I'd like to open that the township of Hamilton committee meeting for the Monday July 1st 2024 please stand for the flag salute laed ALG to flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all adequate notice of this meeting has been provided pursuant to the New Jersey open public meeting meting law by posting a notice of this meeting on the bulletin board in the municipal building and by publication in the Press of Atlantic City and Star Ledger on January the 6 2024 Mr Chek here Mr laws here Mr patali here Dr Witherspoon mayor Shanker here can we have a moment of silence for private reflection thank you uh we have no guest presentation so we have a deletion to the late AG late agenda item deletion it would be 8A uh motion to accept resignation of Carol picket Young from the historic preservation commission effective July 1st 2024 we want to remove that from the agenda so Mo second second motion second all those in favor I I all those opposed osed the eyes have [Music] it uh early public comment on the agenda items including items listed for public hearings we have no one signed up excellent uh discussions formal action may be taken the dis first discussion is uh a a presentation by Patriot equities regarding their intentions on block 135.0 one lot 10.0 1 4 4501 Black Horse Pike and this is better known as the racetrack property uh good evening may please the board uh my name is Jack pla I'm an attorney with Fox rild with offices in Atlantic C New Jersey and I represent the um Patriot equities just to give you a little background about Patriot equities and let me start by saying thank you for the time and we really appreciate the opportunity to be here uh but Patriot equities is the contract purchaser of the Atlantic City Race Course and they're very excited I just want to tell you a little about Patriot equities um patri equities is a private real estate firm with a specific focus on the acquisition ownership operation of corporate assets Patriots been involved in over 30 million square feet owned uh operated and development properties and has a 2.2 billion dollar market capitalization they've dealt with over 50 corporations in the nation uh serving over 400 tenants and they looked at the Atlantic City racetrack we all know about the atlan City racetrack I I've been involved with the atlan City racetrack when I was a lot younger one of the things I tried to do was get NASCAR racing approved there I don't know if you all remember that we had we had hearings for like six months and unfortunately it's a great asset but very underutilized and it's been there for uh since 1946 and over the years we all know it's you know had great live racing meets but you know when Casino gaming passed kind of the demise of racing all over and it's just sat there and it's a classic Redevelopment site and that's what Patriot specializes in looking at Redevelopment sites and uh repurposing them to bring um I would say you know Community projects and things that are good for the economy two of the principles are here tonight two of the partners Eric ker and Alan worther they're principles of patriot and all we're really doing tonight is um you know we're looking to uh sign an escrow agreement and explore different Redevelopment possibilities for this site what part of the Esco agreement and uh that we negotiated uh that's up for your consideration your Redevelopment attorney Miss given we dealt with her she's been extremely helpful and also with your city's solicitor and essentially what we're doing is the reason for the escro agreement so the public knows is all of the planning we're posting escrow so that the taxpayers don't pay for this Redevelopment effort that's being funded by Patriot equities and we're going to EXP explore various possibilities for the track and then once we get a plan in place everything obviously will be done in public we we're trying to get interest in the property um and talking to all types of national tenants uh to to be able to utilize the property so we're excited about it we again just thank everybody for everything that they've done we've been we feel very welcome here in Hamilton T my clients do and thank you so much and we would just ask if you think it's in the public interest to approve the escco agreement so we can get started on the velopment process okay thank you appreciate it thank you so just so everybody's aware this is the first step process um we have an interested uh party in the racetrack which is always exciting um I I've spoke to them we've all spoke to them before and and I've let them know that this is the furthest I think anybody's everever gotten to um we've had a lot of proposals but this is you are the first ones that have stepped forward and and ready to put your money on the table and actively uh do something uh to not just improve the racetrack but help to improve Hamilton Township so um I thank you for that um does anybody in the committee have anything they want to ask statement nothing okay so I guess the only other thing we need to do here is we have a resolution authorizing execution of an escrow agreement motion second we have a motion we have a second are there any questions or concerns hearing none Rita can we do this by roll call vote Please Mr Chek yes Mr lws yes Mr patali yes Dr Withers SP yes mayor Shanker absolutely all yes and Carri okay thank you so much you thank [Music] okay B discussion and presentation or Bond ordinance appropriating $2 million and authorizing the insuance of 1.94 761 in bonds and notes Capital ordinance appropriating 400,000 from the capital Improvement fund uh for the 2024 Capital program so we have a little