how I'm not sh single believe hey your how are you TJ good you take that's right here letter wison us es the word es me too both of us I'm yeah chocolate know ER hello how are you question the attorney know but you see minutes are so I want to show you speak for EXT yeah come yeah St I I think spe problem know yeah number you leave do that yeah the you it's than say s next it's all right hi TJ good did Al catch you 25 sometimes I do right you want to read that one oh je do the other one other one that's where EX little yeah I'm assuming that this supped be I would have just read it and been like okay 6:30 let's go okay evening everybody States I wish to announce that the 48 hour notice is required under the open public meetings Act was emailed to the asur park press the co-star and the new coaster on December the 7th of 2023 that a copy has been placed on the bulletin board in the burrow office and that a copy has been filed with the municipal clerk as a courtesy to the public this meeting may be attended via Zoom if for any reason the zoom portion of this meeting fails or is disconnected the inperson meeting will continue and action can and will be taken providing there is an inperson quarum MR Noble here Mr gubitosi here miss Mahoney here Mr Weber here mayor Fox here uh good evening everybody uh on this auspicious evening at the end of February uh I do make we'll make a couple of commercial announcements before we get going here um made these the last few meetings um we started a process the council trying to um welcome this agreements but uh try to understand different perspectives but our voices should be constructive so we will ask everybody to try to have a constructive voice this evening um we are always on a journey to improve Bradley Beach and we ask people to join in that vision of continuing to improve Bradley Beach and we just ask everybody to gauge their tone going forward we're all neighbors small town and hopefully uh we can do that uh we'll continue um to try to tighten up our clock management uh we're trying to uh accommodate people that want to be here but um can't afford a three or four hour meeting so we're going to try to ask people to help us get to those objectives um and I apologize up front we have um we're doing the executive session up front because of some time constraints I have so um we're going to um make a motion to go into an executive session for hopefully no late no longer than a half hour hopefully less second Mr Noble yes Mr gubitosi yes Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes see we the static has already started I bet St that yeah right for not oh out is to problem yeah to the bottom of your notes for h B you just it's good but that's we have not for me that's good I'm out of a job already yeah right oh my God I there they B I mean go oh wow what spe for for for look like for did now r three for for for for for for that's keep for spe for you think room l I me here not and the there and ready sorry motion to go back yeah no I know I was just getting organiz make a motion to go back session second Mr Noble yes Mr goosi yes Mr Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes okay uh we will now go into mayor and Council reps we'll start with councilman W right welcome everybody Welcome to the council regulars but really welcome to all the newcomers because there's a lot of new faes here it's great to see people um I'm going to comment on recent events and and I'm going to wait for that to stop um the only thing I'm going to say about the those body cam videos is that our Police Department is more than it's cheap as evidenced by the body cam video our police department has men and women of every rank from relatively new officers to people that have been doing the job for a very long time and they do their job every day they do it under difficult circumstances the same goes um for the Department leadership they do their job every day the department is more than its Chief I also want to add that the body cam video shows our first aid Squad who are volunteers who do not get paid and they are doing their jobs under difficult circumstances this video shows First Responders that have been doing it for decades alongside Tran essentially that are in high school they're out there at 11:00 at night on a Thursday providing their services to the town as volunteers now there's what happened and then there's process and you all know I'm a process guy if this Administration did not contact M County prosecutor when they should have that's a problem and I say note that I say if letting the prosecutor's office do their job was the right thing that's what we all did we sat tight while that process unfolded but it's absolutely unacceptable to me that M County prosecutor's office wrapped up their investigation sent their report to this town over a month ago and the administration did not share that fact with the council unacceptable that we had two meetings right here in this chamber in late January and in the middle of February the administration had this report and they didn't say anything now now we're told that the rest of the council is going to get a redacted report a redacted version of the report and again on some level I find that unacceptable um and unfortunately you know there's when there's distractions like this there are things that are not getting done in this town um for example we have a DPW contract that needs to be negotiated and finalized like job one there's a list I could go through um so that's all I'm going to say on the recent events um the rest of this is going to be like a regular Council report where it's commission did not meet in February so I don't have a report for you there although they still want to sign about not feeding the water fou ofuse for the Poli but you're gonna have to speak your name and address because you me um and um the shade tree commission I'm sure council president did is going to have a good report about the shade tree commission so I'll leave no meeting okay good I knew wasent to cover so there is a tree planting coming up we're going with May 4th yes May the 4th Star Wars day okay all right um and the fire and first date reports are going to be on a monthly basis starting in March so that's essentially um my Council report I do want to say that the the bbbc event at uas was great it was great to see our fire department members first day members police department members all in the same room having a good time there was no disaster they weren't all in the same place because something terrible happened and it was good to just sort of be there with everybody so it was a great bbca event a great idea I hope they do it every year I hope more people can attend if that's the case we're going to need a bigger room and that's my report Mr thank you Council okay uh there's a lot of people in attendance tonight uh I guess you're all not here to uh listen to us pass a resolution about mosquitoes so Erica is I know Erica loves this one um hello to our DPW members I see you and I know that you guys have been negotiating and ladies have been negotiating for over a year for a contract and while the residents and administration have had nothing but praise for your contribution and dedication to the town here you are now if we could only get the D DPW our hardworking dispatchers and other union members a fair and amenable contract the council and questioning residents still await the rfps for 319 Lorraine the these docks seem to be at a complete standstill I had a meeting with the mayor and acting ba on November 15th and had been asked the parameters of what I would like see to see happen to the church at this meeting where rfps were mentioned I made it very clear that I had no desire for the burrow to get involved in the demolition business and here we are three and a half months later stalled with promised and dare I say unnecessary rfps nowhere in sight with regard to the incident on Main Street as councilman Weber said yes our Police Department is made up of more than the chief it's made up of great men and women of the police department department but this Administration is made up of more than the mayor and the ba it's made up of the men and women on this Council I was stunned to learn that this report came out such a long time ago and I feel like we've been left in the dark this community has been implored our titn titn Community has been employed to turn a blind Blind Eye and improve itself in the wake of this Scandal residents are left not only admonished for their outrage but now forced again to pay for yet another administrative misstep and finally the land use board met on February 15 this was a revote of a previously denied application from November 16th here on February 5th 15th a majority approved a 2.5 story dwelling on an undersized lot with seven variances there were also two zoning determinations one was denied and one was settled thank you thank you El uh councilman guoshi as many of you know when I I often make statements somewhat off the cuff but when I need to make sure that my statement is recorded for posterity in burrow minutes I tend to write them out and read them so bear with me as I as I try to address a number of issues some some challenging and and some hopefully good at the mayor's request um a few meetings ago the council agreed to move Council comments to the beginning of our meetings I've expressed my reservations to the mayor because there are times in which the council may wish to comment on the agenda for example the bill list resolutions ordinance amendments and it's difficult to do so in advance of the issues being shared with the public tonight is an example of this challenge because there are a handful of items that I must address which normally might be better suited for the end of the meeting number one uh it is my pleasure to uh to be the liaison to our police department and detective Lieutenant Browning consistently provides me with a police update uh the update for this meeting is that the police responded to a severely intoxicated subject causing a disturbance in a local Main Street business he was cited for public nuisance and given a formal trespass notice by the store a local subject was arrested for invasion of privacy stemming from an incident involving sexual photos I'd like to comment now about uh the budget the vers budget and the timing for the delivery to the council I want people to know that the delivery of the budget to the council is late again this is the third consecutive year and I'll continue the third consecutive year that the council must wait Beyond stated time frames for transmission of the budget at our January 24th meeting this Council passed a resolution extending the time frame for the transition to the but transition of the budget to the council from January 27th to February 27th one month the administration promised that this would serve as a deadline and that they would try to provide some or all of the budget in advance of this new deadline two weeks ago at our last meeting on February 14th I mentioned that I was still hopeful that the budget would be transmitted to the council onor before February 27 today is now February 28th and no budget has been transmitted to the council the 20 22 audit report continues to be delayed and I am hopeful that this will not contribute to further delays in the Budget Transmission to the council I'd like to now briefly talk about very preliminary audit findings as I just mentioned the 2022 audit is running late very late I was able to join an audit status meeting with our CFO the mayor and the ba on February 21st it is too early to uh release any of the audits results no numbers however the primary message delivered to us by our auditor Mr olawa is that the audit data for 2022 fiscal year that was delivered to our auditor is a mess he stated that this was not the case during his prior audit of 2021 data so controls somehow failed significantly in 2022 there has been an incredible amount of work completed by Mr ola's team in correcting the burough reported 2022 data and I know that our new CFO Mr Garts is working closely with our Auditor in this cleanup process this is contribut this is contributing to his delay in presenting the final report I'd like to give everyone a quick update on our fallen heroes uh efforts in the last council meeting we presented a plan to improve the Burrow's recognition of our Bradley Beach fallen heroes men and women affiliated with Bradley Beach who died in Wartime this plan will include centralizing our monuments in Riley Park adding light pole banners for each of the buroughs 20 fallen heroes and Publishing a brochure with bios of our fallen heroes as the council representative on this project I am trying to figure out the best way to expedite public financing of this project the deadline is very tight we we hope to raise $112,000 next month in March so in order to do that uh we can initiate necessary purchases and be prepared for our Memorial Day ceremonies on May 27th May 27th as most of you can calculate is just two months away we will begin to solicit private donations within the next week um I won't be knocking on anyone's doors but we will be getting communication out requesting donations for anyone who's interested uh another item I need to address uh and it's been briefly touched on by Miss Mahoney is the uh 319 Lorraine rfps many residents continue to ask me about the status of the sale of the 319 Lorraine Church property as recently as last week I was told by council president Den Noble sitting to my left that the Administration has not yet started developing RF fees and that they have not yet secured approval for subdivisions from requested by the council very little information has been disseminated by the administration to the council before we move too far forward in a direction that I do not support I want to State my preferences clearly for the record number one I completely support the development and approval of council approved subdivisions for this property number two I will need a council approved uh requirements document to detail the buroughs demands for an acquiring developer I say Council approved because it must not be generated in a vacuum by the qpa or by the administration without Council review and approval number three I am not in favor of the burrow assuming responsibility for demolition it would expose the burough to financial risks of poor project management and broader liabilities tied to the en environmentally sound removal of any hazardous materials I made this very clear in our council meeting of October 25th 20123 but I wanted to State it again tonight for the record and finally my clear and stated preference has been to hold a public auction with minimum bids identified not rfps although I'm told by the council president denovo that RPS have not yet been developed I want to make sure that the public knows my preferred approach now so that there will be less confusion later I do want to recognize our the men and women of our DPW who have joined us tonight I see that uh we have a pretty good turnout and attendance and I imagine one or more of you may even have comments later uh but I want to welcome everyone here I want to take the opportunity at least for me uh to say it is critical to see the burrow and and your union local 152 come to a fair bargaining agreement for all I know very little about the process today but I can say that it is taking far too long to resolve on behalf of many residents including the people sitting here on the council and for all those who whose snow you plow whose Beach you manicure and whose trash you remove I want to say we appreciate your commitment to our residents and we thank you for your passion and your hard work in support of the burrow now finally i' I'd like to make a statement about the Main Street incident that many of you are here for tonight involving our Police Department Bradley Beach is a wonderful town and it simply does not deserve this International black eye we need to replace raw emotions and anger with logic and cooperation the people I have the greatest respect for Are The Brave men and women in our Bradley Beach Police Department they continue to do their jobs protect the public put their lives at risk all while surrounded by this this intense media scrutiny it's unfortunate that the that mayor fox has kept this investigation shielded from our burough attorney Mr Canon and from the burough Council I believe the mayor acted illegally in doing so ignoring our ordinances that authorized Council involvement in any police investigation I don't understand the mayor's motives although I will say that in our executive session he did share them for the first time but his unilateral actions have only contributed to this media frenzy and finally given mayor Fox's total disregard for the authority of this Council I'd like to make a motion for a voted no confidence in our mayor's ability to perform his duties is there a set second second mrble yes Mr goosi yes Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox no thank you council president D I just want to follow up with what councilman goosi said and and reiterate this has been a distressing time for the entire buau and we all need to work together now twice as hard to put the pieces back together and we want to create a Bradley Beach that's better for our residents for our employees for our friends for our visitors and I'm up to that challenge along with the support of my fellow council members and I hope that healing the healing process can begin and our Police Department can now successfully move forward under new leadership how about some good news The Bard of Ed had a meeting February 20th and uh they had the recipients of the second marking period high honor role which included Molly Flynn Calvin Baron anamarie deman Brian Hoff Kaylee kreman Dean Lo Lola Nora Weber Nora Weber John Weber's daughter uh Jean Arius Alat and Jordan de congratulations they also had the Teacher of the Year Awards and one went to the educational services professional of the year was drum roll please Amanda Silverstein a distinguished Elementary and special education teacher at Bradley Beach Elementary has been awarded the Bradley Beach Elementary School's Governor's teacher of the Year award in recognition of her Innovative teaching methods and leadership in education also Donna Taylor serving as a power professional in Bradley Beach Elementary for five years was selected as Bradley Beach's Educational Services professional of the year due to her ability to implement individualized education plans with precision and Care her efforts have greatly enhanced the academic performance and emotional well-being of the students as well as creating a supportive and inclusive School environment congratulations to both of them and um I want to add the recently created Bradley Beach Education Foundation is excited to announce their very first high school scholarship to apply you must be a graduating high school senior who graduated from Bradley Beach Elementary School and is a current resident of B burough the application could be found on the foundation's website at www Bradley Beach EDF fund.com org or you can pick up a copy at the Bradley Beach Library also mark your calendar the PTA is having their gift auction luncheon April 14th at 3M at the Ascension Center of St Teresa we did not have a shade tree meeting but the the planting is coming up and just real quick with tourism the sixth annual Bradley beef Shamrock hunt runs from March 11th to March 17th find a golden painted rock around town email the tourism director and you'll win a prize from one of the Bradley Beach's awesome businesses the rocks can be found anywhere the beach front Main Street by the lake side streets you name it the tourism commission wants you to make a day out if you're searching for um by grabbing a coffee lunch or breakfast or just stopping in any of the shops to see what's new and also on April 21st Sunday from 11: to 4: the fourth annual Earth Day Festival and green Fair will be held in rodley park and the summer is shapy up nicely with events on the beachfront and Riley Park and one more note the women's History Month celebration is honoring our very own tourism director Amy hall for outstanding Community leadership it will be celebrated at uh po Gallery in Asbury Park on March 14th at 6:30 it'll be hosted by Assembly women donlin and Peter Paul and Senator Vin goal congratulations Amy Hall and that completes my report thank you thank you council president uh I have a couple comments um I'll I'll start with some positives um first um we have completed the phase one reoccupancy of the Bazi building I think everybody's seeing the building as better than ever we have Community Development uh Meals on Wheels and our senior Club which I actually had a meeting there today uh we are continuing to work with the Historical Society on plans both interterm and long-term uh relative to the library and Recreation I'd ask you to check the website for them uh the other big news that I really want to cover uh before I'll comment on some of the comments relative to the incident on Main Street I guess we're going to call it um one of the key objectives we had in 2023 was around infrastructure uh and that objective was around continued improvements to the beachfront including a coastal resilience assessment with a view towards extending our bulkhead South for those who don't know our bulad ends on Third Avenue for those who don't uh live south of Third Avenue uh 2012 superstorm Sandy uh did a significant amount of damage to those homes from Third Avenue west and south um so um Governor Murphy last fall announced a boardwalk preservation fund as part of his 24 budget we went to work and developed a Grant application we already had some things laid out um and we were able to interfac with the governor's office in that it was looking more at retail boardwalk and we talked and made a strong pace for uh Coastal resilience uh so last week uh we were able to and pleased to I'm pleased to report we uh received a $4,275 th000 uh amount from that Grant or for that from that total um fund of100 million the big um players Asbury Park Atlantic City received 20 million uh and then there were a few below that but given the size of our town uh I think that we fared very well um I want to thank our our burrow administrator and our uh burough engineer uh they put a lot of work into this and um I think you'll see the renderings around coming up we got a lot of work to do now so um we're we're very happy about that um so I I'll address maybe in more detail um that I shared with the council uh earlier this week on this process that we went through um and I'll just kind of read it because I also want to get into the record uh so I'll start with I was first made aware of the November 9th incident the morning of November 10th I was made aware of that by Chief Guida he met with me Des D the incident and stated that Lieutenant Browning was involved in the internal investigation and that the mammoth County prosecutor's office would be involved uh because it it dealt with a chief or a head of a a police group a week later um I met with the insistant prosecutor uh two of her Associates and the business administrator to review the incident uh that's the first opportunity I had to review the video uh the assistant prosecutor recommended that the chief take vacation time uh until the investigation was completed that she thought would be done in December uh which it wasn't um we made the decision to go the route of administrative leave and why did we do that well we thought it was more appropriate in that administrative leave basically says you're not performing any police duties vacation acrw vacation time you're still a part of the department and can operate within the Department administrative leaves more stringent and more defined uh so at the time and I still believe the case the assistant prosecutor U appreciated the action we take we were taking uh I met with Chief weeder that afternoon and communicated that direction um I also sent an email to the council letting them know that this was taking place that day uh and I'll say I am grateful to the prosecutor's office for their professionalism uh and the experience that guided the investigation so um again I thought we received this report in mid December it wasn't delivered until the latter part of January that report uh it's called the summary and conclusions report is a Ser from there a series of meetings ensued so a report doesn't mean you're done a report means okay this is the findings this is the conclusions from there um there were a number of phone calls or a number of meetings with the prosecutor's office with our uh labor attorney with our police captain with Chief Guida and his Council uh the burough administrator myself um there's a there a number of steps that were taken to get to to Ure that is this conclusion appropriate