit down and talk to people and see if they're are some tweaks that we can make to something I it's a herculan you know problem to solve when you're talking about pedestrian safety and like I said we've been really aggressively chipping at it and we still only have clanfield Avenue is the the the one project that's completed we're starting SNY we're going to do Springfield Dr M right in the bucket and that'll be two years from now before those things like with the high school the front of Lucen is right the Providence so you can't go right even if we wanted to even if we wanted to it's not it's not Township that's what I'm saying right aways there are just so many hurdles to try and you know they're just area this this community was built not to be a you know pedestrian it was a the parents with the choice of paying for the subscription busing if there's a seat they're not even saying there might be enough seats for that or you have to drive your kids yourself if both parents work yeah no it's tough it's tough doesn't work it is absolutely T I mean you know most of us are parents or or you know had high schoolers or you know middle schoolers and Elementary I mean you know I mean we're sympathetic enough people go to the board ahead meeting next week yeah thank yeah thank you rich hell at this point I'm getting up just so that I don't feel like I was my time within like the first two minutes for the heat that I you did you let the Heat come up I felt much better because you were freezing me out I was there terrible okay my name is I I've lived here in this town probably close to 20 years I came for the same issue that he had knowing that there was probably not much that you could do about it I do live on Diamond Hill Road I saw the social media post that you were talking about I was going to get up and dress it you stole my thunder just lost his busing and he at the cross Diamond Hill Road so sorry I lost my bus I don't think um um it's not I know that there's not a lot that you could do about it I think probably would burn me of the most was that you had a b member that was Reckless when she got on and threw it back in your lap because Diamond Hill Road is a County Road Mountain Avenue is a County Road and if people started paying attention to the roads that were actually County Roads and knew the laws that pertained to those they would understand that you just can't throw up a speed limit sign because the town wants to on a County Road you can't just throw a sidewalk on a county road when you have a County Road everybody has to be at the table for that it's a long study it's drawn out Diamond Hill trust me I've been living there a long time I'm right next to the highway so I know all of the issues that come with it there's a tree I want to cut down they told me that's State Property so I gotta call the state had the state come out they said they're not cutting it down I gotta cut it down it's a mess but at the end of the day there is no safe roots for the children to get to school I was planning on picking up the mantle on this and trying to fight it myself when I retired and I had the bandwidth to be able to do it but now that the Boe has dropped it in my lap I promise you I'm not going away because I'm tired of all the infighting that I see in your right they could not pick a board president for the longest never seen that before in my life but they did it the issue needs to be fixed I told that person on social media and I'm the person that said it that if you're going to have a constructive did they even bother to reach out to anybody on Town Council and have a constructive conversation about the issue before throwing it back at them I don't and that is well but but I can tell tell you is that I have not received to my knowledge well I know to my knowledge email I see my own email I have not received a phone call to my knowledge if someone called my office Barbara in my office or Les is very good about emailing me and telling me that and I usually get back to people within 24 hours so I can make that statement I don't know I can tell you that when we discussed with Gail this was not in the offing she didn't even have an idea that this was going to happen and the hammer was going to be dropped and and I'm going to give you your thunder back I'm I'm retired police officer I knew they were County Roads so I didn't say anything about it so you got your thunder back but that but that's the thing yeah y didn't even know this was going to happen she was just concerned about the fact that the study was done and now she's bringing it to the board and apparently this was what they were planning on doing with you I think the question you have to ask the board is when you hire an expert why can't you trust the experts report I mean you pay for an expert we pay for experts all the time and trust their reports because we vetted them I'm sorry it doesn't mean it's not questioned profession to do the job that do the job you know they was they were did a traffic study and I don't know if anyone on the board is qualified to do that traffic study so if you hire someone to do a traffic study and they're qualified to do a traffic study I think you should listen when they say there's some hazardous roads and I probably shouldn't say anything because I work for the district so maybe I'll be fired to I don't know just to piggyback on your point about County Roes locally locally it took us a year to get a stop sign erected on Washington Avenue I mean it might have been more than year and this poor mom kept begging us and begging us had to go back engineering something pull it and this and that and have it a look at the co so it's not those things are not quick easy fixes they're not especially when it's you know not a local Road on top of it we have no control of that and let me just say this out loud the police department they are not Engineers they are not Traffic Engineers so the police department can't come in and make an assessment about the situation related to hazardous roads they can look at a roadway enforce the law they can look at a roadway and say there's a hazard hazardous element like you know whatever and we need to get it addressed by DPW or someone else um but they are not Traffic Engineers so I