##VIDEO ID:kG-HhF_bluk## roll welcome to the Blairstown Township committee meeting for July 24th 2024 and we have an opening roll call please Kristen Mrs Lance here Mr Lan here Mr Mur here Deputy Mayor orot mayor Morhead here we all please rise for the salute to the flag pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all adequate notice of this meeting has been provided in accordance with the open public meeting act PL 1975 chapter 231 setting forth the time date place and purpose of this public meeting through a legal notice published in the New Jersey Herald Andor The Express Times following the Township's annual reorganization meeting at which the 2024 meeting schedule was adopted good evening everyone and uh we start off our sort of a a light agenda tonight but I I do think we will fill it in with a few larger items we're going to start off with our first presentation of the evening our 2023 audit John Mooney our auditor good evening sir good evening good evening everyone thank you for having me tonight uh I think it's important to go over the audit with you and the results of our audit this year um been doing this more and more lately you don't usually do them with municipalities but uh this year I've done quite a few actually so happy that uh we're here and we're able to communicate what our findings are and what we saw when we came out to do your audit this year your audit was dated prior to June 30th you are on time uh the deadline is June 30th you are at June 18th audit date so we are good everything that we could file up on the fast system has been put up there with the exception of documents that'll come from tonight's meeting when you accept this and I think it's important before we even get into the audit uh to just tell you and give you a little information of what an audit is I know you have a light schedule so I will take care of filling that for you and rounding this out um whenever I give a presentation to either a Statewide organization or down at the league of municipalities or even to the local tax collectors treasurers organizations one of the first things I do is ask the crowd what an audit does and what an auditor does and what an audit is and there are so many misconceptions of what an audit actually is out there uh and what my responsibilities as your auditor are so before we get into that I'll just give you a little a little bit of background with that the job of an auditor is to provide you with an opinion on your financial statements that's it you know give the reader in the first letter of the book which is like three pages into the document the condition of you know the financial statements that they're going to read as they move throughout the book that's it that's my opinion you know what qualifies me though to give that opinion that's the tricky part right that's a good question I've got 27 years with Nissa done nothing in my career other than what I do here you know Municipal audit School District audit so that doesn't necessarily mean that I can give an opinion I also have my CPA license right got that back in 2011 but that doesn't give me the ability to give you an opinion on this either there's another license that's out there called the RMA license they give these out at the state of New Jersey one to two per year there's a test in December and you either pass pass it or you have to wait till next December in order to take it again fortunately when I took that one I passed that on the first shot doesn't happen all that often I've got Partners who have taken it five times and it's taken them that long before they were able to pass it uh I can say tonight that I have with me in the crowd is Brian Gibbons Brian Gibbons is my right-hand man here on the Blairstown account Brian will be a partner with n aachi within a few years he's up and coming he's got his license as well he also passed it on his first time so you got two rmas in the room that are capable of opining on the work so in order to get your RMA you need your CPA in order to get your CPA you have to pass that test plus you have to have the experience so experience and licenses or would give me the ability to Aline on your financial statements what you have tonight is a an audit in front of you and this audit states that you have an unmodified opinion that's the best opinion that you can get got you know as a firm we audit roughly 88 municipalities we also audit Three Counties and a bunch of smaller districts fire districts things like that um there was only three last year this year is still not over yet but there were only three last year that we gave anything other than an unmodified opinion for so you are in the majority you do get an unmodified opinion it is the best opinion and what that means to you is that what you're looking at here you know we can give you reasonable Assurance not 100% guaranteed insurance that there's nothing wrong here it's reasonable assurance that there are no materially misstated items in here materiality is different from one municipality to the next so what's what's material in your town is a different number than what's material in Milton it's based upon your expenditures from the prior year your revenue from the prior year and fund balance from the prior year here your materiality is roughly about $50,000 so it's safe to say that there's 50,000 everything in here is pretty accurate within $50,000 but we think it's a lot closer than that we think it's spot on okay what we do when we come in to do the audit is we take a look at your financial statements your CFO provides us the year-end documents and she shows us the records that she has tax collector opens up their records as well and so does every Department that we ask for information from we've gotten everything that we've asked for and we are satisfied with all of the information that we've received now you do have some recommendations that we'll go over a little bit later on but just because you have some recommendations doesn't mean you get a bad overall rate I've had towns with 15 recommendations and still have an unmodified opinion because we're we can rely upon the information that's within the book you know we'll come out and we'll start taking uh we take a couple of days around annual financial statement time that needs to be done prior to your budget so that gets taken care of first your CFO writes the annual financial statement I point that out because I only have a handful again we have 88 municipalities I'd say about 70 of them we have to write that annual a financial statement that's the responsibility of the CFO and your CFO here does that so very happy that we don't have to come out and spend another week just writing that document we're given that document we review view it for her make sure that everything looks good looks right before we come out and do the audit then we take that un audited document and we use that as the basis of the testing for the audit so there's a process that goes on here you know it's not just something that has to be done it is statutorily required every municipality in united in New Jersey I believe in the United States must be audited I just care about New Jersey because that's where I work but you have to have one bu so it was a little bit about oursel a little bit about the opinion and now we'll get a little bit into the numbers of uh where where you ended your year and how you ended it at this point excuse me it has gotten to this point so just an idea of where you stand this year comparatively to last year your cash position remains strong all right last year you were at $6.8 million in cash in the current fund the current fund is what drives the municipality this is where your main budget is this is where things take place transactions take place you pay your taxes it goes into the current fund everything runs through here your cash in 2022 was $6.8 Million your cash in 2023 is $3.8 million now I'm still saying you're in a relatively strong position because $3.8 million in a municipality your size is relatively strong it did go down about3 million because you returned money to other funds so you put the money in the right places so you've made all the other funds whole which was a recommendation we had in the prior year that was corrected during 2023 your delinquent taxes increased or actually decreased very slightly I mean you are consistently coming in with the same delinquent tax percentage year-over-year in 2021 you had a delinquent a tax collection percentage 20 98.26 in 2022 it was 9849 and in 2023 you saw the highest in a three-year period it was at 98.59% your delinquent taxes went from $269,000 down to $261,000 your taxpayers are paying their taxes which is a great thing we want the money in the building in the year that it's du we don't want to wait we even if it generates interest and you know you can get a few bucks after the end of the year this is important for your budgeting process tax collector is doing an excellent job and if we keep this up we can anticipate having another good year next year you do have an emergency on the books and I'm just going through the the financials as we as they are presented there's an emergency on the books and um it's roughly $111,000 it changed slightly you did have it on in 2022 as well this Emer is because you have budgetary constraints when it comes to the appropriation cap on an annual basis you are right up against that cap and you cannot put any other money into the budget because you're at as high as you can go because of this your year plays out we see where the overtime comes in for DPW we see where overtime comes in for police and at the end of the year rather than overex expending your budget your CFO has to put together an emergency resolution she does this and for 2 years years