uh threats put together this presentation I'm sure it's going to be exciting and riveting all right so this is the 2024 capital budget presentation we did talk about this briefly during the uh introduction of the budget some of these slides are familiar so in 2024 we set aside $400,000 in capital Improvement funding to continue paying for municipal assets instead of borrowing we we call that pay as you go with these pigo funds we're going to purchase an outfit three police interceptor SUVs um this includes the uh the car itself and all the upfitting the lights the computers um uh the uh cages all the upfitting that's required to uh outfit the police cars uh with pay you go money we're also going to look into a second phase at the leapy track this year we're going to purchase scoreboards for the hockey courts out there and we are going to begin designing phase two um there's we're not 100% sure yet what we're going to build out there but we need we know we need to upgrade the drainage um no matter what we build so we're going to have Bob and his team go out and uh figure out what we need to do for M lands and all the uh Regulatory Agencies and hopefully get a plan in place to do something in 2025 P you go money we're going to um install cameras at leapy tra um technology upgrades here at Town Hall and other um municipal buildings throughout the town and we are going to put surround sound at the Memorial Park Capital plans so this uh budget that we passed in March provides 5% of the required down payment for a $2 million Capital ordinance uh this Capital ordinance is going to fund roadway and drainage improvements um improvements to Municipal infrastructure and complexes um like I said we're going to uh further plan uh recreational expansion throughout the township um we're going to buy some Public Works equipment and we have some emergency services equipment that we're going to purchase so this year we plan on Paving and um improving $1.5 Million worth of roadways and uh drainage improvements and sidewalks in the town we're going to use $800,000 of capital money in this program the balance is going to come from um grants we received last last year we got a DOT grant for malago Road for $245,000 we got another dot grant for Babcock we're going to put a bike lane out there for 92,000 and we uh did a presentation a few meetings back we obtained a Safe Streets Grant in the amount of $341,000 to improve um Park Road and add sidewalks we're going to set aside some money this year for um hbaa improvements here at town hall there's some uh repairs needed to the boilers downstairs and at the Public Works facility we're going to add uh central air right now there's no air conditioning at the Public Works facility so we're going to look into adding that this year the other thing we're going to do is we're going to uh invest in our recycling uh we applied for a grant a couple years back it's called the recycling partnership the Grant pays $15 for each recycling tur that we purchase through the program um right now we estimate there to be about 9,000 of these TTS out on the that we'll have to put out we go by the amount of trash cans that we have out so it's about 9,000 um with the um increased capacity of the totter other towns locally have uh seen an 8 to 18% increase in recycling which uh amounts to a decrease in uh tipping fees or landfill fees that towns have to pay uh just to um let everyone know we spend about a million dollars a year in uh tipping fees so a decrease of even 8% would be significant for us and I I think this program will pay for itself in the next four to five years um recently wayth lost their tanker truck it was from the 1980s it was a tractor trailer tanker um this program this Capital program um funds the purchase of a fourman tanker truck for rth Firehouse um it's going to provide 3,000 gallons of water um it's going to be a non-articulated unit so it's going to be safer it's going to be less to ensure for us um and it also adds two extra seats for firefighters to respond to the uh emergencies we're going to um upfit another ambulance for the uh Township Hamilton Rescue Squad this is going to include the purchase of a cabin chassis and the uh refurbishment of the one of the existing boxes on uh a unit they have now they basically they remove it from the cabin chassis they completely redo it and they uh installed on the new on the new frame these take about a year year and a half to receive we're going to purchase a new street sweeper for Public Works um new D stormw requirements require us to sweep every Road in the town at least once uh that's significant for a town this big um we don't have a street sweeper right now so we'll be able to uh clean up after a special event events and uh service the Township roads in in maze Landing after we have events like uh Hometown this past weekend and uh National Night Out things like that right now we contract all that workout it's rather significant in cost we're going to purchase two Public Works vehicles uh with plows these are going to replace existing trucks that we have we're not adding anything to the fleet so the process uh for the capital budget tonight we're going to introduce public hearing will be July 15th adoption will be on July 15th as long as there's no amendments and the funds become available 20 days after publication so on or about August 5th will be able to uh order the fire truck and police will be able to order their vehicles we'll be able to execute the funds and get moving on this questions yeah who's that handsome gu on the left anybody have any questions I think we're good Brett yeah just um I don't really