and are we are we all aligned so um we we came to that conclusion just recently um the conclusion section of the prosecutor's report as it relates to this clar action uh basically I'll read it uh because it it will be out shortly pursuant to section 5.1 .8 of the IAP this office may make a disciplinary recommendation with respect to the above findings in our investigating the chief qued in our in it is our understanding I'm sorry that Chief Quita will be retiring March 1st 2024 and they'll be using accumulated leave time through this date of retirement given these circumstances which presupposes that Chief gu does not return to Bradley Beach Police Department any capacity we do not make a disciplinary recommendation so um that that I'm not I won't go into the whole report but uh I will say that um the chief is retiring as of March 1st this Friday uh that's a full seven months before that's anticipated so if you look at um the accumulated vacation time since January 1st he's been using accumulative vacation time although he's still in a state of uh administrative leave he's not interfacing with the Department um between those two uh the administrative I'm sorry the vacation time and the um seven months it's a fairly significant shift in his um income and revenue uh for this period of time uh a very significant amount um so um clearly this whole series of events is unfortunate for the individuals involved in our community I'm hoping we can move through this uh I am grateful to the prosecutor Santiago and assistant prosecutor Falco along with the other people in the mammoth County Police prosecutor's office that work through the series of events and issues uh our labor attorney also and Mr Marco and Captain Arnold so a couple comments were made about um this being an international incident and it being all over the Internet we could have gotten a report on January 1st and the same thing would have happened this was an opra um video of body cam uh anybody can Oprah body cam it gets um uh reviewed um there's redactions done on it but that happen that's going to happen no matter what so the the idea that um something could have changed relative to that it's it's not going to happen um it's it's just the process that uh is there I mean as as Eric is nodding her head she's the uh Oprah person here um there's also been some questions about well why didn't we suspend or why didn't we do some things without pay there is a due process uh element to this um I think um once we put the chief on administrative leave he did exactly what we asked him to do we did the investigation uh I will say that um this is my first investigation in an area like this and we took the lead of the mammoth County's prosecutor's office as we should have anytime it's a investigation of a police chief or a head of a police group they take the lead and they took the lead from basically end to end which I do very much appreciate um so this idea that this was concluded a month ago and we've been just sitting on this is not the case we've just concluded and last week actually at middle of the week um the conversation began and initiated by the prosecutor's office about what would be released and how it would be released um whether it's a full report a redactive report and that uh we actually just received um uh a memo from the prosecutor probably two hours ago uh defining that and delineating that a little bit better so um you know that that conversation took place middle of last week to the end of this week end of last week uh the information I got and and again the confidentiality of this even in the memo we just got from the prosecutor really stresses confidentiality and not um Discerning any of these reports um for for obvious reasons there's people their report that um they don't want to have um being questioned or um to go any further with so that's um that's where it is um I know everybody's uh emotional about this I can understand I'm not happy about it either um do I think we took the right steps in the timely manner I think we did people might not agree with that or might not like it but I appreciate the fact that Lieutenant brownie the I think the night of and then the next day took the action that you're designated to take and did it appropriately and did his duty and um and I very much appreciate that I appreciate Captain Arnold who has worked with the Department along with um lieutenants and um kept things on an even Keel with the community I think we've continued to have a safe community and I do very much appreciate that uh so um as this concludes um you know I don't I don't know how uh if it will conclude in the short term because there are I just can't predict that so um at this point uh that's my statement and um we will go to the next agenda item um which is presentations and bids um we have no presentations but we do have two proclamations and I'll start with councilwoman Mahoney If You Could Read um appropriately one of those proclamations do that burough of Bradley Beach International women's St Proclamation sorry please thanks whereas International women's day is celebrated globally on March 8 by those who believe in gender equality and who seek to improve the lives of all women through cultural legal economic and social change and whereas International women's day celebrates the collective power of women pay tribute to their achievements and recognizes the remaining challenges to further efforts for women's rights and gender equality encouraging and mobilizing all people to contribute for positive change and whereas the burrow of Bradley Beach honors the accomplished and Visionary women who have helped build our country including those who whose contributions have not been adequately recognized and celebrated and whereas the burough of Bradley Beach pays tribute to the Trailblazers from the recent and distant past for daring to Envision a future for which no past president precedent existed and for building a nation of endless possibility for all its women and whereas currently there are women serving locally in leadership positions inspiring the continued work in advancing the rights opportunities and full participation of women and girls of all backgrounds and whereas on the hund 111th International women's day we celebrate and encourage everyone to take actions against G gender bias and inequality and whereas while International women's day actively escalates for March 8th Prime employers for women maintain a deep and continuous focus on Equity diversity and inclusion all year round therefore be it proclaimed by the buau of Bradley Beach that March 8th 2024 should be celebrated as International women's day in appre in appreciation of the many achievements of the the women of Bradley Beach and those across this nation and the world invest in women accelerate the progress stated this 20th day of February 2024 thank you councilwoman uh we have a second Proclamation woman sister women's History Month whereas American women of every race class and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our nation is in countless recorded and unrecorded ways whereas American women have played and continue to play critical economical cultural and social roles in every sphere of the life of the nation by constituting and significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home whereas American women have played a unique role throughout the history of the nation by providing the majority of the volunteer labor force of the nation whereas American women were important in the establishment of early charitable and cultural institutions in our nation whereas American women of every race class and ethnic background served as early leaders in the Forefront of every major Progressive social change movement whereas American women have served our country courageously in the military whereas American women have been leaders not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity but also in the Abolitionist Movement the Emancipation movement the industrial labor movement the civil rights movement and other movements especially the peace movement movement which create a more fair and just Society for all now therefore be it resolved by the governing body of the burough of Bradley Beach that March is designated as women's history month thank you thank you okay agenda item number nine approval of minutes February 14 2024 I have a motion to approve minutes of February 14th 202 second Mr Noble yes Mr gubitosi yes Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes thank you okay public comments pertaining to the 228 agenda items only 5 minute limit and single instance and you can line up in the front row if you'd like here any questions on agenda questions on agenda I2 Avenue um before I begin I want to apologize to John Weber for not being recognized by the mayor for not giving you the credit that you that you duly deserve for the board R fation and I would urge everyone to go into Bradley Beach Community and read John Weber's explanation of what he personally has done to get that program that that project going and um excuse me I'm just a little upset about all this the the acting VA has only been here four months this has how many years John been I for a long time you can't say I lifted her finger I want to ask somebody who I remember when I first met you you talked about this as one of your goals for our town and it was finally achieved and I know you spoke about it quite frequently and I find it very upsetting that the mayor could not give you any type of okay now my question you about the Bist does this bill list represent the full month bills not necessarily but for the month of February because as we all know I like to look at the bill list and I'm very familiar with the bill list and this bill list was 25 Pages which is a normal two we Bill list when we had Bill list every two weeks normally this is the first time we're getting for a monthly this is basically an incomplete build there are no mentions of um any medical payments for Medicare Vision payments no bills from Doc Mr Canon's office uh no tnm postings I mean these are regular TN TNN T we we're not working with T is Vision on here one but where is long list of Medicare payments for retirees that's there on there regularly all right I'm making at a point this I would have expected a 50 page Bill list for it to be for the month of February okay let me get back to the bill list and this is all about uh driving this Daisy on page eight the there is a bill for $3,500 for concept professional system sound videos and it came from the account of at the beach page 14 MTH University a video shoot driving with Daisy coming out of the account of Arts at the beach for $1,600 page 15 uh it there was a payment to Norah Monahan for sign promotional materials for $350 the total bill for that event was $6,193 75 now my question is is the is the art at the beach a different budget line item than the Arts Council it's a same par me it's the Arts Council are there two accounts or one I think there's one account so correct would you please clarify that for me I can double check that I believe there's one sub account for and they have a budget they have an annual budget what is their annual budget I think it's $15,000 okay um were the ACT were there was there an admission fee to attend the play no they're never okay were the actors paid or were they volunteers uh they're paid but it's it's I would call it I don't want to say it's marginal but it's not a it's not a significant amount of if you don't how many osas moment there were two okay well I know King the pment is generally 350 to 450 I mean if it's that's probably yeah I don't want to minimize the but it's not thousands of dollars no actor names appeared on this bill l so therefore these bills will be coming forward do appear on the bill with ma'am where on the first page the manual checks um oh I have apologizes okay and how much was that for um this particular actor was for $650 okay so we can add that to 600 so it's $6800 so far for um the um driving the stasy okay that's my concern about thriving thank you oh okay my you can actually email and ask questions I'm going to give you a copy of it now moving forward um you can always give them to the clerk to distribute as well I have one for her too as well yes yes go ahead start you can start 610 friendly um I am frankly pissed off that we've had meetings here and we've had residents stand up here and ask questions about this investigation that going on this is we have questions about the agenda comments are on the agenda and this came up during Council comments so and you know what it was pretty obvious that that's what was spoken about in executive session which was also on the agenda it's not it's not on the agenda I'm sorry um it is on the agenda it is so um we had residents stand up here and ask questions yeah I'm sorry I'm sorry it says agenda items only yeah Council comments are agenda items and I'm responding to council comments which are agenda items I'd appreciate no more interruptions please so I want to ask Mr Canon was were we lied to was this appropriately handled were we told the proper information over the last few few meetings I feel like we had residents stand up here in particularly asking about this situation and we were told no comment because it's under investigation and now we're hearing it was it was concluded it was not concluded disciplinary action but it was concluded through the prosecutor's office so administrative questions were asked no anwers given I believe the council is part of the disciplinary action did that take place did that take place it seems like the council was left in the dark according to the media were you left in the dark do you know anything did you protect our Council for being part of this like what is happening in this burrow we have no answers and when we call on our elected Council they don't have answers for us so we are clearly under dictatorship for the 20th time I've said it up here we can't get answers to anything we pay taxes we live here dayto day and we don't get answers to anything so can you clarify anything here for us did the council did the council weigh in on disciplinary action and are they supposed to um so that ter that question in specifically is being determined by the labor attorney as to you coming up here and asking what's going on with the investigation every time I did tell you last time that we didn't have any information or I did not I was not aware that we had received the report report in January at that time I was not you're as burrow attorney are you supposed to get that like is that proper protocol I believe so and the mayor and I have discussed that so now our own burrow attorney who's supposed to protect this burrow is left in the dark is that right you were left in the dark for this too with the council person H was the labor attorney okay the labor attorney was handing oh the labor attorney who has stall my case in court which has been three weeks now since the court told me it was supposed to be done okay um so the labor attorney is not our burrow attorney correct so I would imagine okay if the labor attorney weighs in on this it should be along with our burrow attorney to protect this town from the 20,000 lawsuits we constantly have like what is happening mayor you have built an alliance you have Meredith you have Kim you have farbach or volunteer ba while we're still paying a full-time ba salary doing your developer deals here like where are the church RP take your tone down please sorry where are the church rfps so another thing that was discussed during Council comments we have asked repeatedly for church rfps and now we're hearing there's still nothing nothing campaign season you seem to be really anxious about the church right we paid a lot of money to have a survey for $10 million spent on the church became the biggest division in this town you destroyed the town dividing us over that that property and now we still have nothing we finally came to some type of conclusion that you seemed really happy about with the council back in the fall and now it's stalled because you and Meredith have rfps you're not willing to give us any information about what's when when is something changing here when election election time I feel like that's it I hope and pray that you are out by November so that your developers get nothing thank you any other questions yes uh Tom Coan 6 thirdd Avenue um I had a question on the uh rebid for the mini golf course um what is the minimum bid threshold on that I can find out in a minute if you want to continue oh okay great yeah I just have one more thing you can I'll try to go quickly I know we have time limits on the agenda now um on the bills list on page seven uh there's a line item for uh Clark Canton and hints in the amount of $1,567 and it's posted here as fair share Housing Council correct so as discussed in previous meetings there are special master so that's the S count name for fair share um they're an architectural firm correct but they're the special Master they're the special master so okay thank you I just wanted to confirm so ronero from the wiener Law Group is still our fair share housing attorney attorney correct okay thank you very much Mr Co yes sir uh the minimum bid is $50,000 uh the last rent in the expiring lease was 40, $ 47,7 proposal a five year or a 10 year Le uh 10 years 10 years thank you Mr appreciate it yes man n Ocean Park on the men I'll address what I prefer to call gate later in my personal comments I don't know why I we sleeping that under the rug with the euphemism but I would like to look at page 22 of the vill we're spending shy I don't want to exaggerate a little less than $7,000 on those but more incorrect information that I can imagine because here's another one not it's not daylight savings time I'm very sensitive about 's as everyone here knows it is daylight saving time so once again wrong information sloppy work we all know where that emanates from in addition when I come up you repeatedly and say you are the stewards of our money $1,000 on that really couldn't we save it and use it for something else like legal fees um and then right under it $33 a month for that horrendous website really why are we paying for it why can't we have our old website back and just collect the information that was on it you do not Ste where to our money and when are you going to start and then you look at billas so here's the bookkeeper and mey maybe you will understand in my brain this maybe not so it was spilled how do I know they're being who signs for who princ them and who do Bank reconciliations unfortunately this Administration has promoted distrust and I quite honestly do not have any faith that these bills are paid in the way they're supposed to be that all bills are paid in the correct now there certain bills you chose not to approve I wonder they still P it out there or do they just kind of get SLI through because again there is no trust and I beg the four counseling people to do what they can because we cannot obviously have procedures we're not capable of that and I say that every needed legislate legislate legislate as it should be that the people that are employed by this SP and or get stockens from this borrow are announced at the beginning of every meeting for the people here and the people on Zoom years State me that I have to say that and you all know that I'm the spooky wheel and eventually you realize that what I'm say is a little bit of Common Sense and a little bit of respect and they should have nothing to do with abundance of lawsuits that are going on you can still legislate and why is is it a secret as to who is here why is it a secret to all the legal Representatives that are here right now why can't the zoom people know all of this it's just goes on and on and on and I guess I could ask a few other Bill questions if no one give to me but I'm just exhausted by the bill list by the lack of accountability by the waste of spending why you think you have the right to spend this um is beyond me and and if I were you like I tell public Works going strike stop approving vill thank you yes good evening L duy 312 rley I have two questions on the bill list the first one occurs on page 15 who is rangon cogin and N LLC conflict resolution like What conflict there are conflict they're conflict and what are they cover they do work for us obviously but like a situation where um Mr Canon isn't the most that bill is related to labor Attorney Services for an employe issue that okay so my other question is on page nine I'm burn theme is one of our labor attorneys and over attorney right so all right we paid him oh all right so this is the question Arts Council Arts at the beach were the same fund correct I'm gonna double check and clarify that but so I had added up all the money so far that I could find on all the bu's lists for how much money we spent on labor attorneys for negotiations it's all it's almost $117,000 it's like wasted money you can't come to an agreement on a contract these guys deserve a contract you so what is what is the hold them it needs to be accomplished we're only going to owe more money in the rearers because of back pay and benefits it needs to be done it's not fair and certainly not fair to the residents here of this town thank you thank you okay no other questions any nothing on the board okay we'll go to the next agenda item which is um the if other people from other screens have questions to ask it'll automatically get transferred to the first one y so there's no ordinances for tonight uh there's no Communications in tonight's um agenda we have a few resolutions first resolution uh is consent agenda which is uh three items which is the bill list for February 28th 2024 uh that's 202 2450 202 2451 is approval of 5050 on premises raffle license for the friends of the Bradley Beach library for Sunday April 28th 2024 from 2 P.M to 4 p.m. make a motion to approve the 5050 on premise ra second Miss uh Miss denel yes Mr gzi yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor fo yes uh and then oh I'm sorry this should have been part of the consent agenda we should just got all three and then well so so if we just approve the consent J no just approve that one because that's what was read so yeah so we should yeah motion to approve somebody jumped in and yes okay so it's the bill list the 50/50 and then the approval advertise of the bid so I'll make a motion to approve the entire consent agenda second Mr Noble yes Mr gbos yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes thank uh now we go to individual resolutions 2024 53 this is the ericus Memorial resolution authorizes the county of Mammoth mosquito control division to conduct aial mosquito control operations within the burrow of Bradley Beach make motion approve 202 to joke everybody sorry second Mr Noble yes Mr G you this is one of my favorite resolutions as well and I will vote Yes miss m yes Mr Weber I just have to comment just so people don't think that they're just willy-nilly spraying pesticides out of the air this is we we're authorizing them in case there is a problem they don't have to wait for us to so we do it now before mosquito season so I'll yeah thank you I was waiting for someone to do that uh mayor Fox yes uh I'm GNA make a motion to table 202454 which is the approval to apply for a grant from New Jersey Department of Community Affairs for approximately $100,000 for improvement to The Bradley Beach Recreation Center reason I'm asking to table that is uh the ex we the time frame of submitting that Grant was extended and it gives us a little bit more time toine the um Grant so I'll make a motion to table 202454 just on this um if we were to approve it tonight can you you know does that matter if if we we still have extended time so I think this is a little bit of um my nervousness because if the grant were to change you know the parameters between now and April 16 then I would want to do another resolution so that you guys actually knew what you were approving so this is out of an abundance of caution thank you so second sorry John you think second second uh Mr Noble yes Mr G yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes uh okay we'll go to uh there are no announcements so go public comments by minute limit and single instance to the why don't you go first yes sir I go uh good evening mayor board my name Dan executive assistant president United commercial work 152 our local represents 13,000 members portion which dedicated clerical court dispatch and Public Works employees here employ these hardworking men and women have worked without a contract since January 1st 23 our local over the years had an a very respectful proficient work in relationship with the bar sadly has not been our case for the last 14 months all right these employees have gone without any wage increases the burrow has demanded through their outside Cil to gut their current Collective