in a row it's consistently been $101,000 this is not going to change until you're able to move that cap up and really we thought the only way of doing that was going out for a referendum um and it didn't mean you had to raise more tax dollars you could get tax dollars elsewhere but this was we were talking about this past couple of years and we haven't gone out and done that but the way they're calculating the new cap laws there may be some relief in sight and we may see this in like a 3-year period go away I just need to see how 202's budget plays out before we canine on that one you do have a revenue on or a reserve on your balance sheet called the reserve for municipal Relief Fund this is state aid that doubled last year they gave you about 150,000 the year before this year you had 305,000 that you put into the budget next year they're not giving it to you so next year we're going into the budget season with a $35,000 hold but we'll see where Revenue comes in we'll see what we can do uh in order to to keep your your tax position flat or maybe increasing it slightly who knows it could be a bunch of things that take place prior to the end of the year that help you out with this but I thought it was important to recognize it because that's going to come away next year and then you get down to your fund balance of your municipality in your current fund you are currently at a little over a million million dollars a million $7,000 last year that number was $717,000 so you're up approximately $300,000 year-over-year in your fund balance and this was one of the things that you had intended to take place because you increased the tax rate years ago to begin restoring this to put money into Capital to buy items without having to bond for them and also to start paying for that bond that you took out a few years back so everything that you intended that tax increase to do it has and it gives you a flexibility at budget time so by going up $300,000 this year if we see that again next year and we have a $300,000 hole maybe you use 300,000 of your own money to fill that hole rather than go out and and raise taxes on it you know so there are going to be options that you're going to have in play there are some reserves that uh we would like to see uh either established or get bigger uh now that you have a situation where you are seeing the fund balance going up uh there are three reserves that I like to look at and say maybe you should be funding these reserves one of them is a reserve for tax appeals which you currently do not have all right so before the end of the year maybe I talk to your CFO we put a resolution together and if there's additional funding that's going into fund balance at the end of the year rather than it going there maybe we establish a reserve for pending tax Appeals all right then there's a storm recovery Reserve storm recovery trust Reserve that's got about $50,000 in there 50 sorry 50 yeah 50 I'm not using my glasses so $50,000 in there last year you had $800,000 in there so we did increase it by 50 but you can have that up to three times what it costs in your budget for snow removal in any given year what your budget so that number could come up and there's also an accumulated absence trust Reserve that can be created which you currently do not have and that you put money aside for on an annual basis so that when you have retirements they don't hit your budget they can hit the trust fund so you've done your due diligence and you put money aside for that rainy day now you owe the money and rather rather than straining your budget and potentially having another emergency you'll be able to fund that out of the trust fund so there's things I'd like you to think about as we go through the year and we see how we end of the year and we can do this in the beginning of next year as well when we're putting the annual Financial stat steam's putting the annual financial statement together I spoke a little bit about debt uh you have two bonds out there one's a refunding bond one is a Serial Bond of 2022 uh that Bond will be paid off in 2032 so you have a few years left on that one um right now the balance on that is down to $4.2 million and it's down about it's down 400,000 exactly from the prior year what you also did back in 22 was refund the existing bond that you had on the books and you did that prior to interest rates going absolutely crazy so you got in at the right time you did your did the right thing and we're still paying that one off that gets paid off in 2028 so 2028 you'll see money fall off of the budget to fund that on or 2029 you'll see that that you pay down at about $170,000 a year so overall your debt went down $570,000 in the current year you have two funding sources of ordinances one is your Capital Improvement fund which you've put been putting money aside into through the budget on an annual basis this is a funding source for ordinances if you went out and borrowed and and had debt issuance then this is where the money would have to come from it went from 271,000 this year it's 348,000 so you're moving that number up and there's more money that went into that in the 2024 budget as well so I'm just giving you as of the end of 23 you also have fund balance in your G in general Capital fund and that went down because you used some of it to fund an ordinance you're using your own money to purchase items for the municipality all right that went from 169 down to 108 in the last year in the trust fund I spoke to you about the storm recovery trust again you're at $50,000 there we would like to see that a little bit higher if a storm comes through it doesn't have to be a specific snowstorm or it could be any storm where there's damage that you haven't anticipated you can charge any expenses from that storm to that trust fund that's what a trust fund is for the other item I wanted to talk to you tonight about is the municipal open space trust fund because this could come up uh I'm not a social media guy but I was alerted that there were some things being said on social media that there Mis appropriation in the open space trust fund as we do our audit we sample everything we do not test 100% of everything but I did go back at prior years to look at what we tested for open space and we did our due diligence with testing open space we've done our job and we found no instances of misappropriations in Prior years but because we heard Rumblings we did our due diligence this year and we over tested open space trust fund just to see what we would find normally we pick a handful of items because again it's a random sample and that random generator tells us what we have to pick this year we tested 75% of expenditures I told Brian I pulled him aside he said we have to do this it's important um it hasn't been brought To Us by anybody on the committee we send out fraud questionnaires one of you got a fraud questionnaire and filled it out and we also give them to your employees as well a handful of employees get fraud questionnaires none of those fraud questionnaires came back with any instance of problems but we heard that there was an issue in open space so we looked at it and what did we find we found that the open space dollars that were spent this year were spent in accordance with your open space ordinance of the 75% we tested now the 25% that we didn't test I don't know we don't test 100% of anything so of what we tested we looked at prior years just to see with an analytical review procedure that we do what was expended this year versus last year this year we spent $229,000 of open space trust fund money this this year being 2023 2022 there was $361,000 spent so there was a difference of approximately $137,000 and that exact amount is what was paid for that Bard ofed piece of property that was purchased in 2022 so the so you had the same amount same exact amount of expenditures being charged to open space year-over-year so we go back a year after that 247,000 it was more charged to open space in 2021 than there was in 2023 2020 there was 261,000 2019 there was 251,000 all these years you had higher expenses going out of open space than you did in 2023 your open space trust fund was not overexpanded the open space trust fund is not subject to the same budget laws as your current fund budget your budget is your budget and that's what you vote upon there is a page in the back of the budget that goes into open space it's really an informational page anyway State never sees any problems with that and never investigates it when you look at a trust fund if it's over spended then you're in violation you still had some money left in open space you had $1,800 left in open space at the end of the year prior year you had $57,000 in open space trust fund you did not overexp we did not see anything charged to open space that did not belong in charged to open space there were salaries charged there Lawn Doctor was charged there wio which does infield Fields was charged there us Services which are porta potties us yeah us Services all these items are being charged to open space Recreation expenses building and ground expenses uh or salaries I should say so we looked we did a deep dive this year because we heard what we heard and we found nothing irregular being charged for open space now could someone say you're charging too much of course but that's what the trust one is there for you raise the tax so that you can spend it on Open Space type expenditures with that said the final piece of the audit is your recommendations or are your recommendations you have a carryover recommendation which we think you will see uh for a very long time there is a segregation of Duties issue that we point out you know in the majority of our towns because you don't have enough people to divvy up every task