called to order please meeting is called pursu to the provisions of the open public meetings law this meeting January 22nd 2024 and includ meeting noce sent to the county Democrat perer news on January 3 2024 posted on the Bulet board at for a hall on that date and as remain continuously posted as required in addition a copy of this notice is and has been available to the public and is on file in the office of the B clerk call please sure councilwoman Englehart here councilwoman farara here councilman Lev here council president long here Council Parker here Council vice president Rosetti here May car here uh we have no presentations tonight um I forgot my list home for my May were four things on it I remember three so I might have an AA at some point during this meeting on the fourth um the four the three item that I do have uh number one is I'd like to appoint tonight uh Trent lit to the alternate number two on the environmental commission uh expiring in 2026 your appointment um and then I also just uh want to let everybody know that we're up to seven bids on the police building um that is due January 31st um we've added several BS since the walk through uh that been coming and doing walkthroughs I guess with Chief and then uh finally I thought my Champion was going to call in he might be having some trouble um I participated on Friday with Mike Campion our DPW superintendent and Terry vote our engineer um with on a call with um a member of D's storm water group and a hired consulting firm of theirs along with um staff of R Township their administrator uh their planner and their engineer regarding um what's coming down with the storm water rules and the requirements on Municipal governments that are going to be extremely honorous and very expensive um you know we've been challenging this for since I became mayor uh had conversation with our state senator about it that this is all you know the state of New Jersey has a law on the books which is commonly and familiarly known as state mandate state so the state of New Jersey passes a law that requires s local governments to do something that's going to cost money the state of New Jersey has to Pony up the money to do it so the way they get around it is by having their departments regulate and make rules out of it so that's exactly what happened here the senator had told me he knew nothing about it these rules have been in the works for about a decade and they've been they almost got passed right before Co and the local governments got so angry they beat a um but now the DP passed all of the rules last year and they're all now taking effect the dp's answer to all of this is form a utility create a storm order utility a utility is just another word for tax it's still going to cost or taxpayers whether you call it a tax or you call it a utility it's the same thing um RAR Township seems to be all in favor of this they want to include in their utility costs things like street sweeping um and um there were moments where the conversation was sort of unpleasant for example when they started asking our engineer for what documents um we have regarding um underground and also impervious coverage uh because this whole formula is based on a lot of it is based on impervious coverage so um our CPW superintendent asked the DP whether or not they were going to be reimbursing our engineer for his hourly weight rate and he he like laughed he didn't like laugh he laughed and he said no only the consultant gets money from us and I said well uh We're not gonna we're not going to pay Statewide taxes for your consultant and then pay Municipal Taxes for our engineer so you're going to have to pay your consultant to get the information we already have we're just not going to like that um so you know one this is one of the things is like one of the arguments that R in Township is making um is that all of our tax exempt properties in the town like all the county properties and the churches in the school have to pay into a utility but they don't pay taxes and you know that's a plus but you know when you think about like the older apartment complexes in Flemington they're almost 100% of purce coverage they were built before you know a lot of the land use laws went into to effect um to have you know required trees and open space and all of that and a small property with a a house on it that's already Beyond 50% of peruse coverage is going to pay more money like the whole thing is this formula on impervious coverage I mean it's like really I mean even like spice Factory it's like there's no open space over at the spice Factory there's like no open space at Herman cap um of course the county buildings have no open space none of the old apartment complexes um so stay tuned um they're going to start working on this and um it's just wherever it ends you know this is like my first I think my first public warning about how this is going to impact finances and taxes and utilities and as I said to the DP you know tax By Any Other Name things still tax so um I just what you all be aware um Mike Campion has extremely strong thoughts about this and um he said it's going to be pitch works with our citizens coming out when this allall really hits so you think it over SLE there's no open Longs over single except for that one where you will pop up stuff no grass over there every business owner is going to get hit hard so um anyway so that was uh I wanted you all to know about that meeting um there'll be more coming um you know they were talking about having a minimum of four public meetings open to the public where the Consultants come out and uh the DP did not promise they would be there and you know our dpw's tenant was insistent that they better show up because you know the burough is not going to be the bad guy here and it is the DP I mean there's no wh hands or butts like they did the rules and um and didn't take you know like I said they've been saying all