excuse me I'd like to call the meeting to order February 26 2024 if you can please rise for a plge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all okay we're going to move on to the open public meetings act pursuant to the open public meetings act notice of this meeting was sent to the cranberry press Trenton Times and home News Tribune on January 5th 2024 posted on the Township's website and sent to those who requested a copy of this notice now we'll move on to roll call Mr fronte here Mrs kiram here Dr Rogers here Mr Scott here and Mariel bway here thank you welcome everybody it's so nice to have every seat full um we have very very special work today we're going to start out with a resolution in appreciation of Kathleen warnol can you guys see Kathy hi Kathy that's awesome that's awesome um so I want to read this in entirety c um the resolution and appreciation of Kathleen mold whereas Kathleen warold has decided to retire from her position as technical assistant to the construction official of Cranberry Township and whereas Kathy began her service at Cranbury Township on November 17th 2004 serving with dedication and distinction and whereas during those years Kathy personified the highest ideals of public service and earned the admiration and respect of her peers and countless residents and whereas Kathy was instrumental in keeping the construction Department organized during the busiest of times in cranberry and whereas Cathy was also influential in guiding the municipal Alliance commission while serving as their board secretary and whereas Kathy was also influential in guiding the municipal I'm sorry whereas Kathy has given her time knowledge experience intelligence integrity and loyalty to the township of cranberry now therefore be resolved the township Committee of the township of cranberry expresses its appreciation and thanks to Kathy for many years of service and be it further resolve the township of cranberry hereby extends heartfelt wishes to Kathy for good health happiness and prosperity in the future and be it further resolved a copy of this resolution be presented to Kathy warnold with sincere thanks Kathy can I hand this to you Mary Township committee Denise Debbie um it's been a pleasure working here it's been an interesting almost 20 years I've met a lot of uh wonderful residents that I've worked with over the years made some lasting friendships and will take away a lot of good memories and I wish you all well and I wish much success for the town moving forward into the future thank you thank you well ER congratulations yeah wonderful um I also wanted to read for everybody this um this past what was the day February 17th was a a wonderful lunar uh Lunar New Year celebration at the library and the Chinese American Community has been an integral part of this community and they did a lot of work especially with regards to the library and um we prepared a proclamation in honor of uh the Lunar New Year whereas Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations of the Year among East and Southeast Asian cultures including chinese vietnamese and Korean communities among others whereas February 10th 2024 marked the Lunar New Year which is the festival that celebrates the beginning of New Year on the traditional Luna solar Chinese calendar whereas this year is the year of the dragon some izing power nobility honor luck and success whereas Festive Celebrations Usher out the old year and bring forth the luck and prosperity of the new one as part of the celebrations participants wear red clothing decorate their homes in red enjoy fireworks Feast on traditional food visit family members and honor relatives who have passed young people are gifted money in colorful red envelopes and festivities usually include a dragon dance and the Lunar New Year typically ends with a Lantern Festival whereas Cranberry Township is home to a vibrant and active Chinese American population that contributes that contribute to the diversity and prosperity of the Town whereas cranberry's Chinese American population are high achieving professionals entrepreneurs Farmers artists and athletes whereas in 2014 2015 and 2016 members of the Chinese uh cranberry's Chinese American Community hosted Chinese New Year celebration and raised over 20,000 for the building of cranberry's new library whereas this generous donation gave rise to the new books area gifted by the cranberry Chinese Community whereas after a Hiatus the Chinese New Year celebration returned to the new Cranberry Public Library in 2023 whereas the new Lunar New Year celebration brings our community together in joy and mutual respect therefore I Iman Ali mayor of the township of cranbery along with the township committee members proclaimed February 10th 2024 as lunar New Year and joyfully wish all the individuals in the community who observe this holiday a very happy and prosperous new year and this was very kindly read by Barbara at the New Year celebration because I had a last minute um family commitment and I believe it was attended by Michael and his family so yeah thank you all for for joining the community for you know important events like that um I could I just make a comment it was uh amazingly attended um and you know year the dragon was amazing um and Michael caught the dragon I did I didn't bring it tonight but the Dr okay and I and and and it was an honor to read it thank you for thank I appreciate I appreciate you helping me out with that um tonight we are all in for a treat we have a presentation by Mr fante and uh I see a lot of members of the Scouts in our audience I think this may be what you are all looking for I see someone in the audience I know very well my little boy better be sitting up straight lots of notes right um so without further Ado Michael yeah awesome thank you so welcome my name is Michael fante I'm gonna try to see if we can get this up on the screen let's we can do that it worked when we tested it let's see it worked when we tested it let's see welcome to my take minut I have I try it here sure try it this is the camera oh there you go there we go the day look at that awesome good stuff all all right so we're going to let that clear a little bit but so um my name is Michael fronte I've been on the township committee since April 2018 I was appointed to fill Mr David cook's position in 2018 and when I joined the township committee my background is in the business world and local government is a different Beast than the business world and there's a lot of quirky things about about local government um and so as I went through my first year I started make started making a list of questions about I I was curious why do we operate this way why do we have these funky things are they cranberry things are they state things what why do we operate this way so I made a list of questions about this and uh so just a disclaimer this is not a legal document it's a discussion and educational guide it's mostly my my questions fueled by my peers around the table over the last six years so think of the questions you have about our local government and save them we'll have we have some time at the end so we're going to ask answer a couple questions what is a Township committee government how is it different from other governments what are the seats and terms what are the Departments who works at Town Hall who hires the employees what are all the boards and commissions and what Authority do they have what is the opma the open public meetings act um what does it mean why is there a Clos session sometimes before or after a Township meeting when what is the public comment section um what is Oprah different Oprah open open public records act and what does it mean um and then a little bit of finances what makes up our property taxes how are each of the bits determined um how do we figure out all the the the components of our tax what is a surplus what does it mean what is debt and how do we work work around it and what are the biggest parts of our budget and how do we operate our our small town efficiently so we'll get through some of that and most importantly how can you keep in touch with what's happening in Cranberry um so first off there are actually five common forms of government in New Jersey and there's a there's a burrow form of government a Township form of government and a city Village or town and other forms there's like five or six forms of government and they don't actually align with the type of town that you live in so we're a Township of cranberry we happen to use a Township committee structure but you can see some of the towns around us prinston Jamesburg heightstown use the burough form we use the township committee form what that means is it's either three or five members that are all elected at large meaning me membered by the community we also have staggered three-year terms and then the mayor is elected by by this committee each year in Cranberry we rotate it every year for a one-year term and the mayor has an equal vote and about 150 municipalities in town use this format so this is the town that works for us and we used to be three members and in in 1990 we increased to five people around the table so this is your Township your 2024 Township committee so all of us not only serve on this board but we also serve as a liaison to between five and seven different outside organizations and board so part of what you'll hear after today's session is we'll actually report out on our Lia on meetings and what's going on with them and so this is kind of the Forum that brings together all the operations of the township committee and you can see all the different functioning groups here that come together um so who works at Town Hall who hires the township employee so um Denise Marabella is our Township ad administrator and Director of Finance she manages all the township staff handles all the financial issues and is super great at making sure she handles that so we don't have to she also handles all Personnel decisions um Debbie Rubin is our Clerk and register and handles all the filings notices agendas minutes and keeps us out of legal jeopardy with all the state agencies and you can see the rest of the of the team here there's a a clerk a deputy register a purchasing agent a Treasurer um a planning administrator and Jerry Thorne runs our Public Works organization out at the day Road facility so when you think about this is really it these names on here plus Jerry's team this is the staff of Cranberry Township or so when people come to us and say someone should do this the someone is probably one of the names on this sheet and it's probably it's if it's a task that we would be adding on to somebody's job job description so we're very proud in town to have a very lean organization that that is that uh does a lot of work on on behalf of the town you can see all the different departments on the right hand side from uh construction and code which we we have our team here and we thank Kathy for her service um and all the other departments that we have on here so what are all the boards so that was all the full-time employees this the the boards and commissions we have committees we have boards and commissions and they're all made up of volunteers and and some of them report to the township committee and are are subservient to the township committee others are actually equal to the township committee so our planning board and our zoning board are actually together make up our land use committee and there's things that when it comes to land use there's things we can do there's things the planning board can only do and there's the things the zoning board can only do so even though we Name the members they're independent in their actions and and their their duties um the open public meetings act you are witnessing here tonight an example of the open public meetings act the the open public meetings act require that all meetings are conducted under the view of the public under most circumstances we have to notice meetings meaning we have to provide standard press and internet notifications about them and all the meetings have to be open door and in kber that literally means open door that means we keep that door open and we keep the front door and the side door unlocked so the whole idea is that everybody anybody can come in and see it we also on top of that we actually live stream our meetings via YouTube That's not part of the requirement but it's something we do so to make our meetings very visible and the quirky part about this is that no three members of the township committee can really get together to discuss business outside of the meeting because there's five of us three of us would be a majority and can make a decision so it's very difficult we we're we uh we have to make sure we're not um giving appearances of meeting outside of this session and even at public Gatherings will actually make a point of kind of being in different Corners if we're at the same public event so we really do take that seriously um and make sure that um we we're on that and so this includes emails we're actually we we we were not allowed to email two other people on the board and sort of keep that communication going because that would be a quorum so it it becomes a little bit of a problem with communication when some someone in the public emails all five of us we have to sort of decide who's going to reply back because we can't reply all so reply all is kind of the enemy of of the open public meetings and anybody that works in sort of business or education or any other other any other Industries this is kind of a weird thing that if you email all your Township committee members we can't reply all back otherwise it's it starts to look like a meeting it starts to feel like a back and forth of a meeting so that makes it sometimes a little clunky we we sometimes have to get together and maybe this is the only Forum twice a week where we can actually talk about things together so you sometimes in the business world you would think well just go do that on your own figure it out here we have to have it in the meeting we have to do all our business so this is really a business meeting of the township committee that the public is invited to attend um sometimes we have to have a Clos session and sometimes there's a there's some reasons where we would actually have to shut the door turn off the YouTube turn off the recording and actually the five of us would need to cover some things in a in a Clos session so these are it's only specific things Personnel matters confidential matters um and as determined by state federal court law negotiation litigation legal significant legal issues or privacy or acquisition of property so we're when we go into a close session we are only allowed to talk about things on that list and then we have to come back into the regular session open the door up turn the recording on and get back to our meeting so probably once or twice a year we'll have a reason for us to go into one of these um and we're usually covering one of these and when the matter is is resolved we can actually then report out on that meeting and what what the content or what the topic was in that meeting every meet every business meeting of the township committee we invite the public you to come and and speak um engage with the township committee it is not a dialogue it is it is our chance to be be quiet and to listen um to what the public has to say we typically do it at the end of the meeting and and we typically limit comments to 3 minutes and then after the public meeting is done the township will go back and we'll try to address any questions that were raised also if we're approving an ordinance we may have a public meeting public comment during the meeting where we cover specifically that ordinance or that rule or law being considered um and we will we always try at the end of the meeting to summarize action items of someone comes forward with a public comment we try to say I will get back to you or this person will get back to you and address your concerns and you're always welcome to send us emails if you'd like to if it's a more detailed issue um so what is Oprah o Oprah is not not this Oprah but the open public records act basically the idea that government records should be open and accessible so and that the public agency has to safeguard personal information so M Rubin is the custodian of the of the open public records act so basically anyone can put in a request to miss rubin's office and she has a very State mandated guideline for when she has to respond back and disclose information and that is really that is really the only way out of this meeting to sort of get public information that's owned by the township into into individual citizens hands um so there's a 7-Day rule to respond and either send the data or clarify or ask for an extension um there the state is actually considering revising this rule because there's a lot of abuse of this of asking for volumes and volumes of data so recognizing how lean our Township staff is we ask people to use this and use common sense and be judicious about requesting these if you need to um so property taxes so uh property taxes Run start the year starts in July every resident gets a tax bill in August that has four payments and if you think about it the tax bill actually has four components so even though you get the bill from us we're actually only about 22% of of your tax bill 55% of it is school taxes and 23% of that is County taxes um and so you can see all the line item here school taxes Municipal Taxes we have an open space tax we also um have there is a library tax that the state mandates we pay and we actually pay the our library the minimum of the state of the state requirement and then the county tax and that that's sort of the breakdown on this I think people look to the township for most things because we're the ones right here but a lot of the things that that your tax dollars go to are going to the cranberry school funding Princeton High School tuition or you know 23% of is going off to Middle sex County so when people come forward with a question about a road or a service or something we we always have to say is that a Township Road a County Road or a state road is that service you're asking for is it a Township service a County service or a state service so we're happy to explain that we often are the ones that end up explaining that to people why something is not our jurisdiction and why it's the county or the state um and then there's something called assessed value it's the property the way we earn our taxes are is through Revenue based on property taxes so every property in town has an assessed value residential or business all that money comes together and it gets collected and it it collects for the school taxes and the County taxes and the and the Municipal Taxes and the tax rate is the number of dollars or cents per $100 and the amount of money we we we we raise minus the amount we that we spend gives us the Surplus and in 2024 we you talk about one cent of tax which is not really one cent it's just a unit of tax that we talk about it's about almost $200,000 in revenue for the township the average property value in Cranberry was about $600,000 and with a tax rate of 4 cents for 2024 the average household in Cranberry pays about $2,400 towards cranberry um for cranbery municipal tax the average tax bill is about $10,000 but again only about 23% of that stays in cranberry and that's really the only part that we have any control over um so our job as Township government part of what we meet every January is we talk about the budget and we we we decide how much we want to change the tax rate if we if we are going to and we also monitor the Surplus so the Surplus is like your home budget when you have money at the end left at the end of the year that's your