to make your municipality fraud prooof so to speak to to handle all of those internal controls you don't have enough bodies and it's not cost effective for you to hire people just to eliminate this recommendation there were some overe expenditures in the animal control trust fund and when we have overe expenditures in a fund we noted in the audit also in the reserve for special fire insurance program all right so when you have overe expenditures we put it in the book that we feel as though is going to be corrected this year and going forward I do not anticipate that being a repeat recommendation the third recommendation is for fixed asset inventory we did not see every item tagged the way it's supposed to be tagged because we keep track of those uh you keep track of those and we make sure that you're keeping track of those I had a fire in a building one year and they had no fixed assets so how does the insurance company know what they have to Ure so this is very important even though it sounds pretty trivial there were wire transfers outstanding at the end of the year that we anticipate when we uh transfer in a timely manner going forward so that's going to be done similar to the in fund recommendation from the prior year and finally there were purchase orders that are prepared and approved prior to the purchase purchase orders need to be prepared and approved PRI prior to purchasing the goods that's one thing that came up in our open space testing as well as the current fund testing and you know all your other funds uh sometimes purchase orders are done after the invoices are received and that's really a no no you know for purposes of time constraint sometimes it's done that way it shouldn't be done that way the state has been looking for that for the past several years and they tell us when we find it we have to put this in the audit so it's in the audit you have housekeeping type recommendations here uh I will commend Christine and her staff all day long because they do an excellent job your tax office does an excellent job the information that you get at the end of the year can be relied upon and one of the ways I know this is that we give journal entries to make what we have in the final copy of the audit agree to the records of the township and when we give you those entries they're minimal in nature and when you have minimal in nature uh Journal countries that your CFO is getting that means the information that you're getting can be relied upon so I applaud Christine for her efforts I think she does an excellent job here and I hope she continues to do it for a very long time with that if you have any questions of Me John once again you never cease to amaze with your professionalism and your expertise uh on the subjects you make us feel really good about uh about the folks that that we have here in the building I mean long H are the days where you walk into a municipal building and it's just you know thriving with life and and bustling with pay-per-view it's just a very few people that make this town what it is keep it that way and uh between you and Christine we we feel very confident that uh we're doing the right thing up here so thank you thank you thank you all right have a good night everybody sorry I took my jacket off but it was a little too hot when we started so cool cool it off now yes it is I didn't come in with one so you're all be is that the S ready sorry about the uh near vision loss too can't fight father the time happens to the best in this moving on to our next presentation of the evening something near and dear to my heart cuz the dam used to ex this right at the end of my street and um was down there today with Beth Beth Styler Barry major Conservancy looking at the progress and there has been considerable progress in the just the past couple of weeks let see thankfully we've had a pretty light rainfall uh season and the folks have been very active in in removing that Dam yeah only one day lost so far from extra clo can everybody hear me or do I need the mic okay we got we got a from Hank that we got fixing you Hank how's that thank you I have old ears no no worries at all no problem at all um okay so very briefly and what I did was to kind of compile answers to questions that I've heard as I've been talking to people either by door knocking I've been to every house on East Chrisman and also on Ward Road which is actually in Hardwick but um um so I put together answers there's not don't worry there's not a lot um just so that you would all know them in case you're hearing these these questions as well so one thing that people ask is whether or not the dam removal will increase flooding Downstream so we cannot increase flooding Downstream or Upstream in any of these storms or we cannot remove a dam and there I can tell you is a private property owner um very near to this building who would love to have their Dam out and we cannot take it out because it will make a tiny increase in Downstream flooding so this Dam does not control flooding it's a red of river dam meaning that all of the water that comes to the dam goes over the dam because the impounded area is filled with sediment and water can't hold any more water um another kind of clue for folks is if you can walk across the top of the dam and your feet stay dry that is controlling flood water that means there's still room in that Reservoir to collect rain water but on the Palina Dam if you walked across it you would get wet because water is constantly flowing over there so just kind of a little rule of some um so funding sources in short um the vast vast majority of the funding that we're using is from the NJ D's office of natural resource restoration and that funding comes from penalty money from polluters so it is not taxpayer money which I did you know have to answer several times like what's the justification for using you know $5 million of taxpayer money it is not taxpayer money it is money from penalties for environmental harm done throughout the state of New Jersey and it has to be used for restoration right it has to be used to make the environment better because of the penalty and you know the uh injury that was incurred so this is just the um the website where you can check on you know the variety of projects throughout the state they're all restoration projects but this is by far not the only project using that funding um the trail head we're about to have at least a partial closure of the trail from the bridge and up to the red rail Bridge there's not really any safe way to keep that open during work hours when people are loading sediment on and delivering Rock So typically the DP makes you close it period full stop from the beginning of the project until the end we are to the 99% of getting through all of the um levels of decision makers at D to be allowed to close it Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 5 which is the work hours of construction and to actually leave it open Friday Saturday Sunday and evenings that is a gigantic um they are really giving a lot of leeway there which they never give so we're grateful for that and what the guys will do is before they go home at night and for the weekend they will make sure that you know everything is safely put away so people will be able to pass through there as soon as we have the definite answer from them we will get signs and we'll post signs so people coming Downstream from um uh still um Spring Valley Road they can come as far as that red rail bridge but they'll have to double back and people you know who would be entering by the bridge over the river be able to use the downstream Trail you know toward Qui Bridge Park but not be able to go Upstream during those hours um so phase two which is what we're in now phase one was the notching phase two will continue July to the end of October weather you know if it cooperates will be out of there by the end of October and the dam will be gone um and the sediment that needs to go off site which is a you know a lot of what you're seeing when you look out there is going to actually leave the site that'll be done and the the river will be and the river bed will kind of be left in in a way that you know it will um stay stable over the winter just like the n was prepared to stay stable over the last winter um phase three is next year's work that'll be on an as needed basis so we will come back and we'll see do the stream Banks look you know good or are they too steep or you know do we have places where they're not reinforced enough so next year is reserved for all of that work to make sure that we you know the final product is what we're looking for and then um this shows you those triangles shows you the average of 101 years of data um so that is showing you what the average flow would typically have been for the last 90 days and you can see that the actual flow is in blue and you can see how much time we are spending well under the average flows right you see a pop up for a day or maybe two from big storms that last 1 in rain that we got I think Friday into Saturday you can't even really see it on here because the river is so low like you know we are just barely getting um up and back down I have this up because there are people who think that there's um less water in the river this year because of the dam removal that is not the case the pquest is low the mus Kong is low the poing skill is low it's just lack of rain so you know if you have people who think we somehow took the water away we did not um we don't have the power to do that the water comes from upstream and we're not doing anything Upstream it's just low water and you know obviously it's good for construction but you know it I canot make the argument to anyone that this is going to be an attractive process this year