along their answer to everything is well this form a utility this for utility you don't have to raise taxes former utility so I don't know what school they went to I mean I really don't um so like I said if I can remember the fourth thing I'll come back with it but great um so council president long do you have a report yes good evening everybody um just a few words regarding a fire department uh I'm looking forward to attending my first department meeting on February 13th so far I've been in contact with Chief um gelter and have received last year's incident report this is a list of all the different incidents Department responded to and 2023 and the number of those incidents that occur it also includes a number of Personnel hours roughly 620 hours that were spent on the overall total of incidents three things to know that our fire depart about our fire department first the fire department is an all volunteer department and although there will be some new recruits joining the department this year there's always a need for volunteers please keep this in mind as in December the state commissioned the study uh to be done by a special task force regarding volunteerism and recruitment for First Responders the findings were unfortunately revelatory of a reduction in volunteerism uh for First Response across the state uh this posed a particular problem for fire departments and squads like ours some Reven the state will explore are condensing the mandatory training and having online training options our fire department members attend according to sheel through thousands of hours of education and continuing training throughout the year requiring public universities and colleges to offer college credit to certifi volunteers offering scholarship sh tuition uh assistance student loan forgiveness HealthCare coverage and retirement benefits and establishing Junior firefighter programs at fire academies for teenagers s with f community members are are volunteers and the fire department in particular benefits from people who give freely of their time because they see this work as important secondly another thing to know is that the incident list includes responses to surrounding towns who receive automatic aid from the flemingon fire department and those Town's departments that respond to our town I sent an article about this to the council's afternoon uh there were 268 incidents last year and if you're curious most incidents incidents uh 31 were false alarms or false calls there were 29 alarm system malfunctions 26 calls were attributed to uh smoke scare or the odor of smoke there were 12 building fire incidents I just wanted to share some numbers as it might help the public understand the third and final thing to note about the fund fire department the department works closely with the fire prevention office which keeps the number of false alarm and alarm malfunction incidents low as the alarms are followed up with by the fire fire Marshall's office and the systems are service repaired and in some cases education of the occupants is provided to prevent additional alarms and that's my report that was all for today okay thank you uh Vice council president Rosetti uh thank you mayor I attended the uh shade tree commission reorganization meeting on January the 10th um we were happy to welcome three new members which is wonderful they elected their officials for the year and they are all still working diligently on our community forestry plan to get everything up to date um in relation to that their next meeting is actually going to be February the 7th I just want to point that out it was moved up a week because of Valentine's Day um so they'll actually be meeting before I see you all again so um I will be there everyone else is welcome virtually or in B Hall thank you vice president uh councilman Parker I me you on my you want me to come no I'm literal is that all right so I've been doing a lot of work meeting a lot with the uh police chief and um just trying to understand the police department understand who's who what's what uh some of the issues they have some of the challenges they're facing um as well as some of the some of the things that they've conquered um one of the things we're working on is a three-year plan I believe that you can't just go from year to year and try to figure it out you've got to plan you got to look at what's going to happen in particularly getting ready for 2026 um and all the events that are happening 2026 how they're going to support that what do they need um in that support so we're working with um Jerry and I are working together on that um I am going to do a ride along with one of the officers I am going to do meet the off officers I want to meet all the officers so you um and I'm going to supply dinner and come in for two shifts and just meet everybody just so I can just introduce myself and have them introduce themselves to me I think that's just really important that we know one um we're also working on the budget to figure out what really is needed and part of the three-year plan is the Strategic plan for budgeting as well right because you're not going to get everything in one year so what does it look like in order to step up to do XY and z um so U so that's really important and what is actually um really interesting and that's all kind of goes with that as well so I don't know that I can't say that all of the crimes that are that are happening in the burrow are from from people on the outside but quite a few are so quite a few people are coming from the outside and coming into the bur and that makes the fail girl two things one it makes us extremely vulnerable we are no longer in a bubble and people are definitely cing this this area because there's just no way on some of on some of the crimes that have happened that people did not know who was there what time how do they close how do they open that's just a little disconcerning to me so really