bar BR among things eliminating their salary guide eliminating the components such as longevity personal B and other long service and offering a im easly increase of 1.3% on average for long-term employees along with other concessionary issues anybody who was ever been a part of Labor uh negotiation kind of a starter point right starter point then part's kind of quickly work through that U however you know that's hasn't been the case you know your outside Council through the burrow has bargained your employees to impass causing a perk mediator to be appoint these folks concluded their third day of mediation on Monday where the bar gave an employee for lack of a better word to take it IL legal Proposal with many wage and benefit concessions according to documentation pursued through an openpr request the bar's outside Council has Bill nearly $225,000 for these negotiations these taxpayer funds would be better spent on B employes this Union here negotiates hundreds of Labor agreements on behalf of our members and finds the bur's actions disrespectful to the hardworking employees in bad faith this is unacceptable your employees deserve better so that's a statement that that I had drafted so I'll just flip it um you can you could submit it yeah fine um what's been going on wrong you know the best way I can explain is I've involved in a lot of different Collective Bing negotiations over the years I've worked for this local union for 204 dist this is a process that should work in an orderly fashion all right and for whatever reason I don't know I don't envy anybody's position that's up there right now I understand you guys have a lot of issues going on up here but these folks these folks right here and over here they deserve that they deserve a fair contract their families deserve wage increase pay care and whatever the process why it's broke and why it isn't we got to move forward because sitting there dealing with outside Council and Bill blowers trying to gut a collective bargaining agreement that has been existing here for a long time doesn't work you know in the past um dealing with the previous mayor council here the mayor would be involved they'd have members of council and we'd sit there and we work through the issues I did the previous collect the baring agreement we did it in three sessions and we were done these folks 100% unanimously accepted their contract it was a smooth this process I don't know what's going on but we got to fix it I need you guys have to help I have a question yes who are you negotiating with so at the table has been U Bernstein I think he D outside Council and there's some gentleman I forget you guys for whatever Reon you guys can switch a whole lot right now none of you guys had a lot of there's a was a female there last time right yes sorry I Haven been there I came to I came to the first session he was before that he's still there okay start and who's from the council been there no that's right yeah so nobody on the council's been here I'll be honest I came to the first session and helped assisted and the first session we show up there there was six pages of concessionary pro proposals across the table and I I laughed at this is ridiculous what can we do to help we need you guys to get involved we need you to talk to the mayor we need to get to the table these folks did not come in asking for anything crazy you guys all know what your Police Department all these people want to do is be treated with respect they want to maintain what they have and they want to get Fair respect increases it's what they deserve they work hard you guys St here at heard before up here about how much we care about Public Works about how much I know how much money they save this Township because they go above and beyond we need your help we need your support thank you thank you excuse me for one second I also have a follow question you said you need our help talk to the mayor I'll speak for myself I've tried to Broach this topic a number of times with our Administration not just the mayor with a broader group of people and we've been told the rest of this Council cannot participate I I was under the impression the mayor was participating he just mentioned that the council's not allowed to participate I don't know collective bargaining law but that sounds odd to me given that the council the governing body has got to approve any final contract that's negotiated why would we not we the council at least one or two representatives from the council why would we not be allowed to participate in that process I I can tell you I I could tell you this much I've done any public sector negotiation I've done in the back it's always been somebody from mayor or Council or something sitting down my understanding is the last contract that was done Dave Brown did was a burrow administrator he did that singularly who else was there so in all fairness yeah and I would also say in all fairness little different time also we had to finish up because we had Co situations were going on and stuff like that these folks were white involved with that yeah but David was a he was a gentleman to deal with he he moved through with a very fast May mayor angel said prior previous mayor has told me he also was an active participant oh Ang I didn't see he sat here he sat here at this very table with me when we did the last contract first second we got so I don't know what's going on but whatever it is internally it ain't working no these folks deserve better amen so maybe my suggestion if you could maybe the mayor could find it himself maybe find a couple people on Council to sit down with it I'm you know you get outside Council involved if KS drug out um we can we will make it from a union perspective we will make a top priority to get here sit down whatever we need to do to work through a very fair contract in beh these people thank you thank you Cas you don't know me you were about to say your name sorry thee I'm gonna shed some light in case you don't know me my name is Nole browny I grew up in Bradley Beach I graduated to Bradley Beach BM school and I've been a part of the Bradley Beach Fire Department my whole life serving as the first female fire chief back in 2008 I'm still very invested in Bradley Beach so as I speak I would like to respect of not being shouted at or being treated as if I don't matter I have been a dispatcher for the Bradley Beach Police Department for 20 years I love my job some would say too much as the council may not know dispatchers Court personel clerical and DPW are still without a contract out of 12 meetings the mayor's appointed team has offered nothing 12 meetings mayor and each meeting was worse than the last rding everything down until the contract was Bare Bones your labor attorney Mr Bernstein berated me as well as using humor that was Unbecoming of a professional when I explained other contracts that were recently settled and pointed out that the police received a 4% raise I was met with okay I'll do better than that and he's raised his hand in a zero and stated that's what you'll get while she is not in our local unit it should also be known that the burrow clerk has been without a contract since 2020 we are on our third burrow administrator and you still have Greg faren back negotiating with us the chief of police was on administrative leave for the last three months collecting 50,000 which is more than the starting salary of one full-time dispatcher for an entire year for just another 10,000 you could have paid the yearly salary of two full-time dispatchers why is a man who has worked in a corporate environment disregarding his work forces we didn't even ask for anything but a matching 4% raise and an increase for those in steps to help cover cost of living expenses since they traditionally lose out on a percentage increase there are two full-time dispatchers currently making only $900 every two weeks almost I have lived in this town for most of my life my father has lived here for almost 50 years still does I live breathe and love Bradley Beach I'm requesting to be heard I'm requesting to see me the people of this town I'm sure want to see the employees they utilize get a paid Fair wage our last meeting was a take it or leave it proposal your team is adversarial and exude the pleasantries of an angry mob you have lawsuit after lawsuit money that could go to us but you choose to pay a labor to attorney who this Council no longer wanted and eat up our raises at this point it would have been cheaper to go with the 4% so Council I implore you as well as people stand up for your employees we feel the support at this point we need help mayor council I implore you once again to please settle this contract we deserve better I love this town and hope for her to shine once again you guys don't even know and can't imagine what we've been going through thank you thank you good evening mayor of council my name is James dy I live in 217 brle and Bradley Beach I have two questions for the police department one when are we going to send some units down to the hand the Speeders on Brinley Avenue they they they drive down Brinley Avenue 50 60 70 miles an hour da don't see a unit there enforcing the speed laws the next question for the for the police department is has the police department ever sort out a alternate rout canidate the Phil vacy Police Department that's trained where we don't have to back fill it with over time with with with the Personnel that we have could you ask that question again I'm sorry I just didn't understand the beginning of what you said I'm sorry why haven't they recruited for their vacancy why haven't they recruited an alterate roof candidate that's already trained that's certified by the state that's licensed to enforce the law why has a ni Police Department sought and and and recruited a member of of a graduating class to fill any vacancy in this town instead of hiring somebody off the street that we have to send to a police academy and and encour all this overtime and salary and everything else that's a question that should be answered by the police department is there a reason why they didn't do it I mean so to answer your first question we'll definitely make it Priority to for the safety the people down there speeding is traditionally a big problem you know in the town on a lot of these streets and I know you don't see it but we have officers there doing radar post all the time proactively looking um you know we generally have two two members you know per shift and then whatever dispatcher I mean um detectives or administrative staff as well so we'll we'll we when someone brings a problem to us we make it a point to address I'm bringing it to you but it'll believe me if I was to sit there every day when I was on the road I would that was one of my hotpots where I would sit there actively writing tickets and you know I could go off the road for three years and on I'm just saying that the there is such that it warrants some enforcement yeah well as Lieutenant muray is our Patrol Lieutenant so we'll have him you know small do that as for the hiring process I mean there is a defined hiring process that we go through and it's all starts with accepting resumes so we advertise we do what we can when there's an opening and we all the time we get trained police officers that want to do a lateral transfer we get alternate route candidates we get class two candidates how many alter candidates have interview I couldn't tell you that I don't want to give you the wrong information I'll have that off the top my head but we have you know alternate R is something that was done many years ago a little bit more now I know it is but you had a lot more alternate rout you know 10 years ago now why because there's a lot of town swooping them up as fast as they can now you're talking about alterate roots or class now I haven't seen a lot of alterate roots you know res there's 21 counties most of them have a police County and I I I inquire and I ask you to at least s it out save this town to money will you thank you yes thank you1 and I'm employed by the Pamela Valentine 81 ocean gr and I'm employed by the burough Bradley Beach as technical assistant assistant in the construction department and office manager for Community Development our contract as you know expired in January of 2023 while the cost of basically everything from food to gas to healthare to rents to car insurance streaming services and the occasional dinner out family and friends the basics of a normal life have Ry dramatically in this past year our salaries have not increased at all we have not in response slacked off in our doobs we continue every day to work under sometimes extremely stressful conditions to provide the best customer service experience possible to burrow residents many of us work through our lunch breaks unrewarded and after hours without extra compensation not one employee present in this room is a bad employee we are superheroes actually we keep this machine running we're not asking to be made millionaires in this we're asking to be made whole again in the face of rising costs we're asking for appreciation commensurate with our efforts we're asking to be treated with respect and to not be taken for granted Kathy Engelberg commissioner of the WNBA has said when people are your greatest asset investments in human capital should be considered in the same way other companies might invest significant significantly in product R&D we are your greatest asset and it is time that you invest it in us thanks yes R McGuire 610 Brinley I have a written statement this time so I'll be a little bit less speaking okay um I'd like to publicly share that I have recently OA the co funds that we received in the past few years after the female reimbursement payment that we paid this past October from Hurricane Sandy I was curious to see the records for the covid funding I was responded to with an email that stated as per the finance department and the OEM Department the burough is not in possession of any responsive records for Co relief funds I did email the CFO several times and only received the same answer from Erica thank you stating that the same stating the same answer from the CFO I did ask for a confirmation from the CFO Mr Garts however I did not get a response councilman Weber did respond to me that it's not called covid funding it's called the ARP American Rescue plan which I was clearly aware of but didn't think I needed to be so so specific so I have just recently sent in the same request but for covid funding under the American Rescue plan let's see if I had to be that specific for the B to understand what exactly I was asking for for the record I did find the funds online thanks to council councilwoman Mahoney we received in total 44 34,1 16516 we received it in two equal payments of $217,800 Co funding versus the American Rescue plan next up we recently all heard here at a meeting that the mayor is named in a harassment claim of Tor I recently overed that claim of Tor and it was just about fully and completely redacted even Larry fox's name was redacted although it was already publicly stated this is not the first time I have received practically fully redacted documents from this burrow and my Oprah lawsuit is taking so long even after the court said it would have been done three weeks ago I'm starting to begin to think that I'm being discriminated against for receiving information in this burrow because I share a lot of it through a Blog and on social media just wanted to put that on public record because I'm expecting to see at least where the $434,000 was deposited thank you thank you yes where did the chairs go that you made us sit in four weeks ago hey that's a good question I Rely ask questions I usually just make statements yes Nancy now um I disagree I do not believe that law enforcement does a job that me how many meetings have I come up here and said I'm tired of cars going the long way down my street I'm tired of Vis was going the wrong way down my street um I'm not going to get into the hiring process or this or that but clearly um it is my hope that we will start to have law enforcement um I also disagree with um the comments made regarding the community code Etc Department because I've been waiting for a phone call to be returned since December 15th it involves my safety and my home I make one to three phone calls every week it is not returned by a person in that department which department I'm sorry Community Development devel you want to call it okay I don't make names um what's going on with fil get you know I put my stuff out two weeks ago the panel says we're not getting film picked up but we haven't changed it because you have to do an ordinance just lots of lends again things that aren't being taken care of yes are insignificant given our financial and um Optics um I cannot stress enough that um ball does not mean my standards yes my standards are high for myself as well of others um but I would think that it's not such an high standard that when there's an official document somebody signs their first and last name doesn't happen um now we're hiring another Administrative Assistant how many people do we know because I walk in there and I see people doing nothing and as one who's had all of these jobs over the years I find it really hard to be in a job taking a salary or a paycheck and doing nothing um again you can't figure out your protocols legislate because it's ridiculous regarding um the labor attorney put be in the room with publics I'll get you in contract next time wear your green shirts you are my you are my boys in green okay yes yes yes I'll take yes why not okay um I think I understood at the last meeting correct me if I'm incorrect we do it is not law we do not have to have a qpa so let's we're not getting rfps we're not getting this we're not getting that why do we need one I the government purchasing it's not so hard um again if you have people just let them do their job why I well I'm not asking the question phrases we could save a lot of money if we did not pay someone to have that position um during the mayor's comments you said a lot about we who is we because it's it's not we it's not we so who is the we that made these decisions regarding what I would like to personally call in my opinion we gate who's the we I mean well I guess I can't answer the question we would like to know who's weight little confusing um and with all these new projects and Designs where do they come from who approves them but maybe it's not what we want I don't see you know once again the gr and the bathroom then versus the storage space with the museum on the boardwalk we made it clear we do not want that museum stuff there we said well we can just get the money and then we'll decide and then last week we're sitting and talking about putting the museum there really like this do people not listen then we have the engineers two people sit here for that meeting last week and present a plan for Main Street that we've already seen not only once but twice so maybe I we don't see the bills so I don't know if there's a line item that says 214 24 two men times 4 hours equals or it just gets built into the cost like government does not pay a million dollars for Hammer it's just part of the whole project but this needs to stop I don't want to pay for work that's already been done I didn't want to pay the first time but along the second or third time and I just I don't know how to write this ship thank you that's your job figure it out um I'll just comment that our law enforcement and our administrative group does a great job for us and they continue to do a great job um I don't necessarily agree with some of those comments that were made relative to those two groups as does public works and our other departments Recreation Etc um yeah I see it yes I'm Beth Kepler from 504 Central Avenue here in town I prepared a statement I'm giving copies to thank youate that mayor Fox directly threatened me at the last council meeting when he said I'd be careful with that if I were you in response to me telling him I believe he's embezzling tax dollars I sent an email to the m County prosecutor investigator Ryan mom indicating my desire to file an IA complaint against mayor fox in addition to my internal Affair complaint he is currently handling against Chief weda I filed with him on November 1st the July 2023 petition which currently has nearly 275 bradle Beach resident signatures asking the Attorney General to sign a special prosecutor to investigate the criminal Network operating within our burrow has been ignored by Jersey attorney general Matthew blackin office on Friday I started a second petition directing directed to the New Jersey attorney general which currently has 400 signatures in support demanding the immediate termination of Chief waa because mayor Fox improperly and unilaterally accepted Chief we's retirement against burrow attorney Greg canan's legal opinion he think the advice and consent of the entire Council body is therefore not a valid action mayor Fox released his timeline of events to news2 he stated he spoke with on November 10th then in accordance with State guidelines he said on November 17th the prosecutor became involved nine days after it occurred which is in fact not in accordance with the state guidelines according to the IAP manual page three which states where a preliminary investigation indicates the possibility of a criminal act on the part of the subject officer the County prosecutor must be notified immediately no further action should be taken including the interview of or the fil filing of charges against the officer until the County prosecutor so directs I personally sent an email reporting the November 9th incident to the m County prosecutor Ryan Mahoney on November 14th three days before mayor Fox claims the burrow first met with prosecutors on November 17th I do not believe that mayor Fox ever reported the matter it was only after my notification as a private citizen the prosecutor's office became aware and they reached out to Mayor Fox when they began their investigation of my report to them mayor Fox and chief WEA have demonstrated by their own inaction and their failure to notify the prosecutor immediately on the night of the incident that they were fully intending to cover up this criminal matter in an attempt to protect Chief qua that's how criminal networks operate I have been unsuccessfully trying to contact the M County prosecutor's office by way of multiple documented emails and voicemails with no response I want to ask why no criminal charges that have been filed against Chief waa for his actions I want to inform them of important and relevant facts I uncovered they should be aware of such as it appears upon information and belief Chief Gua and the DUI driver can winck know each other personally because Chief weer showed up off duty and attempted to interfere with the criminal investigation obviously under the influence of alcohol himself as was Mr Winnick it is of great interest and concern there are reports circulating Mr Winnick and chief WEA were seen out together prior to the DUI accident in 2015 Chief Guido went to court to litigate against the PBA to give his authority to check the officer's cell phone records specifically calls and text messages therefore under the current circumstances and by his own legal argument Chief leader should have no objection to making his own cell phone records available to determine if in fact Mr Winnick cell phone was in contact with Chief WEA cell phone on November 9th because the mammoth count prosecutor and the New Jersey attorney general Mr pl's office for some unknown reason seem to not want to or are not capable of properly and thoroughly investigating these critical data points we the people are calling on a seasoned investigative reporter to please do the job the authorities seem to not want to do for reasons and facts I've outlined tonight before this governing body the media and the public with clearly demonstrate criminal network of collusion and subversion operating within our municipal government we the people of the Bradley Beach demand an immediate resignation of you mayor Fox current acting ba Meredith DeMarco volunteer ba Greg farach as well as xba and current qpa Kimberly Humphrey then and only then will this burrow be able to begin to heal and to correct the havoc and damage the aforementioned individuals have reaped upon this community thank you um Lieutenant brownie you're you're responsible for I'm G to screw up the initials I I am the IIA Commander for the B you're the Ia Commander Internal Affairs Commander yes every department has to have a a commander that's you know oversees the internal affairs unit you know as a point of contact and were you on the scene on the 9th or after just just after yeah I you in I've been from the the moment this incident occurred I was I was involved when when did you report that to the mm County prosecutor's