it's just not going to be but you know the guys are doing the best they are the absolute best of the best this is their 84th dam removal I think so um you know they're they're definit getting the job done and getting it done well so does anyone have any questions for me Beth just talk a little bit about the group that was there today okay so um you know just to give an idea of the profile of this project um the mid East The Mid Atlantic states uh habitat and ecosystem Services Group from Noah was there today so we had 19 visitors from Noah um you know that work from all the way down in Virginia and all the way up to Maine they have a two day meeting in Princeton New Jersey and they were looking for a uh field trip so we B them in the mayor and Deputy Mayor came out to meet them and our you know the foreman from the site spent a bunch of time with them but you know these are folks who are you know very much embedded in all of the restoration work that Noah does I mean we all know them for predicting our weather but they do a lot of restoration work as well so they were interested in seeing how the project is going and they had a lot of questions and they went away pretty impressed with the project so I'm pretty impressed with and if people want to visit the site and and when they're looking at where that original Notch was um your your Foreman said they've hit bedrock and cleaned it right down to theed Rock so you're seeing the really the natural the natural formation that's what that's what we were originally running over and it's it's come all the way back down there I can't believe the amount of silt that built up over the last hundred and something years been 30 years amazing amount of Sil it is you know people I you know in the process of door knocking you know I had people telling me how you know you could swim back there and I said not in the last 40 years because you would have been up to your neck in sediment and you know so people have sometimes perception of you know what they experienced 50 or 60 years ago but and that doesn't get any better over time right I mean sediment is going it just continued to collect so um yeah that is absolutely the most expensive part of the project is getting that s off site so I'm curious be um they must be sending portion of that s testing or anything that may have come down river that we're grateful to Pi yeah so before we do any dam removal project one of the first things that we do is to take a whole bunch of sediment samples you know and not just from behind the dam but there there'll be a grid and be taken from different depths locations and to be honest if you had a problem with sediment you probably would not even do the dam removal because um get getting rid of contaminated sediment would be just just incredible I mean as I said getting rid of clean sediment is incredibly expensive so um it does also get tested by the receiving facility and they have done testing before they agreed to be the facility and it will um sample truckloads will get tested again as they arrive on the M site so can we plan at some point in the process later on uh we'll get some of the set some of the silk on our property too so that we can use it for future use for wall fields or whatever so that was another question that I got you know um a homeowner said like why can't you just pile it up and let homeowners take it because it would be fabulous for your garden or your lawn but I explained that it is heavily regulated I mean every single handful of that sediment has to be accounted for by weight you know it's its origin its destination so you know even for the township to take it which essentially you kind of own it already right but just for us to move the amount that you guys are going to take you know at the gpw um you guys will have to get the perit deal with the soo conservation and and all of that like nothing can be moved without you know going through this rigorous process so um I think we heard today that they should be finishing up late in the fall like you said earlier too October you may call it an ugly process but it's it's really nice to need to watch it it's I've never seen anything like it I um when you're when you're watching something that's been there for that long u be taken out you see how well that dam was built yeah you know all all the people thinking that a storm would take it out I don't think any storm would have taken that day so in a case like that the river would go around that I think it and that actually at the mouth of the river right we took out the Columbia which people are familiar with but there was also another Dam there that was you know very substantial in both size and height and that was built in uh 1901 and we took that Dam out as well but when that was built it wasn't tied into the bank really at all and in a in within a year the river just went around the the the dam I me the dam was sitting here and the river was sitting here so that's you know that is what you would have to continue to fight for the next 100 years and you know the river eventually would win because you know water is incredibly powerful so it usually seeks its uh its course probably all that sent acting as a ramp to go up and over it was pretty good too the tremendous I just it's if anyone hasn't been down to East Chrisman road yet take a look at what's going on it's just it's it's amazing how much needs to be taken out of there that's backed up over the years yep it is pretty amazing Bob what do you got for us I have a question may have answer R uh where does the siment go and what is it used for so I don't know the name of the place that's going off the top of my head but it is a place that um sends out top soil right so if somebody's making development in needs top soil and this is will be used as a soil amendment right so if they need to get X percentage of organic matter this can be added into their products to you know they fine to their product is this sold to those people unfortunately it is not sold to those people so it's just Cost getting off S and the trucking again it's another cost yes how many degrees will that drop the temperature of the river the dam so it will definitely drop temperature and increase disolved oxygen which is great for all of the Native fish and creatures it depends but we do have temperature sensors that have been in this the stream for years already and they will stay in for a couple more years so we'll have like a definite answer for that but even like even a half a degree because the amount of oxygen can be dissolved in the water is completely dependent upon temperature and it's like a a fixed relationship so the the lower the temperature and it's a like a logarithmic thing it's not a a linear so a little bit of temperature decrease means a lot more um oxygen can can be in the water but we know that there is at least a half a degree drop at Columbia already and I don't know what this last year has shown but probably equally as important as it stops some of those fluctuations where in the summer at Columbia we used to have temperatures just that were unlivable for for fish you know people were predicting we were going to find so many carp in there it was going to be like incredible but nothing could you know even catfish could not you know live there I'm sure there's a handful of them in there but nothing was thriving in that environment and the the temperatures would swing pretty you know pretty violently from the middle of June until about the middle of September so what'll happen now is we'll get an even and natural temperature regime that you know the the native animals can can be um comfortable in I don't mean like they feel comfortable I mean they're biologically comfortable in the Stream year round so is that a need trout stream is this support trout so we don't have we have not yet seen work trout in the main stem of the P skill but there is a chance that now that more River and tributaries are connected we might be able to see that at some point in the future because we do have them in the tributaries which are colder and cleaner right so now we'll have about 20 mil of main stem opened prior to the four Dam rles that nature conservancy is doing so 20 mi of main stem and another 25 miles of tributaries so we've reconnected 45 miles of habitat so you know if we get lucky we will begin to see that I think everyone knows we're already seeing Shad at the foot of that Dam documented Shad right at the foot of that Dam and if you went down there this year it was very easy to see a a species called gizzard Shad not American Shad but you could stand at that Notch and and you could watch gizard Chad just trying to get up through the notch so next year I'm sure that we'll have uh a Shad migration actually through and up past the former location of the very cool yeah it is very thank you be thank you guys thanks sorry thank you we'll see you Dan you will all right on to our public comment portion of the meeting tonight do we have any members of the public wanted to make a public comment come up Hank do you have a preference where we go you can go right in the center if you like I think that microphone works if not I will move it no good I'm moving don't see us thank you you're welcome for those who may not know me I'm Hank hius I live at 21 Walnut Valley Road down 94 um my my colleague is Chuck Walsh who comes from nolon Township and he will have some comments shortly it occurred to me that I did not I cannot remember uh advising this body that I have been for a couple of years now a member of the Lauren County transportation advisory council at the July meeting of the council I picked up one of these guides to transportation services is in Warren County this one is revised April of 2024 and I came by a couple