Surplus our as a Township we try to maintain a surplus that's a healthy amount so that we can actually keep the taxes very flat year on year so some years when when expenses are higher we can use money from the Surplus other years when when uh when when expenses are lower we can put money into the Surplus but we basically try to keep as much as possible our taxes flat and we've actually capped our Texas flat for I think it's 16 years now we have not raised taxes in in Cranberry so given the amount of inflation over that period of time that's pretty impressive and we look at we always try to use that Surplus wherever we can we actually used entirely Surplus to do the dredging of the lake we actually used um a million dollars of the Surplus last year to pave the roads every year we have about a million dollars worth of Paving projects and we did that with Surplus last year and the goal is to kind of set it at least 20% is generally a rule we're a much smaller town so we actually keep a much higher level it generally hovers between around 40% of our total budget we keep as a surplus um we also have what's called Municipal debt we take out loans to make sure when when we have capital projects or long-term projects we we actually have Municipal debt and we we pay principal and interest payments just like a mortgage or a car payment um and we can either do short-term notes or long-term goal notes and we have projects with Municipal debt are included in the in the capital budget Road repairs purchase of equipment and vehicles buildings recks and park park and Rex improvements sewer improvements every year we have a capital budget of around a million dollars of projects that we're doing every year we're always trying to space things out and do do those and those then with capital we can pay those out over we can pay those over several years by going to the bond market so part of our job is Miss Marabella's job is to sort of assess the the how how how what rates we can get and make sure we get the most favorable rates um so the biggest things that make up our budget Public Safety our police chief police chief and police team our office of emergency management we also contribute to our Volunteer Fire and volunteer first aid Squad debt payments are a big portion we also have state mandated pension payments we have shared services with other towns um the state mandated Library funds salaries and Social Service obligations and then utilities every street light water gas motor fuel sewer all that stuff we cover as a Township so um things like operating budget is different from Capital so operating is everything we need to run in the current year this is the stuff that we'll have year after year after year um but capital budget we have a three-year plan for um projects that have a useful life of more than one year and these are like we said roads buildings um equipment and we also we're a pretty small town so we actually share services with other towns nearby so with East Windsor we we share a sewer or maintenance program the court for cranberry is actually in Plainsboro um so we actually share a court service with uh with Plainsboro um we handle 911 dispatch we share with South Brunswick and then middle sex County we partner with middle sex County to do our recycling our sewer treatment and we also have our health officer at the county so wherever possible if we can benefit from partnering with another Township or a county or the state we do that to make sure the CR is getting making the mo the best use of of tax funds so the best way to keep in touch with what happened in Cranberry is our Township e e alerts you can find out any commissioner board that you love or want to hear more about you can find out about that um also the mayor puts out mayor's update every week and the clerk's office puts out a news and announcement every week so that's the best way also come to any Township committee meeting or board commissioner committee they're all publicly noticed they're all on our Township website and you can read about what's going on and you can also read all the agendas agendas and minutes on our website so and that's kind of a quick tour hopefully it it demystifies a little bit of cranberry and sort of how we operate um we didn't make up these rules we just live by them um so at this point anybody that has any questions about sort of how cranberry runs or things that you you wanted to know about how how things are done in the town please come on up and uh ask a question any Scout want to come up with a question Scout our local constitutional scholar sure come on up please come on yeah how old do you have how old do you have to be to run for Township committee I believe you have to be 18 yeah good a few years good yeah Mr Mazo yeah please yeah it's it's for the it's for the YouTube the button on the right can you explain why taxes in New Jersey you've broken down the taxes in a very thoughtful way could you explain in in comparative perspective why does why do new jerseyans pay such high taxes as compared to folks in other states is that driven by the many layers of local government or is there something else that that drives that overall it's a if you have an answer I don't know what the answer is it's a it's a it's a great question and I think I think every people have thought to think about it I think part of I mean part of it is we have 500 and some municipalities we have the we have a a three- teered tax system that's state county and local um we're also we also provide excellent compliance and legal and environmental services in town so there's a lot of reasons for it but I think that's that's sort of beyond our scope here today but yeah know I mean but it's a great question and sort of we we recognize that like we actually as the township committee we sort of we become the face of government to everybody in town and when you start to realize how little of that pie of your total tax spend we actually have control over but we're your local government we're the one you can walk into walk up to and so we become often the front lines or the first line of questions and it's also the most personal you know it's it's the things that affect your family and and you know and our street and our community so we tend to be the first the first stop on that but it's a it's a mystery for me it's a great question and if I may uh and I literally read a very long article about this two two days ago that was published because it was announced that New Jersey once again has the highest property taxes so if you Google it I believe it was on MSN but Google it and it should be dated two days ago and it's a phenomenal article it breaks down the highest lowest and each County and some of the rationale for it so I think You' find it interesting but just came out yeah and actually we we do yeah I read it specifically because I knew the where cranberry laid and I was very surprised that in this detailed breakdown we weren't mentioned because I would would have called it to our attention during this evening's meeting because we actually have the low we have the lowest tax rate middle sex County so in the Tri County Area actually cranberry does per property tax we have the lowest taxes in the Tri County Area so um try County yeah um other uh other questions people have yeah please so I have a quick question um how is the inner workings of the committee members to Middle County because I know middle County kind of hand you a bill and says this is what we need for you each Town figure it out I mean the mechanics of that all go through Miss marabello so the there there's no there there's no option we have to say yes or no to that stuff but no option they don't even I mean they don't even tell us they develop their budget like we develop our budget based on the needs of the county and you know they have way more roads than one individual municipality has they have to take into account all assets values and there are some communities that are lower in assess value than cranberry so and they develop their budget and then they tell us what our portion is and that's what we pay unfortunately we we end up putting it all on our bill it all goes out under under the township bill so we get it from the school we get it from the county and then we you know take a deep breath and send it out to all our residents every year so um it it it gives the impression that we actually have more more input into setting those numbers or or influencing those numbers than perhaps we do yeah good other questions yeah please yeah I was just wondering how much Facebook uh contributes to discussions or ordinances that come up in the township of cranberry I mean we we there's a couple Community pages and and several of the members of this board May read those but it's not an official channel for us to get input on things we most often we would encourage someone to come to this forum and state that state their opinion and state their state their comment um I don't know anybody else I think um I I I think we actively try not to respond on those uh social media posts because it creates another uh layer of communication that we're not in control of it's unofficial um it becomes a little bit of hearsay so we may watch it but we don't respond to it yeah thank you thank you great other questions well we hope this has been helpful we hope that it actually gives you a little bit of a glimmer into sort of what goes on in the township maybe it gives you a little bit better understanding of how that we have these discussions up here why we can't engage Eng with reply all emails that you might send us why we don't always have the answer right away if you if you approach one of us around town um but we encourage everyone to learn more about this this should be a very transparent process we we you know everything that the township does is in the light of day at one of our this meeting or one of our towns or boards or commissions so we welcome people to engage with your local government thank you thank you Mr fante that was very enlighting um at this point I have a feeling that members of our audience have attended the portion that they may have wanted to and so if if the scouts and the Scout Masters would like to take their leave this is a perfect opportunity for you and we thank you for coming it was wonderful to see you all you app absolutely [Music] absolutely all good we can continue thank you Michael that was very detailed and I look forward to it every year actually I want that PO that presentation you've updated some stuff right yeah yeah okay thank you at this point we're looking at the agenda additions or changes are there any agenda additions or changes none you were going to move the the police chief up right right after this yeah we we've got him as item nine so no seeing no changes um if if it's okay with the TC members before we give our reports I'd like to just extend this opportunity to the chief is that okay minutes oh I'm sorry did we not do the minutes let's do that while we're doing okay so Chief if you work your way up while we adopt our minutes I would be um we have two sets of minutes tonight to adopt yeah I'm happy to move the amended version of the set of minutes from the January 22nd and February 12th uh I I'd like to separate them because I have a minor edit okay okay I'd like to move the minutes for January 22nd please would anybody like to second second thank you we'll move on to roll call for those set of minutes and we'll start with Mr fante yes Mrs kir yes Dr Rogers yes Mr Scott abstain and mayor bway yes thank you and the next set of minutes uh for the meeting of February 12th 2024 uh I'd like to pass these with a minor um a minor Amendment um under Dr Rogers report the traffic subcommittee will meet and discuss Gateway signs for bike Network plans will meet okay yes right currently it says met and discussed okay we'll meet okay okay future versus you're making the motion on thatment yes I'm making the motion I'm happy to second okay we'll move on to roll call Mr fronte oh yes Mrs kir yes Dr Rogers yes Mr Scott obain and Mar bway yes thank you thank you very much everybody and again if it's okay with the TC members I would like to just extend this opportunity to the chief to give his report before we give ours good evening thank you Miss mayor for your courtesy on that good evening members of the TC members of the public good to see everybody again my report will be brief I all I sent out copies of my monthly report dated December 2023 to January 7 2024 does anyone have any questions regarding those reports that I'd sent out um I I think it would be great to highlight um because today subcommittee traffic uh how how many uh stocks you had on Station Road and how often you were out there for the month of correct for the month of uh January I believe we had 20 stops I don't have the specific numbers in front of me since we brought 23 stops on Station Road correct I would I would like to apply to the police department because uh 94 stops in Old Trenton Road I'm going crazy looking out my home office window I mean that road alone is just got to keep you guys so busy our our officers are busy at and it is an incredible jump of Almost 100% from 23 to this year which I I just find really alarming you know so to get a badge alarming but it just shows that you all are doing your job and so thank you so much for your presence and your attention to the road safety here in Cranberry no problem as always our officers are doing all that's asked of them I'm proud of their work they serve with professional integrity and courage every day and a smile every day especially when they're directing the traffic into the school so thank you just wanted also to note uh the warmer weather's coming we normally put out our speed signs when the warmer weather breaks and the cold element is difficult for you know it does a lot of damage to our our equipment when we keep it out over the winter so when the warm weather comes I'm I'm aiming for the second week in March if it's going to clear up looks like it's going to warm up we'll go second week in March or or at the latest the 1 of April for the speed signs and the uh message boards for slowing traffic down that's great thank you no problem any questions for the chief excellent thank you so much thank you have a good evening thanks for seeing me early too I appreciate it absolutely you thank you excellent so we'll head back to um our agenda and we'll have reports by the members of our committee um since Michael has just gone with his presentation let's start on this side of the of the is uh Barbara would you like to start sure um both parks and environmental commission unfortunately were cancelled due to Quorum um however the work continued um you know for the um ms4 a permit um there's a training being set up for the mapping of the storm water inlets with the engineer and our volunteers from the high school so um that's exciting and Teresa V is going to um uh from the EC is going to lead that um and um you'll see on the resolution we're excited to apply for the community energy plan Grant um with a resolution tonight um it helps the community work toward a better environment for all residents by using the state's energy master plan as a guide to um uh to align with local efforts to reduce greenhouse gases emissions to reduce energy reduce emissions and increase renewable energy and uh today the traffic subcommittee met and um um you're going to report on that or the the one thing that I would like to report on is um of that is um our bicycle Network plan keeps moving forward so exciting um Gateway signs are hopefully going to be be approved by the county and put on our local roads to help with traffic calming for pedestrians and all users of our of our roads and that's it questions good excellent and Lisa okay um EDC I think we are officially on the books for March 11th to um provide the community and the TC an update on the 2023 resident and visitor survey that was done I expect uh I'll do a drive run with Tom we'll uh invite all of the members of edak so they can come and support but again just to frame it where there's no ask of the TC there's no objective that uh that we're looking for it's more to report out on it and back um kry historic preservation Society the next meeting is March the 4th uh HPC met on February 20th um signs as we all know all the signs were delivered full inventory was taken we're not missing any part signs nothing which is great uh still wait in on Cadence of installation we've given that to Jerry at his discretion obviously weather and winter is a major factor and with all the other stuff that's been going on the last couple weeks um an organization called preservation New Jersey um uh Susan Ryan the co-chair for HPC uh she's going to be on a panel um at an upcoming convention and learned indirectly through this organization that they're organizing a tour of cranberry on April the 20th it's usually between 40 and 60 people that pay to take these tours in historic uh districts so she was a little surprised to learn that we were on an agenda but nobody from the town was kind of contacted on it it's usually three to four hours it ends at a local um establishment where there's a reception so they're doing some Outreach because the cranberry in makes logical sense because there could be kind of an extension of the tour going through the historical nature of the that that building um and so she's going to schedule Zoom with them to work on the planning process and help with the tour itinerary I'm mentioning this more for your benefit because in other tours the mayor has been asked to get involved so um and maybe say a few words at the beginning of the tour or something like that so I'm not sure like what it entails we're as soon as Susan has a zoom I'll obviously let you know so you can plan or we can plan as a TC to have some representation um uh not the full 3 to four hour tour um and again we'll try to get some uh I'll try to report out that on the next meeting since it's approaching fast uh pretty exciting um if you want to go back and look at the YouTube video the owners developers of 6163 Main Street presented a preliminary plan which includes the fire damaged building um also the old cranberry Pizza as people may refer to it as as well as the building adjacent to that the plans are amazing so I would recommend that people go back and watch it if you want a sneak peek of what this proposal is um I believe that in again in my opinion this is going to be incredibly additive to the Village area and also kind of extend off Main Street up Parkplace to the library so almost like a Main Street branch um so I think the plans are really interesting but it's a private development so I'm only mentioning it that go on YouTube and and check check it out zoning next meeting is uh March the 6 and NJ um Revolution I did check uh chips is listed as a partner but cranberry as of today is still not listed as a um Community a New Jersey Community even though we sent that application in so I just want to let you know I checked literally before I came here and printed it out and it's in alphabetical order so we skip from Clark to Collingswood we are not there yeah um but there are now four or five counties listed questions I I just wanted to add to preservation New Jersey um chips is aware and they are organizing um uh to help out with that yeah and um I'll be one of the tour guides so I'll be there fantastic and another hat um and then yeah and the request for the the mayor to be to say something maybe at the beginning or whatever but they'll be reaching out to you on that okay we'll wait for the appropriate communication thank you all so much thank you Lisa thank you Barbara and let's head over to Lisa I'm sorry quick just um where can we find that video for 6163 if you go on YouTube and you go to the