office uh you referen it was an accurate statement I been reported the next day so that would be November 10th November 10th yes the day after so just to clear the record um the that was done exactly the way it should have been and Mama count prosecutors review with me was after they had I guess five day working days to view the information and then sit down with me and brief me that's basically what happened it's yeah I mean it's it's always very difficult to talk about this because it's a passionate topic and we appreciate everyone's you know concern over it I mean obviously this affects our members of the police department more than anybody absolutely um you know it's it's there's things we have to do by the Attorney General guidelines and we 100% followed everything we had to do and required to do you know above and beyond because we want to be protected ultimately I don't want to be held responsible for not doing what I'm supposed to do exactly um it's It's tricky because there's a lot of confidentiality that goes on with it you have to kind of trust the process I know that's very hard for for members of the public to understand but you have to trust the process and ultimately this this is a very involved investigation with a lot of things going on and at some point everything will will finally become clear and and accessible but there are things and timelines that you have to adhere to and there's ways to get information and there's things that we don't control I have no control over what it cost inv STS you know you you know I have no control over you know what you you're the appropriate authority over the chief so like there's certain things that I do certain things that you do certain things that the project involved has does we work together for the best possible outcome which you know I think is what we've you know you know strive for and I mean I don't I can't really make a comment because I it's not I wasn't asking to make a comment I was just asking I wanted to just get on the record correct information around the date yeah and you did exactly what you supposed to like to to just make it known that the police department and me as the IIA Commander we did everything we're supposed to do according to the timeline I've been in touch with the project office for you know more the last couple months and probably my entire 28 year career um that's have I you know so I mean that's guess I hope you you know little yeah thank you might ask question I yeah thank you I'm doing my best um council president did you take oh sure I'm taking over um sh come on up here we go no it's okay please state your name and your address 414 Line Avenue um as a member of the public excuse me uh there's a lot of conflicting information coming out about how our government is run as it relates to the incident on Main Street um I would like to actually ask um our our borrow Council Mr Cannon to clarify the proper protocol regarding uh the communication and the decision-making process of the governing body in this situation um and before um I ask you to answer this question um I would like to just share comments um that are extracted from a recent article um dated February 6 um each of these comments um are uh represent um um responses from each of the council members I won't be identifying the council members but I'd like to share this for a record um uh a councilman raised concerns about the lack of input from Council Members regarding the retirement decision and the absence of any disclosed actions taken by the town in response to the investigation findings in response to the mayor's reference to actions taken by the the burrow he goes on what actions did the town take retiring seems to be the action undertaken by the chief himself council members gave no no input into this and of course we have not seen the report from the prosecutor's office yet this was dated February 26 uh another uh Council comment mayor Larry fox has illegally kept the council in the dark regarding the invest this investigation now he is quote gone Road making a decision had no right to make on his own our ordinances clearly give disciplinary powers to the entire governing body chapter 5-30 J2 and yet mayor Fox continues to ignore the rest of the council he received the pro Prosecutor's report over a month ago and had has still not shared it with the council he has decided disciplinary action without engaging the council and now mayor fox has made a public announcement without informing the council and now another Council person goes on mayor Fox is once again usurping Council authority to solely direct the review and and decision-making process regarding the the deed incident mayor FOX also stated that any actions taken by the borrow would be his decision and finally uh an additional comment uh mayor fox has once again unilaterally acted without the council who have authority in this matter and represent the people of Bradley Beach in today's statement mayor Fox implores our quote I think community to turn a blind eye and improve itself while residents are left to pay for yet another administrative failure and so with each of these four comments representing Council um I asked um our burrow Council uh Canon to please clarify for us the protocol with regard to the governing body in this decision so I it's a complicated question you can just go online and read the ordinance but there's also collective bargaining agreement and a policies and procedures manual that govern that I'm going to respectfully ask just the client answer that question because I it's not my job to review it's a labor attorney's job I try to stay in my Lane apparently there's some accidents going on other lanes I learned about tonight but um I I just don't have I I couldn't tell you from Soup To Nuts to go from the top to the bottom I can tell you that that is something that was has been discussed amongst the governing body earlier this evening and I'm I'm not just not I'll wait the labor attorney's opinion up so as to your latter question you can see what sort of issue this is in the town there there's the news that was just here in the back of the camera standing room only and the burough attorney for the town and none of the council members have seen any more information than you have and I can tell you that I've been doing this for 14 years and that's not how you do this just as a practical matter you could forget about the legalities so so you know I was put in the unfortunate position last two two weeks ago telling you that we have no idea what's going on that obviously wasn't accurate so you can draw your own conclusions from that but that that's where we're at so will will burrow residents be updated as to where this goes and I I don't know the mayor hasn't talked to me in eight weeks so I I God I don't know I appreciate your questions I I don't know the labor attorney be be updating and providing they to talk to me either so I I okay but and I appreciate that thank you for your hon and you saw the news article in December where there's some people that don't want me here so I can I can understand one well maybe maybe two so I I guess some what all I don't know mayor Fox is not here now to answer my question um so you know I will come back and ask I don't I don't know what's over that on okay thank you I appreciate your question I mean I do want to add one more thing shanana we did get a letter from Reay Santiago and mayor read from it so I guess I can share it because he did he did say the prosecutor's office does not administer administer discipline that is the function of the appropriate governing Authority and we have an ordinance 5-30 that said the council it's the mayor and the council that govern over the authority of discipline so we were we didn't have the information now we have the information and we will see how we go forward thank you you're welcome Tom Dr Maguire mire Avenue uh sorry I got here late I missed everything um so I did catch a few things and I just wanted to ask a question was there a vote of no confidence tonight in the mayor yes there was damn miss that all right because I was going to implore you to please do it do it again just for fun um I had I didn't know that the I thought the last meeting we talked about the DPW and the rest of the people not having contracts and it's still not done I know the mayor just left he loves to leave when we have this good stuff to talk about he left when it was about meridith and now it's about this he just likes to leave so I just like to remind everyone that he likes to leave when it's on cou um but I I know you guys got your hands that you can't do anything you know you can't force him to talk to you about Burn team who who staks I know you guys want to get R him he's doing a terrible job and is there any way that the the tal the news I mean how I mean I love that the D DPW is here but taking up our seats and making it so hot here so many people so they I don't want them here anymore I love them but I know they don't want to be here so can we please I I wish the mayor's here to just like give him a is ridiculous oh the DPW is great oh gee he's the best he loves to talk a game but then there's nothing that happens I mean we I mean he can't even sell a church you know that's very valuable I mean why we haven't done that we're doing rfps which I think is just BS no one should be doing rfps for this we could have sold this property six months ago uh so if we're going at the speed of the rfps I'm telling tpw not to hold a breath so I mean it's it's sad but we are not moving fast with anything they're doing in this in the government and I just I might have missed it was he saddened by this the the media being here reporting on this at all did he say anything about that no he didn't wasn't sad about that according to his statement he was sadden by the media attention and the media pull by not by actually what is the problem so so I I really just hope it addresses a problem for everyone and I didn't know all those other people that are considered part of that like the um I called dispatch people so they've helped me plenty of times get people out of my driveway so they're very important so I just hope they get paid and I wish the again but I don't know what to do I wish you guys could do something sucks we we are trying I know I know and and in fact you know in January we we the all the professionals and we recommended a different attorne I know I know and unfortunately he was the only one that wanted to keep this forste on yeah and if if we don't all agree we can't change the attorney yeah so this way that attorney just stays on because it's yet another nohole but yes I want to say so many more things so we're we're I I don't know if Greg if we can change the the the attorney I mean most people the the opinion is exactly would you just be right it had to be all five votes so we have four votes to change the attorney we need at this point yes you need a nomination and advice in consent so you need the mayor and a majority of the council to be very specific you need a mayor and a majority of the council to to do a hold well I'm hold over right now we are all hold hold over thank you very much oh I have one more comment councilman goosi yeah to me no okay partly in response to you but partly in response to Common set of made this evening um it's so difficult I realize when you're not living the life we live on the council that it's not always clear the delineation of responsibilities the council the four of us are legislators we do not direct employees we don't we we often vote on hiring but we can't say you know we don't like person a or person B people have referenced not only the you know some concerns that have been raised but regarding the U the labor attorney but also you know other positions in the buau very simply put the council has um the right to approve a budget we approve a budget a spend amount and once we do that you know how it those dollars are spent is is largely in the hands of of the mayor and our Administration they direct our employees they hire and they fire and so forth um what the council does have the power to do is investigate we can authorize that investigation and I'm not going to comment on am I I'm not going to comment on our on our professionals um but but I must say that uh the folks who have spoken tonight on behalf of of the local 152 you've all been very compelling but I but um Miss Browning you um you touched the nerve with me and the the fact that this gentleman if if in fact you know what you described is true that you know he he did the zero well if he did uh what I would like this Council to do and I'm about to make a motion uh I would like to use our power to investigate this process um I don't know before I make the motion Mr K I'll ask your opinion but if this is true if we find through an investigation that this is true I think that level of disrespect and that level of um potential antagonism and alleged for the moment uh is is just absolutely not to be tolerated by this Council so it's one thing to be a tough negotiator and I'm not I'm not piing sides at this point Who's offering what and what's reasonable what's not I this Council has had no uh specific feedback we've been told there are challenges and we've been given examples without any more detail but but if any representative of this buau is treating our employees with that level of disrespect I want to confirm that and then I think we collectively need to put pressure on our mayor to consider changes um but again that would only be after an investigation now Mr Canon I'm about to make that motion that we have an investigation obviously that would require spending more money which none of us want to do but if our only alternative at Le Mr Kenny you have another alternative can I suggest something please we already have Mr salmon investigating the Police contract which is the last one um if you guys can why don't you make a motion to direct us there be Erica to put together a resolution and we need a proposal you can't just willy-nilly say we're going to investigate it so and that also gives you two weeks from today to maybe work this out in some way that doesn't cost everyone more money as people were arguing but I would just suggest you just used MR Salon he's already doing the one negotiation you might as well do to the other I can ask him for a proposal and you can consider it next time we come cor is that like the best route an independent attorney there's no other there's no body that governs you know like labor negotiations or anything well when there's an impass they can file her but well right right that's that's I think they're trying to avoid that by being here tonight so and I'm trying to address recommend that round I'm trying to address the potential inappropriate behavior of of one of our professionals so this is less of a bargaining issue to me this is more of a how do our professionals conduct themselves and again I'm not I'm not making a decision one way or the other now but I think the council does have the authority to conduct an invest to request an in investigation you already have one into collective bargaining negotiations at this moment so certainly you do so given your usually we can't just start one tonight without proposal or yeah I was just going to make a motion you can make a motion to why don't you the last time you made a motion to direct me to get a proposal and us to put a resolution for your consideration together could certainly do the same thing we bring that back next time like I said that keeps just two weeks to maybe figure it out you're saying I've had practice making motions to do investigations I was poly saying I think you know how to do it councilman so um given given your um given your guidance that that would also afford us a couple of weeks for the the mayor uh to consider the role that you know whether or not we should move forward with investigation um I make a motion that this Council authorizes an expansion of the existing investigation um so that we could understand the behavior of our Professionals in the course of the the contract negotiations with local 152 second uh Mr Noble yes Mr gubitosi yes M Mahone yes Mr Weber yes but should shouldn't Jane vote last now like she's tonight I'm going in alphabetical order which is what it's stat in the Clark spot mayor Fox absent great um Mr Coan thas J Coan 612 P Avenue you know I think I feel bad for public works but I realize why this is happening is because the former ba didn't hire any of her nephews to work on public works that contct um you know I just had a question for Mr Brownie Mr Brownie said it um I said in this chamber I filed a complaint against Chief weeda September 27th of 2021 and according to you tonight that is supposed to be forwarded based on the internal affairs policy the procedures 5.1.8 to be forwarded to the prosecutor's office the prosecutor's officer told me that that never happened so is that mayor Fox and the business administrator at that time's error is that I I don't want to throw you in the bus I'm just trying to figure out how I was disregarded maybe it's because of who I am I don't know I can just say I have no knowledge of that at all okay so I could comment I don't okay and I want to answer some questions for Mr dy I don't know if he's still here James Dy made some great points about hiring and how it works in the B Rue so the the police hir here's how it works Chief bua hires the business administrator's nephew and then three months later the business administrator negotiates the contracts for two years for cheap weita and then the business administrator negotiates the contract for PBA 50 of which her nephew is now a member I mean that's how it works and it's New Jersey I guess but it's embarrassing it's really quite embarrassing and and Mr Dy did bring up some great comments now I want to tell you that the prosecutor's office you know I I can't wait to read the report I have done an Oprah to the Attorney General's office to try to get a copy um because it's got to be interesting reading but I filed a complaint because the second time I filed the complaint against Chief breita I just skipped the tab I just went right to the procs so there were multiple complaints about Chief gu's behavior in this room and in this room I was speaking one day and I got a phone call the next day from a nice lady in the audience who said Chief Brea gave you the finger while you were speaking and she took this picture okay well went to the prosecutor's office spent over an hour in the investigation room it's kind of like 2020 it was kind of cool especially when you didn't do anything wrong but I gotta tell you the determination was well we need to talk to the lady the lady said to me I'm 75 years old I've lived here for 40 years I'm petrified if I tell anybody so they said well you can't Supply the person and chief we just said he didn't do it I said I have a picture well didn't matter but you know what karma is an amazing thing and you know I'm so happy that the process was a video and I'm so happy that that video was was released to the public because that is due process thank you thank you uh ien yes she see us sh 1124 Avenue uh I appreciate the gentleman that came up and spoke about speed around town it's chronic throughout town I would live on Fourth Avenue it goes they can go 60 miles an hour down our street and from the stop sign down to Ocean Avenue their children the way the driveways are people come out of their driveways they can't see oncoming cars they have to crawl out of their driveway to see oncoming traffic somebody is seriously going to be killed in this in this town because of the way cars are speeding all over the place and I don't and I think I mentioned this once before I used to live in h town hennington burrow has the strictest speed laws in a little municipality you would ever want to witness even when people have invitations they mark on the invitations speed limits are strictly enforced do not speed the speed limit is 25 miles out in town you do not go more than 25 miles an hour and in fact I was just sharing with my daughter uh this morning about when they were little there was a little candy store that I would go and I was stuck because I was going 28 miles an hour so that I think our town means that type of enforcement and it it it's it's just out of control and um I'm just hoping we'll see an improvement Ina and thank you I don't need to be picking on you but I think it should matter of bringing it to your attention how serious the problem is and how the residents are really very very worried about somebody seriously becoming injured or killed thank you thank you anybody else have a comment or question we do have somebody on okay I think it's isber Don Greenberg you're on Don you're muted yeah hey guys Don Greenberg 302 Park Place how's it going guys very well thank you how you doing so I'm doing good um so I had I had to call in um and people have addressed the the incident on Main Street uh was that a Springsteen or a Stones album um but I think that's been addressed yeah I think that's been addressed but I had no idea what was going on with the um DPW contract I mean I know it was a negotiation I had no idea it was 14 months and I think that's a travesty and that's something that needs to be corrected and I just wanted to all the DPW guys there and ladies there to know that you know we we support you uh we think it's a travesty what's going on uh to have your let's have an offer to cut your salaries and cut your benefits when everything is going showing up is just ridiculous um and you know I mean I wish I could wave a magic wand and and give you a great contract I can't but I just want you to know that we do support you we appreciate what you guys do um and we're behind you and that's kind of all I got so thank you very much you're welcome I just want to say thank you everybody for being here I know you could be 10 million other places I appreciate your comments your questions oh you have oh we have P can't raise his hand on Zoom he keeps saying oh does he want to make a comment yeah okay Bob Patton if you can unmute I see you in the corner there see if it works can you hear me yes we can hi Bob hey guys um just see your name and um address for the record please Bob Patton 207 Evergreen Avenue um I you know I I want to say this without getting emotional because I feel very much for the DPW workers the fact that Larry fox has not attended a single session or been an integral part of this process from day one is absolutely travesty there's no excuse for it he's leaving his people his residents his employees on a hook and I hope everybody remembers this when it comes down to vot in new mayor because all the people who are supporting Larry Fox as our CEO as we've clearly said our councel are the legislative side he has he would have been fired 10 times over in any company he hasn't done the 2022 budget and we just found out the tragic news that Kim Humphrey screwed up our numbers and we're just finding this out now so the town's not going to give us our 224 budget approval till we get the two 22 numbers in and they're stale so I don't know how we do numbers to this year when we're working on two-year-old numbers from the past that's absolutely tragic um for him to leave the DPW workers and not be involved here that's a just a dropping his duties it's um I don't know what he does for work what does he do for this job I I I he's getting nothing done the church nothing our ba is unqualified and really just a mouthpiece for him it's really disgusting and so I uh I just want to say for everybody out there we're going to elect a new mayor and we know who's doing the jobs and who wants to do the job for us we know who's not doing the job and there's no excuse for him anymore so I just had to say that I'm sorry a little little straightforward but it is what it is thank you Bob I appreciate your comments anybody else all right oh yes please it's so it's kind of like a contention for us a little bit it's DPW dispatch clerical yes court administrators is not just wi where we stand together they they are a bigger unit of give it that but they stand with us they back us thank you for reminding us yes it's not just DBW it's okay any anybody else have any more comments okay thanks everybody for being here I really appreciate your comments your questions and your presence it's really truly appreciated have a beautiful night and be safe I'd like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting you --------- [Music] many nor I'm like the guy running do that follow [Music] [Music] I my Sy over [Music] AC off no no no no you want stand yeah [Music] got you go there [Music] [Music] B I am that's TJ here we [Music] go hi ER I here 25 that's still yeah still in the works oh you other one [Music] why [Music] take I would just read it and FL United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all I wish to announce