of weeks ago and I could not find any of these out in the lobby so it occurred to me that I needed to ask whether you had a secret stash someplace or whether I need to go to beler and and bring some back so your comment is you need to go yeah we've never seen them so okay fine this is this is important to me for a number of reasons as you're aware this this end of Warren County is a public transportation desert this particular publication talks about what's available between Philipsburg and Washington and Washington and hackin toown and that g h this has not necessarily been a problem up to now because pretty much everybody is used to driving cars but Chuck will be talking about some developments some of which you already have heard about and it would just bring you some recent information update um about a week ago I was over at the fing heis in uh Town Hall talking with Sue Matos and I asked her just out of curiosity if she had any feel for how many people in fing heisen Township commuted into new New York City and in that direction for work and she allowed as how there was really quite a large number of people who commuted who would probably be extremely interested in using the service that NJ Transit eventually will be providing to Handover it occurred to me that and I don't I don't know the specific number of available parking spaces in Handover but all of Sussex County and adjacent Warren County is probably going to be in EXC me interested in parking at this location and my guess is there won't be enough parking spaces so would you please as an organization be thinking now about what transportation services you might need that is to say Blairstown Township would might need from Warren County between here and and over when NJ Transit gets that service started uh like figure there's a couple of years perhaps before there's any possibility of that so that's enough time to be thinking about this please do be thinking about it let me know if there is anything you need me to take back to the transportation advisory Council I'll be happy to do that I shall now turn it over to Chuck concerning what's happening with regard to passenger rail hi chap B 34 C Road Columbia uh answer your question uh Hank they talking about 70 spaces at endover maybe expanding to 110 that's that's what I remember from the original report going way way back that's that's all there's room for over there uh I just wanted to just do a real quick update on New Jersey Transit because that's what's actually going on as we would be going on if through talking about this during the daytime um Rosell tunnel project should be wrapping up within the next couple of months that's been going on almost two years now um and that's together with the Andover station project but that's going to be off in the a little bit in the future but anyway that the whole what's been going on for the past two years is going to be wrapping up by battle Thanksgiving and what we're being told and the question is when does the service for Andover R are going to start up after that uh we don't have a the New Jersey Transit is set 2027 pretty consistently end of 26 early 27 um we'll see um they haven't announced as to when they're going to continue with the rest of the work because there's more work that has to be done about 3 miles of track has to be laid there has a signal system and the actual station area including the parking has to be done at Andover uh when that starts so um stay tuned on that one so I can't really give you I I I they're they're sticking to their number but I don't know all time the year but I don't know if that's a how how much that's engraved in in stone uh in terms of Amtrak and and that's where the transportation part comes in because I we're talking to the mayor just before as to whether maybe the at some point you want to consider having uh I know you all have enough to do when you have these different categories that you're responsible for and I'm not a resident so I can throw this at this as a thought but uh you may want to consider that there may be need for a separate category of responsibility of Transportation so I because one of the things we were talking about before the meeting p and I was um we're happy to come in here from time to time give you updates but whether we should have an actual contact on the committee or how do you want to handle that that's something you want maybe want to think about but um because of particularly the um the HTR project and to some extent um the Handover project are going to be going on for a while so this is going to be you know it's it's a longterm thing um but Amtrak uh there're it's a three-step process there's 69 corridors which are what they call step one t Railroad Administration is the keeper of all the funding um New York City's Granton is looking they they should be applying I believe in August to move the step two um if they're granted they're hoping maybe by October they would actually move into what they call step two step two is where they've put together what they call the service development plan and uh they've done a lot of the work that would actually be going into that and that lays the ground workor to step three which is where you get your money for engineering construction but step two there's a key aspect to that or part of it which is the the commitment on the part of the states in this case will be New York um not New York it would be New Jersey and Pennsylvania I don't think even know New York would be technically involved I don't think they would be involved in the federal matching fund process there's 80% of the actual Capital cost of the project would be covered by the feds and then 20% would have to be divided between Pennsylvania and New Jersey in that service development plan the states even though they're not putting down an actual number they're going to actually have to commit to being willing to fund the that 20% so that's going to be I want say a big deal but that's that's um something we'll be towards in terms of that's that's going to be an important thing for them for the state of New Jersey but also vyan to commit to um bottom line in terms of they they're still sticking to three years for the actual um um process of construction whenever that starts so the question is when will that start I can't give you that um answer really at this point they've talked about 2029 um but I'd say at this point let's see and that's that's possible at least at this point but um it's um there's still a lot of the process before they get to the point where they can start that three-year construction there's a lot that still has to take place and uh I think that's that's about it if you have any question certain interestingly talking about the liaison we actually have a couple committee liaison on the pal Dam project which will finish up this year so we have two openings next year which we'll turn that into a Transportation uh uh subcommittee which will give you two two people that you can contact sir okay uh the the subject of U parking capacity you have any idea how many cars NETCOM can hold was wondering how that compares to Andover I know it's kind of stretched out on either side of the road but I I I thought if anybody would know that it would probably be you I I I I hate to guess I'm I'm guessing I I really don't want to guess I said 150 but I really don't know yeah yeah but that 70 or whatever they came up with that's based on an extra car based on uh seats that are going to be coming train seats or well it's actually the issue is actually the physical layout of the area the station right but if they're going to bring if they think they have a need for four cars and it's 200 Riders they're not planning just to have 70 parking spaces they can't be you think they go that far ahead cuz that I mean that netcon station is that parking is packed in the morning there's there's and it's it's also free so that's aaction but um I I don't know if we've actually gotten to that point all I know is when they they did the initial study um CU it was 2006 that they I think the way is 70 and with the possibility of expanding to 110 then what number they're actually going to build I I don't know they haven't they haven't said anything about that recently okay and and that would be Co that would be covering adjacent Sussex County and Warren County and who knows how many people would be inclined to use that but I i' put money on competition becoming Fierce very quickly now and over just because of its location I would I could see highis in because it's the next well the sort almost that there's green in between but um I'm not sure how many people from here would actually use and over service obviously we have a station in Blair uh at blown although that at least at this point with the amra I don't know if jgy trans whatever that gets into a whole different discussion is down the own that property over there so yeah no what I'm getting at is whether at some Point people have talked about this and this is you know who knows if you Amtrak comes in would New Jersey Transit possibly want to extend their service I don't know you know it's I don't I they they've been let's put it this way they've been a u a a reluctant um date at the prom let's go that way in terms of this uh going Beyond and over so um but you know I don't know never they want to let the federal government put put the bill and just kind of skate along as much as possible yeah so I have a question for each you Hank you mentioned the the folks from freeling heis coming up with a number of people that would be interested in utilizing that service Sue didn't specify how many but she said that there were there were quite a few people in fing eyes in that commute in that direction mainly by so it wasn't there