last um HPC meeting you'll be able to view the meeting in its entirety and I'm going to say they they usually move like any applications up to the front so that the meet you know they don't have to wait for all the other business so it in the first half of that meeting and is there this is beyond our scope but is there any timeline for them breaking ground on yeah yeah you'll learn all that good stuff I don't want to make it seem like I'm you know promoting it I'm just saying it's very interesting because it's it's an integral part of our main street and I just found it really interesting to sit there and and absorb it so and it includes drawings architectural drawings and plans all that fun stuff so make a lot of people happy enjoy any more questions excellent um would either of you like to go Michael sure me too um so the zoning committee that we chartered last meeting met with a majority of the members on Friday the 16th and reviewed what's going to be on tonight's ordinance as for first reading is 14b it is a tightening of our um Redevelopment definition for storm water so it's a um this is an interim ordinance we're going to have to redo our storm water ordinance by July but this is just um one thing we wanted to get done as soon as possible so there's that um I attended the February 17th Lunar New Year event which is wonderful event uh to see that continue um the Personnel sub team met on February 21st and reviewed the parks and r three governing ordinances for um for what it would take to as an action I'm from our last meeting just to uh combine those and um Miss marabell is all over that and is preparing a draft ordinance of what that would look like um but we'll we'll get into that um the I attended the rec Commission on the 21st and gave a brief report out on sort of the of our last TC meeting in the intention to um to combin and they were very supportive um I attended the library Retreat uh this weekend they retreated to the new library um which you know in the grand scheme of things to have a building to retreat to is a is a is a luxury so um the interesting thing we got out about that this year I mean I've been sitting on the library I've been going to the library treat in in various hats for like 14 years it's very lovely to be through the Journey and to be talking about sustainable library and one interesting tidbit was um the library director reported out that 47% of cranberry residents have library cards and that struck me as low um until I found out that the average in townships around us is between 10 and 20 mid 20% um so we actually set a goal as a library board to um to increase that from 47% to 50% over the course of this year primarily by enjoy inviting sort of um neighborhoods that might not feel as connected to the town including like you know some just neighborhoods that might not be feel connected so the board is going to be focusing on bringing in populations that may not have uh have attended before so I thought that was that was really exciting and a nice a nice place to be in after uh opening up a new library and starting new operation um upcoming I have a the DRC on March 7th the planning board on March 7th um and March 11th I will not be in attendance at the TC I'm actually traveling to Amsterdam for a holocaust REM uh remembrance ceremony for my wife's great uncle and her family they're having Stepping Stones put in the last place that they chose to live in Amsterdam so yeah it's really interesting so um so uh yeah that's it my report any questions just a 40 7% include children it's all residents yes it's literally total residents so um there we we talked about every second through fifth grader has a library card now because through the school programs they're working on making sure the middle school and also the high school students are engaged um and things like the New York Times subscription there's just things that are that are really nice benefits that people may not know of my favorite thing at the library is they now have a puzzle exchange so they have a puzzle jigsaw puzzle exchange where you can freely drop or grab puzzles which I think is really cool um so yeah so yeah I think if people have ideas on sort of populations or segments of people to invite please feel free I I just want to I'm really excited that uh Brooke is uh reaching out to do a solar energy possibly um grants for the the library and she said that she would be happy to work on the community energy yeah that's great so win-win yeah that's awesome good cool Michael can I ask you a library question I was just thinking about how um you know we we often have Princeton High School students here do they do they have access to uh are they allowed to become members of the library absolutely yeah they actually Princeton High School students can become member of the Princeton Public Library too so funny they can actually but so yeah they they absolutely could I don't know if they know like we were thinking about how to outreach directly to the cranberry Princeton High School Kids I think that's a very important focused sort of Outreach yeah yeah yeah so good yeah so I thought that was a great goal to really sort of now that we have this super functioning library to sort of make sure that everybody in town sort of knows they're welcome and and to use all the services so great thank you excellent thank you any more questions for Michael Matt would you like to present uh thank you I attended uh the Board of Ed meeting last Wednesday the 21st uh pretty busy meeting um there was some interesting sort of In-House um reports uh at the beginning of the meeting talking about some harassment intimidation and bullying within the school apparently uh within the last year there's two reports of intimidation both were unfounded which is down from four last year so it's nice that there's a positive energy at the school um and the the school um the educators of the school working to to sort of nip any sort of harassment or bullying in the bud and there's a newr called PBIS which is a positive behavior intervention and support which is a evidence-based medicine tiered framework for supporting students um and their behavior academic performance social economic and mental health or I'm sorry emotional mental health um so they're doing a lot of things to sort of um persistently support um our our grade school and middle school students um there is uh in addition to that there's a new community outreach program that the school is sponsoring um sort of connecting the school to home sort of encouraging parents to be more involved with the school and as a result of that there's a a what they're calling a a parents Academy first annual parents Academy which will be on March March 14th at 6:30 uh parents can come in meet with Educators meet with a um a a behavioral psychologist who specialized in education um sort of trying to engage parents and making sure that they they know who their teachers are and making sure that they know all the um opportunities and um resources that are available to them um and there'll be babysitting provided by the Girl Scouts at that meeting so that's nice um craft show is coming up uhh March 2nd and 3 um which is exciting to see that come back again uh cran buddies apparently will be going full day next year which is also good for parents of young kids um what else the referendum is um as we all know the referendum pass in 21 that's sort of underway it's been broken down into two separate um um chunks um they are planning on breaking ground this year April um there's a referendum committee meeting which we meet next month so to sort of go over the details of that um and I think that's about it excellent any questions for Matt um I just said one sort of closing the loop I know Matt you're the Scout leaz on this year and one sort of handoff from this year to last year konor mallister finished his um he put up a sign um at the cranberry Brook preserve um and there's a new sign he just put up yesterday and it's very nice it's very at the top it says welcome to the cranberry Brook preserve which is wonderful for Branding instead of not calling it The West property and calling it the cranberry Brook preserve so thought that was a nice completion I think he's going to want a photo op at some point um so we'll do that when that sign was up and that was done by a local a local person did the The Cutting and etching of the wood for the sign so nicec yeah very nice the EC is working on uh things to put in that kiosk they have a theme and they're working towards getting that filled we we have quite a few um projects I think uh coming through through the Boy Scouts and um Matt are you getting those messages I feel like there was one maybe today is that right yeah and I think you're on it right I am I got the today didn't yeah yeah yeah okay that's the only one there's there's one yeah bubbling project but I think they've kind of hit us snafu when they're rethinking it um so but it'll it'll come to yeah it'll come to you sooner than later thank you so much for for that any questions any more questions for man okay so I I have um I'll take a little bit of time I'm sorry but we we had we had a nice busy busy couple of weeks um thank you all for entertaining the the various resolutions and proclamations and stuff that I was reading I enjoy doing that I really enjoy just sort of welcoming our community in the different facets that um that it brings to us uh Municipal Alliance met and I regretfully missed the meeting I had such a crazy day and it just um it slipped for me sick kids and all of that anyhow they had a reorganization meeting so late in the game because they had cancellations and stuff so that was their reorg Joan charwin is the new chair she was the same chair as last year and Sasha Weinstein is the Deputy chair and they had a a new they welcomed a new member Manish Kumar and um as we saw earlier today Kathy warold uh retired as their secretary um they talked about their programs their speakers um how they were going to support the community they talked um about the parents Academy that you were you were mentioning and how they will try and not necessarily collaborate but what they do May enhance the work that the parents Academy is trying to do so that's that's a nice piece um the students of the municipal Alli Representatives uh they made a video as a public service announcement warning about the dangers of drug abuse and I think that's actually going into like a competition or something so and I think that they were trying to get permission to see the school would share it with all the kids it's uh it looked very very nice uh they talked about their presence um in the night out as you all may have remembered um the municipal Alliance typically does the health and wellness fair and that will transition now to not being a standalone Fair they will have a presence at the police night out um in this in the summer and they will there'll be some collaboration on that as well as and they're going to think about doing their own independent things some something to bring some of the Elder kids into the into the festivities at the event and they have asked us if they can present their goals and accomplishments and I think Denise you had mentioned uh maybe in April that we could have some time for them the planning board will meet March 7th uh the senior interest sort of group uh Barbara was very kind to communicate through sustainable Jersey and she acquired for us a hard copy of the community guide on implementing age friendly land use decisions awesome and this is something that was promised to us a little while ago so thank you for chasing that down I appreciate it um the traffic C subcommittee had a very detailed extensive meeting today thank you Denise and Chief and that's what we had Chief go early in Barbara um we talked about the Gateway signs and at this point the locations have been identified and they're they're going to be ordered and permission from the county is being requested um we talked about General road safety and um the committee discussed sort of best practices such as encouraging pedestrians to cross at crosswalks and to utilize the um the the lighted crossing signs that Matt you were so instrumental behind and we discussed not necessarily implementing other ideas that may have the unintended consequences of encouraging people to cross in areas that are less safe and so sometimes we think we're solving something but we're actually encouraging um a less desirable Behavior Uh we discussed the crosswalk at station and Evans the lighted crosswalk at station and Evans oh no I'm sorry that's the crosswalk not the lighted crosswalk yes and that particular project doesn't look like it's uh as easy as was intended that the the county came back with a whole big project like you have to put in sidewalks and you have to put in cap ramps and all sorts of stuff that is making this particular um project not as interesting anymore it also will have the unintended consequence if there is a crosswalk if you can imagine a crosswalk closer to the 130 section is going to encourage people to cross there but if you think about when when school is in session the crossing guards are closer to Main Street that's where we want people to cross not closer to the 130 section so we don't want to encourage Behavior that we can't then keep sort of uh you know can't keep people as safe as we could if they would just follow sort of the guidance from earlier so that project may not be moving forward um we discussed a speed study on South Main Street and felt that it needed to be done after the final phase of construction is completed at the cranbery commons to get the full feel of what the traffic uh impact will look like and the lighted crosswalks on Washington Road that's moving forward in the county will be contributing to the cost of that installation so we're very excited about that um as was touched upon earlier by Mr fante the Personnel subcommittee did meet and we talked about the possible merging of parks and wreck and we are working through that and we are working with the chair people and the Liaisons to the parks and recck will become very instrumental at that point you know when there's guidance that you all sort of share that with them and uh bring their questions and concerns to us as well and for in terms of reports that's what I have I did also wanted to lift the uh the cranberry craft show we really need volunteers guys if any of you have time this Saturday and Sunday that this Saturday and Sunday of March 2nd and 3D um the craft show is really it's it's an Endeavor by the CF the cranber Education Foundation and they do supplement a lot of uh activities for the school the school Community the students so Saturday 10 to 4: and Sunday 11: to 4: and this year the school play is The Little Mermaid Jr that's March 7th through 9th with $7 tickets per adults and $5 for children and we will hear tonight a little bit later from uh Laura zerfu about the mayor's Wellness campaign and I'm making a plea for volunteers and for members to join but before we have Laura I think my report has done any questions for me I just have a question about Gateway signs I should have asked Barbara but do we have a timeline do we know what next steps are I think Denise so the Gateway signs that are going to be on County Roads we have to go to the county get them to approve the location I'm sure there will be some type of agreement that has to be put in place and adopted by resolution so we're at the mercy of the county with those we don't think there they will deny it but it's a process that has to be followed uh the Gateway signs on the one location that is Plainsboro Road yeah Plainsboro Road that is our road um we're going to order the sign and when the sign comes in that one will be put in and then there were a couple of other locations that um Iman and Barbara have to go take a look at because we're not sure about the actual placement of the sign so we'll have one in this year anyway but Plainsboro could be spring could well yeah well depends how long it takes for them to make we have to order the item right order the sign yeah yeah but I mean all the interest is there yes there's yeah three years that's to well barara you you did it right well done it's a team effort you had a question oh um just the traffic subcommittee I think that one thing I that was I think it's amazing that it's called midblock Crossing is illegal it's no longer called jaywalking midblock yeah I thought everyone should know that there is no jaywalking law in New Jersey I think there a mid so don't walk across the street to the ice cream I tell you there's one in Seattle and could you tell us I'm gonna continue to call it J let's just not do it let's just cross at the beautiful lighted crosswalk don't want to know what that word we don't want to know what that word is excellent Nia we're in the process of keeping people safe not uh please do not any other questions excellent so we we are in for a treat because we actually have um a report today by a department head and then shortly after that we'll have a um a report by one of our boards so I'd like to invite Kathy Easton up oh no I'm sorry Laura first oh I'm so sorry okay Laura I apologize oh Kathy's the work session forgive me oh yeah there she is so a little bit of background Laura zerfu is our chairperson of the Board of Health and chairperson of the mayor's Wellness campaign and she also is the veterinarian that conducts the rabies clinic here in she wears many hats she's a very very hard worker and an asset to Cranberry and I'm very grateful that you're here today to share with us what we've been doing at the May's Wellness campaign I'm excited that I work with Laura but she really is the the the the brain and the effort behind all of this in [Laughter] okay so the mayor on this campaign I started about three years ago uh and I have never really spoken about it so I thought people might want to know about it next slide um we mayor's want campaign is a Statewide um uh campaign that Mo many uh many municipalities in New Jersey take part in um and it's it's in order to it's a health initiative in order to provide tools for uh those of us uh in municipalities to come come to our local um local residents uh improving their to give them ways to improve their healthier Lifestyles and uh and wellness um it's been leading the the New Jersey Healthcare quality Institute has been leading the mayor's well inness campaign since 2006 um and this is some of the sponsors the mayor's Wellness campaign um many of which you may recognize the names of um so 15 years over 400 communities um and you can see the distribution of the communities that take part um there's three designations the gold the silver and the bronze um we have had the bronze designation um for the past three years um we receive a lot of benefit from the mayor's Wellness campaign including um tools and strategies they offer Us free seminars uh on Mental Health how to reach out to people with with issues um information about uh grants and funding um you know you can see here I don't want to read everything um all of the things that they offer us ideas for how we can Implement um the their algorithm in our town um and we also get uh up to 25 sustainable Jersey points through the building building healthier communities action and Barbara Rogers is a big fan of that she of sustainable Jersey yes um and we started um online with online Zoom sessions I kind of got the idea because we were I don't know if you guys remember the pandemic but yeah we were in the middle of that and so nobody was really getting out to do things and so we started with these online sessions um I reached out to local uh Wellness you know all sorts of people who did Wellness uh reg registered dietitians um yoga teachers meditation um Al people I knew people