that the 48 hour notice is required under the open public meeting Act was emailed to the Asbury Parc the co-star and the new coaster on December the 7th of 2023 that a copy has been placed on the bulleon board in the burrow office and that a copy has been filed with the municipal clerk as a courtesy to the public this meeting may be attended via Zoom if for any reason the zoom portion of this meeting failed or is disconnected the imperson meeting will continue and action can and will be taken providing there is an inperson Quorum Mr Noble here here Mr guzi here M Mahoney here Mr Weber here mayor Fox here uh good evening everybody uh on this auspicious evening at the end of February uh I do make we'll make a couple of commercial announcements before we get going here um made these the last few meetings um we started a process the council trying to um welcome this agreements but uh try to understand different perspectives but our voices should be constructive ask everybody to try to have a constructive voice this evening um we are always on a journey to improve Bradley Beach and we ask people to join in that vision of continuing to improve bradle Beach and we just ask everybody to gauge their tone going forward we're all neighbors small town and hopefully uh can do that uh we'll continue um to try to tighten up our clock management uh we're trying to uh accommodate people that want to be here but um can't afford a three or four hour meeeting so we're going to try to ask people to help us get to those objectives um you I apologize up front we have um we're doing the executive session up front because of some time constraints I have so um we're going to um make a motion to go into an executive session for hopefully no late no longer than a half hour hopefully less second Mr Noble yes Mr gzi yes M Mahoney Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes like [Music] you probably could there [Music] Amber tell I'm just letting you know that's what I understand she's tell [Music] [Music] B alert and then she after I [Music] sandwich come on ni just [Music] [Music] turn to the bottom of your notes TR to [Music] oh [Music] Jo okay [Music] you get a discount on the next TR I mean I got to say otherwise my yeah exactly yeah I got you I got you both Direction um when you going to come in early tomorrow right yeah yeah tomorrow yeah yeah I'm gonna have um it's good because I got uh um two class ones coming in for uh do that okay oh good and then I I usually have Chris or whoever's there you know do the uh start back I'm catching up we in compliance like we're doing an upgrade tomorrow okay I've always been I've always overseen that ever since you know i' been on top of all the stuff we got to do but that's you know that again those are I can't create a link like I can't do what they need to do I don't know how I probably figured out it would take me like and that's I mean we have an IC for that reason so and we have we have a couple weeks for that oh I got I got an email for that D2 security I saw we figure is it mandatory he he said he's trying to look into something else okay so as a attack maybe you want to put something out wait I'll just touch tomorrow um yeah just to let people know do it if you want to do it or don't do it or what you have to be compant with you have to take cyber security train not necessarily that one but I mean if if he wants us to take it for this year we can we just got to let people know that not I speciically ask says no it's not mandatory training but you know it's not for me looks good I'm out of a job already yeah no that's why he wore the black and green yeah well so did I it's my turn musical detective oh man yeah yeah it's good cuz I want to I want to I have like a little stick stuff [Music] never got back yeah oh my God oh my God no I didn't go put I'm like yeah I'm go through all the boes a lot and's like no way I start and theist 201 whatever like whatever it was I read whatever whatever years 20 years nothing just go through [Music] box minutes or think [Music] yeah w oh wait no I got [Music] yeah one [Music] yeah you don't know on feel like IDE B our [Music] for [Music] be how [Music] there [Music] f [Music] [Music] that's Che [Music] like [Music] [Music] the [Music] friend [Music] place [Music] you [Music] [Music] watch play do let me [Music] show [Music] that [Music] room Ladi what's that it's why you feel like [Music] that here next v no I'm [Music] [Music] St [Music] [Music] [Music] last did he yeah know Mr Noble yes Mr yes Mr Mone yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes okay uh we will now go into mayor and Council reports we'll start with councilman wther welcome everybody Welcome to the council regulars but really welcome to all the newcomers because there's a lot of new places so it's great to see people um I'm going to comment on recent events and that stop um the only thing I'm going to say about the those body cam videos is that our Police Department is more than it's cheap as evidenced by the body cam video our police department has men and women of every rank from relatively new officers to people that have been doing the job for a very long time and they do their job every day they do it under difficult circumstances the same goes uh for the Department leadership they do their job every day the department is more than it's Chief I also want to add that the body cam video shows our first aid Squad who are volunteers who do not get paid and they are doing their jobs under difficult circumstances this video shows First Responders that have been doing it for decades alongside trainees essentially that are in high school they're out there at 11:00 at night on a Thursday providing their service to the town as volunteers now there's what happened and then there's process and you all know I'm a process guy if this Administration did not contact M County prosecutor when they should have that's a problem and I say note that I say it letting the prosecutor's office do their job was the right thing that's what we all did we sat tight while that process unfolded but it's absolutely unacceptable to me that County prosecutor's office wrapped up their investigation sent their report to this town over a month ago and the administration did not share that fact with the council unacceptable that we had two meetings right here in this chamber in late January and in the middle of February the minmin administration had this report and they didn't say anything now now we're told that the rest of the council is going to get a redacted report redacted version of the report and again some level I find that unacceptable um and unfortunately you know there's when there's distractions like this there are things that are not getting done in this town um for example we have a DPW contract that needs to be negotiated and finalized like job one there's a list I could go through um so that's all I'm going to say on the recent events um the rest of this is going to be like a regular Council report where commission did not meet in February so I don't have a report for you there although they still want to sign about not feeding water F we have a ROM Applause for the [Applause] Poli but you're going to have to speak your name and address because you still me um and um the shade tree commission I'm sure council president doble is going to have a good the shade tree commission so I I'll leave no meeting okay good I knew plenty of stuff to cover so there is a tree planting coming up we're going with May 4th yes May the 4th Star Wars day okay all right um and fire and first dat reports they're going to be on a monthly basis starting in March so that's essentially um my Council report I do want to say that the the bbbc event at uas was great it was great to see our fire department members first a members police department members all in the same room having a good time there was no disaster they weren't all in the same place because something terrible happened and it was good to just sort of be there with everybody so it was a great bbbc event a great idea I hope they do it every year and hope more people can attend if that's the case we're going to need a bigger room and that's my report Mr that thank you um there's a lot of people in attended tonight uh I guess you're all not here to listen to us pass a resolution about mosquitoes so is I know ER loves this one um hello to our DPW members I see you and I know that you guys have been negotiating and ladies have been negotiating for over a year for contract and while the residents and administration have had nothing but praise for your contribution and dedication to the town here you are now if you could only get the D DPW our hardworking dis and other union members a fair and amenable contract the council and questioning residents still await the rfps for 319 living these docks seem to be at a complete standstill I had a meeting with the mayor in acting VA on November 15th and had been asked the parameters of what I would like see to see happen at the church at this meeting where rfps were mentioned I made it very clear that I had no desire for the burough to get involved in the demol of business and here we are three and a half months later stalled with promised and dare I say unnecessary rfps nowhere in sight with regard to the incident on Main Street as councilman Weber said yes our Police Department is made up of more than the chief it's made up of great men and women of department but this Administration is made up of more than the mayor and the B it's made up of the men and women on this Council I was stunned to learn that this report came out such a long time ago and I feel like you've been left in the dark this community has been implored our titn tight Community has been employed to turn a blind Blind Eye and improve itself in the wake of this Scandal residents are left not only admonished for their outrage but now forced again to pay for yet another administrative Mis out and finally the land 's board met on February 15 this was a revote of a previously denied application from November 16th here on February 15th a majority approved a 2.5 story dwelling on an undersized lot with seven variances there are also two zoning determinations one was denied and one was settled thank you thank you Council as many of you know when I I often make statements somewhat off the cuff but when I need to make sure that my statement is recorded for posterity in for a minute I tend to write them out and read them so bear with me as I as I try to address a number of issues some some challenging and some hopefully good at the mayor's request uh a few meetings ago the council agreed to move Council comments to the beginning of our meetings I've expressed my reservations to the mayor because there are times in which the council may wish to comment on the agenda for example the bill is resolutions ordinance amendments and it's difficult to do so in advance of the issues being shared with the public tonight is an example of this challenge because there are a handful of items that I must address which normally might be better suited for the end of the meeting number one uh it is my pleasure to uh to be the liaison to our police department and detective Lieutenant Browning consistently provides me with a fleece update uh the update for this meeting is that the police responded to a severely intoxicated subject causing a disturbance in a local Main Street business he was cited for public nuisance and given a formal trespass notice by the store a local subject was arrested for invasion of privacy stemming from an incident involving sexual photos I'd like to comment now about uh the budget the bur's budget and the timing for the delivery to the council I want people to know that the delivery of the budget to the council is late again this is the third consecutive year and I'll continue the third consecutive year that the council must wait Beyond stated time frames for transmission of the budget at our January 24th meeting this Council passed a resolution extending the time frame for the transition to the but transition of the budget to the council from January 27th to Fe uary 27th one month the administration promised that this would serve as a deadline and that they would try to provide some or all of the budget in advance of this new deadline two weeks ago at our last meeting on February 14th I mentioned that I was still hopeful that the budget would be transmitted to the Council on or before February 27 today is now February 28th and no budget has been transmitted to the council the 22 audit report continues to be delayed and I am hopeful that this will not contribute to further delays in the Budget Transmission to the council I'd like to now briefly talk about very preliminary audit findings as I just mentioned the 2022 audit is running late very late I was able to join an audit status meeting with our CFO the mayor and the ba on February 21st it is too early to uh release any of the audit's results no numbers however the primary message delivered to us by our auditor Mr olawa is that the audit data for 2022 fiscal year that was delivered to our auditor is a mess he stated that this was not the case during his prior audit of 20121 data so controls somehow failed significantly in 2022 there has been an incredible amount of work completed by Mr ola's team in correcting the Burrow's reported 2022 data and I know that our new CFO Mr Gs is working closely with our Auditor in this cleanup process this is contribut this is contributing to his delay in presenting the final report I'd like to give everyone a quick update on our fallen heroes uh efforts in the last council meeting we presented a plan to improve the bur's recog of our Bradley Beach fallen heroes men and women affiliated with Bradley Beach who died in Wartime this plan will include centralizing our monuments in Riley Park adding light P banners for each of the buroughs 20 fallen heroes and Publishing a brochure with bios of our fallen heroes as the council representative on this project I am trying to figure out the best way to expedite public financing of this project the deadline is very tight we hope to raise $112,000 next month in March so in order to do that uh we can initiate necessary purchases and be prepared for our Memorial Day ceremonies on May 27th May 27th as most of you can calculate is just two months away we will begin to solicit private donations within the next week uh I won't be knocking on anyone's doors but we will be getting communication out requesting donations for anyone who's interested uh another item I need to address uh and it's been briefly touched on by Miss Mahoney is the uh the 319 line rfps many residents continue to ask me about the status of the sale of the 319 Lorraine Church property as recently as last week I was told by council president Den Noel sitting to my left that the Administration has not yet started developing rfps and that they have not yet secured approval for subdivisions requested by the council very little information has been disseminated by the administration to the council before we move too far forward in a direction that I do not support I want to State my preferences clearly for the record number one I completely support the development and approval of council approved subdivisions for this property number two I will need a council approved we uh requirements document to detail the burough demands for an acquiring developer I say Council approved because it must not be generated in a vacuum by the qpa or by the administration without Council review and approval number three I am not in favor of the burrow assuming responsibility for demolition it would expose the burrow to financial risks of poor project management and broader liabilities tied to the environmentally sound removal of any hazardous materials I made this very clear in our council meeting of October 25th 2023 but I wanted to State it again tonight for the record and finally my clear and stated preference has been to hold a public auction with minimum bids identified not rfps although I'm told by the council president denovo that RPS have not yet been developed I want to make sure that the public knows my preferred approach now so that there will be less confusion later I do want to recognize our the men and women of our DPW who have joined us tonight I see that uh we have a pretty good turnout and attendance and I imagine one or more of you may even have comments later uh but I want to welcome everyone here I want to take the opportunity at least for me uh to say it is critical to see the burrow and and your un Union Local 152 come to a fair bargaining agreement for all I know very little about the process today but I can say that it is taking far too long to resolve on behalf of many residents including the people sitting here on the council and for all those who whose snow you plow whose Beach you manicure and whose trash you remove I want to say we appreciate your commitment to our residents and we thank you for your passion and your hard work in support of the burrow now finally i' I'd like to make a statement about the Main Street incident that many of you are here for tonight involving our Police Department Bradley Beach is a wonderful town and it simply does not deserve this International black eye we need to replace raw emotions and anger with logic and cooperation the people I have the greatest respect for are the great men and women in our Bradley Beach Police Department they continue to do their jobs protect the public put their lives at risk all while surrounded by this this intense media scrutiny it's unfortunate that the that mayor fox has kept this investigation shielded from our burough attorney Mr Canon and from the burough Council I believe the mayor acted illegally in doing so ignoring our ordinances that authorized Council involvement in any police investigation I don't understand the mayor's motives although I will say that in our executive session he did share them for the first time but his unilateral actions have only contributed to this media frany and finally given mayor Fox's total disregard for the authority of this Council I'd like to make a motion for a vote of no confidence in our mayor's ability to perform his duties is there a second second Mr Noble yes mrzi yes M Mahone yes Mr Weber yes mayor fo no council president I just want to follow up with what councilman goosi said and and reiterate this has been a distressing time for the entire buau and we all need to work together now twice as hard to put the pieces back together and we want to create a Bradley Beach that's better for our residents for our employees for our friends for our visitors and I'm up to that challenge along with the support of my fellow council members and I hope that healing the healing process can begin and our Police Department can now successfully move forward under new leadership how about some good news the Board of Ed had a meeting February 20th and uh they had the recipients of the second markeing period high honor role which included Molly Flynn Calvin Baron anamarie deman Brian Hoff Kaylee kreman Dean L Lola Nora Weber Nora Weber John Weber's daughter uh Jean Aras and Jordan Deus congratulations they also had the Teacher of the Year Awards and one went to the educational services professional of the year was drum roll please Amanda Silverstein a distinguished Elementary and special education teacher at Bradley Beach Elementary has been awarded the Bradley Beach Elementary School's Governor's teach teacher of the year award in recognition of her Innovative teaching methods and Leadership and education also Donna Taylor serving as a power professional in Bradley Beach Elementary for 5 years was selected as Bradley Beach's Educational Services professional of the year due to her ability to implement individualized education plans with precision and Care her efforts have greatly enhance the academic performance and emotional well-being of the students as well as creating a supportive an inclusive School environment congratulations to both of them and um I want to add the recently created Bradley Beach Education Foundation is excited to announce their very first high school scholarship to apply you must be a graduating high school senior who graduated from Bradley Beach Elementary School and is a current resident of the burough the application can be found on the foundation's website at www Bradley Beach edfund .org or you can pick up a copy at the Bradley Beach Library also mark your calendar the PTA is having their gift auction luncheon April 14th at 300 p.m. at the Ascension Center of St Teresa we did not have a shade tree meeting but the planting is coming up and just real quick with tourism the sixth annual Bradley Beach Shamrock hunt runs from March 11th to March 17th find a golden painted rock around Town email the tourism director and you'll win a prize from one of the Bradley Beach's awesome businesses the rocks can be found anywhere the beach front Main Street by the lake side streets you name it the tourism commission wants you to make a day out if you're searching for um by grabbing a coffee lunch or breakfast or just stopping in any of the shops to see what's new and also on April 21st Sunday from 11: to 4: the fourth annual Earth Day Festival and green Fair will be held in rley park and the summer is she up nicely with events on the beach front and Riley Park and one more note the women's History Month celebration is honoring our very own tourism director Amy hall for outstanding Community leadership it will be celebrated at uh po Gallery in Asbury Park on March 14th at 6:30 it'll be hosted by Assembly women donlin and Peter Paul and Senator Vin goal congratulations Amy Hall and that completes my report thank you thank you council president uh I have a couple comments um I'll I'll start with some positives um first um we have completed the phase one reoccupancy of the Bazi building I think everybody's seeing the building as better than ever we have Community Development uh Meals on Wheels and our senior Club which actually had a meeting there today uh we are continuing to work with the staral society on plans both interterm and longterm uh relative to the library and Recreation i' asked you to check the website for them uh the other big news that I really want to cover uh before I'll comment on some of the comments relative to the incident on Main Street I guess we're going to call it um one of the key objectives we had in 2023 was around infrastructure uh and that objective was around continued improvements to the beach front including a coastal resilience assessment with a view towards extending our bulkhead South for those who don't know our bulkhead ends on Third Avenue for those who don't uh live south of Third Avenue uh 2012 superstorm Sandy uh did a significant amount of damage to those homes from Third Avenue west and south um so um Governor Murphy last fall announced a boardwalk preservation fund as part of his 2024 budget we went to work and developed the Grant application we already had some things laid out um and we were able to interface with the governor's office in that it was looking more at retail boardwalk and we talked and made a strong case for uh Coastal resilience uh so last week uh we were able to and pleased to I'm pleased to report we uh received a $4,275 th000 uh amount from that that Grant or for that from that total um fund of $100 million the big um players as bra Park Atlantic City received 20 million uh and then there were a few below that but given the size of our town uh I think that we fared very well um I want to thank our our bur administrator and our uh burough engineer uh they put a lot of work into this and um I think you'll see the renderings around coming up we got a lot to do that so um we're we're very happy about that um so I I'll address maybe in more detail um that I shared with the council uh earlier this week on this process that we went through um and I'll just kind of read it because I also want to give the record uh so I'll start with I was first made aware of the November 9th incident the morning of November 10th I was made aware of that by Chief Weeden he met with me described the incident stated that Lieutenant Browning was involved in the internal investigation and that the mammoth County prosecutor's office would be involved because it it dealt with the chief or AE of a a police group a week later um I met with the assistant prosecutor uh two of her Associates and the business administrator to review the incident uh that's the first opportunity I had to review the video uh the assistant prosecutor recommended that the chief take vation time uh until the investigation was completed that she thought would be done in December uh which it wasn't um we made the decision to go the route of administrative leave and why did we do that well we thought it was more appropriate in that administrative leave basically says you're not