was no science behind that answer no it was just it was just i' I've lived here a long time I know I know a lot of people and I know where they were right okay and then Chuck um as far as amra is concerned I know that the the the commitment is there do you think that uh the result of the election in November will have anything to do with whether they continue or because I mean it's not written in stone that everything the money is going to be hand it over cuz a lot of this is from the current Administration it it's it's a process that is um fairly elongated um so and and as I mentioned there's 69 different corridors who were buying for the a limited amount of funding 16 billion do sounds like a lot but you start dividing it up it isn't uh but if the if the administration well the administration will change there's no even no matter of what whether the Republicans Or democrats it'll be still a different Administration that's currently there then which is currently there so could there be a difference in policy yeah it could be it's possible but we'll have to see what happens in November right but that does not that does not affect what NJ Transit is planning to Handover so correct that's still something that we need to think about yeah I I just know that some of the Hamra uh news that's out there I me there's p in the sky stuff that they're talking about you know highs speed rail from Ron con Up To Boston out with a tunnel under you know long is sound and all that nonsense so yeah a lot of a lot of that is u i don't you could say p sky but I I that might be the next in a sense Next Generation I think they're in my opinion there are projects around the United States that really need to get built and sort of almost demonstrate that it's feasible obviously it is feasible because they in Europe and Japan China it's you know seems to be feasible everywhere else except here but the thing is that until it's kind of done here I've always like to say it it seems like it's only you know it's been done on the planet Neptune but never been done here so in this case you have California Texas Florida you know places like that California is a good example of of an efficient project it's none of which none of which have the volume of the Northeast Corridor I mean it's the most dense rail network in the in the world true the thing with the Northeast Corridor there's certain limitations it's older infrastructure and so forth uh but it's actually in a sense when you build from new in in a sense you're getting um you're getting state-of-the-art as opposed to trying to retrofit A system that was uh electrical system on the northeast Cora takes from 1930 so um it's you know that it it really needs updating but um I but I have one one question because you you raised this the point about fing is I'm I'm I'm curious if I presume there people that you know of from bl's down who commute into the city presumbly I'm just curious about that I I don't have any numbers my my next door neighbor used to I mean there there quite a few people those are the cars you see on the road at 4:30 in the morning trying to get a uh get a jump on the traffic you have to literally have to leave that time in the morning or you're not you're not going to get to work on time so I think a lot of people would rather sit on the train that sit on the road but and maybe not have we up as early exactly yeah all right gentlemen thank you so much good to see you again any other public comments before we move to close our public comments section of this progam tbody else all right come on congratulations the sign finally work me did you have your education on it yet oh yes okay so it can we uh can we please put a message on there about the event on Tuesday to sign up for the lunch we we were actually going to do it today we had that we had that on our agenda for today we had we had we had the session today we literally Lear how to do we learned how to use it this morning but um that was one of the first things we thought of get that sign not okay um can you go over with me please the um open space properties that we have in town this this is a public comment this is we we'll listen to whatever you have okay well let me ask you this is Town Hall considered open space this this property is this considered open space just question question this isn't a Q&A session this is public comment okay public comment then I want to know and I will send in an open request to find out is Town Hall considered an open space is the fireh hall considered an open space and is Main Street considered an open space those are the questions I have as far as I the last thing you said um Main Street mwn main stream but I do know we have Sycamore Footbridge MC Green Fields Jones G and the wall on 521 I think that's it I think the only thing I want to remind you is it's not just open space it's also Recreation we have a RI in we'll talk about ler maybe if you stick around we'll give you some of the answers in the in our session because um I I don't feel that your order was correct okay and I will go that's all I thank you Joan any other public comment before we move on with department head reports seeing none move on to our department head reports for the month of June blown ambulance ambulance Corps blown fire department host company number one Department of Public Works Police Department tax collector Township Clerk and vacant and abandoned properties we will cover all of these uh Topics in our individual uh committee assignments later on motion to accept the June department head report please so move second all in favor I all opposed all right got some minutes to approve from April 24th 2024 our public session meeting minutes and May 21st 2024 our executive session meeting minutes and also for May 21st 2024 our public session meeting can we do these all together is everyone voting on all these everyone was present okay I'll make a bud of me um approve all those minutes those I'll second all in favor I all opposed okay on to a few ordinances We Have Tonight uh and public hearing and adoption on all of these uh 20248 ordinance to amend chapter 35 of the code of the township of Blairstown entitled Police Department to repeal and replace existing section 3516 with a new section 3516 entitled outside employment of off-duty police officers this is to uh organize our um our um Road jobs uh more efficiently um this being a u public hearing I will open up the floor to any public comment on 20248 Rob does this have anything to do with um the hiring for a police officer for the north warrant at all no this is all this is all the uh the time spent on the road jobs for construction things like that it's it's just a a way to actually streamline it so it doesn't all fall on our police Chiefs back and the benefit to it allow is that we don't have to chase anybody to pay the bill and they actually do the billing for us right any other public comment seeing none we uh will close the public hearing portion of ordinance 20248 uh do we have a motion to approve motion second roll call please Chris Mrs Lance yes Mr lman yes Mr makur Deputy Mayor orot mayor Morhead yes up next 20249 an ordinance amending chapter 168 of the code of the township of Blairstown entitled storm water ordinances to add a new article entitled tree removal this is uh from our uh our package of uh ordinances that we have to put through uh for our new uh tier one storm water handling um and uh we will open this up uh for public hearing now any comments on 2024 b i does that have to do with only new construction no really the D wanted to cover almost every tree in the township we kind of backed off on that quite significantly uh and they basically are fine with that they they just want some ordinance in place the way we've done it is um basically we're focused on stream corridors and wetlands areas to make sure that you know there's no intrusion on those uh so this will satisfy the tier a commit requirements and if we decide to we can always strengthen it up if we want to but um and I think if there's a 10 tree per a PL you're going to disturb a lot of trees I think we have a 10 acre per limit um aditional threshold in this or needs if you're going to go beyond that then you want to get some so that would affect Residential Properties I the way the orance DP drafted it has to cover every property in the township you couldn't say out so how would it notify the public that once this gets adopted is there a way to notify the public to let them know of this new we can put on that big new sign there a big to put on the big sign um actually Mr Mayor I have a question it's actually more to the attorney um does this need to be addressed with the land use board as part of their checklist because if somebody's doing something and trees are removed I mean generally speaking in a site plan or subdivision there's going to be a land there's a landscape submission as part of the checklist anyway so I think we're okay there but they okay yeah and and the other thing too in terms of another thing we tried to do is you know instead of the D standard of a 6in caliper which that's an awful lot of trees can get 6 in C St this big we did increase the diameter that this stance will apply to to 18 in so again we tried to make it pretty easer pretty it's pretty minimal pretty minimal for our residents cuz we don't want them to have to come raring to us every time they take a treat maybe we could just use the sign as a reminder to e there was a lot of ordinances that were pass by abolutely call before you cut and don't feed the geese and uh don't cut down but if somebody wants to which we do have a lot of properties that are wooded in the back and some people want clear some of those that wooded property and take down bu of trees that is not