want to tighten that up and so that's kind of goes along with the with the threeyear plan and how we're going to do that this year what we're going to do different this year what do we need to do different next year and the year after in the whole bit my concern is we live in a world that every small town is B it used to be the large cities but now it's the small towns if you think about everything that's happened over the last couple of years it's mostly in smaller towns I mean you expect New York City to have Prime but I'm not too sure that the prime is not equal to other small towns right after you kind of spread it all out and you kind of put it all together that's just a little disconcerning to me I I'm not saying that that is the case but it just brings a Bell in my head to say okay we are vulnerable and it just takes one person to come in here and we just have our we're you know complacency you can't have right you just can't have complacency and so I just want to make sure that the police are well well equipped are um well educated and and there and you know and they're staffed well and they have all the equipment they need um and you know you can say what you want about the police do I mean and Stu Poli before in my life in the whole bit but but that's you got to leave that on this side this side is about an entire community in keeping everybody safe so that's the one thing I've also worked with FCP FCP we actually um have a new president who is Alie Norton and I'm static I'm absolutely a static to have Alie Norton that doesn't take anything away from Dave at all um and Dave is actually going to be working well with you know they're going to be working together going to be working together but some of the things that I just think that that um Ali brings to the table because of her background and um in brand marketing is just going to be so valuable to FCP um speaking of FCP um we are going to look at a couple of Grants one is for the black this a black historical Trail do I have that right Heritage Trail Heritage Trail thank you um so we're going to be on a call call with them on February 1st to understand what the application about I think this is pretty exciting as well right um and I'm going to be working with Robin because we will probably have a few really good things coming up um with going back to our meeting about signs and the whole bit last time Robin and I are going to be working on that as of tomorrow so that should happen in the time frame that mayor that you have asked for well thank yeah um so so so that's it I do want to talk and again I just want to remind everybody about NAACP we are definitely having this event on the 24th um person from the African-American museum is coming we're hoping to get the guy that actually started the African-American Museum because he lives here in New Jersey um I promised that that that's what we're working on um bony Lane are going to be here and um we're going to have some people from the high school um students from the high school um quite little bit so we're just going to make a real Community event that's the whole idea is to make it a community event and lastly I want to talk about the newsletter so the next newsletter I just wanted to be focused on us the counil I want the counil to be introduced in this newsletter I want people to know what committees the council working on I would like to introduce the professionals as well and talk about professions I want people to have as much information about the burough counsel who we're working with and some of our some of the um some of the challenges that we have in front of us and also some of the accomplishments that we have made I think it's it's the ying and the yang right and so I am going to officially ask all the council people if you can just give a bio on yourselves um also why you ran and it doesn't need to be long please don't make it long because it's not enough room um but also the Committees you're serving on um and then um mayor if I can ask you about the professionals and and just talk about who Prof yes that too look I have it right here you you you did that when I was writing you called on me I had it right there sorry so I wanted to be about all about the girl and introducing the girl so people know who we are who we're working with um do you want do you want head shot for professional you I'm not no uh let's not do head shot I'll get back okay what you can I just get back to you well that's what I want to ask so I'm I'm gonna put this on usly no can we do this by the can we do this by the end of feary oh yeah so what's your what's your drop that date so I would like to have everything in my hand by by February 15 what is this for the newslet did you do a thing on us already no no on May did it on but we want to do it Collective you don't mind do you okay um and then um and then what we are meeting with all the businesses um in February so I'm going to ask them about putting these um things in i' would like to have them ready so I can hand it to them put it in there their things and then we will definitely put it online um and after that I will definitely have a schedule on the rest of the year we only have we only do four just so you know okay so that with us is it too late to um to get the other one out the Christmas point out no no it's it's sitting in there it's sitting printed it's printed there's stuff there that's still applicable like all thees from February and for the school no I agree I again I will take the yeah car tomorrow we'll get online be posted on the website okay thank you I'm anything else no that's it now that you called me out on the newsletter that's it um let's see HBC had its first meeting last Wednesday um House tours will be coming back on uh June 1st this year uh since it was such a wonderful success last time um let's see going to be working on merging the HPC website hopefully onto the main B website so we