performing any police duties vacation approved vacation time you're still a part of the department and can operate within the Department administrative leaves more stringent and more defined uh so at the time and I still believe about the case the assistant prosecutor uh appreciated the action we take we were takeen uh I met with Chief weer that afternoon and communicated that direction um I also sent an email to the council letting them know that this was taking place that day uh and I'll say I am grateful to the prosecutor's office for their professionalism uh the experience that guided the investigation so um again I thought thought we'd received this report in mid December it wasn't delivered until the latter part of January that report uh it's called the summary and conclusions report is a Ser from there a series of meetings ensued so a report doesn't mean you're done a report means okay this is the findings this is the conclusions from there um there were a number of phone calls or a number of meetings with the prosecutor's office with our uh labor attorney with our police captain with Chief G his Council uh the B administrator myself uh there's a a number of steps that were taken to get to to ensure that is this conclusion appropriate and are we are we all want so um we came to that conclusion just recently um the conclusion section of the prosecutor's report as it relates to this clar action uh basically I'll read it uh because it it will be out shortly pursuant to section 51 1.8 of the IAP this office may make a disciplinary recommendation with respect to the above findings in our investigating that CH in our in it is our understanding I'm sorry that Chief quo will be retiring March 1st 2024 and they'll be using accumulated leave time through this date of retirement given these circumstances which presupposes that Chief qu is not returning Brad Beach Police Department any capacity we do not make a disciplinary recommendation so um that that I'm not I won't go into the whole report but uh I will say that um the chief is retiring as of March 1st this Friday uh that's a full seven months before that's anticipated so if you look at um the accumulated vacation time since January 1st he's been using accumulated vacation time although he's still in a state of uh administrative Le not interfacing with the Department um between those two uh the administrative I'm sorry the vacation time and the um seven months it's a fairly significant shift in his um income and revenue for this period of time very significant um so um clearly this whole series of events is unfortunate for the individuals involved in our community I'm hoping we can move through this uh I am grateful to the prosecut Santiago and assistant prosecutor FAL along with the other people in the MTH County Police Prosecutors office that work through the series of events and issues uh our labor attorney also and Mr Mar on Captain honor so a couple comments were made about um this being an international incident and it being all over the Internet we could have gotten a report on January 1st and the same thing would have happened this was an opra um video of body cam uh anybody can Oprah body cam it gets um uh reviewed um there's redactions done on it but that happen that's going to happen no matter what so the the idea that um something could have changed relative to that it's it's not going to happen um it's just a process that uh is there as as is nodding her head she's the Oprah person here um there's also been some questions about well why didn't we suspend or why didn't we do some things without pay there is a due process uh element to this um I think um once we put the chief on administrative leave he did exactly what we asked him to do we did the investigation uh I will say that um this is my first investigation in an area like this and we took the lead of the M County's prosecutor's office as we should have anytime it's a investigation of a police chief or a head of a police group they take the lead and they took the lead from basically end to end which I do very much appreciate um so this idea that this was concluded a month ago and we've been just sitting on this is not the case we've just concluded and last week actually in the middle of the week um the conversation began and initiated by the prosecutor's office about what would be released and how it would be released um whether it's a full report a redacted report and that uh we actually just received um uh a memo from the prosecutor probably two hours ago uh defining that and delting that a little bit better so um you know that that conversation took place middle of last week to the end of this week end of last week uh the information I got and and again the confidentiality of this even in the memo we just got from the prosecutor really stresses confidentiality and not um Discerning any of these reports uh for for obvious reasons there's people report that U they don't want to have um the in questioned or to go any further with so that's um that's where it is um I know everybody's uh emotional about this I can understand understand it I'm not happy about it either um do I think we took the right steps in a timely manner I think we did people might not agree with that or might not like it but I appreciate the fact that Lieutenant brownie I think the night of and the next day took the action that you're designated to take and did it appropriately and did his duty and um and I very much appreciate that I appreciate Captain Arnold who has worked with the Department along with um lieutenant and um kept things on an even Keel with the community I think we've continued to have a safe community and I very much appreciate that uh so um as this concludes um you know I don't I don't know how uh if it will conclude in the short term because there are I just can't predict that so um at this point uh that's my statement and um we will go to the next agenda which is presentations and Bs um we have no presentations but we do have two proclamations and I'll start with Council M If You Could Read appropriately one of those bur of Bradley Beach International women sorry thanks whereas International women's day is celebrated globally on March 8th by those who believe in gender equality and who seek to improve the lives of all women through cultural legal economic and social change and whereas International women's day celebrates the collective power of women pays tribute to their achievements and recognizes the remaining challenges to further efforts for women's rights and gender equality encouraging and mobilizing all people to contribute for positive change and whereas the burrow of Bradley Beach honors the accomplished and Visionary women who have helped build our country including those who whose contributions have not been adequately recognized and celebrated and whereas the buau of Bradley Beach P tribute to the Trailblazers from the recent and distant past for daring to Envision a future for which no past president precedent existed and for building a nation of endless possibility for all its women and whereas currently there are women serving locally in leadership positions inspiring the continued work in advancing the rights opportunities and full participation of women and girls of all backgrounds and whereas on the hund 11th International women's day we celebrate and encourage everyone to take actions against gender bias and inequality and whereas while International women's day actively escalates for March 8th Prime employers for women maintain a deep and continuous focus on Equity diversity and inclusion all year around therefore be it proclaimed by the buau of Bradley Beach that March 88th 2024 should be celebrated as International women's day in app in appreciation of the many achievements of of the women of Bradley Beach and those across this nation and the world invest in women accelerate the progress dat this 28th day of February 2024 thank you Council we have a second Proclamation sister women's History Month whereas American women of every race class and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our nation is in countless recorded and unrecorded ways whereas American women have played and continue to play critical economical cultural and social roles in every sphere of the life of the nation by constituting and significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home whereas American women have played a unique role throughout the history of the nation by providing the majority of the volunteer labor force of the nation whereas American women were important in the establishment of early charitable and cultural institutions in our nation whereas American women of every race class and ethnic background sered as early leaders in the Forefront of every major Progressive social change movement whereas American women have served our country courageously in the military whereas American women have been leaders not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity but also in the Abolitionist Movement the Emancipation movement the industrial labor movement the civil rights movement and other movements especially the peace m movement which create a more fair and just Society for all now therefore be it resolved by the governing body of the burough of Bradley Beach that March is designated as women's history month thank you thank you okay agenda item number nine approval of minutes February 14th 2024 I have a motion to approve minutes of February 14 201 second Mr Noble yes Mr G yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor fo yes thank you okay public comments pertain to the 228 agenda items only 5 minute limit and single instance and you can line up in the front row if you like here any questions on questions i2th Avenue um before I begin I want to apologize to John Weber for not being recognized by the mayor for not giving me the credit that you that you duly deserve for the boardwalk renovation and I would urge everyone to go into Bradon Beach Community and read John Weber's explanation of what he personally has done to get that program that that project going and um excuse me I'm just a little upset about all this the acting VA has only been here four months this has been for how many years John idea for a long time you can't say I lifted her finger but I want to ask somebody who's I remember when I first met you you talked about this as one of your goals for our town and it was finally achieved and I know you spoke about it quite frequently and I find it very upsetting that the mayor could not give you any public CR okay now my question to you is about the Bist does this B represent the full month bills not necessarily but for the month of February because as we all know I like to look at the bill list and I'm very familiar with the bill list and this bill list was 25 Pages which is a normal TW we Bill list when we had Bill list every two weeks normally this is the first time we're getting for a monthly this is basically an incom complet there are no mentions of any medical payments for Medicare Vision payments no bills from do Mr Canon's office uh no tnm postings I mean these are regular these TNN TNN T we we're not work with Vision on here one but the long list of Medicare payments for retirees that's been there regularly all right I'm making that a point this I would have expected a 50 page Bill list for it to be for the month of February okay let me get back to the bill list and this is all about uh driving this Daisy on page eight there is a bill for $3,500 for concept professional system sound videos and it came from the account of at the beach page 14 momth University a video shoot Driving Miss Daisy coming out of the account of Arts at the beach for $1,600 page 15 uh was a payment to nor Monahan for S promotional materials for $350 the total bill for that event was $6,193 75 now my question is is the is the art at the beach a different budget line item than the Arts pcel pardon me it's the art C are there two accounts or one there one account could you please clarify that for me I can double check that I believe there's one sub account for they have a budget they have an annual budget and what is their annual budget 15 okay um were the were there was there an admission fee to attend the play no there never is okay were the actors paid or were they volunteers uh they're paid but it's it's I would call it I want say it's marginal but it's not a it's not a significant amount do you know how many actas were on there there were two okay well I know from King Le that the payment is generally 350 to 450 I mean if it's that's probably yeah I don't want to minimize that it's not thousands okay no actors names appeared on this bill list so therefore these bills will be coming for some do appear on the bill now where on the first page of the manual checks apologize and how much was that for um this particular actor was for $650 okay so we can add that to 600 so it's $6800 so far for um in um driving this Daisy okay that's my concern about driving the state uh uh Jersey oh okay well then I'm going to give you my list you can actually email and ask questions well I'm going to give you a copy of it now moving forward um you can always give them to the clerk to distribute yes yes go ahead start mire 610 Brinley um I am frankly pissed off that we've had meetings here and we've had residents stand up here and ask questions about this investigation that was going on this is you have questions about the agenda Council comments are on the agenda and this came up during Council comments so and you know what it was pretty obvious that that's what was spoken about in executive session which was also on the agenda it's not it's not on the agenda I'm sorry um it is on the agenda it is so um we had residents stand up up here and ask questions yeah I'm sorry and we've been lied to I'm sorry it says agenda items only yeah Council comments are agenda items and I'm responding to council comments which are agenda items I'd appreciate no more interruptions please so I want to ask Mr Canon was were we lied to was this appropriately handled were we told the proper information over the last few meetings I feel like we had residents stand up here in particularly asking about this situation and we were told no comment because it's under investigation and now we're hearing it was it was concluded it was not concluded disciplinary action but it was concluded through the prosecutor's office so administrative questions were asked no answers given I believe the council is part of the disciplinary action did that take place did that take place it seems like the council's left in the dark according to the media were you left in the dark do you know anything did you protect our Council for being part of this like what is happening in this burrow we have no answers and when we call on our elected Council they don't have answers for us so we are clearly under dictatorship for the 20th time I've said it up here we we can't get answers to anything we pay taxes we live here dayto day and we don't get answers to anything so can you clarify anything here for us did the council did the council weigh in on disciplinary action and are they supposed to um so that that question specifically is being determined by the labor attorney as to you coming up here and asking what's going on the investigation every time I did tell you last time that we didn't have any information I did not I was not aware that we had received the report in January at that time I you're as burrow attorney are you supposed to get that like is that proper protocol I believe so and the mayor and I have discussed that so now our own burrow attorney who's supposed to protect this burrow is left in the dark is that right you were left in the dark for this too with the council the labor attorney yeah okay the labor attorney oh the labor attorney who has stalled my case in court which has been three weeks now since the court told me it was supposed to be done okay um so the labor attorney is not our burrow attorney correct so I would imagine okay if the labor attorney weighs in on this it should be along with our burrow attorney to protect this town from the 20,000 lawsuits we constantly have like what is happening mayor you have built an alliance you have Meredith you have Kim you have farach a volunteer ba while we're still paying a full-time ba salary doing your developer deals here like where's the church rfps sorry where are the church rfps so another thing that was discussed during Council comments we have asked repeatedly for church rfps and now we're hearing there's still nothing nothing campaign season you seem to be really anxious about the church right we paid a lot of money to have a survey for $10 million spent on the church became the biggest division in this town you destroyed the town dividing us over that that property and now we still have nothing we finally came to some type of conclusion that you seemed really happy about with the council back in the fall and now it's stalled because you and meridith have rfps you're not willing to give us any information about what's when when is something changing here when election election time I feel like that's it I hope and pray that you are out by November so that your developers get nothing thank you any other questions yes uh Thomas J Coan 63rd Avenue um I had a question on the uh rebid for the mini golf course um what is the minimum bid threshold on that oh okay great yeah I just have one more thing you can I'll I'll try to go quickly I know we have time limits on the agenda now um on the bills list on page seven uh there's a line item for uh Clark C and hin in the amount of $1,567 and it's posted here as fair share Housing Council correct so as discussed in previous meetings there are special master so that's the sub count name for a fair share um they're an architectural firm correct but they're the special Master they're the special master so okay thank you I just wanted to confirm so Ron cero from the weener Law Group is still our fair share housing attorney attorney cor great okay thank you very much Mr K yes sir the new bid is $50,000 uh the last rent in the expiring was 40,00 4772 proposal a five year or a 10 year lease uh 10 years 10 thank you Mr appreciate it yes me Ocean Park Condominiums I'll address what I prefer to call rate later during my personal comments I don't know why I was sleeping that under the rupis but I would like to look at page 22 of the bill list or we're spending shy I don't want to exaggerate a little less than $7,000 on those calendars and have more incorrect information that I can imagine because here's another one not it's not daylight savings time I'm very sensitive about s's as everyone here knows it is daylight saving of time so once again wrong information sloppy work we all know where that emanates from in addition when I come up here repeatedly and say you are the stewards of our money $7,000 on that really couldn't we save it and use it for something else like legal fees um and then right under it so we got do $33 a month for that horrendous website really why are we paying for it why can't we have our old website back and just collect the information that was on it you do not Steward our money and when are you going to start and then if you look at the bill is so here's the bookkeeper and me Mr goosi maybe you will understand where my is that maybe not so it list bills how do I know they're being P who signs for it who prins them and who does the bank reconciliations unfortunately this Administration has promoted distrust and I quite honestly do not have any faith that these bills are paid in the way they're supposed to be that all bills are paid in the correct there are certain bills you chose not to approve I wonder are they still hanging out there or do they just kind of get slip through because again there is no trust and I beg the four Council people to do what they can because we cannot obviously have procedures we're not capable of that and I say that every meeting legislate legislate legislate as it should be that the people that are employed by this B and or get stockens from this borrow are announced at the beginning of every meeting for the people here and the people on Zoom for how many years does this take me that I have to say that and you all know that I'm the squeaky wheel and eventually you realize that what I say is a little bit of Common Sense and a little bit of respect and this should have nothing to do with the abundance of lawsuits that are going on you can still legislate and why is it a secret as to who is here why is it a secret to all the legal Representatives that are here right now why can't the zoom people know all of this it's just goes on and on and on and I guess I could ask a few other Bill questions if you want to give them to me but I'm just exhausted by the bill is by the lack of accountability by the waste of spending why you think you have the right to spend this um is beyond me and and if I were you like I tell Works going strike stop approving Bill thank you yes good evening Linda Duffy 312 brenley I have two questions on the bill list the first one occurs on page 15 who is ring coglin and Mell LLC conflict resolution like What conflict there are conflict they're conflict and what do they cover they do work for us obviously but there's like a situation where um Mr Canon isn't the mosto that bill is related to labor services for an employee issue that all right that's all I wanted to know okay so my other question is on page nine I'm assuming Bernstein is one of our labor attorneys and over attorney right so all right we pay him oh all right so this is the question Arts Council Arts at the beach were the same fund correct I'm going to double check and clarify that so I had added up All the Monies so far that I could find on all the bills lists for how much money we spent on labor attorneys for negotiations it's all it's almost $177,000 it's like wasted money you can't come to an agreement on a contract these guys deserve a contract so what is what is the hold of it needs to be accomplished we're only going to owe more money in the rears because of back pay and benefits it needs to be done it's not fair and certainly not fair to residents here of this town thank Youk okay other questions any on the board okay we'll go to the next agenda item which is the if other people from other screens have questions to ask it'll automatically get transferred to the first one so there's no ordinances for tonight uh there's no Communications in tonight's U agenda we have a few resolutions first resolution uh is a consent agenda which is uh three items which is the bill list for February 28th 2024 uh that's 202 2450 20241 is approval of 5050 on premises raffle license for the friends of the Bradley Beach library for Sunday April 284 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. make a motion to approve the 5050 M uh Miss Den yes Mr G yes M Mahone yes Mr Weber yes mayor yes uh and I'm sorry this should have been part of consent just got all three in so so would we just approve the consent just approve that one because that's yeah so motion to approve the yes so it's the bill list the 50/50 and then the approv advertis so make a motion to approve the entire consent second Mr Noble yes Mr yes M Mahoney yes Mr we yes may Fox yes thank you uh now we got individual resolutions 2024 53 this is the ER cost Memorial resolution authorizes the county of M mosquito control division conduct bual mosquito control operations within the b ofad beach to joke everybody second Mr Noble yes Mr this is one of my favorite resolutions as well and I will vote Yes Miss Mahone yes Mr Weber I just have to comment just so people don't think that they're just willy-nilly spraying pesticides out of the air this is we're authorizing them in case there is a problem they don't have to wait for us to so do it now before mosquito season so thank you I was waiting for someone to do that uh mayx yes uh I'm going to make a motion to table 202454 which is the approvable apply for a grant in New Jersey Department Community Affairs for approximately $100,000 Improvement to The Bradley Beach Recreation Center reason I'm asking a table that is uh the the time frame of submitting that Grant was extended and more time to the grant so I'll make a motion to table just question on this um if we were to approve it tonight can you you know does that matter if if we we still have extended time so I think this is a little bit of um my nervousness because if the grant were to change you know the parameters between now and April 16th then I would want to do another resolution so that you guys actually knew what you were approving so this is out of an abundance of caution thank you second sorry second Mr Noble yes Mr yes M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes okay we'll go to uh there are no announcements we'll go public comments by minute limit and single instance you