I met um and they were all LED at no charge by Community Wellness leaders that volunteered their time and I'll just point out now um there has been like zero dollars paid for the M mayor's Wellness campaign except we kind of split some vaccine clinic signs with the Board of Health recently um and yeah there was our original flyer and as the pandemic MC ease we did start to meet in person we started with an outdoor activity um and we arranged um walks through each of our four beautiful preserves here um we had Kathy Easton um lead some walks and talk about uh Birds we had Barbara Rogers talk about some of the local local uh plants um and it just engaged quite a few people like I'm trying to remember about 40 people I think took part I don't remember the exact number um and you can scroll through there's a few other pictures of some of our beautiful preserves and the people that took part and I think a lot of people really weren't aware of many of these and we we actually have a video I don't know where it's available on our website now but we do we did make a video at the time um Joan charwin who's on the um mayor's Wellness campaign narrated it um talking about the uh the different preserves and how you can find them and what you can find there so and we are hoping to do that again this year to do at least one walk and we were thinking about um maybe a handicap accessible walk as well as maybe maybe another one probably not all four like if that's not available let's get it available because it's a great it's a great video it's at one point it was available it's just really hard uh to I'm I'm actually gonna put it in your mind that maybe we should have a place on the on the township um website for the May's Wellness campaign I don't know something I was just thinking about Board of Health yeah under the Board of Health we could put it under the Board of Health we can put a link to this video for sure yeah yeah okay um and then next we did we also were awarded on a place on something called the city Health dashboard um that was um we we heard about and it's it's in order to provide communities and leaders of the of the community with regularly updated data specific to our Township um things like life exany expectancy um children in poverty um and it's in order to use that uh those those uh metrics to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone um and I'll just run through there's a few slides showing some of the metrics that they um that they uh that they give us but some of the this is something that I really think people should pay attention to because I think it could be useful for like um the um Chamber of Commerce for for businesses as well as for um Township committee members um looking at some of the metrics about what where we're weak and where we're stronger um and uh it's it's a very it's very interesting if you go to the website and run through and just look at all our metrics but um and then it's also used you can see in the second part that people around the world that are studying um studying municipalities and and public health and things use those metrics um I don't remember how many cities are now part of it it started with big cities and then it when when it spread to smaller municipalities um that's when we got in it so and next there these are some of the demographics you can see um and most most of them we do quite well if you look really quickly you can see where these um the where the yellow the orange line is um is where we are um and generally we do quite well um as you like racial ethnic diversity you can see we're not good on that um but there then there's I'll just at the end I'll I listed a few of the things that we're not that great at um and then you can click on there's just a few more demographics says Health outcomes high blood pressure um mental distress life expectancy things like that next and sorry can guys I say a quick question yeah where we getting all that data that's a lot of data they got that data mostly through um Census Data um but they in the um I'm I'm sorry I didn't put that on here but they did list all of the um the public publicly accessible data that they used to put this together um so next and is it's hard to tell which ones were doing well on it is a little bit confusing sorry the orange line is what's we're doing well on and if we got a green check that means we're doing better than average so if you look at walkability on the bottom we didn't get a green check and our orange line is in the dark blue that means we're bad at walkability but it has a green check doesn't it walkability does not if you look at housing with potential lead risk on the on the and walkability on the bottom right there's no green check but if you look at air pollution Che yeah you have to kind of look at it but I like I said the last slide I just listed the things were bad at because I I'm not an optimist I guess I don't know I because there was fewer of them all the other things we're good at so for this one example the racial ethnic diversity is income equality and rent burden are the three that those are the things we're bad at yes we're good at obesity see we're like bottom right on the next one we have a we we're in the we're in the lighter color and we have a greed check okay meaning we're above average on our not being obese so not frequent physical okay you can see I mean now that I explain it you can see but it does it t it always takes me a minute to walkability is interesting that's interesting yeah I again we you can also you know if you are concerned about some of the metrics you could look at where they got that data and see if you agree with it or not but it's publicly available data yeah okay so okay and that's the um the website for it okay um and then in the next slide I just list the things um that were below ideal um thank you it's actually electrical tape I found a picture of see anyway and next um and then we also partnered in the mayor's walk to school um and there we are partnering and that's actually all of the members besides Robin ski of the mayor's Wellness campaign the current mayor's well I think I'm I'm equivocal whether Barbara's on it I thought she stepped down and then she said she didn't think she did so I don't know we we'll figure it out but at one point she was definitely on it so and next um and then we've had the live life well fan come for years we have them booked again for September of this year uh they provide Co and flu vaccines A1C and blood pressure screenings um I forgot to go back and see how many people again it was about 30 people that that used that used the van and that worked that's really nice I wasn't able to go the first year we had it but the second year I went and it was very very nice the people were lovely it's also at no charge um through uh one of the hospitals Central State Central State Central State yes the one in freeold I'm sorry no no it's just walk in yeah yep and next okay and then we um participated um with the um Municipal Alliance on Mental Health Awareness Day and we also created a survey for seniors um we got 94 responses which I think is quite spectacular actually um and you can see the distribution of the age of the people that responded um next um we talk we ask questions about what Wellness activities they currently take part in how they see those service improved um as well as new programs they would like to see offered or additional services or activities they'd like to see offered and we've shared that information with the board of recreation parks and the library um some of the places that might be interested in that information um and uh you know I got I mean if you guys whoever's interested interested I can I can provide you with more information about some of the things that they that they uh requested but there were some kind of themes and uh next and then we created a resource for senior Wellness activities um that we shared with the library and again I think if we do create a a sub part of the Board of Health we'll put this kind of thing up there too um and we're we're going we're planning to actually the library has um I um they they have said that they would partner with with us and using their calendar which is something I've been looking for for a while using their calendar to put some of these senior happenings that are not offered by the library but just to make kind of a a clearing house for all of the offerings in Cranberry so next and we also tabled at the the last health and wellness fair and and we tabled there before that too so and that's our healthy Town up and coming for cranberry our Bronze award and we talked about therapy dogs at the last one so okay and that's some of our feedback and then um last slide I would also um uh reiterate iman's ask that we can always use more volunteers right now we have Joanne charwin Iman myself um Robin ski and Moren rafy um but some of the kinds of people that can volunteer honestly anyone anyone with an interest in anything like this um but we have uh Moren is a register dietician um I'm a veterinarian Joanne he does a lot of mental health stuff and Iman uh just you know knows everything and everyone so but any any anyone that has any kind of interest in this would be how would people volunteer uh they would contact me through my Township email what is it Laura elzer cranber nj. whatever it is okay um and we meet about once once a month or so on Zoom um and um our next we are going to be we are planning for another uh preserve walk will be probably our next project so and there's lots of offerings through if you if you do choose to volunteer there lot lots of offering through the Statewide mayor's Wellness campaign for trainings and you know first date all sorts of stuff um so um anyone that's interested just let me know okay any questions I I have a quick question um I know we spoke a couple times about creating sort of a central Clearing House for events and and um resources available to seniors I know we were supposed to talk to CBA The cranber Business Association where are we with that what are your thoughts well the library has um the LA I reached out to the library and they said they would be willing to do it I haven't had a more intense conversation about it but they said they would be willing to do it um so I just need to I guess I need to make sure exactly what they're you know what they're willing to put on the website but um and they can put they can put commercial events on there that's what I'm not sure so I would like to see something that has even the ones that charge money like like the um St David's has like some you know jazzer size and stuff like that that cost money it'd be nice to have something where everyone can see everything whether it costs money or not but I don't know if they're willing to do those like that's that's a negotiation I still have to have and Laura that is uh you know you're you're talking about something that we have been discussing quite a bit at at our senior sort of interest group and um while we don't have Solutions yet these are very important discussions to have because we're recognizing uh the need obviously um this was a fabulous presentation questions I was just going to ask um at the library meeting at The Retreat this weekend we were talking about sort of reaching out to underserved parts of the community and also the library's been talking about sort of meeting residents and identifying Community gaps this survey is a great objective metric of of gaps in the community so can we share that link or can we share that this deck with the library director or the library board I did did oh you did not not the not just the senior survey but the the actual the link to the dashboard the City Health dashboard oh sure yeah that's I mean that's I don't know anyone that would want that yeah yeah I can um I can email that to you I mean actually if you email me this deck I can if you email me this deck I can forward it to yeah that'd be awesome I think we have it sure it they it just needs a little explanation that's that's why I wanted to talk about it here because it needs a little explanation because if you just get it you're gonna be like what is this and why do I have it so it's the first time when we were awarded that I don't I remember reporting that out on this a couple times but it's the first time that cranberry actually has very specific metrics to this community we have always been tied to Princeton or East Windsor and so it's not a reflection of exactly what's going on this is the first time we have our own metrics and it's really helpful and it's not just in health like some of what you see there it affects for example real estate agents you know like walkability walkability exactly and at some point they call us a a food desert because we don't yeah we are a food desert because we're more than a mile or whatever it is from the closest grocery store so it's it's very interesting information that you can approach from many different angles and it really took a just it just took interest on your part to bring a couple of people together to to do this more questions I just wanted to let you know that May 6th is a mayor's walk to school um okay yeah it's a Monday it's a Monday morning and they're going to also have a um they've been partnered with um keep middle sex moving and they're going to have for I think kindergarten through 2 grade they're going to have a pedestrian safe walking kind of and that's on May 6th too no that's in April and I don't have the exact okay yeah so we are trying to get better at walkability yeah no I I I don't know why we got so poor on walkability honestly because I do feel like we do have pretty good sidewalks and stuff like that um but uh I'm not sure what again what metrics they used for that excellent any more questions we good Laura thank you so much okay thank you Laura also I just want to say there is a tab under Board of Health for mayor's Wellness campaign right now Healthy Living Bingo and recipes supporting immune Health are posted on there you have a spot you do have a tab underneath Board of Health for mayor's Wellness campaign and right now two things are posted Healthy Living Bingo and recipes supporting immune Health yes okay that's great well here thank you you know I actually didn't know that we have that thank you yeah I didn't know thank you thank you wonderful any follow-up items seeing none we'll continue with our boards and commissions and their mayoral appointments and vacancies I have a very nicely prepared document here we have no mayoral appointments however we do have boards and vacancies I'd like to share with the community hoping and hoping and hoping that someone will step up and join us in the volunteer capacity Recreation we have an opening for the first alternate and the second alternate environmental we have a opening for second alternate HPC we have an opening for second alternate Class C Municipal Alliance we we have an we do have a full MERS we have a full membership opening no it's okay we have a full membership opening yes on municipal Alliance believe 12 3126 12 3126 okay and Parks has one full membership open and a second alternate open so quite a few positions for people to step up and join us in the volunteer capacity thank you for that Debbie uh we have a work session today and I apologize Kathy you've had to wait so long but we saved the best for last right welcome Kathy Easton of Shad tree she's our chairperson and we will be discussing a new ordinance right a proposed ordinance yes I'm going to pick up where I left off in November when I came to a shade tree meeting I mean um a Township committee meeting and presented our goal our accomplishments and goals and asked that um ask for you all to entertain these questions which we're here to discuss in it's some uh brief way tonight should the ordinance this is about the tree replacement uh do you want to give a little background about the ms4 real quick Barbara um t uh as as liaison of sha Tre um they have been really working diligently on a um on the M it's it's a tree replacement it's a tree removal replacement ordinance that is required now for our ms4 uh permit by the New Jersey D um ms4 stands for separate storm sewer system um you know for people that don't realize um it's a collection of structures that gather and discharge storm water directly into our local waterways so um you know this is really one of the important things is trees and what do trees do to help our storm water um system you know they play a really critical I you know from as you read um the model ordinance that was sent out by the d trees play a critical often overlooked role in the water cycle and in the mitigation of storm water runoff issues such as soil erosion pollutant reduction infiltration quantity reduction and thermal effects um you know I even have uh this thing where um it can help reduce asphalt temperature by nearly 36 degrees can um each absorb as much as 48 pounds of carbon dioxide so they're an undervalued asset in their storm water um manage in the storm water management um efforts so um you know I just wanted to give that background why do we need to do this today have such a you know an amazing agenda full of great things but um and it's just going to make our meeting longer um this has to be done by May first okay and um you know Kathy had reached out earlier in November we need to bring attention to what the Shad tree Commissioners do we have Bonnie and we have Jackie here too supporting Kathy in this effort so um we have specific four five five four six how many was there uh seven seven um seven items um that um the shade tree will provide um guidance and um in order to write a draft ordinance from the model they need um Township committee input because they don't want to be running down rabbit holes you know um so um that's that's where that's where we go from thanks Barbara yeah so in November when we talked about our goals and accomplishments we asked um uh should this ordinance apply to all of the property in Cranberry meaning other than the right of way that was the biggest question we have for the township committee I hope you've considered that um and I'll give our our recommendations in a minute um should there be a permit process and fees well yes um what will the replacement cost be um oh I'm going on the wrong I'm doing the wrong questions I'm sorry sh shall they we asked I was on Michael's questions shall the ordinance extend to residential uh beyond the right away shall permit fees and penalty charges be required if fees and charges are collected will they be directed well we actually ask that they directed be directed into a shade tree budget for planting and maintenance of trees I mean that's where we would want the money to go which department will manage um the permits and Collections and which department will enforce new regulations and none of these come under shat Tre these are all Municipal um considerations so uh let me just start with this cremo shry commission desires to protect and preserve the scenic Beauty and natural environment of the township prevent erosion of top soil and sedimentation and waterways ensure quality development provide shade and wildlife habitat reduce pollution sequester carbon reduce light pollution and decrease noise the primary intent of this ordinance is to ensure that there will be a significant population of healthy trees within the township and that certainly means for future Generations so uh cranberry uh sh commission is recommending that the ordinance extend to um all the property in the township as an example why why why do we think this is important well because a lot of the trees exist on private property or commercial property um and all the other townships are doing it in in our community Monroe Plainsboro Roosevelt Princeton they've already and hope well