don't want people to think that either that they can just swoop in and you know do an assessment or a study no they can't I think the biggest issue was that they didn't trust the consulting company that they hired and all of us have paid for that consulting company out of our pockets it's you know they're acting like it's their money and it's not it's everybody's money collectively but at the end of the day how do we solve the problem the only thing that I would ask any of you to do if you could I would implore that some of you actually sit down and have a conversation with the board not just the four but with the board to see if it's if they can come up with a solution because what they did was you RI the rug out from underneath a lot of families and they left them in a pickle and I say that for words that I cannot see out can I can we do a straw vote if You' be willing to sit down with the board and have this meeting and talk with them can we raise our hand we'd have to be so a public you know open public meeting the two governing bodies together I don't even know how that's ever happened before I have no problem doing that I we want to do a strug I have no problem doing that bringing it out to the public if they want to talk we can talk when are they pulling the rug out you tomorrow uh well they told me I have to make a decision by May 17th if my son is going to keep his busing and then I'm expected to leave a deposit and this is right around the time that you start paying for summer camps when none of this was in my budget so pretty much they strong arming you into this the public the subscription bus absolutely because they paned you into a corner and now it's like well you can pay us or you can find your away I see that's yeah that's pretty rude I don't think anybody and that's and that's only I'm just say that's only from my personal experience and you know my son's taking a bus and I know you know I live on Hampton and I know he never walked to Hughes because there's no sidewalks anywhere so it was never a walking path it was just one of those things that just you know and he was too close to get a bus so he didn't get a bus till he was up at the high school and that's that's only because he's there but he wouldn't today he wouldn't today you would have got that email I had two other boys that went through GL they always had a bus because of where we live on Diamond Hill Road the bus has always stopped um in front of my driveway and now you're telling me I can't get as soon as they didn't passed the bill I said I'm not going to make it because the shortest distance is 2.4 and that's probably going to be the one that they use and then I get blooded on social media where people make comments and they say that kids can walk through Bell laps which is private property and I was like so now you want kids to get charged with trespassing because basically that's it's a chargeable event you can get charged with it not sure if anybody knows the law they need to read up on it but let us all start using some common sense before you have someone that gets hurt because at the end of the day this has been in place for 20 years and if anybody has worked with enough unions where you have to go through things you understand that there's something called past practice and when you start bringing that into play and people start talking about bringing attorneys in they will start talking about this has been past practice with the board to Pro provide this busing for almost 20 years so to rip it out from underneath families at the drop of a dime is not right there a drop your pay to drop for your dime because anybody that pays for the bo Ed pays the Consulting I'm sorry but when you said they took they took your dime and now they're making my dime they took my dime and now want me to pay more dimes I have an issue with it but if you would be so kind as to have a conversation I mean hey to Town Council but thank you for hearing me out we will I don't know you all can meet with the Board of Ed other you got to notice the meeting yeah so we will we will start with I will promise you that we will start with maybe a couple of their members John and me throw in our engineer in our Police Department just to make it clear that what we can and cannot do we can start there because there are open public meeting acts and whatever and I just think seven of us and how many of them are there eight eight eight I think you know 15 people eight with mountain side that's why there's always a t there's their administrator and I don't know who else would I don't even mean it from a like a capacity perspective I mean it from a productivity perspective you have have 15 people that are elected and everybody trying to talk it's so we will start at least with that I can promise you that you know John and I will make ourselves available we will reach out to at least two of theirs I'm always available they can they know where to find me yeah and at least try to see start the conversation that's all we can promise is that we'll start the conversation thank you sure yeah I appreciate it I'm sorry hi my name is Ramia Castor and I'm at 86 Crown mall court um I just want to say I appreciate all of your cander in discussing this topic I um there's been a lot of confusion and some of my questions have been answered but I thought that um apologies I'm an attorney so I just want to get a bit more granular on what falls with the township and what falls with the of Ed because I do think that there's some narrative out there that's conflating the two um and I'm just going to read the social media post it's very short just so that you all are aware of what's being said and then maybe that can help you craft your answer as to what's actually your responsibility and what's the board's responsibility um so it says there and this was posted by a Boe member it says there is clear New Jersey Department of Education guidance on Transportation does designating Township streets as hazardous based on clear criteria needs to be done by the governing body that's in charge of installing maintaining the 265 streets in Berkeley Heights and Berkeley Heights Police pedestrian safety and traffic management falls under Berkeley Heights Township Union County New