can save some money there and uh they're continuing to work on the historic district man and that's everything I got thank you very much councilwoman forar um very interesting had my first meeting at the library last week or with the library board um some of the the key takeaways the one thing was we we found $58,000 that we had to give back so we weren't quite sure where that came from back to give back to the burrow it's been it's going back we have no idea where it so I already saved us money about that except for now no so one of the key issues that they're having next door is the OR at the library some safety issu and concerns in the evening with loitering I know the police department is stoping in thank you very much kind of ties into what council par said um and certainly I want I want us to be as welcoming as possible in is near warming Center for for uned individuals but we also have gr employees may be feeling anxious and Afraid and that can't happen that happen on our watch so um Sean Harington who's our library director is one meeting with help on Wednesday to discuss getting some pricing around cameras there is definitely a need for more surveillance in in the library to understand who's where and at what times one of the things I want them to look at is possible um entrances exits um potentially looking at a camera that goes into the courtyard that's on Main Street again it's a safety issue it's not it's not a big brother thing but it is a safety issue and I do walk around quite a bit in the burrow and I've seen um some of the lering that happens over there so if it keeps people safer let's let's explore it and get some get some quotes and understanding what that will cost um and then the money comes goes away um we're still undergoing basement REM mediation there's an aesus and mold issue that's been ongoing for quite a few years um and they're managing it through funds from a very sizeable request that was received um and but our furnace in the library has now blue another steam pipe and there's just corrosion issues there's not an issue with um it's certainly up to code in terms of fire department code um but it's it's an Old Furnace so that will be the next issue we have to explore and look at um and I think that's it um and I will be sitting down with Mr Armington again our director of the library on Friday to kind of explore where he sees the library what he would like to see from us from me in particular and how we can make it a focal point of the bur great thank you Council woman angelart um I want to thank you mayor as well as all the attendees for the house of the yearly champagne um toast um that they have every year um for the new year um open house um thank you for all that attended um it was um well attended and had big success um I wanted to mention that the two sending districts the um High School OE Boe meeting is actually going on simultaneous for this meeting so we're done here go ahead and check them out um or watch them on remotely later the uh fluming and R School District I had announced at the last meeting that our representative is um uh being theyve got four applications for um a position that has opened in um to represent the burrow um that uh scheduled interviews um was cancelled due to the snow last week so it's been rescheduled for February 8 are you part of those introduced I you know what that is actually a very good question Adrian I um put in a call I had I actually had that question posed to me like 4 o' this afternoon I did put in a call but it was a little too late for them to respond see the school the Flemington R the K typically everyone comes in this their questions so they are typically but I don't want to say if it was it was but it did it coincidentally somebody asked me that so I actually put in a call and I can get that information out as soon as I know um let's see the um I did attend the prid meeting for the um renovations to the police station um and last it was uh the 11th of January and um the only other thing I wanted to mention was I don't know um Mara if you wanted to mention if the 250th committee is looking for um volunteers to get involved um the next meeting is uh February third the meetings are really for the historical Partners to create events and whatever you mentioning volunteers at this point um to start helping plan some of those this for 2026 2025 2026 2027 yeah we haven't decided if we're going to do a year and a half two years and that's all I have thank you uh we're up to public comment session one if you have anything for the governing body um please come to the microphone state your name spell for our clerk municipality seeing none no hands up no to make sure okay we're up to number nine in the agenda approval of minutes everybody have time I have a motion for the regular session October 923 long move second second uh Council yes Council yes councilman web just a these are for October 9th yeah I was not there's no formal rule that you have to recuse people are surprised by that often but typically people do council president long yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president rosti yes I have a motion uh to approve the regular session October 23rd 2023 long second uh can I have aoll call please councilwoman angelart yes councilwoman P yes councilman L council president L yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president Rosetti yes and I have a motion to approve the executive session from October 23rd 2023 long move angle will second roll call please councilwoman Englehart yes councilwoman faar councilman L council president long yes and councilman Parker yes and Council vice president Jose yes thank you uh number 10 a consent agenda we have one resolution 2024 32 regarding Municipal Alliance grant for this schol year 2025 can we have a motion please move there a second ankle har second roll call please councilman uh councilwoman anglehart yes councilwoman