first yes sir how you do uh good evening mayor board my name Daniel Ross executive assistant president United Commercial Workers Local 152 our local represents Pro be 13,000 members portion of which are your dedicated clerical court dispatch and Public Works employees here employeed depart these hardworking men and women have been working without a contract since January 1st 23 our local over the years had a very respectful proficient working relationship with the bar sadly has not been our case for the last 14 months right these employees have gone without any wage increases the burrow has demanded through their outside ccil to gut their current collective bargaining Grant among things eliminating their salary guide eliminating the components such as longevity personal days and other long service and offering a an easily increase of 1.3% on average for long-term employes along with other concessionary issues anybody has ever been a part of Labor uh negotiations there kind of a starting point right you started a point then parties kind of quickly work through that um however you know that's hasn't been the case you know your outside Council through the bur has bargained your employees to impass causing a perk mediator to be appointed these folks concluded their third day of mediation on Monday where the Barrow gave an employee for lack of a better word to take her to Legal Proposal with many wage and benefit concession according to documentation produced through an opra request the bar's outside coun has build nearly $25,000 for these negotiations these taxpayer funds would be better spend on bur employees this Union here negotiates hundreds of Labor agreements on behalf of our members and finds the bur's actions disrespectful to the hardworking employees in bad plac this is unacceptable your employees deserve better so that's a statement that that I had drafted so I'll just flip it um what's going on can submitt it yeah fine what's been going on is wrong you know the best way I can explain is is I've involved in a lot of different collective bargaining negotiations over the years I've worked for this local un fund for years this is a process that should work in an orderly fashion all right and for whatever reason I don't know I don't envy anybody's position that's up there right now I understand you guys are a lot of issues going on up here but these folks these folks right here and over here they deserve better they deserve a fair contract their families deserve wage increases to take care and whatever process why it's broke and why it isn't we got to move forward because sitting there dealing with outside Council in buildable hours trying to gut a collective bargaining agreement that has been existing here for a long time doesn't work you know in the past um dealing with the previous mayor council here the mayor would be involved and they'd have members of council and we'd sit there and we work through the issues I did the previous Collective baring agreement we did it in three sessions that we were done these folks 100% unanimously accepted their contract it was a smooth this process I don't know what's going on but we got to fix it I need you guys you guys have to help I have a question yes who are you negotiating with so at the table has been um Bernstein I think you use man outside Council there's some gentleman I forget there switch like you guys for whatever reason you guys been switching a whole lot right now but none of you guys have been um you guys had a lot of there's a was a female there last time right yes Sor ien I came to the first I came to the first session he was before that he's still there I came started with Kim the counil no that's all right yeah so nobody on the council's been here I'll be honest I came to the first session and help assistant and the first session we showed up there there was six pages of concessionary proposals put across the table and I I laughed at it this is this is ridiculous what can we do to help we need you to guys to get involved we need you to talk to the mayor we need to get to the table these folks did not come in asking for anything crazy you guys all know what your Police Department done all these people want to do is be treated with respect they want to maintain what they have and they want to get Fair respectful wage increases it's what they deserve they work hard you guys sat here I've heard it before up here about how much we care about Public Works about how much you educated I know how much money they save this countship because they go above and beyond we need your help we need your support thank you thank you excuse me for one second I also have a follow question you said you need our help talk to the mayor I'll speak for myself I've tried to approach this topic a number of times with our Administration not just the mayor with a broader group of people and we've been told the rest of this Council cannot participate I I was under the impression the mayor was participating he just mentioned that the council's not allowed to participate I don't know collective bargaining law but that sounds odd to me given that the council the governing body has got to approve any final contract that's negotiated why would we not we the council at least one or two representatives from the council why would we not be allowed to participate in that process I no I can tell you I I could tell you this much I've done any public sector negotiation I've done in the back it's always been somebody from mayor or counsel or something sitting down to my understanding is the last contract that was done Dave Brown did yes F administrator yes he did that singularly um so so in all fairness yeah and I would also say in all fairness little different time also we had to finish up because we had Co situations were going on and stuff like that but these folks were white involved with that but David was a he was a gentleman to deal with he he went through a very fast process May mayor Ang that PRI previous mayor has told me he also was an active participant didn't see he sat here he sat here at this very table with me when we did the last contract first got so I don't know what's going on but whatever it is internally it ain't working no these folks deserve better amen so maybe my suggestion if you could maybe the mayor could find it himself maybe find a couple people in Council to sit down with it I'm the I'm of the believe that you know you get outside Council involved and K drug out um we can we will make it from a union perspective we will make a top priority to get here sit down whatever we need to do to work through a very fair contract on the beh of these people thank you yep thank you in case you don't know me my name sorry you about to say your name sorry thehead I'm GNA shed some light in case you don't know me my name is Nole brownie I grew up in Bradley Beach I graduated from Bradley Beach grammar school and I've been a part of the Bradley Beach Fire Department my whole life serving as the first female fire chief back in 2008 I'm still very invested in Bradley Beach so as I speak I would like the respect of not being shouted at or being treated as if I don't matter I have been a dispatcher for the Bradley Beach Police Department for 20 years I love my job some would say too much as the council may not know dispatchers Court personel clerical and DPW are still without a contract out of 12 meetings the mayor's appointed team has offered nothing 12 meetings mayor and each meeting was worse than the last wiling everything down until the contract was Bare Bones your labor attorney Mr Bernstein berated me as well as using humor that was Unbecoming of a professional when I explained other contracts that were recently settled and pointed out that the police received a 4% raise I was met with okay I'll do better than that and he's raised his hand in a zero and stated that's what you'll get while she is not in our local unit it should also be known that the burrow clerk has been without a contract since 2020 we are on our third burrow administrator and you still have Greg faren back negotiating with us the chief of police was on administrative leave for the last three months collecting 50,000 which is more than the starting salary of one full-time dispatcher for an entire year for just another 10,000 you could have paid the yearly salary of two full-time dispatchers why is a man who has worked in a corporate environment disregarding his workhorses we didn't even ask for anything but a matching 4% raise and an increase for those in steps to help cover cost of living expenses since they traditionally lose out on a percentage increase there are two full-time dispatchers currently making only $900 every two weeks I have lived in this town for most of my life my father has lived here for almost 50 years still does I live breathe and love Bradley Beach I'm requesting to be heard I'm requesting to see me the people of this town I'm sure want to see the employees they utilize get a paid Fair wage our last meeting was a take it or leave it proposal your team is adversarial and exude the pleasantries of an angry mob you have lawsuit after lawsuit money that could go to us but you choose to pay a labor to attorney who this Council no longer wanted and eat up our raises at this point it would have been cheaper to go with the 4% so Council I implore you as well as people stand up for your employees we feel the support at this point we need help mayor councel I implore you once again to please settle this contract we deserve better I love this town and hope for her to shine once again you guys don't even know and can't imagine what we've been going through thank you thank you good evening mayor councel my name is James dy I live at 217 Bley avue and Bradley Beach I have two questions for the police department one when are we going to send some units down to the handle the Speeders on Brinley Avenue they they they drive down Brinley Avenue 50 60 70 miles hour da don't see a unit there enforcing the speed La the next question for the for the police department is has the police department ever sort out a alternate rout candidate to fill vacancy Police Department that's trained where we don't have to back fill it with over time with with with the Personnel that we have could you ask that question I'm sorry I just didn't understand the beginning of what you said I'm sorry why haven't they recruited for their vacancy why haven't they recruited an auth root candidate that's already trained that's certified by the state that's licensed to enforce the law why hasn't this Police Department sought and and and recruited a member of of a graduating class to fill any vacancy in this town instead of hiring somebody off the street that we have to send to a police academy and and encour all this overtime and salary and everything else that's a question that should be answered by the police department is there a reason why they didn't do it Terry I mean so to answer your first question we'll definitely make a priority to that's for the safety of the people down there speeding is traditionally a big problem you know in this town on a lot of these streets and I know you don't see it but we have officers there doing radar post all the time proactively looking um you know we generally have two two members you know uh per shift and then whatever dispatcher I mean um detectives or administrative staff as well so we'll we'll we when someone brings a problem to us we make it a point to address I'm bringing it to you but it'll believe me if I was to sit there every day when I was on the road I would that was one of my hotpots where I would sit there actively writing tickets and you know I could go off the road for three years I'm not criticizing I'm just saying that the condition there is such that it warrants some enforcement yeah well it's so Lieutenant Murray is our Patrol Lieutenant so we'll have him you know do that as for the hiring process I mean there is a defined hiring process that we go through and it's all starts with accepting resumes so we advertise we do what we can when there's an opening and we all the time we get trained police officers that want to do a lateral transfer we get alternate rout candidates we get class two candidates how many alternate root candidates have you I couldn't tell you that I don't want to give you the wrong information I'll have that off the top of my head but we have you know alternate rout is something that was done many years ago a little bit more now I know it is but you had a lot more alternate roots you know 10 years ago so now why because there's a lot of towns swooping them up as fast as they can now I if you're talking about alternate roots or class nowaday I haven't seen a lot of alternate roots you know res 21 there's 21 counties most of them have a police academy and I en I I inquire and I ask you to at least seek it out just to some money will you thank you yeah valentin1 and I'm employed by of Valentine 81 Z way ocean Gro and I'm employed by the B gravy Beach's technical assistant assistant in the construction department and office manager for Community Development our contract as you know expired in January of 2023 and while it costed basically everything from food to gas the healthare to rents to car insurance streaming services and the occasional family and friends the basics of a normal life have risen dramatically in this past year our salaries have not increased at all we have not in response slacked off in our jobs we continue every day to work under sometimes extremely stressful conditions to provide the best customer service experience possible to burrow residents many of us work through our lunch breaks unrewarded and after hours without extra compensation not one employee present in this room is a bad employee we are superheroes actually we keep this machine learning we're not asking to be made millionaires in this we're asking to be made whole again in the face of rising costs we're asking for appreciation commensurate with our efforts we're asking to be treated with respect and to not be take it for granted Kathy Engelberg commissioner of the WNBA has said when people are your greatest asset investments in human capital should be considered in the same way other companies might invest significant signicantly in product R&D we are your greatest asset and it is time that you invest with in us thanks R McGuire 610 Brinley I have a written statement this time so I'll be a little bit Lessing okay um I'd like to publicly share that I have recently opened the covid funds that we received in the past few years after the fal reimbursement payment that we paid this past October from Hurricane Sandy I was curious to see the records for the covid funding I was responded to with an email that stated as per the finance department and the OEM Department the burrow is not in possession of any responsive records for Co relief funds I did email the CFO several times and only received the same answer from Erica thank you stating that the same stating the same answer from the CFO I did ask for a confirmation from the CFO Mr Garts however I did not get a response councilman Weber did respond to me that it's not called covid funding it's called the ARP American Rescue plan which I was clearly aware of but didn't think I needed to be so so specific so I have just recently sent in the same request but for covid funding under the American Rescue plan let's see if I had to be that specific for the Bro to understand what exactly I was asking for for the record I did find the funds online thanks to council councilwoman Mahoney we received in total 44$ 34,1 16516 we received it in two equal payments of $217,800 Co funding versus the American Rescue plan next up we recently all heard here at a meeting that the mayor is named in a harassment claim of Tor I recently overed that claim of Tor and it was just about fully and completely redacted even Larry fox's name was redacted although it was already publicly stated this is not the first time I have received practically fully redacted documents from this burrow and my Oprah lawsuit is taking so long even after the court said it would have been done 3 weeks ago I'm starting to begin to think that I'm being discriminated against for receiving information in this burrow because I share a lot of it through a Blog and on social media just wanted to put that on public record because I'm expecting to see at least where the $434,000 was deposited thank you you yes it don't start yet where did the chairs go that you made us sit in four weeks ago hey that's a good question thank you I rarely ask questions I usually just make statements yes NC me um I disagree I do not believe that law enforcement does their jobs every day how many meetings have I come up here and said I'm tired of cars going the wrong way down my street I'm tired of Vis coming the wrong way down the street um I'm not going to get into the hiring process and this or that but clearly um it is my hope that we will start to have law enforcement um I also disagree with um the comments made regarding the community code Etc Department because I've been waiting for a phone call to be returned since December 15th it involves my safety and my home I make one to three phone calls every week it is not returned by a person in that department which department I'm sorry community development construction whatever you want to call it I don't make names um what's going on with fil you know I put my stuff out two weeks ago the calendar says we're not getting film picked up but we haven't changed it because you have to do an ordinance just lots of those ends again things that aren't being taken care of yes are insignificant given our financial and um Optics um I cannot stress enough that um barall does not standards yes my standards are high for myself as well of others um but I would think that it's not such a high standard that when there's an official document somebody signs their first and last name does happen um now we're hiring another Administrative Assistant how many people do we know because I walk in there and I see people doing nothing and as one who's had all of these jobs over the years I find it really hard to be in a job taking a salary or a paycheck and doing nothing um again you can't figure out your protocols legislate is it's ridiculous regarding um the labor attorney put me in the room with public books I'll get you in contract and next time wear your green shirts you are my you are my boys in green okay yes yes yes I'll take yes want okay I need a here um I think I understood at the last meeting correctly if I'm incorrect we do it is not law we do not have to have a qpa so let's we're not getting our fees we're not getting this we're not getting that why do we need one I did government purchasing it's not so hard um again if you have people just let them do their job why I hold on I'm not asking the question rephrase this we could save a lot of money if we did not pay someone to have that position um during the mayor's comments you said a lot about we who is we because it's it's not we it's not we so who is the wi that made these decisions regarding what I would like to personally call in my opinion we gate who's the we I mean well I guess I can't answer the question we would like to know who's weight a little confusing um and with all these new projects and Designs where do they come from who approves them but what maybe it's not what we want I don't see you know once again the Grant and the bathroom then versus the storage space for the museum on the boardwalk we made it clear we do not want that museum stuff there we said well we can just get the money and then we'll decide and then last week we're sitting and talking about putting the museum there really like this do people not listen then we have the engineers two people sit here for that meeting last week and present a plan for Main Street that we'd already seen not only once but twice so maybe I we don't see the bills so I don't know if there's a line item that says 24 24 2 Men times 4 hours equals or if it just gets built into the cost like government does not pay a million dollars for an hmer it's just part of the whole project but this needs to stop I don't want to pay for work that's already been done I didn't want to pay the first time let alone the second or third time and I just I don't know how to write this ship thank you that's your job figure it out I'll just comment that our law enforcement and administrative group does a great job for us some of those comments groups as does public works department Recreation yeah I see yes I'm Beth from 504 Central Avenue here in town I prepared a statement and I'm giving copies to thank youate that mayor Fox directly threatened me at the last council meeting when he said I'd be careful with that if I were you in response to me telling him I believe he's embezzling my tax dollars I sent an email to the mammoth County prosecutor investigator Ryan Mahone indicating my desire to file an IIA complaint against mayor fox in addition to my internal Affair complaint he is currently handling against Chief weda I filed with him on November 1st the July 2023 petition which currently has nearly 275 rather each resident signatures asking the Attorney General to sign a special prosecutor to investigate the criminal Network operating within our burrow has been ignored by new Jersey attorney general Matthew flin's office on Friday I started a second petition directing directed to the New Jersey attorney general which currently has 400 signatures in support demanding the immediate termination of Chief Guida because mayor Fox improperly and unilaterally accepted Chief W's retirement against burrow attorney Greg Canon's legal opinion he seek the advice and consent of the entire Council body is therefore not a valid action mayor Fox released his timeline of events to news2 he stated he spoke with on November 10th then in accordance with State guidelines he said on November 17th the prosecutor became involved 9 days after it occurred which is in fact not in accordance with the state guidelines according to the IAP manual page three which states where a preliminary investigation indicates the possibility of a criminal act on the part of the subject officer the County prosecutor must be notified immediately no further action should be taken including the interview in of or the fil filing of charges against the officer until the County prosecutor so directs I personally sent an email reporting the November 9th incident to the monoth County prosecutor Ryan Mahoney on November 14th three days before mayor Fox claims the burough first met with prosecutors on November 17th I do not believe that mayor Fox ever reported the matter it was only after my notification as a private citizen the prosecutor's office became aware and they reached out to Mayor Fox when they began their investigation of my report to them mayor Fox and chief WEA have demonstrated by their own inaction and their failure to notify the prosecutor immediately on the night of the incident that they were fully intending to cover up this criminal matter in an attempt to protect Chief qua that's how criminal networks operate I have been unsuccessfully trying to contact the M County prosecutor's office by way of multiple documented emails and voicemails with no response I want to ask why no criminal jges have been filed against Chief Guida for his actions I want to inform them of important and relevant facts I uncovered they should be aware of such as it appears upon information and belief Chief Guida and the DUI driver Ken Winnick know each other personally because Chief weer showed up off duty and attempted to interfere with the criminal investigation obviously under the influence of alcohol himself as was Mr Winnick it is of great interest and concern there are reports circulating Mr Winnick and chief WEA were oute prior to the DUI accident in 2015 Chief Guido went to court to litigate against the PBA to give his authority to check the officer's cell phone records specifically calls and text messages therefore under the current circumstances and by his own legal argument Chief leader should have no objection to making his own cell phone records available to determine if in fact Mr winnick's cell phone was in contact with Chief W's cell phone on November 9th the cour the mammoth County prosecutor and the New Jersey attorney general Mr pl's office for some unknown reason seem to not want to or are not capable of properly and thoroughly investigating these critical data points we the people are calling on a seasoned investigative reporter to please do the job the authorities seem to not want to do for reasons and facts I've outlined tonight before this governing body the media and the public with clearly demonstrate criminal network of collusion and subversion operating within our municipal government we the people of the Bradley Beach demand an immediate resignation