Jersey where is the Township in taking responsibility and accountability for ensuring uniform sidewalks and crosswalks in town we hear about safe rots to school grants approvals for new developments in town but where is a short-term and long-term plan for basic needs of pedestrians in town while there is a flashy presentation on revamping removing parking spaces on Sherman ab and adding sidewalks the sentence doesn't end but there's the link where is the master plan component to add uniform sidewalks and crosswalks on Emerson Lane Mountain Avenue SNY Avenue Springfield Avenue planfield Avenue and some of the busier streets in town um so I guess my question is in terms of the responsibilities of the Town versus the Board of Ed who is responsible and accountable for determining safe or hazardous roads specifically as it pertains to students being able to walk to school or get transportation to school and um if not the Town Council just piggybacking on what aen mentioned what are you going to do for the students that live on what we all by Common Sense and living in this town know to be hazardous roads that had busing and no longer have busing so I don't know in terms of well let me let me just give you not my legal opinion I'm going to give you my just my first uh blush at this like I mentioned before that's not my I just want to be clear that's not my soci no I got that yeah because I I really don't listen to social media um so a hazardous Road as it relates to busing and school and kids uh walking to school or whatever the case may be that's the domain and Dan jump in here if I'm saying the wrong thing here that's the domain of the Board of Education when it comes to you know hazardous roads there like I said there's a pothole in the road or there's some sort of situation that we deem as hazardous we meaning Administration Police Department DPW potentially engineering actually typically is engineering then that's our domain but a hazardous Road May mean as I mentioned before that there's no right away and you can't install a sidewalk and so therefore that child who lives on X X Road whatever it is Emerson Lane really could never walk to school but that doesn't necessarily mean it's hazardous in the context of a traffic engineer are deeming it hazardous so I feel like we are in the middle of a conversation that is not our conversation to have you know of course we will do anything we are very dedicated to pedestrian safety we've worked really hard on the grants um I guess the person who wrote that didn't think that we are but I think we're doing a really good job p on the back um so we are trying to do our part we are sensitive that people want more of a pedestrian friendly town but there are just places that my unofficial you know traffic engineer hat that I don't wear will tell you it will it will just never happen there are places that you'll never be able to diverse you know one side of Mountain Avenue you know to GL it probably will never happen for all the reasons that we stated today again I'm going to say it again the we don't short of our Township engineer who still isn't a traffic engineer we don't necessarily have an expert on stack who can make those determinations you know our DPW director our Township engineer can certainly they get in the car of a year they do a windshield analysis of the streets helps us to determine which are are reconstruction of our roads and which which are just repaving if they identify an issue we try to address it but that's not making a determination whether or not a child can walk to school so I hope that answers your question that's how I feel actually I I want to jump in on it this based on the report that we haven't even seen saying the process we don't know the consultant that was hired I mean we have zero personal experience 28 years in the police department okay and dealing with roads I think three or four of the five or six you mentioned are County Roads so right away that takes up right out of the conversation because we as a Township cannot do anything on those roads as was mentioned we'd have to go through the county so sidewalks stop signs pothole repair I can tell you how many times I had s a pothole because had to get the county out to fix it on Mel Avenue or Mountain Avenue in Springfield it just there's there's certain limitations um and like the mayor was saying you know we don't they hired an engineer study to show roads that are hazardous and because they didn't want to give them their information of how they did it I guess so they could go out and figure it out on their own and be like Oh I'm just I'm I'm I'm going Bo that I'm going to go and uh I'm not trying to mock anybody I'm just I'm going to take this information and I'm going to go decide whether or not this road is hazardous in and of itself now me as a now a lay person I could take my police background and probably go and do that but I don't think anybody else here would want to go out and say oh I'm going to take this information from this engineering company and I'm going to go turn around and say whether not this R is hazards and then I'm going to go oh no it's not a hazardous let's he going walk here on Diamond Hill Road or sound it's a liability exactly so I don't think them by hiring the um and then you can correct me if I'm wrong but by them hiring this company they pretty much sealed themselves or put themselves in the corner of either we do this or we don't do this and it's on them to decide whether or not they're going to take that study and use those streets as and whatever information they have as hazardous or not hazardous and and do their busing from there so I think they've opened the can of worms that then they're going to have to try and put them all back in the can which is what they're trying to do I think yeah okay that's I appreciate and I think answer I just want to be crystal clear that this whole issue of hazardous roads and determining busing and kids getting to school safely this is all a bard of that issue and really has nothing to do with the township I just want to be Crystal if I can say one more thing to that point um I probably wrote If I wrote one I probably wrote 10,000 acent reports on Route 22 now if you know Springfield Route 22 we have about