these are just a few a lot of the communities have already Incorporated they either had a strong ordinance to begin with OR they Incorporated this new language into their ordinance actually I don't know ordinance wise um will this ordinance stand alone there are a few conflicts between the model ordinance and our current ordinance does the lawyer fix those and is this will this stand on its own because there are just a few discrepancies which I'll go through but let's does anyone have any questions so far I I just want to point out before I go over Michaels I just want to point out to the community forestry management plan and the canopy cover I think that's super important why we're trying to why you're trying yeah speaking of sustainability points um shry uh shri's work gains points for the Township's um sustainability achievement as well and this is what we work with It's A Five-Year Plan we renew it every five years it's a lot of work um it doesn't change considerably this is what we use as our guidance canopy goal tree removal and replacement is all part of our um our our goals that the goals that we work toward um and canopy goal because Shri has met and voted on a canopy goal for the township which is 30% I believe we're at 23% or so now our canopy goal is 30 and certainly this ordinance will help us to achieve that by not um and this doesn't go for every tree we're not talking about whips and saplings we're talking about trees uh two and a half inch caliber or more but I just want to give a quick example of why pering is important so I get Kathy East and Shay Tre gets regularly regular inquiries about what is the permiting process we have none this happened recently and this was very upsetting to me because um it was just a quirk but it really drives home um why this is important so I received an inquiry about a property removing a 70 foot hemlock tree 70 feet I don't know what it's dbh is dbh is diameter breast height caliper is an instrument that measures it similar but they're not the same the dbh of this tree and it was well well anyway I don't know a dbh but it was huge and it was very it was very old and the arborist went to the address that was given he consulted with the owner who said said well I'm inside I can't come out now he sent the arborus company $110,000 deposit the tree this tree alone was $7,000 to remove on the property it was the wrong property if I had not been called asking for a permit they were going to take down a 70 foot headlock in a property that's for sale without checking with the um the real estate agent or the family and so the tree's been saved it was a big miscommunication why someone put $10,000 down on a job I guess the job was well anyway regardless um we don't want that to happen and we don't want 7 foot hemlock trees going down uh by accident but they did all the right things they called about the permit and I knew right away there's there's something wrong with this story doesn't make sense anyway these are some questions that um Mike fored regarding reviewing the ordinance because we certainly don't want to go Section by section and I hope that you've had some chance to review it the third and final draft of the model ordinance was not available until November so when I talked to you the third draft had just been out we hadn't even reviewed it because shry met in November and didn't meet again until February um so shall the ordinance extend to residential Andor commercial property that's the most important consideration and I can run through all the questions then we can go back if you want to I think we should try to address these one by one if we can but okay I guess the question is I mean I would love it to account for all the property in Tom but can it are we like reading the ordinance it says we we're supposed to have a CommunityWide ordinance to control free removal and replacement for all types of properties where the municipality has jurisdiction so jurisdiction to my understanding I know Denise must know the definition is all of the right of way and then any um it it applies if we have shared property we don't share property with any of municipality do we because that would also be considered our jurisdiction if we share property with with another municipality but we don't no so we can't say this is a this applies to private property we can yes you can can we can all these other townships do it's not a mandatory right it's not mandatory we have to have we have to have the ordinance okay it has to apply to right of wait trees correct which Shri now has full authority over and we're not advisory we have authority so that's easy that's easy we will have some fines we still have to talk about fines and permit fees it doesn't happen a lot I I guess I mean I don't know for someone to take down a tree well it happens in neighborhoods with um HOAs because they're all responsible for their own trees they'd still have to get a permit I think I mean this is a situation just I was just thinking about today they still have to get a permit to take down a tree that's in the right of way even if they own that RightWay tree as part of the HOA is that correct the HOA would have to yeah get a permit if they' have to get a permit they remove it they pay for it and they would in the right of way and they would plant replacement trees or pay what a replacement tree costs so this is this is not preventing trees from being cut down right there's like like if someone writes a permit you know and it and it meets all the criteria the tree can be cut down they the process would be go get a permit and then put um uh a tree application and the tree application would be just a little tiny sketch like one tree like an X and then where would you put the other you know you would have to replace the tree so you're saying every every municipality in newers gets to decide by May 1st whether they want this to include just the right away or everything everything in the property some of them already have it yeah some a lot of already had very strong ordin she named like five I I don't know when when these ordin went when these ordinances went into effect for the neighboring towns I know hopeall Township years ago Princeton I think also years ago now a lot of the townships I'm mentioning have an have a conservation officer or far Forester or someone who can execute who can measure the importance of taking it down and now we do that too but on a case-by Case basis like if there's a tree that the uh Street tree they say it's very damaged has to come down it may or may not be have a have a problem and we have an arborous decide if that tree comes down or not so are you saying basically that if we decide to make the jurisdiction of the whole town basically the companion to that decision is we need to have some we need to have a staff member that can well I don't know about staff member because if if you don't if you don't pass a resolution to get a conservation officer or somebody it falls on the Township Clerk and and you know what a lot of towns just have it part-time or on call like um like uh so it's called there is a registered Consulting arborist called an rcq where they're on call and like and um you know whether they come once a month and review these applications for and um and there's also a licensed uh uh so so what's the proposal here are you are you suggesting we hire this rcq I've been s well ch's been suggesting for a few years now that we need some kind of cons professional Consultants call none of us no one on DPW is is an arborist we're four or five of us are Master guards we're not arborists we're not CTE or not or uh so we almost always have to consult an arborist but on a case-by casee basis and then we're also asking them for a quote um uh on taking the tree down it's it's been I would say just the last five years that we regularly get calls about from landscapers or homeowners do we need a permit to take denit Tre and sadly the answer is nope we have no ordinance about that so can I ask a quick question just a hypothetical I'm the property owner that owns a 70-year-old tree or whatever you mentioned before and I decide for whatever reason that I want to take that down and I'm going to plant another tree what's the role of the arborist or the con the the RC or to enforce um well why would what what would be the reason to take so I fill out so I fill I'm just hypothetical so I fill out my permit I put it in there and then I've get my treat it's approved what is part of that form well it wouldn't be well let's see the Arbus would approve it the Arbus would be reviewing these applications that's what I'm asking what's the criteria because it's I'm a private property owner well there are exemptions is the tree dead is it is it damag a healthy tree well then okay so in that case let me refer to the table that's I'm trying to get it like a real live example let's say let's say the dbh of this tree is 33 inches or greater and I'm sure it is what you're talking about before you do that okay so their recommendation is that there's a permit and it's like $35 like you know you pay for the permit and then you put in a tree app then it gets approved and it I'm asking for we're at the approval Point what's the criteria for that if we have somebody that gets involved besides my tree guy says the approval to get it you mean approv for you to take down a healthy tree yeah I'm asking what what is that what's the influence into that decision that I don't know would the arbs have the influence to say you can't well um I think if you take down a healthy tree um if you take down a tree for let's say what's considered no reason just because you know um you would have to to replace that tree of with a tree of a certain size but for a tree that size you'd have to probably plant four trees to replace it but whatever that criteria is so for a one tree of equal dbh or whatever one tree equals four in this case or one tree equals one regardless I want to remove a tree from my property I filled out the permit and then what's the criteria just nothing you well let's say you let's say remove the tree the big tree because there's really no room for it you know everything else has grown it's got too big and even though it's healthy and everything it's just um it doesn't work and you don't have any more room on your property to plant trees then you pay for the trees to be planted in in a an approved location but I don't H as a private property owner I don't have to State my reason for removing this tree that's what I'm I'm trying to get out let me look at an application and tell you that a sample application because we don't have one uh nearest cross street uh purpose removal yes you do you have to State your purpose for removal okay so and then the arus would be the one I believe who would approve I'm not trying to be argumentative I'm just trying to make it a real example for most residents here because I want to if that's the reason that I put down on that form is that good enough or doubt it what I doubt it but I I really don't know because this is where the lawyer would be handy really this is a lot of this is legal stuff I don't know this is where I'm getting stuck on the going from where we have a you know it's under the municipal to now we're asking you know what I want to make sure it's not a subjective process and that it's not too much of a in reach into a property owner oh yeah I totally I totally understand that but the purpose of the ordinance of all the other folks all the other townships that have where it applies to personal properties because we are a community all of the trees matter to everybody and that's really sort of where it comes from we want a a healthy community of trees and you know we can shade tree can manage the right of way as they have been doing and I'm not saying they're going to manage anyone's property and shat Tre won't even really be involved because we're not officers and we don't work for the township where we're volunteers it's different even though we have some authorities so um the some some applications require I mean it it depends on how you guys want to do it yeah I just think there's a discernable difference between an application and a permit right like a permit is just like I'm I'm letting you know and I'm paying a fee to make you a aware because you're saying that people are taking down trees okay the permit has the permit is the application and has to be approved and then it would be the conservation officer enforcement officer that would have to enforce it and it would have to be someone who knows whether so so we're saying so Kathy when I talked to a Princeton I'm gonna interrupt here because you talk to you talked to Taylor Tyler yeah I when and I asked him whether I could speak and um of what we um he he said like he would encourage people not to cut down that giant tree but there really is no authority to say no you can't especially when they're going to pay if it's not on their own property the replacement fee of $550 per tree into a trust fund to the shade tree um you know for planting these trees elsewhere where did that $550 come from it came from the Princeton ordinance and that's their average cost for replacing a tree yes well I I'm to Lisa's point help you or no see it still seems like so is it the arborous then that goes out and says so they can't say no you just but you have to pay well here's the thing I think if you ask you should be approved it's on your property I mean I that's me saying that but also if you don't ask and you take it down and someone tells on you you get fined on top of I'm not even at the fine part I'm still at the application part right yeah so the application is the permit it's a permit application and there are different samples and we'd have to you know I have other questions Who develops those sha Tre um do we just use models that are available you know all of these things but but the criteria for approval I think is something that we need to flush out and make sure that it's not subjetive let see let me see if they flushed even if I have room on my property I'm just going to take this tree down because I don't like where it is just because I want to and I do have room on my property to plant another tree or I don't but that initial step of approval to take down the tree because I want to that's what I'm trying to get at what that criteria so in addition to that so you would get the approval to take down the tree but you'd also have to present a plan of how we're going to plant the other four trees like a property plan and how that's going to work about the replacement process it seems I know it seemes it seems um honorous I know no I don't think I don't think it is and again because I think if you're going back to the goal of 30% which I would encourage to start screaming that and making sure that our community is aware of that because I don't think anybody has I learned it today that there's we've said it for years now since since we became sustainable Jersey and how important that was Parts is very Weare and our and our planner was very I'm not talking about um employees of the of the township no no I'm talking about the public the public needs to be educated about what the ordinances are and everything about this a lot true and actually should you decide to extend this into private property and you know we're not we're not going to do this again in a year if you change your mind isn't the other thing this is you know this is g to um be the ordinance but um I've only been here nine years and I learned about canopy today I learned about 30% I learned that we're at 23 and I learned about dbh I got a massive education yeah well you know things have changed over time too because we used to have a newsletter where all a lot of the information went out and then it became a sentence in the letter and now we have been M I know Mike when he last year you're mayor right was what put in shat Tre information not that specific thing but for anybody who wants to know more about what a commission does read the minutes um you know come to a meeting that's what I do because I don't have time to go to all the meetings and we I think we voted on the 30% canopy goal three times now because we started what 06 no not 06 but our goal here tonight is to give is to give you the input you need for a May 1 still question one and and so the first question is basically are we going to restrict it to right away and and Township jurisdiction which you you is in your current scope and could be handled your current team or anything in the public right of way which includes parks and but you but you have a you have a mid Zone there as well which is like what you mentioned when I was leasing with you all two years ago what about Heritage trees what about special trees well this covers with that kind of dbh it covers Heritage trees we we we we we originally decided as a sh commission to to do an ordinance of Heritage trees that reached into which is very specific just you know particularly Big Trees of a certain maturation but then the state required that we have an ordinance um from dbh is recommended from dbh of two and a half up you know and and on up is the private part of this um subject to ms4 so if we if we only kept it a well the whole all of the land in town contributes to storm water I mean there's storm water so storm water regardless of this ordinance so if we didn't if what what are the consequences of May 1 coming and going without well that's a question I was going to ask Denise what are the consequences of May 1st if we haven't adopted it by then because we had heard in different in different conferences I want to make clear that a lot of townships are struggling with this who didn't have a strong ordinance and we don't have anything near a strong ordinance and there they've been struggling so much that um uh New Jersey Association of Planning and Zoning has just just coordinated and sent out a notice today which I didn't get but Robin sent to me they're coordinating um with the shade tree Federation of New Jersey to have a three- session seminar which begins end of March and goes all the way into April about about how do you do this what's a model ordinance um what qualifies s your question Municipal permitting and enforcement how does all this work because we've had we we've attended some sessions but largely we haven't received much guidance from so like just back to you know how this works yeah so let's say um the m so one of the things that you saw in the model ordinance is that on the township properties it's a 2 inch diameter breast height versus on a private property where it starts at where you have to do this permit is at a 6 inch so it's not as onerous as the municiple um properties that's another thing to kind of put in the back of your mind when you make this so let me ask Although our table does have an example of two and a half up to six but we could start it at six that's all that's flexible but but do you believe that if if if you the whole town that we need to hire this RC res arborist that we automatically have to hire this person to be able to manage it yes okay yeah but they're not it would be an on call Base like say but on call but if they're someone's filling out an application for a permit they have to be able to issue that permit someone here isn't going to be do we have a budget this year for uh no okay do we have we have 5,000 I think we have $7,000 for for a Consulting arborist not not a Township position that's got to do with us Consulting ARB RQ something position that you were talking about that's the Consulting arborist yes so we have that in the budget so that is so if if we decide tonight that the scope of this ordinance should include the entire Township that will incur a cost this year that we did not budget for to have an arborist because the Consulting arborist