Toro yes councilman L yes council president long yes councilman corer yes and Council vice president any yes no public hearings under the regular agenda uh I'd like a resolution for me uh to app point B Paxton is the Redevelopment Council um they did merge they have been our redevelop exps now long second discussion I just wanted to say that I've been very pleased with their services last year thank you forend that I appreciate itoll call councilwoman engart yes councilwoman farara yes councilman Lev yes council president long yes Parker yes and Council vice president what is say yes and resolution um 20434 res noreast water technology for Professional Services for water detention uh basically they supply all the all of our um leak detecting equipment um they can pinpoint where we is uring um we pay them a monthly Fe breaks and replace it it's uh I was there when Department had J Parks went over it with Bill H and Bill recommended who's in the other room you can ask him if he want to strongly recommended we do this it's a much better deal than the current at least it's expiring with the um they had off so can I have a motion to approve move for a second second any discussion yeah I just wanted to understand the the data um that these this company collects Remington uses that quite a bit right for the storm water it's it's they don't collect data they just they it's just purely monitoring purely monitoring leaks that will cost us a fortune if you have one I I realized that and you know the the um the law that's going into effect where we have to this is our wealth this is drinking water but um do they ever do they ever is isn't part of that law talking about like contain yeah I don't know but this is this is just this is just leeks on our well so they don't get contaminated okay so the the the rules for that other that new law doesn't really I'm just curious if any of the information that and monitoring that this company is doing would help us it's an excellent question and I will follow up on that because it's a really good question and um was there any issue with the past um uh consultant it was just the consultant is that they have much better technology now we had older equipment so they're providing much much better technology basically for either the same amount or less money it's just these Le protectors have gotten much more sophisticated and sensitive so it's the equipment lease that changes correct got it okay anybody else have any questions I have a roll call please um councilwoman engleheart yes councilwoman s yes councilman L yes council president long yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president second yes don't have a work session we up to public comment session number two Rob is turned down the second bite of the Apple thank you Robin lovely to see you tday uh okay uh number 15 on the agenda payment of bills authorizing payment of bills in the amount of 2759 oh I just remembered what the other thing was okay 22759 39 can I have a motion move is there a second Parker second thank you um what I forgot in my mayor's report was that we had a sale on Fond fond anticipation notes bill can you come out here please hello I give everybody thank man behind theur so yeah this what I forgot something like insignificant of selling $6 Million worth of bond anticipation noes thank you and I have to say go still in our our uh Consultants Anthony did very well for us considering the um give me copies you need um considering the market you want to like then your song of Praise no so we uh ended up with a 3.51% net interest rate um for the $6.3 million this is for General Water and Sewer projects the majority is the general Capital Improvements which includes the purchase of the police station we didn't put anything in this yet for the purchase of the fire truck because that didn't come yet so we're going to wait until the end of the year to borrow that um and our financial advisor said pretty much the reason why we got such a good rate is because we took the time and spent a little extra money to do the official statement which is this big report that you have to do for doing the the note sale and when the U the biders see that you do that you know gives them a I guess better uh ight into what your burrow finances are so they I think he said um he had a sale earlier in the week for the the day before and ours was like five percentage points better so plus plus the premium correct yeah premium of 60 almost $62,000 anything else any questions for Bill they will be explaining the difference between a bond and a bond on Saturday our govern retreat but these are shortterm these are short-term notes one did he ever say what um what Bonds were we coming in at as far as interest rates at this point um he did give me a report I can give that to yeah okay I'm just curious all right thank you so much thank you you you might want to S off executive session if you have time okay okay all right that was my fourth item I'm so glad I remember it was only a matter of hitting something money it was there okay um that's the end of our regular agenda do a roll call Council engleheart yes councilwoman F yes councilman L yes council president long yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president yes thank you car on that we do have an executive session with two um items in there an update on Liberty Village contract negotiations and Liberty Village is pilot we're join tonight back from NW Financial I know jimon is g to be here probably any minute but that's not thought can I have a motion to go into executive session move second Mar second uh please okay I'll in favor always listen to the cler all right so we'll take a break for that clock actually working so you're all done with your break and we're gonna take a break so Dan said he was G to come at 7:30 and good thing you did so problem all right so everybody else can go and D can stay and thanks right