a mile and a half in the highway okay I could tell you from writing those accident reports whether or not the highway might have been dangerous on a certain day weather snow rain uh traffic or what have you am I an expert at that because I wrote 10,000 accident reports not really because people had an accident okay and it doesn't mean that they they were out there driving reckless SE or anything El they just had an accident so it's a Stay High High I'm not going to tell the state oh this section of Highway 1.5 miles is hazardous you better do something about that no the state has to commit make a determination Based on data that they have from us and from Union and from Mountainside Scotch Plains for you know 300 miles of rout 22 or 78 so they're not going to listen to us because this isn't the Count's not going to say oh okay we understand that we're going to you know we're going to let you guys take over on that and like I said I think they're just trying to put everything back in the can that they let out but I'm just wondering if two leaders or four leaders can sit together and say look we figured out how to work it out on on Town Council we get things done because we're getting along maybe that's the conversation maybe it's not about busting yet it's about learning how to be good leaders in a community that work together to get things done I that um okay well thanks for the response I appreciate it it as it may be yeah and um one of the things that you can discuss with whatever members you meet um on this issue is to really be clear about the roles because when you put stuff out there in the public that isn't true then you get people showing up to the meeting and asking you guys to do stuff that really isn't within your purview so just a suggestion and whatever you can do my my children are not affected either way they don't get busing now they will get busing to GL but a lot of my middle school and Elementary School um kids friends are affected they live on Emerson they live on Diamond Hill and it's just not safe so whatever you can do to um convince the four board members who didn't want to rely on the experts and are now trying to put the worms back in the can is greatly appreciated thanks you good uh Debbie Terrero and I'm at 170 L pain I'm sorry I'm bringing up the same conversation again um I'm looking at it from a little bit of a different perspective here and my concern is that I'm hearing from a lot of families how unhappy they are and I don't know um Mayor de if you got my voicemail yet um I called you this morning I know you have a busy life outside of this um but again so you know the board has made the board of education has made this decision and everybody's in a pickle and so I'm kind of taking it from a different angle of how can we as a community work together and maybe I can work with you to come up with Solutions of of children that have kind of Fallen victim to this whether it be paining a crosswalk maybe assigning um a cross crossing guard somewhere to alleviate some of the anxieties because not every family is going to be able to afford this busing situation and you know they're going to have to opt to having their children walked and to be honest with you I don't think this is an issue so much of getting their kids to school I think the bigger issue is getting them home um I also want to actually take a step back and I meant to make this comment it's actually very refreshing to see the Town Council getting along like PO said because it has been a nightmare and it's refreshing to watch you all work together so thank you for actually representing yourself this way hopefully our Board of Education can actually use you guys an ex as an example so thank you um but getting back to what I was talking with you about um you know everybody's upset and I'm trying to figure out what we can do moving forward if this can't be rectified in time for the school year and I don't know what feedback you might have or again if we can kind of work together I know the safe roots to school was a grant I don't know how those funds are specifically allocated um I understand some of the roads are County Roads that you can't use those funds for I also know the Nokia property is up for sale um would there be a circumstance where an easen or something could be put in place for passage for these kids walking maybe through McMain to cut through the property I know that's kind of dicey but you know I'm kind of trying to think a little bit out of the box to come up with Solutions right now because we're at where we're at and we have to kind of come up with what we're going to do because I don't think this board is going to change their minds that's just my personal opinion I'm happy to try to work with you and do what we can but it's kind of like what I explained before no Kia for example they're leaving in four and a half years right so so they're doing a leaseback situation so we would have to wait and I do think and we have talked about is part of whatever Redevelopment that happens there installing sidewalks all around the property so that's at least something for the community that but that may take you know five years until the new developers in to construct what they're going to construct likewise Believe It or Not piano striping which is the legal type of painting that you have to use for a crosswalk is extraordinarily expensive we looked into it because we wanted to try to do something on Snider where all the middle school kids go from it's like right of passage from the Stop and Shop cross Snider down so some of these things are long unfortunately they're long-term solutions to a problem that you all have right now you know mine's 15 she's driving it another year and a half you know but I feel my heart goes out to to the families that just all of a sudden you know this is this doesn't personally affect me it's I don't have a bus issue to ja I live on the other side of town but I'm hearing from a lot of families that are affected and aren't angry yeah and you know the only thing I can tell them is you know you have to reach out to your Acting Superintendent you have to reach out to your board of education those are the people that have made this decision and and it's my understanding was