was supposed to help with shade determining what trees should be taken down and that was really in the right of way what we were thinking yes that was all the right of way we hadn't yeah so but also some of these funds that can be collected can go towards that arborist too like you know because well permit fees fees or um and you know and uh replacement trees but more so for planting trees the going to court when there's a violation well yeah there's a there's there's I mean really the other person that does it is the zoning officer we have a parttime z and I know that we have a part-time zoning officer I know that I know that's not possible I mean I'm just telling you what the other towns are doing to so I can represent Roosevelt is a tiny town and they do it so just a it sounds like there's two things we're talking about and this first question seems like it's a big one because either we're we're setting ourselves up that we're introducing an ordinance that's going to cover the entire town it's going to put jurisdiction for all the trees over a certain size anywhere in the town and it will it's going to removal yeah for for it's going to have this arborous cost it's going to have zoning costs it could have legal costs so it sounds like it's that yeah right or a lot of administrative cost ad the other the other and the other option the other option on the table is to is to buy a May first write the thing that just limits it to Township right away which presumably is the same scope as what you've been dealing with now right because those are all permitted so I mean that's that's if if we if we don't want to feel like we're back our gun A gun is against our head to include the entire Township by May 1 we could take the township ordinance the model State ordinance include just the right away and we could at any point could come back and expand it to include the entire town right I don't know another ordinance you're not taking the recommendation corre that's what but that's what I'm asking that's why I'm trying to understand what the recommendation is so the recommendation if recommendations is the whole town because it supports the master plan and the community for and the implication for us is that we need to then have this arborist and administrative costs to to cover whatever we think that would be I'm just saying those are too connect those are connected well yeah is the arbor GNA um collect the applications and the permits and I mean that's who's going to do that I don't think taking checks and giving them to us to deposit but real quick in turn of the May 1 we had been told all along tell me if I'm wrong that um oh that we could it could be adopted but it it wouldn't um it had to be adopted on May 1 but it didn't have to go into effect for a while because there's a big public education period there you can't put something in effect May first and immediately take effect without notifying the public and now I'm confused though because um it seems like we have to adopt it and it's well at least in the model it says if we adopt it then it goes into effect and isn't that how ordinances work when you adopt it it goes into effect because we they had told that we had heard from shry Federation that we could delay yeah when the date is you do that yeah you can put it effective January first well then my last just for postate the enforcement right right what happens if we don't get the stunned by I mean we'll be do you think the D is coming after every municipality second who hasn't when we went to the shade tree commission and there's a room of what that the biggest one what t 50 people or whatever and people are saying we don't know where to start we can't not allowed to talk to the lawyer we don't you know a lot of towns but a lot of towns have they will eventually but that could take yeah so just to say Princeton is the only Township in the state of New Jersey that has a full-time arborist and that's Taylor that Barbara talked to many towns have part-time arborists or conservation or sustainability offers officers and they do this they have part-time um tree officers or yeah tree officer sustainability officer conservation officer forest forest that kind of thing so could we adopt could we ex include the scope that you're recommending but put an an effective date of the next bud in time for the next budgetary so that we build in the budget for this it sounds like we can so yeah I mean you can put it effec of April of next year if you want to I but a lot may change between now and then don't you think if you have this whole but we have the option to update ordinances anytime we want right I mean um you know it would have been nice to see that Princeton ordinance uh to see what because they the actual ordinance or yeah the the pron ordinance here because we're uh I mean we're talking about fees and and costs and exemptions and all that like I'm assuming that that's a lot it's a lot of it's a lot of details but I'm assuming have a framework there right that we could uh look at and adjust as opposed to just like this well I mean they give you in the model order framework yeah that's what the model is to framew in the model so they we just filled in the cost which is $550 I just don't know who's going to enforce this when we put it well there is no one to enforce it so so we want to continue talking about it or just move on and and pass the ordinance for the right of way and I mean I'm I want to hear the I mean I want to hear the recommendation we we well the recommendation is is it for is from shade tree has to be that it's for the whole Community because it's about protecting all the trees so that's the that's the only thing we really can recommend um but I don't know how realistic that is D you want oh you have Princeton yeah they have I don't think it's about not taking the recommendation I think that it's the process and there be a process to accept the logistics of executing it I believe is what we're struggling with and I personally am struggling with the ambiguity of approval that I'm just don't quite understand on what that process looks like for a private I don't either really I mean because so when I talk to the AR well yeah you well when I talk to the aror he's the one that also um you know um enforces it as well he'll go like on the application the homeowner's email so afterwards he'll say how you know he'll follow up um you know he he could I think he can actually if he's if he's title something something officer he can if he's been given that Authority in this ordinance they can I believe so that's you know what that's a lot I think it's but it's always and it is subjective to the point where the Arbus would go to whatever the property is he's not going to get the application read it and approve it or not he's going to come out and look at the tree and talk to the property owner and again it's if it's a Heritage tree discourage them from doing it if it poses no Hazard that kind of thing there's a lot of exemptions for trees that can go down um and I don't know how it works because I've never experienced it and um we're still learning as we go and there's three more sessions of ordinance training that I don't know if I can make it or not or if anyone else can but I I yeah go ahead well go ahead um I I just I don't know how like yeah clearly like we talk to an arborist he goes and he does you know he just like the the zoning officer maybe I don't know you try to resolve it by staying out of Court yeah um I forgot what I was gonna say now I I don't know that we're going to solve that first uh question here right now but can we maybe look at whatever you know what else is coming up that may bring up other questions and well I can bring up other questions we could have it apply to shrubs too not just trees I mean it's it really depends on the township and we until we know stick to Tre well right now it applies to all the right of way applies to all the right of way shrubs and trees sh has authority over that how much Authority do you want chatry slash you know another Township employee to um control you know it's really just control removement of trees that shouldn't be removed so let's let's let's what so do you want to go the other questions and come back to this yes please yeah thank you what should the permit fees be well we can recommend $35 for the first five is $35 for the first five trees and $15 a tree after that yes I think that was what was we could also make it $35 a tree I mean it depends what's your recommendation $35 a tree $35 well I think it's $35 for the first five first five $35 for the first five trees and then $15 for every tree thereafter that's the permit fee that's what are we basing that on Monroe or Princeton I don't remember we looked at a lot no it's for yes it's $35 for five trees $15 for every additional tree and and yes some places are $20 some places are $100 for these permits right so we came up with $35 we didn't do a big analysis okay because we um but we could now let's see what will the replacement cost be now replacement cost refers to you take the tree down you you don't replace it you'd have to pay $550 per tree that you don't replace for the the township to to replace it somewhere else in the township if I got that right or they could approve or they could um or approval could be that you can plant those in a Township property um you know um you could have them they pay the township to get to plant them in the township property yes to plant them in the township property so $550 comes from the um like average cost that it costs to put in a 2.5 calber inch tree um as you know uh that's the basic be and who's going to determine where the trees are going mean well on the private property the property owner has to uh produce a map put it on their property the money go and they need to take all their trees out okay so then um the money go the money goes in and then Shri would plan where to plant it as we do yeah the money goes towards tree planting and maintenance in the Sha tree or or or or the cost of the arborist I don't think so yeah I don't I don't see anyone else doing that I think it's all it's all about is a tree planting fund um and then the arborus comes out of the operating budget thank you and do we know how much this and we don't well at least 100 an hour um between 85 and 150 depending on who we guess per per tree per hour per hour oh so we would want contract so the question you know it's it's all it's a lot of details do we contract for so many hours a year and make sure they do that many hours what do we do if they are they on call every time an application rolls in how often do we expect that to happen so applications probably several a month I get several calls a month do we need a permit to take down a tree because most townships do you need a perit to take down a tree yes we there could um yeah but I've never dealt with it person person l so um you know depending on how many applications you get you can ask this arborist to come in monthly twice a month and you pay them hourly like maybe like three hours a month three hours every two weeks um and you know then we're talking about someone wants to take a tree down we tell them they have to wait a month right right well no like you could have them like if if we decide okay like so Princeton has a 22 day and and he says 22 days is plent so if you don't file a permit and and I take down said Tree on your property on my property what is how do we know well no who cares you find out whatever I I made a mistake M AK I didn't realize there was a process and I screwed up and my tree is gone and now I get fined what's that find well you're not going to get fined unless and this is the this is where the enforcement officer comes in unless a neighbor tattles on you or [Music] um someone the enforcements off officer can see a fresh stump as he drives by okay so again I did it innocently that's fine it right you did it innocently and and it the you would have be well actually yes it's it's currently so this the cost of the current ordinance diverges from this ordinance oh so there's up to $1,500 fine currently may find at $1,500 but we're this ordinance is actually going more lenient and saying $50 additional on top of like $550 like if you decide to plant it elsewhere so the replacement cost would be an additional $50 penalty 600600 unless I put it on my own property and then I'm paying 50 bucks because i50 bucks or the other thing that is being recommended is you put in an additional tree instead of paying $50 so it's really just $50 a tree extra you say this 550 number where how do we get that how of the 550 cost of the tree plus planting if it's anywhere near if it's near a sidewalk it needs root guards that's how much it costs that's the average cost that's the average and that comes from Princeton there are some that are higher and some that are lower from some other towns yeah so you can get a 2 and a half inch calber ornamental cherry tree for 400 bucks but you can get a 2 and a half inch calber for I could think of maple tree for 150 bucks know but has to be planted that's where a lot of the cost comes in is they you know um because has to be planted and it does it does that require a special set of skill does that then fall on planting planting the tree absolutely there and actually something else that has to go along with the ordinance is proper planting techniques so um which are followed by the contract trors we hire and followed by public works just who plants trees in the township now but you would you would be hiring someone to plant the trees to replace the big tree and they would have to follow proper planting techniques and and that's and that's and that's actually an ongoing that's that's really important so there's a property on cranberry Neck Road whoever planted the trees it must have cost $300 a piece they never freed the root ball they're all going to they're all dying I mean that's the kind of thing that you prevent from happening I don't know how you prevent it but there's an ordinance to say you know you have to plant it properly properly you take the W mesh off you take the wire and and the and the Rope they all the all the trees are strangling it's very sad someone spent a lot of money for that but that's kind of thing you prevent and and and the the great part about this ordinance is that there the appendix a are the type of trees that you want planted in your town so that's the education piece too of this ordinance you know you don't want to plant all one particular tree and it also being an invasive um you know you want to have a diversity of trees yeah and so there's a do not plant list as well like you don't want to plant ash trees now because of the ashb yeah we have it's analogous to what we have now but it's not an ordinance but we do have a recommended plant trees to plant for certain spaces as well as do not plant and that would be part of the appendix that yes that would be in the appendix of the new ordinance and that will all go in regardless of whether you keep it to right of right or that's right the entire town so that that guidance you've already worked on and you worked on for many many years and it exists so how where where it goes and all that that's something that we can finesse but I can can we hit some of these bigger questions I can answer like three questions they're very easy and we can go back to the ones that aren't answered yes um number four yes we do accept all the exemptions and we've added a a a H for Farmland there'll one or is Farmland in there pres Farmland preservation that's added wait say it Farmland preservation not Farmland assessed farms in Farmland preservation with a management plan we would add that to the um exemption list as well as tree nurseries um where's the exemption list silver cup it's all in there what you do for Farmland ass which is different um it says uh a agricultural operations are exempt from replacement requirements because such operations are governed by the Right to Farm Act so those covers all that covers both Right to Farm Act yeah it covers both Farmland Assessment and farmland uh um preservation that's under statute for1 c-1 so really I mean the biggest question is the one I asked in November do you want it to extend into outside of the right away if if we go forward with it only being the municip IP ality the entire fee schedule goes away right no what we find someone could take down a tree in the right of way and they will be fined yeah that exists now but I'm saying if this is only pertaining to the municipality and it's not private well that right way though can be oniv your house sidew so you would still want to maintain that fee and fine schedule right they have to get a permit to remove it okay so thank you basically you know a resident is going to have to pay well what what happens if uh there's an accident if a car hits a tree that's at the right of way and that tree comes down nothing that's just that's what happened it's an act of God or whatever tree got stuck by lightning it went down that's I mean that it happens um or struck by lightning and became now became a hazard tree well it has to go down that's kind of an emergency situation no permit that's an exemption ha and Hazard let me I'm sorry to interrupt but and Hazard trees um so you go through the permit process but you don't when you get a certified tree arborista guy LTE um or an RCA um to say hey this is a hazard tree and this has to come down you no longer have to pay that permit fee or a replacement fee yeah I me just give an example of Hazard trees so it's clear because it's a little bit broad um dead or dying infectious disease or insect infestation causes obvious damage to structure is determined to be a threat to Public Health that's why that most of our trees go down UHC those are um in in the right way so if in that case you refund the permit fee because you obviously paid it so do we then have to refund refund the permit fee I don't think they would pay the fee because the authority said it's a hazard tree well I what you found out from the arbor is to then refund that permit fee because it's it part of excluded list of reasons or I didn't realize it was disease but it is it's good question I don't know no you wouldn't I think I think if it's dead or D the said so you don't need to permit yeah that's already excluded yeah I mean exempt you go through the permit process but you say Hazard tree and I have a my my tree expert saying it's a hazard tree so you do not have to pay any of these anything no right you just have to pay to get submit your permit without a fee in that case or what do you do Jackie did you want to join us up here can you can you can can you join us up here please it'll be more yeah thank you it goes under the exemption Monro they have a separate permit fee for just just talk into the microphone just sorry so that it's captured thank you uh Monroe I think it's Monroe has a um separate uh permit fee for hazard trees and it's $10 you know because you need to have someone come out and make sure it is I mean otherwise people would just say hey it's dead or dying or whatever and mostly I I had asked that question remember Barbara like how do you keep people accountable how do you keep people from abusing that Hazard category you have to have a licensed tree arboris come out that's L it's or you don't have to have one you could just say no you you're making the recommendation today yeah this is a recommendation of like I don't know if you want to do the I don't know but I thought it was no permit fee I don't know you guys are going to make the recommendation so Roosevelt has a separate treat permit for dead dying or disease yeah so all these are options once we establish what we're doing I mean there's a lot more to consider I mean I I I think that that piece in terms of how much a fine is