of you mayor Fox current acting ba Meredith DeMarco volunteer ba Greg farach as well as xba and current qpa Kimberly Humphrey then and only then will this borrow be able to begin to heal and to correct the havoc and damage the aforementioned individuals have Reed upon this community thank you um Lieutenant Brown you're you're responsible for I I am the IIA Commander for the the I Commander Internal Affairs Commander yes every department has to have a a commander that's you know oversees the internal affairs unit you know as a point of contact and we you on the scene on the night or just just after yeah I I've been from the the moment this incident occurred I was I was involved and when did you report that to the cost office uh you referen it was an accurate statement I did report it the next day so that would be November 10th November 10th yes the day after so just to clear the record um the that was done exactly the way it should have been and M prosecutors review with me was after they had I guess five day working days to information and then sit down with me and that's basically what happened it's yeah I mean it's it's always very difficult to talk about this because it's a passionate topic and we appreciate everyone's concern over it I mean obviously this affects our members of the police department more than anybody absolutely um you know it's it's there's things we have to do by the Attorney General guidelines and we 100% follow everything we had to do we required to do you know above and beyond because we want to be protected ultimately I don't want to be held responsible for not doing what I'm supposed to do exactly um it's It's tricky because there's a lot of confidentiality that goes on with it you have to kind of trust the process I know that's very hard for for members of the public to understand but you have to trust the process and ultimately this this is a very involved investigation with a lot of things going on and at some point everything will will finally become clear and and accessible but there are things and timelines that you have to adhere to and there's ways to get information and there's things that we don't control I have no control over what the posing office does you know you you know I have no control over you know what you're the appropriate authority of the chief so like there's certain things that I do certain things that you do certain things that the project inv office does we work together for the best possible outcome which you know I think is what we you know you know strive for and I mean I don't I can't really make a comment because I it's not fully over make a comment I was just asking right I wanted to just get record correct information around the DAT yeah you did exactly to I would like to to just make it known that the police department and me as the IIA Commander we did everything weos to to do according to the timeline I've been in touch with the pr office for you know more the last couple months and probably my entire 28 year career um that's you know so so I mean that's I guess I hope you you know there's a little thank might ask more questions I know yeah thank you I'll do my best I'm taking over sh come on up it's okay please say your name green 44 Avenue um as a member of the public excuse me uh there's a lot of conflicting information coming out about how our government is run as it relates to the incident on Main Street um I would like to actually ask um our our borrow Council Mr Cannon to clarify the proper protocol regarding uh the communication and the decision-making process of the governing body in this situation um and before um I ask you to answer this question um I would like to just share comments um that are extracted from a recent article um dated February um each of these comments um are uh represent um um responses from each of the council members I won't be identifying the council members but I'd like to share this for the record um uh a councilman raised concerns about the lack of input from Council Members regarding the retirement decision and the absence of any disclosed actions taken by the town in response to the investigation findings in response to the mayor's reference to actions taken by the the borrow he goes on what actions did the town take retiring seems to be the action undertaken by the chief himself council members gave no no input into this and of course we have not seen the report from the prosecutor's office yet this was dated February 26 uh another uh Council comment mayor Larry fox has illegally kept the council in the dark regarding the invest this investigation now he has quote gone Rogue making a decision had no right to make on his own our ordinances clearly give disciplinary powers to the entire governing body chapter 5-30 J2 and yet mayor Fox continues to ignore the rest of the council he received the pro Prosecutor's report over a month ago and had has still not shared it with the council he has decided disciplinary action without engaging the council and now mayor fox has made a public announcement without informing the council and now another Council person goes on mayor Fox is once again usurping Council authority to solely direct the review and decision-making process regarding the the chief Quita inent mayor FOX also stated that any actions taken by the borrow would be his decision and finally uh an additional comment uh mayor fox has once again unilaterally acted without the council who have authority in this matter and represent the people of Bradley Beach in today's statement mayor Fox implores our quote Titanic community to turn a blind eye and improve itself while residents are left to pay for yet another administrative failure and so with each of these four comments representing Council um I asked um our burrow Council uh Canon to please clarify for us the protocol with regard to the governing body in this decision so I it's a complicated question you can just go online and revie orance but there's also Collective agement and a policies and procedures manual that govern that I'm going to respectfully ask just the CLI to answer that question because I it's not my job to R it's a labor attorney's job I try to stay in my Lane there's some accidents going on other lanes I learned about tonight but um I I just don't have I I couldn't tell you from sup To Nuts to go from the top to the bottom I can tell you that that is something that was has been discussed amongst the governing body earlier this evening and I'm I'm not just not a we so well as to your latter question you can see what sort of issue this is in the town there the news that was just here in the back of the camera standing room only and the bur attorney for the town and none of the council members have seen any more information than you have and I can tell you that I've been doing this for 14 years and that's not how you do this just as a practical matter you can forget about the legalities so you know Al was put in the unfortunate position the last two two weeks ago telling you that we have no idea what's going on that obviously wasn't accurate so you can draw your own conclusions or not but that that's forre so will will burrow residents be updated as to uh where this goes and I I don't know the mayor hasn't talked to me in 8 weeks so I I I don't know I appreciate your question I I don't know will the labor attorney be be updating and providing B doesn't talk to me either so I I but okay but and I appreciate that and thank you for your honesty and you saw the news article in December where there's some people that don't want me here so I can just I can understand one well maybe maybe two so I I guess and mayor Fox is not here now to answer my question um so I you know I I will come back and ask I I don't know what's over that okay thank you I appreciate your question I mean I do want to add one more thing Shon we did get a letter from Reay Santiago and may read from it so I guess I can't share it because he he did say the prosecutor's office does not administer administer discipline that is the function of the appropriate governing Authority and we have an ordinance 5-30 that said the council it's the mayor and the council that govern over the authority of discipline so we were have the information now we have the information and we will see how we go forward thank you you're welcome Tom 6 Bley Avenue uh sorry I got here late I missed everything um so I did catch a few things and I just wanted to ask a question was there a vote of no confidence tonight in the mayor there was damn miss that all right because I was going to implore you to please do it do it again just for fun um uh I had I didn't know that the I thought the last meeting we talked about the DPW and the rest of the people not having contracts and it's still not done I know the mayor just left he loves to leave when we have this good stuff to talk about he left when it was about Meredith and now it's about this he just likes to leave so I just like to remind everyone that he likes to leave when it's uncomfort um but I I know you guys got your hands tied that you can't do anything you know you can't force him to talk to you about Burnstein who who he thanks I know you guys want to get rid of him he's doing a terrible job and is there's any way that the the town the news I mean how many I mean I love that the DP DPW is here but taking up our seats and they're making it so hot in here so many people so they I don't want them here anymore I love them but they I know they don't want to be here so can we please I don't I wish the mayor was here to just like keep themc this is ridiculous oh the DPW is great oh gee he's the best he loves to talk a game but then there's nothing that happens I mean we I mean he can't even sell a church you know that's very valuable I mean why we haven't done that we're doing rfps which I think is just BS no one should be doing rfps with this we could have sold this property six months ago uh so if we're going at the speed of the rfps I'm telling DPW not to hold their breath so I mean it's it's sad but we are not moving fast with anything they're doing in this in the government and I just I might have missed it was he saddened by this the the media being here and Reporting on this at all did he say anything about that no he didn't wasn't sad about that according to a statement he was sad and by the media attention and the media poll by not by actually what is the problem so so I I really just hope it addresses the problem for everyone and I even know all those other people that are considered part of that like the um I called the dispatch people so it helped me plenty of times get people out of my driveway so they're very important so I just hope they get paid and I wish the again the now uh but uh I don't know what to do I wish you guys could do something it's really sucks we are trying I know I know and I feel like you know in January we all the professionals and we recommended a different I I know I know and unfortunately he was the only one that wanted to keep this burn on and if we don't all agree we can't change the attorney yeah so this way that attorney just stays on because it's yet another loophole but and I want to say so many more things so we're we're I I don't know if Greg if we can change the attorney most the opinion is exactly would you just feel right it had to be all five votes so we have four votes to change the attorney we need at this point you need a nomination and advice and consent so you need the mayor and a majority of the council to be very specific you need a mayor and a majority of the council then could do a hold over I'm a hold over right now we are all a hold over hold over hold over loveely thank you very much oh I have one more comment councilman kui yeah to me no oh partly in response to you but partly in response to comment made this evening um it's so difficult I realize when you're not living the life we live on the council that it's not always clear the delineation of responsibilities the council the four of us are legislators we do not direct employees we don't we we often vote on hiring but we can't say you know we don't like person a or person B people have referenced not only the you know some concerns that have been raised but regarding the U the labor attorney but also you know other positions in the buau very simply put the council has um the right to approve a budget we approve a budget a spend amount and once we do that you know how it those dollars are spent is largely in the hands of of the mayor and our Administration they direct our employees they hire and they fire and so forth um what the council does have the power to do is investigate we can authorize an investigation and I'm not going to comment on am I I'm not going to comment on our on our professionals um but but I must say that uh the folks who have spoken tonight on behalf of of local 152 you've all been very compelling but but um M Browning you um you touched the nerve with me and the fact that this gentleman if if in fact you know what you described is true that you know he he did the zero Witnesses he did that if he did uh what I would like this Council to do and I'm about to make a motion uh I would like to use our power to investigate this process um I don't know before I make the motion Mr K I'll ask your opinion but if this is true if we find through an investigation that this is true I think that level of disrespect and that level of um potential antagonism and alleged for the moment uh is is just absolutely not to be tolerated by this Council so there one thing to be a tough negotiator and I'm not I'm not piing sides at this point Who's offering what and what's reasonable what's not I this Council has had no uh specific feedback we've been told there are challenges and we've been given examples without any more detail but but if any representative of this bur is treating our employees with that level of disrespect I want to confirm that and then I think we collectively need to put pressure on our mayor to consider changes um but again that would only be after an investigation now Mr Canon I'm about to make that motion that we have an investigation obviously that would require spending more money which none of us want to do but if our only alternative unless Mr Ken you have another alternative can I suggest something please we already have Mr s investigating the Police contract which is the last one um if you guys can you make a motion to direct us to the Erica put together a resolution and if we need a proposal you can't just willingly say we're going to investigate it so and that also gives you two weeks from today to maybe work this out someone doesn't cost a more money as people are I would you just use Mr s he's already doing in one negotiation he might as well the other I can ask him for a proposal and you can consider it next time we call got like best an independent attorney there's no other there's no body that governs you know like labor negotiations or anything oh when there's an impass they can file per right that's that's I think they're trying to avoid that by being here tonight so and I'm trying to address I'm trying to address the potential inappropriate behavior of of one of our professionals so this is less of a bargaining issue to me this is more of a how do our professionals conduct themselves and again I'm not I'm not making a decision one way or the other now but I think the council does have the authority to conduct an invest to request an investigation you already have one colletive negotiations at this moment certainly right so given your procedur we can't just start one tonight without proposal yeah I was just going to make a motion make a motion want the last time you made a motion to direct me to get a proposal and us to put a resolution consideration together could certainly do the same thing we bring that back next time like I said that keeps just two weeks to make maybe figure it out you're saying I've had practice making motions to do investigations I was blly saying I think you know how to do a councilman so um given given your um given your guidance that that would also afford us a couple of weeks for the the mayor um to consider the role that you know whether or not we should move forward with the investigation um I make a motion that this Council authorizes an expansion of the existing investigation um so that we could understand the behavior of our Professionals in the course of the the contract negotiations with local 152 second uh Mr Noble yes Mr gboi yes Mr Mahone yes Mr Weber yes but should Jane vote laugh now like she's they going in alphabetical order which is what it states in the Clark spot mayor Fox ABS great um Mr Thomas J Coan 6123 Avenue you know I think I feel bad for public works but I realize why this is happening is because because the former ba didn't hire any of her nephews to work on Public Works otherwise that contract would have been done um you know I just had a question for Mr Browning Mr Browning um um I said in this chamber I filed a complaint against Chief Guida September 27th of 2021 and according to you tonight that is supposed to be forwarded based on the internal affairs polic procedures 5.1.8 should be forwarded to the prosecutor's office and the prosecutor's officer told me that that never happened so is that mayor Fox and the business administrator at that time's error or is that Ian I don't want to throw you in the bus I'm just trying to figure out how I was disregarded maybe it's because of who I am I don't know I mean I can just say I had no knowledge of that in at all so okay so I couldn't count okay okay and I want to answer some questions for Mr dy I don't know if he's still here James Dy made some great points about hiring and how it works in the B Revenue so the the police hiring here's how it works Chief bua hires the business administrator's nephew and then three months later the business administrator negotiates the contract for two years for chief Le and then the business administrator negotiates the contract for PBA 50 of which her nephew is now a member I mean that's how it works and it's New Jersey I guess but it's embarrassing it's really quite embarrassing and and Mr Dy did bring up some great comments now I I want to tell you that the prosecutor's office you know I I can't wait to read the report I have done an Oprah to the Attorney General's office to try to get a copy um because it's got to be interesting reading but I filed a complaint because the second time I filed the complaint against Chua I just skipped the town I just went right to the prc's office so there were multiple complaints about Chief Guida's behavior in this room and in this room I was speaking one day and I got a phone call the next day from a nice lady in the audience who said Chief qua gave you the finger while you were speaking and she took this picture here okay well went to the prosecutor's office spent over an hour in the investigation room it's kind of like 2020 it was kind of cool especially when you didn't do anything wrong but I got to tell you the determination was well we need to talk to the lady the lady said to me I'm 75 years old I've lived here for 40 years I'm petrified if I tell anybody so they said well you can't Supply the person and chief weita said he didn't do it I said I have a picture well didn't matter but you know what karma is an amazing thing and you know I'm so happy that the process was a video and I'm so happy that that video was was released to the public because that is due process thank you thank you uh I yes sh s124 Avenue uh I appreciate the gentleman that came up and spoke about speed around town it's chronic throughout town I live on Fourth Avenue it goes they can go 60 mil an hour down our street and from the stop sign down to Ocean Avenue their children the way the driveways are people come out of their driveways they can't see oncoming cars they have to crawl out of their driveway to see oncoming traffic somebody is seriously going to be killed in this in this town because of the way cars are speeding all over the place and I don't and I think I mentioned this once before I used to live in hennington burrow has the strictest speed laws in a little municipality you would ever want to witness even when people have invitations they mark on the invitations speed limits are strictly enforc do not speed the speed limit is 25 miles out in town you do not go more than 25 miles hour in fact I was just sharing with my daughter uh this morning about when they were little there was a little candy store that I would go and I was stuck because I was going 28 miles an hour so that I think our town needs that type of enforcement and it it's it's just out of control and um I'm just hoping we'll see an improvement matter and thank you I don't need to be picking on you but I think it's matter of bringing to your attention how serious the problem is and how the residents are really very very worried about somebody seriously becoming injured or killed thank you thank you anybody else have a comment or question we do have somebody else okay I think it's Don Greenberg you're on Don you're muted hey guys Don Greenberg Park Place how's it going guys very well thank you how you doing so I'm doing good um so I had I had to call in um and people have addressed the the incident on Main Street uh is that a springin or a Stones album um but I think I think that's been addressed down on me I yeah I think that's been addressed enough but I had no idea what was going on with the um DPW contract I mean I know it was negotiation I had no idea it was 14 months and I think that's a travesty and that's something that needs to be corrected and I just wanted to all the DPW guys there and ladies there to know that you know we we support you uh we think to travesty what's going on uh to have your to have an offer to cut your salaries and cut your benefits when everything everything is going on is just ridiculous um and you know I mean I wish I could wave a magic wand and give you a great contract I can't but I just want you to know that we do support you we appreciate what you guys do um and we're behind you and that's kind of all I got I agree thanks so thank you very much thank you you're welcome I just want to say thank you everybody for being here I know you could be 10 million other places I appreciate your comments your questions oh you have oh Patton can't raise his hand on Zoom he keeps saying oh does he want to make a comment yeah okay Bob Patton if you can unmute I see you in the corner there see if it works go can you hear me yes you can hi Bob hey guys um just say your name and um address for the record please Bob Patton 207 Evergreen Avenue thank you um I you know I I I want to say this without getting emotional because I feel very much for the DPW workers the fact that Larry fox has not attended a single session or been an integral part of this process from day one is absolutely Travis there's no excuse for it he's leaving his people his residents his employees on a hook and I hope everybody remembers this when it comes down to vote in a new mayor because all the people who are supporting Larry Fox as our CEO as we've clearly said our Council on the legislative side he has he would have been fired 10 times over in any company he hasn't done the 2022 budget and we just found out the tragic news that Kim Humphrey screwed up our numbers and we're just finding this out now so the town's not going to give us our 224 budget approval till we get the two 22 numbers in and they're stale so I don't know how we do numbers to this year when we're working on two-year-old numbers from the past that's absolutely tragic um for him to leave the DPW workers and not be involved here that's a just a dropping his duties it's um I don't know what he does for what does he do for this job I I he's getting nothing done the church nothing our ba is unqualified and really just a mouthpiece for him it's really disgusting and so I uh I just want to say for everybody out there we're gonna elect a new mayor and we know who's doing the job and who wants to do the job for us we know who's not doing the job and there's no excuse for him anymore so I just had to say that I'm sorry I'm little little straightforward but it is what it is thank you Bob I appreciate your comments anybody else all right oh yes please it's so it's kind of like a contention for us a little bit it's DPW dis clerical court administrator does not just one where we stand together they they are a bigger unit I'll give it that but they stand with us they they back us thank you for reminding us yes it's not just DW I'm trying to Sayad okay anybody else have any more comments okay thanks everybody for being here I really appreciate your comments your questions and your presence I quiet hey thanks for coming app myad have more than one issue with e guys a matter ofy this guy in 2009 this guy was the second highy behind the he we [Music] will I'm so sorry hi I'm Chad