something that they would have to come to the boards before would they I mean it's basically set to be self implementing but if our zoning officer went out there and saw something you do see these occasional articles where people are clear cutting heavily wooded lots and something like that yes this ordinance would cut so so that instance if the zoning offic sees that going on and all of a sudden you see a bunch of trucks coming out with logs all over them that you can stop and say Hey you know you need to come in apply get a permit and in that instance Joanne and then again this is the DP model there would be theoretically tree replacement requirements so yes it is designed to prevent Mass cut down um but for any larger project like a site plan or subdivision that's going to be before land and it's and Kevin I it's not so much that it prevents from Mass cutting it means you have to replace trees if you cut a bunch of trees you have to replace a certain amount and there are plenty of town talks specifically about VAR non invasive species should be cut there it's very the ordinance is very well written if if you there are plenty of towns have been doing this for 30 40 years oh yeah a lot of times yeah to protect every tree in town it's nothing new and honestly we're not protecting every tree in town no but we're we're little behind in in that um we do have a we do have a responsibility to the to the waters that we uh that our our uh our Hills uh pour water into so yeah it's a good start we can always tighten up if we feel like a Down Road it complies with our perit reques any other uh any other public uh questions comments come on what's what's what do you got Joel I just have question about this tree ordinance um to preserve a farm we have to it has to be 25 acres or 50% whichever is less and there are a couple of farmers that I know have been considering clearing some of the trees to make more pasture is that would that be covered under this no agricultural activities are exempt than thank you yeah there there are actually several exemptions but that's one of them Jo thank you right for there no more questions we'll uh close the public hearing section get a motion out of someone so second roll call please Chris Mrs Lance Mr lman yes Mr M Deputy Mayor Oran mayor Morgan yes on to 20249 ordinance amending chapter 168 of the code of the township of Blairstown and entitled stormm water ordinances to add a new article entitled tree removal we just did that we just did that I read how did I do that again wow and no one stopped me until I got to the very end 20241 that's where I was supposed to be that's why you didn't stop see this is why this is why John Moody always got to have the glasses on ordinance to repeal chapter 19 Section 502 storm water management that's what I got lost in establishing a new chapter 19 Section 502 of the code of the township BL Town entitled storm water management this was this was another D mandated ordinance this one mostly was drafted by your engineer and really most I just did formatting uh there's not a ton of changes here uh but because of the way it was formulated and there's cables and things the the engineer myself felt was used just to repeal and replace um this is the ordinance that really we've had on the books for for quite a few years uh really appes to site site plan subdivisions all your classic storm morar Concepts that have been around for quite a while and that that's what this is uh nothing shocking in here but they repeal in a place which just an easier procedure this being the public hearing we will open it up to the public any questions about 20241 seeing none we will ask for a motion so second second roll call please Chris Mrs Lance yes Mr lman yes Mr Mur Deputy Mayor orot yes mayor Morhead yes 202 2411 an ordinance to funds the street sign Replacements I I like I like pointing out the uh the typos within and for the township of lown and to provide for the funing thereof fing fun it says funding no it actually says fun F I know I know but why not keep it I understand by the way is that a Mike S original up on the screen is is that what that is did you take that why are none of us prepared for that photo uh Karen is looking off into the distance dreaming of a better place uh Eric is surprised at best I got a how you doing kind of look on my face Walter is the only one prepared for that picture that's even better okay all right oh this this side got the memo Mike uh can we split them and put the two together you're not getting bobet's job anytime soon you know that was with I told you guys I was taking pictures throughout I just I just as these are action shots I just said that looks like a Sears catalog that's up to you guys to pick Eric he's in his dung that's it looks like a SE a little crook I was say that's a good one I like that one all right let's keep that one thank you Mike thanks for that one did a great job on that aome we appreciate your than you 20241 uh this is for the uh the street signage we need $10,000 to start to replace a lot of Street SS around town anything add to that well it comes out of capital money now it's it's a capital fund so that we're not having to uh these signs last more than they last three to five years anyway so it should be a capital expenditure do not count against our operating expenses okay public hearing portion will open it up to the public any questions you all right Joel okay seeing none can I have a motion to accept second all roll call please Christen Mrs Lance yes Mr lman yes Mr Mur Deputy Mayor orot mayor Morhead yes on to our consent agenda short one tonight four items uh 20 2472 the resolution appointing fund commissioner if you want to be the funds commissioner that's all right uh 202 2473 the resolution urging to support online legal notices this is important because uh as we have been watching the death of uh print over the past 20 years or so um it is really um kind of a pain in the neck and not very effective for us to be buying ads in placing ads in newspapers to get the word out there about public meetings and I think the time has come the time probably came a long time long back uh where those uh notices could be electronic either you know on websites and uh the places like our our own newspaper here in town but all the newspapers now have electronic versions online so that's that's really what we're uh what this is uh getting at 2024 74 resolution approving the corrective action plan for the fiscal year ending December 31st 2023 um and 2475 approving the vouchers and claims any uh discussion on 1 through four mayor I'll move the content agenda that we have a roll call please Christ Mrs Lance Mr L yes Mr Mur Deputy Mayor orot mayor Mor yes some unfinished business got a report on Jones Farm Charlie I do um spoke to Donald again uh unfortunately the crew that he had that uh was here last time um he can't seem him to assemble sever months down there so he is working on trying to get another crew to come up here he still plans on being here as soon as possible as far as the U the U asbest Box environmental we be here August 19th to start that and that should be a relatively short job for them so that's all I have far okay any other unfinished business any want to bring you up any new business there's nothing on there so I'm going to I'm going to keep moving and I just ask what what's going on with the Jones Farm I don't think about it you just missed his whole thing was he said I don't know what I mean what is going on with the Jones Farm I'm just question so here's two things what you can't see from the road there was another very large milking Barn behind the one that you can see that is pretty much gone at this point uh there's a little bit of framework left and and some concrete um so a um a company from Georgia came up and systematically took every little bit of that out of there for no cost of the town uh recycle some of the material probably resell some of the other material and he has plans to come back up and start on the front bar the the one you can see from the road so the the town owns that building yes okay so what are they just going to remove it eventually or well once we remove it and we'll have a lot of concrete there everything in there has a concrete base a concrete flooring uh troughs running through so you know just spitballing we're walking through there thinking wow we have such a huge base of concrete it might be uh it might be a great place to you know fill in skim over with concrete and have some sort of Recreation there uh maybe tennis courts or or who knows I mean it it it really leaves us a nice blank canvas once we get a lot of the uh the larger things out of there and the silos we're left with a lot of just concrete that will be low across the ground we'll we'll see what happens it's it's a Once you remove those barns you'll see how big of an area it is that that that they encompassed and it'll be interesting come up with some ideas of what we can do with it St and the reason we're even taking the barns down is that that was part of our agreement with the state 20 years ago when we when blown worked with the state I think the purchase price of the property was $660,000 we put in $60,000 the state put in about 600,000 we are joint owners of the entire Fones Farm they control more of the passive side of it on the kill we control the upper side and includes the barn and the part of our agreement at that time for 20 years they every couple of years they routinely say get the barns down so we're finally getting it taken care of 20 years later right it's it's part of all that but we'll take even Charlie has the outfit in Georgia taking the wood and and the roofing and all that when we get done we'll have the block walls we'll take that Eric DPW will crush