that it wasn't the Town Council that you guys really had nothing to do with it but you know I'm trying to think how outside the box from a you know I talked to the you know the police earlier today and and they you know told me this is not you know your issue and it's not their issue this is the pickle that the board of education has put them in themselves in and so like I said I was just trying to come up with a a solution because we can all sit here and complain but at the end of the day we have to kind of try to move forward and try to come up with a solution for those people who just can't afford subscription buing or whatever the case like I said I'm happy to meet but I'm just I'm also being like abundantly is probably why the busing happened to to begin with right it's it's a it's a tough town in certain areas to get kids from one point A to point B so if you let me a voicemail I'll reach out to you tomorrow today was he oh that's probably why she usually emails me she'll she'll she'll it's probably I was I was in root so I picked up the phone that's fine she she's on top of it I'm sure so I look forward to talking to if we with I'll you call Tom all right thank you deie I I trying to avoid coming up again I forgot real forgot to mention something Germaine when when I was talking on a almost similar topic last time speaking of Grants and speaking of St brouts to trans it and all that kind of stuff just so the grants committee knows the do announced starting yesterday is the probably got the letter yeah that the between now and July 1st we're applying for their this year 150 million dollars worth of grants for municipal aids for you know for DT kind of things that includes the sort of specialty things like safe road Transit which is part and then the um those tend to be our reconstruction projects have to reconstruct the whole Road and activ engine cing and all that so we usually you know go with that yeah this is very cyclical yes thank goodness appar they like us because we get at least a couple every year I I Bugg them when I talk we appreciate that and you know and I was goingon to say in listening to this issue I was some accurate you know things and clarifying but the ultimate thing is what was said at the end it's like it really had this issue and a decision a opposed final decision had to be made for the blowback to start and it could be more effective than anything you could possibly do talking to the board they have enough um parents who are in the situation as well as others like the ones who are here who don't have them but are willing to speak up um if this becomes the biggest issue that the board has faced from the public it's going to change what I have I have a quick question not of you Steve I have a quick question of the of the people that came up um and two things one when's the next board meeting 7th of May that's our meeting great um and do we have an idea of how many kids this affects from my understanding it's a 122 at the high school and the actual the two schools that affects the most I think is CMS and the high school makes sense I think the PD had some numbers on Mary K because just because of the the flow issue at Mary the flow issue at Mary Kay and the flow issue at GL so I think they had well over a 100 additional cars to those two schools as a result of busing I don't know about CMS didn't thank you so just to also give you some information additional information um to my understanding the data issue yes it's proprietary but I think the concern of sharing that data is that there's a sliding scale of how they come up with the numbers so if it's let's say if you are over a hundred and there's classifications like cross block and the curves on the street and everything else there's a there's a sliding scale if you show that data to people what will happen is people that fall within a category of hazardous roads say it's over a 100 you know fine what happens to the people who are 95 and and so you're opening a can of worms with sharing that data also and I think that's a little bit of the concern that went on as well that's my understanding it makes sense that makes sense okay thank you I encourage you to go to the board of B meeting and tell them ex same thing you told us sure they will mayor by May mayor so I've been quiet listening to all the comments so I've just been doing a little research I don't do any border work so I don't profess to to to know that area of law but I did come across statute 188 col 39- 1.5 which places the responsibility on the board of education so I don't know where this confusion you send us that stat the rest of us I would love to have that njsa 188 39- 1.5 um whenever a District Board of Education agrees to provide non-mandated transportation to and from school for reasons of Hazard The District Board of Education shall adopt a hazardous busing policy in accordance with that statute so U I don't know where the confusion or the misdirection really which is what it is is coming from but the mayor and Council and the township are not responsible for adopting that policy and and that's what it is this is this is for Courtesy busing that falls within less than the the radius uh the miles that's required so um this is squarely On the Border bed this report you had referenced uh I don't understand that it's proprietary it's it's public money that was used to provide a report it's no different than if we hire a consultant to U render report on our uh uh our our water treatment plant uh most of that's available to the public and there's nothing proprietary in there when we talk about proprietary we talk about computer software you hire a vendor so yes if you perhaps ask for you know some programming information that Police Department uses for 911 calls or something along those signs yeah we may not produce it because it's proprietary but hiring a consultant determine Danger ous roads uh you know in my opinion would not would not certainly be proprietary that's for sure thank you great information want to come to the read next we are you gonna pay him all right anybody else I guess we could close it up Paul move close the citizens I'll second that roll call Mr Kudo yes Mr M Mr Foster yes Mr zillis yes yes this yes motion to adjourn have EX