in terms of exactly what is going to be fined that can be worked on a little bit more but it's this bigger question the bigger question about whether we are behind just the right of way this term jurisdiction what would we like it to include and what will we not be able to stand behind and it's hard this idea that every tree in the town would would now be under this jurisdiction it's it's hard to to wrap your head around it a little bit right but I do see how over the years we've had issues where on private property trees have been removed and situations um that could have been absolutely avoided uh you know you can't you can't plant a tree and have it grow faster enough right to replace what what was just taken down so how do we feel about this with regards to just right of way and can you remind us again right of way includes what right of way includes all the trees well all the trees that are between the Salk and the curb pretty much um as well as all the parks and any other Municipal properties like Islands Islands um you know traffic islands and yeah there's no County sh Tre commission so that's us and Commercial is not considered right away all commercial properties right no they're included no but they're not excluded by excluded because they're commercial I have a question about um it seems like there's a calculus for determining so you offer the anecdote of the 70 foot Hemlock um and that would count for four trees place so that would be I don't the dbh was but that probably would have counted for um definitely four trees if yeah five five trees probably there's a thing here that would be so yes you're asking is it would be over $2,000 for someone plus the cost of taking their tree down right it's four it's four in general people ignore the trees in general really you know unless they have a problem with it I think when homeowners move into a house they may decide oh look at this I don't really like all these leaves so I'm going to take them down and they take them down uh well I think also if you're adding on to your house you're putting a pool in you're putting a Pao you're creating a Playard for your kids yeah all reasons you want take all reasons you want to take your tree down and now we're not charging people to do that if we do this we will be because that's not in the rate of weight it's in their backyard y but it's not preventing people from doing that it's just saying that there is a cost that will come with this I I think that's important to highlight we're not saying people we're completely restricting your ability to remove a tree it's just that if this tree really should not be removed it comes with a a cost well that's why there's a permit application process like other things you do on the property I suppose like building a shed you're going to take down a tree you have to of a certain size you have to um submit an application I think we're we're saying that we're assessing the fee because we have to offset the cost fee or the yeah because we're trying to offset the cost of administrating the fees so that to me seems like a self-imposed problem it is I don't think right by opening it up to covering all the public we're now implementing A system that says you have to file a permit and we're saying you have to file a permit because we're going to offset administrative fees for a process that we're implementing it's also reping but it's also replacing trees and keeping our canopy like you know master plan thing yeah and again I'm just going on the education that I received today but T is not recommending that the permits and and um fines collected are to support an officer of of the township is to plant trees is to continue to maintain the TR the the canopy right right thank you go say that again loudly the the cost will be on the taxpayers those fees are not going to cover the administrative costs they're going to cover replacement tree costs go into trust fund but the cost of taking a tree out and erosion and flooding that you see yeah is a cost there's there's no comparison I mean as the tree canopy gets diminished so does the health of the entire Community which is every Community which is why the state is doing this well and it has to do with storm water people don't understand the trees have anything to do with storm water a unicorn town there are other towns that are doing this so it's not like we're getting out ahead of ourselves and being the first we're not doing that this is something that the challenge is just I I totally support the concept of keeping trying to grow a canopy I just think our challenges as a town is we're very small we're very lean and so these things have disproportionate the administrative burden have disproportionate impact on Denise and Debbie's teams and so we I'm always worried about unintended consequences of saying it's we we want to do what's right and then we we suddenly create this whole cost structure that we've created to support the you know on Debbie and Denise's teams that's all understand that yeah we are a small town and it would yeah yeah and have we researched how to get to that that I'm sure you had it's a master plan you're updating it every five years is there an alternative way to get to the 30% canopy cover without instituting this process this isn't to achieve the 30% canopy it's because we're we're we're doing that in public spes but we can never achieve it if people are willing L taking trees down on their own property that's where that comes from we we have to do this we're doing this because we have to do this right but we have to have it for right of wait trees right for right of waight trees exactly we don't have to do it no no no we don't have to do it for private property but we have to pass something right we have to do something well that's what they're asking is for an adoption by May 1st so is a little bit of a time crunch click your button private private yeah so so well the recommendation is for the town to consider that I mean yeah that's why and about it for for for us in terms of the timeline of um cleaning up an ordinance creating an ordinance all of that stuff what is that last date that we can introduce this ordinance so that we can be voted on and then adopted the first meeting in April first meeting in April wow because you need two weeks in between to adopt I mean I can we can we just I mean we this body has the power to update an ordinance in a on a two-e cycle can we so just to get through next six weeks or eight weeks can we take the model ordinance apply it for just the township owned property and right away to get your recommendations for the for the the fees and and write something and let it let it roll for a few months and see what what the what the issues would be I mean it it keeps us from becoming this huge thing I'm not trying to go against your recommendation but the the implications of making it the whole town become this administrative burden that we can't quantify we don't know and that I don't think it's responsible for us to to approve something that we don't know what the cost and what the expectations are for what it would be on as a burden to the township but we do want to get this done by May 1 so we could do something that covers the same the current scope which is right away in Township property ordinance for a removal replacement ordinance which we don't and then come back at it would that also give us some time to kind of maybe research the amount of trees that we've got Property Owners because we're really not benchmarking that are we and we're going off of like you're getting a lot of calls do I need a permit do I need a permit can we somehow like qualify like that like is this a big problem that people are just tearing down trees left in right in C we're saying yes but I I don't it's a problem that's all I'm gonna say it is a problem so how do how do have numbers quantify that no I don't have numbers that's what I'm trying and you can't I can't get I can't get numbers that's the only way to quantify so the the the other the other option is we we approve by May 1 the entire town but we punt on enforcement for a year to a year and a half and that allows the education component to kick in and we we require people to at least start to put in permits for the for that period of time I think you figur out the enforcement thing first and then you apply to the whole town I don't know how else you would do it okay we can't say we're do the whole then figure out how're so you're recommending we go with right away for right now well because we don't really have any I mean so we I guess what we really should have worked on is how to enforce it um and P push your button yeah and that's and that's oh there go and again the arborus would come out of the capital I mean the operating budget the arborus we haven't budgeted for right okay and that's why you can if if if that space allows to do that we budgeted for is for specific things no I know but you're recommending us to write an ordinance that is incurring cost that we have not budget it for say again you're you're encouraging us to WR write an ordinance that covers the whole town and there to consider it I mean to consider well that's what your recommendation is to write it for the whole town and the implication of that is that we're going to now have an administrative and an arborous cost that we didn't plan on and didn't budget right and that needs to come first so so that's that's you're you're coming to you're coming to exactly what we need to come to which it looks cleaner and it looks um more doable it looks more plausible that we kind of stick right away yes we stick to right away and you already have a lot of the guidance and you've you've been doing this okay so then the question for that let's see we just do right away who's going to process who's going to create the the forms do the fees collect um all of that is that shry the the attorney um um I mean I think a professional can you yeah yeah and we have sample permits that's not a big deal we have sample permits that can be typed up by the Shad Tre secretary and they can go to you the permits and you can say yes or no I don't I can't say yes or no the permits it has to be an officer well then you're gonna have to use that $5,000 we put for the arborist to do in your budget why don't we which is what it was there for anyway well that was actually pre that's been their I know it was before the perit it's really for to fix Village Park to replace the canopy in Village Park is to get an consultant to do that that's really the main reason we have that in there which is again canopy driven but we hadn't we didn't even have the harborist in there necessarily for that but we do need an arborist regularly you know so when you when you have when when you have um permits when you have permits that come in when people are requesting trees right when they want to when when they apply to remove a tree on their property is it a situation where we can collect them for a while and say okay now we have the arborist three times a year four times a year I don't think so I think that's not fair to the property on that's not fair to the property at all and they have they're gonna have they're gonna have an ongoing project it needs to be um but when someone comes to you now and says I think the tree is is diseased or I want to take it down on their property right on even if it's in the right of way right and they're coming to you to ask you go out and you determine well I go out and sometimes depending on the quality of the tree DPW goes out and then one of us will be Consulting an Arbus about how about about the actual state of the tree well we're doing that because we're asking them for a quote to take it down and that's different so we're saying we call the Arbus give this quote to take this down because I need to get three quotes for certain for work and so does well not maybe not DBW because they can use riches but um um but you're asking them for a quote so you've already determined the tree should come down correct but you have to with consultation with them with with consultation some in some cases it's self-evident I mean it's it's clearly hazardous measurements even by lay people in other cases an arborist is needed okay but that's not in every case is what I'm saying it's not Cas pretty much what we've been doing yeah it is I think we should really just see how many we're talking about if it turns out it's a lot then a conversation for next year's budget is do we hire someone or do we ask the zoning officer if he has more time and pay him more money to enforce it but let's just see if there's penalties let's see if there's violations let's see so you're you're proposing do the whole town no I'm proposing do the right of way no right right right way yeah yeah but there's no permit process but now people would be it is a law I mean um an anyone want wants to take down a RightWay tree has there's been no permit application process okay so now we're going to remedy that that's fine that's fine right so right way forget it the the sample permits currently exist yeah we can come we we would consult with an arborist if need be if need be right so these are three three things we're doing right now what else are we adding this instead of doing it as need part of process well that that's the big thing I mean but that's not what's happening right now so let's just see if it turns out to be a lot of times we need to consult and AR W because we're talking only the right of way trees generally generally it's um someone from shade tree or um DPW that notices the tree and there is no resident the only difference here is going to be there's going to be a permit they have to ask for permission if they want to take it down in the right of way right so now when someone someone calls us out and says we want to take this tree down and it and we just had an inventory we know what the what the what the SAT what the condition of the trees are we've had okay there's two two criteria um anyway we can say well this tree is it doesn't look like it's changed uh it looks like it's healthy apply for a permit to take it down if you want to take it down and then they'll have to we suggest who else there isn't because there's no conservation they've been to it let's see if it becomes overwhelming by the end of the year Kathy will tell us it won't be because we because it won't be no it won't well because half of the in half of the inquiries I get about taking a tree down are private property and we have no and there's nothing for me to do no but but private residents private residents typically also hire their own company and that company comes out corre the only thing that is they're not going to have to replace those trees so if they're taking them down in their yard they're not going to have to replace them you're not going to have to spend 2,000 plus dollars to either replace them or or somewhere else no but but I I I I want to touch upon something that you said Michael which is something that you also mentioned earlier it's this idea that if we roll this out with just the uh the right of way and then we create this education piece about hey residents we are actually considering doing this for the public it can allow people to get on board it can allow them to have that in their you know in the Forefront of their mind hey this is coming you know like we we have to be ready for this piece as opposed to just putting it on them I'm interested in that ordinances well again I'm interested in the strategy because without naming names there was a lot of head scratching going on when you started talking about canopy and 30% I don't think that our general public is as educated as as you may believe they are about the I don't believe that they are educated I'm just saying that there there there's been opportunity for Education they're interested corre so I I think by as as mayor you know am man is is discussing right there that is a great opportunity to for people to learn and get it as opposed to we say yes to this and all of a sudden what was not a $2,700 project becomes a $2,700 project we're going to get massive push back and we don't have a process in place uh you know to to account for it from an administrative standpoint at least this way we will get replacement trees for the right of for the right of way trees but we are and we're but we're already doing that just to say because we're aware of what trees go down in the public R way and we have a list of where the are going we're paying for them now right to replace we're paying to replace the trees or have them taken down they have to replace them or give us money to replace them even in the right of way yes Kathy it's in the ordinance yeah so yeah if they take down a right of way tree they would still have to they're going to have to pay to replace it yeah and the other thing is is why should like you're not a certified tree person they should be the ones to pay or to get the consultant to say this is a hazard tree or this is a healthy tree I just want cut I can't but we can't go by word of mouth if someone says I mean because people say they'd have to tell us who the are and I we need to see it it's not own us right now Kathy saying let's just this might just help us at least get replacement trees for money for repl I mean yeah it's not it's yeah we're we're that's how I feel Jack it's not it's not completely hopeless Jackie it's good we we've actually whittel the way it is shade tree we have a lot of other goals and I don't know that we're going to come back and visit this all over again in the year to decide if we're going to go into the um into because this is the opportunity when we establish the ordinance but I know there's a lot of things to consider but but I I disagree with that Kath and you say you want public input no no no I'm saying at any time we can come back so our gun the gun is to our head right now by May 1 to get a shade a tree removal ordinance on the books we can make one that matches our current rule practice with our with our residents but it also includes a permit it includes a permit it includes a replacement cost and at any point if if it's if maintaining our canopy is so important to our town and it is at any point we can come back when we have the right enforcement mechanism in place what's going to what's going to change a budget we're gonna have time we're gonna have time we're gonna have a budget we're gonna have experience with an AR great so are you saying that the township is committed to looking into getting some kind of conservation or sustainability office to shade tree to work with as well as I'm I'm committed to make sure that an ordinance we write has the right administrative procedures to make it successful that's what I'm committed to and right now and we do because you're saying that the front office could process whatever permits come in for the RightWay trees and deal with any all of that the front office will deal with that if for right of wait trees come to you to me but I don't have the author I don't I don't feel comfortable proving be looking at the tree see that's the part that should be a late person I'm not a professional but that's what you're doing already I'm contacting when we have multiple work things to be done multiple tree work that's when I consult the arborist yeah but but you're already saying the tree needs to come down at that point when you're Consulting the AR well she's doubting a tree at that point she assessing a tree I sometimes we need to consult the arist okay if it's a tree you honestly don't know then we'll contact an arborist that's what I'm saying just to get if you're determining there's you know you're determining the has to come down yeah n that wasn't a good example but here's the thing about getting an arborist I no one is at my disposal to come and tell me