that up ourselves we'll bring a Crusher and crush up all the concrete and cinder blocks and make aggregate base to use for Road for actually really really good material for roads so we'll try to get some more use we'll get as much use as we can out of that actually the silence too are all concrete so we'll Crush all of that we'll keep it all we'll crush it and use it for municipal use thank okay some correspondence um I'm not familiar with some of these it's just a it's just stuff that I forwarded to you you don't have to do anything okay it's on the agenda everybody can read what they were uh yeah I mean the uh the one that people might be uh interested in is the uh the repairs to the Acme parking lot and putting in uh uh ADA Compliant uh parking spots and uh doing some uh work on access aisles and stuff for handicap which is uh which is kind of nice uh and uh let's go to the township attorney you have anything for us tonight sir it was pretty quiet in the past month mayor and we did the ordinances that we already did on the agenda that we did last introduced last month but uh fortunately this year it's and fairly smooth sailing from the legal standpoint hopefully we can keep it that way excellent how about you T your clerk I actually have one thing so I'm in the process of arranging for a sharing event in October as you know I always do them on a Saturday I am unable to come to any Saturday shredding EVS but I spoke to the owner and he's fine with just coming and standing in the parking lot and having I don't do anything anyway so I just want to make sure that's okay with the committee um for him to be in doing the sh EV that we don't in the building he's never in the building I literally am just here just in case anybody has uh any questions or anything like that and they're they're well attended people use it so yeah I think it's a good idea okay I just want to make sure that's okay before I move forward and that's all I have okay uh Committee Member Lance thank you um very very grateful to hear what our auditor had to say today it's nice to um understand that we have a clean bill of health with regard to that that's kind of nice um I wanted to talk about the upcoming senior lunching that we're planning um it's going to be on August the 13th and the sign up is I'm sorry the 30th 30th so um what we're planning is a Comm zoologist and a lunch so that sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun um and the sign up I we're going to put it on our sign I'm like very happy to see that's it okay um so that'll be from noon to noon to one is it 1 to two one to two Okay so happy to see that um it's going to be $5 um we have to bring it with you and um it's going to be a nice lunch and we have another one that's another event that's coming up that we're going to need some support from you Kevin I appreciate it if you spend a couple minutes with us before you leave for the night um basically it's going to be an October Fest and we need a hold harmless of some type because there's alcohol served at that location and I want to say that we are grateful because we um have a benefactor someone who has donated the cost of the bus to get there which is very nice uh when we're stretch thin as far as the cost to be able to provide money for things like that it's nice but because of that we need for you to take a look at that contract as well um that's what I have okay thank you very much Karen Committee Member lman uh yeah after we approved the go ahead with the uh septic system down at uh I spoke with Dennis and he's going to give me uh start time for him to had that very good Committee Member Mur we're ready C ch's Farm as far as for the police um the New Jersey Department of directors comes in and inspects our facility and we had some deficiencies in the holding cell uh the chief has uh applied for exemptions and we were notified that everything has been accepted so we will be in full compliance within the next few weeks from Department Corrections uh they're also in the process of hiring a class three special Officer school resource officer and that's for North bar Regional um at this point in time the chief is Happ has no applicants um we're paying a very nice salary and uh it just doesn't seem to be any candidates out there right now that seem to be interested in so he's going to continue working on it but at this point in time it's going to get close to whether they could even get somebody in and get them in there in September because of all the training and things that we need to do but he's working diligent in trying to get that done uh we also have uh dur in the process of try and find a new canine um we hope to have or they hope to have him by him or her mid August again this dog is being um paid for by an anonymous owner who also paid for the last do that we had so you know on behalf of the committee and definitely the police department we would like to thank uh that Doner uh wishes to remain an ominous again corpal Herer will be the Handler for that talk uh there will be another active uh shooter training and that's at blown Elementary and that's going to be in August so I'm not sure of the date but that's going to be a lot of police presence and so hopefully that will be something we can obviously put up on our board so we don't get the public too alarmed when they see everybody shoing up um and lastly we had commissioner K come and R with the chief of one day and what they were looking for is all the dead spots in our Communications especially with the law enforcement and the radios uh our County Commissioners are working to try and upgrade our systems for U not only the 911 but all the communications throughout the county so it was nice that he came up to that the last thing the chief wanted me to remind people are there seems to be a lot of mental health uh issues recently and we would like to remind anyone that the hotline for suicide all you have to do is dial 9988 988 yes um and that's all I have mayor thank you sir uh deputy mayor or don't have too much to report other than uh Lambert Road has been all finished it's all striped um pretty much are done with our road program this year except for Partridge Glenn which we would we did have to go out to bid for and that those bids will be open I want to say next week one day do we know I forget what day they're opening August 14th August August okay but we have we had to go to bid for that and um we'll just we'll just about be able to cover that for the year and we just a little bit of oil and Chip to do uh to finish up on Frontage Road and uh Pearson's Corner Road which is a section between Herer Hill section of Union bre between Herer Hill and 521 um and You' noticed tonight not too many taxpayers here concerned about the new tax bills but we've done what we said we were going to do held the line on on our Municipal spending it's very obvious that the reason the tax bills went up so high um between the schools and the county to some degree too but the increase in the schools was pretty dramatic so uh not a lot we can do about that we have no control of that of course and u anybody has any questions please talk to after the meeting if you'd like to but having said that that's all I have mayor thank you sir uh well we'll start off thank you for the reminder uh we uh have a change in our land use board uh lineup as uh dick mock a longtime member of the land use board has resigned as of uh August 1 1st and uh and we we thank him for the years of service not just land sport to this town mayor as mayor he's uh he's quite a quite a character quite a strong individual and uh um we we wish him well um but we do have uh a couple of movements there because of that uh that vacancy and I'm proud to say that Mike Suk will be taking his chair for the remainder of this year and I thank you Mike for for stepping up thank you um we're we're happy to uh happy to do that and also uh DJ G lanella will be moving to the alt one position in the L use board for the uh remainder of 2024 uh a couple of things uh fire report from uh the Blair toown Hose Company number one they answered 31 calls of Duty this uh this month uh last month I should say 18 in Blair toown 10 in Hardwick and three in noon uh a couple of lightning strikes strikes setting fire to things and I really want to uh thank the Blairstown ambulance Corps once again they responded to my house a week and a half ago uh and uh in the in the middle of the night and we there quickly and had the utmost professionalism and U and and respect for the home and and my mom so um I really uh really thank them for that that's it's always amazing to see see the folks that we deal with day in day out as just you know they they're servants public servants to our town but when they actually help you out um you see the the true the true spirit in their in their uh volunteerism uh and let do I I don't think I have anything else we covered the poina dam um we do have a um we do have a executive session tonight that uh we will have to uh move into and that's a resolution 2024 76 authorizing executive session for the purpose of contract negotiation and uh we'll have to ask everyone to leave the room so we can get into executive session at this point do we have um we have a motion to uh second all in favor I thank you we'll see you guys back here if you uh are hanging out if not we'll see you next time thank you Mike okay welcome back everyone great to see your smiling faces look so good uh so uh we uh discussed uh during executive session uh contract negotiation with our uh with the Blairstown Elementary School and our safety resource officer our SRO and some arching orders and we'll keep working on it exactly all right we have motion to adjourn motion second all in favor I all oppos we're out of here