if this for the arborist to look at the tree I have I can't do that and that that that's why I'm I know I'm not explaining it very well I'm talking about the right of way trees right how we handling yes it's a it's a judgment call by me and Jerry unless there's a question and then then usually if it's going to come down it's usually Public Works not we're more into pruning and maintaining health and then Jerry takes care of it I'll just say that but this is someone coming to us and saying they want to take it down which means they are going to take care of taking it down all you're going to do and you're say issue them the permit and they're going to get someone to take the tree down then they're going to either pay us to replace it or replace it themselves right yes Denise your button um I turn off a the comtable I just can't I don't work for the township I mean I I'm not going to get applications sent to me and there got to be a place in the township that that permit if she gets the permits and she and she shares them with DPW that's not the that's not that's not going to work no it it needs to be an officer of of the of the township like the zoning officer or if we had an arborist or something that's who that's who is going to be reviewing permits and yes we can we can do it like this for now we can continue to do it the way we're doing it because it's worked but um let's do that but it's only worked for very few things I mean because it's just right of wa trees right and that's all it's going to be now right of wa trees that's it for now why don't we do it with the model ofic we don't have the she has it in her budget $7,000 for this year so if there's like one tree this year we don't have an arbor on call for $7,000 we don't know that we have to I don't know so when you okay so you have professionals that work you contract them for so many hours or just for the whole year and they do it like this is what we we be um well honestly when it's anything type of violation they're employees on staff they're not Consultants it's the zoning officer it's the police department it's Animal Control officer so I I don't know this is new I don't and I don't know how other towns are doing it I don't know if they're using most towns have some kind of Officer who's Bonnie Bonnie come up to the table come up I think if we're only going to do the right away we're responsible for those trees and it's going to be very rare that a right that a person is going to say I want to take the treat down and put in a new tree because we're responsible we've been replacing those trees ourselves because they're in the right of way yeah PE people do call about the right of away trees it could be in really bad shape and then they go on a waiting list and that's how it works like there were three trees that were really they wouldn't you give them permission and they would hire someone to take they wanted to go down they don't want to pay for it but they're not filling out a so so you're saying to have them fill out a permit but but the permit would be for them to pay for it to take take down correct this whole thing it's everything you just described but the fee structure and the fine and all of that it's just applied to right away yeah what yeah okay yes I mean this is a way instead of them going on a wait list and you waiting for a budget this is a way to get that tree back up quickly and they'll put it in with a root you know with a root guard Etc Well yeah if they're willing to take it down when they call on find out that um they have to pay to take it down it doesn't go down I mean that happens a lot so so yeah unless it's a hazard tree then then they don't pay for it it contributes to the canopy if it doesn't go down so right now if we if someone does want to take down a tree do they come to the township I mean because come to me we had an issue GNA come tree there was a tree on Main Street that we decided should not come down and the person took it down anyway then they get a fine then they get a fine that's already in the ordinance though don't we have a f for that already we do but no one's enforcing it well that's it so then who do we go to to say I can't enforce it no you can't enforce it I understand that that Cas let's see what happens if there's one of those we'll deal with it if there's a hundred of those no we're going to need to hire someone on staff to do that okay so really quick one other example the place on North Main Street where they took down all the trees next to the water and they weren't supposed to do that because in the raran zone there was a resolution for um passed that they had to consult shade tree to do the replacement trees on the private property they never did and they planted little tiny shrubs which are not gonna hold the St so like that's something different but that's something taking down trees how we deal that told them they had to deal with shade tree to do that planning board then I guess the planning board is really just to say that the these ordin seminar that's coming up this session is for planning and zoning boards specifically but once the planning board is done they're done so they've done the resolution and they've told them consult with shade Tre and shade Tre has to come in and do itations the engineer or the zoning officer is then responsible for enforcing that not shade tree no no we don't enforce but I can tell you shade Tre was never consulted so who would do I tell is you tell Tom Decker or if the zoning officer is the one who sent them the notice plan it was a planning board resolution it was in the then I'll it should have been the engineer all right so we're we're we we're in the woods no we're we're not in the woods we have whittel this down we're at a point we've got three main points right number one we're all sort of uh understanding your recommendation with regards to the whole town but also you see the challenges with implementing something where we don't have the infrastructure to take care of it and we we want to be responsible with all those uh so we we're talking about right of way rather than the whole town right now and we're talking about the sample permits that we already have that we could use you've created um fees based on Sample ordinances that exist and if you could make those fees I think for Debbie's uh um help as well if you could make those sort of like you email them or something to to you process to work in the draft ordinance two weeks they're working on a draft ordinance perfect perfect and then um we've decided this idea of you can use uh you know whoever it is that's going to be taking a tree down will be Consulting with their own arists right or with this this consultant Kathy you're simply gonna say you want to take that tree down in the right away sure go ahead you have to replace it this is how much the permit fee is and if you can't replace it this is how much you're going to pay us to put a replacement tree somewhere else right so and and um and and this is the cost I mean you're going to have that microphone you're going to have that whole structure for them so that you don't have to go out and then they'll have a tree application X is where the trees is coming down I don't want it put back in the right way I want it put somewhere else I will pay you the $550 and I would say that especially for right of way so that we protect that that the fee structure that is in the existing ordinance of that $1,500 make it like you should be worried about that you want to you want to make sure that people aren't going to go outside the permitting process because if you have a looming thre threat of a $1,500 fine I'm going to give you the 550 right so in the event that the person takes the tree down um we don't want it to plant in the public right away they're going to pay us to plant in the public right of way to replace that tree because they have to replace the tree in the public right of way they just took down from the public right of way and they can't just plant a tree anywhere that's up to us to plant it well that's part application that's part of the application if they say I'm just going to I'm going to plant it way over here that can be no it has to be ground whatever and put right back in its place like whatever it is you can't plant a tree whatever I'm just saying what yeah yeah I get it I get what you're saying it has to be planted appropriately by Guidance so do you have from us a a sufficient level of answers that we could at least get this first round well first of all in with the public rative way I don't think you're allowed to take a tree down without shade trees of Authority I think that's already in the ordinance because we have the authority so so so what do we need a permit for if they take it down they get fines what do we need a permit for for then you don't get money for replacement trees right then you don't get the money for the repl what they're saying is take a step approach if they take a tree down without Authority they'll get fined correct but if you give them permission to take the tree down they have to replace the tree and if they don't that really applies more for the for the private property though because we don't have that's for the I mean that's for the whole ordinance whether it's educa public yeah I mean the thing is this ordinance is really for what's at what's Out Of Reach now is the canopy that really is the purpose of the ordinance and so um and we'll get on the books that we will have to replace that's really to replace but again the the um Property Owners aren't going to be doing any replacing they're just going to be paying into the fund for us to then put a tree then maybe decide not to take the tree down and it'll stay and that's what we want and if it's a hazard tree they don't pay for it anyway it comes down I mean what I'm saying is why have the permit process because it's already on the ordinance you're not allowed to take down a tree we don't have a permit right now and an application and so if we create one for this ordinance and then educate the public about it we can then move to the public this is step one right so what is what is the process usually when you're introducing a new ordinance that affects the public like when you introduce yeah there's a public meeting for every ordinance but we're saying we're saying that this yes and second reading is public the process put in place for this may 1 ordinance the process that there's an application and a permit and penalties and fees just for the limited scope of right away in Township property starts the educational process with our residents that this is how it works so that if later we increase the scope to be the whole town the the process is already working it as a place we're just expanding the scope and we have a framework that already exists that we can then just and people are learning to ask permission exactly and when they ask you do we need permission to take this tree down if it's in the right of way you can say yes you do they go on and fill out the permit and when they say do I have this permission to take this tree down in my backyard you say now you do but if if and when the township expands this ordinance to protect our canopy I've been telling people that for a while actually yeah yeah but but that's um so um in terms of preserving the canopy though without I mean nothing really will change you'll just stay the same and now we'll have a permit process but but we have intention to move in that direction because generally people aren't asking they don't ask for permission right away stuff they they just call but some but and there would have been occasions when someone took one down I mean the case I brought up was um but anyway I see the I see the point and um the point is when some uh it won't it won't help protect the canopy though if we limiting it to R weight trees but we can six trees to take down in their property they did the right thing they called the township is there a permit the township said is it in the conservation easement or the right of way and they said no they took the six trees down that's just how it's going to go just to say that's what this was to prevent if there was you know if there was something in place we would have six trees times however and all that money would have been to be to help out but unfortunately we were s sitting here 30 days after we set a budget where we could have put in money for this year's budget that would have covered the implications of covering this for the entire Township I mean it is such a missed opportunity that we're sitting here well it is but the last the last Model ordinance wasn't available into November and we we only meet when we meet and need we needed you know I know that's what I'm saying I'm just saying the implications are we had it we the last Ain ordinance was November January 29th we sat here and set put all the money in the budget for the year and this was not on the radar and so we've missed an opportunity for about a year but why I put $7,000 in the shry budget for Consulting arborist I didn't know exactly know exactly what would be Consulting ARB but this is this is something we could have you know could use we could use it it's because we knew we needed an arborus because it's unusual for a shade tree with authority to operate without an arist to consult so prop property ownership is you know it's public knowledge right so if you do have a new homeowner that moves in to a property these are educational opportunities it's to say these are things that are important to our town that's why I'm saying like an education program explaining for new residents we had a flyer a one-page flyer for all the people who came out to the new residents um that twice now twice or however many times the library did it maybe once I mean to S make other suggestions what we can do beyond that a library program we've had tree walk where we talk about these things um on the mayor's letter uh that kind of thing that's how we that's how we're communicating I think as well as cranberry day I think a great part of writing this ordinance is a brainstorm on education and how we can you know maybe beef up those efforts so that the public isn't blindsided if we're intending to go this direction long term like I said I really did appreciate the education that I got today from Barbara on it and want to do my part and don't want to be perceived that I hate trees because I just want to take one down so if if we if we bring the discussion back to what we're doing tonight right you we we had these few questions the one first question was the big looming question and I think we've answered that right now I think you've answered it so right we we we I want to know when we can have access to the lawyer to help draw up what we need to do in the conflicts between the two ordinances we can get this done we our work session is not till the 7th of um March okay you need to send me your recommendations for fines and penalties and stuff like that I will draft the ordinance okay you'll draft it the attorney will review and he also I have a note that has to go into the shade tree code right now and we're gonna have to amend that because we don't want it different places yeah the conflicts that the conflicts that he point 41 we don't want that $1,500 in there Tre removal is going to be separate right they have to align as well as the calra we change what of replacement trees that has to be changed too now I can't guarantee you this is going to be hoping to get a by May first but we have all these other ordinances going on too at the same time so we'll work on it and then tweak it to the that's what I'm tell that's what I'm give me the stuff I will fill in so you will you can produce the ordinance once give you the fill in the blanks great correct and the attorney will review it and then we will introduce March 7th for you when we okay once you do that it won't require much really because keeping it so because it's done already the schedule's done I mean I can right right now going through this like okay cross out this add this but I need your recommendations and we don't and we don't need to ask for site plans or anything because it only is public right of way so there won't be a whole lot of activity you guys are awesome this was a lot of work thank you so much thank you and it may have seemed a little painful but you know what painful it's just um we you know we had no plan to Blindside the the the public we definitely part of the whole process was the education period from adoption to effective I mean that was very clear we never set out to Blindside property owners and nobody was had education process that's part part of it yeah no and nobody was was sort of bringing that that for it at all but no thank you very much and you you've got the support that's wonderful just real to a little bit time I just realized oh there ordinances yeah yeah thank you all is that your clipboard Kathy it's not ours yes there you go there you go wonderful thank you all that was good and healthy it was a good discussion was a ly one was a good one all right we have ordinances up for first reading can I trouble you Debbie yep we'll start this evening with the the first reading of our first ordinance uh was Cranberry Township ordinance number 02- 24-3 amending an ordinance fixing the salaries wages and benefits for various officials and employees of the township cranberry providing for the manner of payment thereof and ratifying salaries and payments to employees and officials previously paid and we'll note that the second reading is for March 11th think you have a motion so moved I'll second that thank you and we'll move on to roll call Mr fante yes Mrs kiram yes Dr Rogers yes Mr Scott yes and marel bedway yes thank you we're going to move on to our and that's unanimous we're going to move on to our second ordinance this evening that is up for first reading which is Cranberry Township ordinance number crry Township of the code of Township of cranberry relating to section 1 15-61 storm water management again we'll have a second reading on March 11th 2024 may ask for a motion I would as the one who introduced it I will move it 022 2404 I will second thank you we'll move on to roll call for that Mr fonte yes Mrs kiram yes Dr Rogers yes Mr Scott yes and Mar betway yes thank you again and we're unanimous thank you wonderful and now we're on to resolutions we have two consent resolutions we can do those together Debbie y excellent do I have a motion to accept these two or do they want to discuss any of them I'll move 15 A and B on the consent agenda please are you out again uh second it thank you we're going to move on to roll call Mr fronte yes Mrs canum yes did you guys hit something you can't P yes I'm loud it's working over okay we're going to start again on roll call Mr fonte yes Mrs kiram yes Dr Rogers yes Mr Scott yes and may betway yes thank you nous excellent um we have our public has really dwindled we are down to the last four people we drove them away I would like to open public comment this is comment for tonight it will be your opportunity to talk to us share your concerns and your thoughts us we would listen it's not Tre would anybody like to offer any comments during public comment seeing none I will close public comment and we have any action items for today um I will just say on if anybody has any questions on the ordinance um the ordinance storm water ordinance please let me know I will not be here on March 11th when we do the second reading but it's a very small revision and it the zoning committee wholeheartedly approves it so let me know fabulous I'm looking through my stuff for for my brains are curdled at this point I'm so sorry but I uh I don't really see too much all right so I would like to entertain a motion to adjourn for tonight so move a second everybody in favor Tre