have a question but the total cost oh the total cost for the capital Bond ordinance right is um it's basically the 5% % down payments 95,000 and change 95238 right I just wanted to make sure because that's the number that was built into our budget just to make sure that it was on the record yes for our conversation prob thank you okay any other questions okay so we don't have to do anything with this tonight we'll do it we have to introduce we have to do introduction introduce both ordinances tonight all right uh so introduction of bond ordinance 2077 uh 2024 Bond ORD ordinance providing for various 2024 Capital Improvements by and in the township of Hamilton in the county of Atlantic state of New Jersey appropriating $2 million therefore and authorizing the insuance of 1, 94,6 $761 B in bonds or notes to the finance part of the cost thereof so Mo have motion second we have a second any questions comments reic we do a rooll call Vote for This Please Mr Chek yes Mr laws yes Mr patali yes Dr Witherspoon yes mayor Shanker yes oh yes and introduce number two introduction of the capital ordinance 2078 2024 Capital ordinance Prov providing for various 2024 Capital Improvements buying in the township of Hamilton the county of Atlantic state of New Jersey appropriating $400,000 therefore from the capital Improvement fund to pay for the cost thereof so move second a motion we have a second any questions or comments just a comment U Brett the administrator has already said it but on that page 3B we just need to put the $95,900 is the 5% that's it okay all right it's already in the resolution I just yes clean it up okay R can we do a roll call vote Please Mr Chek yes Mr laws yes Mr patal yes Dr Witherspoon yes mayor Shanker yes all yes and introduce the public hearing is set for July 15th thank you um there are no public hearings or adoption of ordinances there is another introduction of an ordinance public hearing to be held on July 15 2024 ordinance 2079 2024 an ordinance amending to chapter 282 of the code of the code of the township of Hamilton regarding tree removal and tree cutting so move second a motion we have a second are there any questions or comments hearing none Rita can we do a roll call vote Please Mr chief yes Mr laws yes Mr patali yes Dr Witherspoon mayor Shanker yes all yes introduced okay Awards bids contracts and change orders resolution authorizing the award of a contract to renew spatial data logic licensing agreement with spatial data logic Incorporated with the amount of $39,100 for the period of $831 24 to 830 2025 so move a motion we have a second second are there any questions or comments hearing none read if we do a roll call vote Please Mr CH yes Mr laws yes tally yes Dr Witherspoon yes mayor Shanker yes all yes and carrying consent agenda we have items a through e it's the shortest consent agenda we've had in a long time on moving a through e have a motion I'll second it we have a second are there any questions comments hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed the eyes have it uh number eight Personnel B resolution appointing regular member of the industrial commission to fill an unexpired 5-year term uh to expiring 12 3126 we have a we have an applicant Douglas Hune what's your pleasure committee so move one second Douglas h all right yes second yes we have a motion we have a second any questions or comments all those in favor signify by saying I I I all those opposed eyes have it approvals uh a minutes regular minute meeting meeting minutes of June 17 2024 so move second we have a motion and second all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed guys have it B bills bill list totaling 7,699 2911 so you have a motion second second Rita can we do a roll call vote for that please Mr Chief yes Mr lws yes Mr patali yes Dr Witherspoon yes mayor Shanker yes all yes and Carrie thank you uh reports all right guys listen I want to say one thing first off don't get used to sitting that way because I don't like it okay yeah I understand it for tonight I'm looking at the back of your heads right now uh Mr administrator you have anything for us yeah real quick so South State mobilized or they're beginning to mobilize up to the lenp dam uh they plan on starting on July 10th with relocating the fish ladder um and they plan on working straight through the summer until the water restriction hopefully they can get the Coffer dams in place and work through the winter um so I their goal is to get the Coffer dams on the Lakeside and the Riverside in that way they can continue working through the winter that is the part of the schedule getting the Coffer dams in right okay that's all I have thank you Mr solicitor thank you Mr engineer uh nothing to report besides my report a sent to you guys so if you have any questions on it I'm here to answer anybody have any questions for engineer no Township committee Dr Witherspoon yes of course I always have a report um uh first I want to say that the um Jun celebration was very nice and um we had a very nice crowd I going to say maybe two to 300 people attended on that event and it was very very nice on the 205th 26 no 27th I attended the Board of Elections regional meeting along with the mayor uh they had a Republican and a Democrat and we were both there and it's nice to show that we can have different philosophical ideas but work in a bipartisan way and so we were both there and I was there as well um talking about our lovely Township all right and I went to the hometown um celebration that was very nice the music this year was Bitter Sweet Duo W they were very very good and um everything was just well organized and um a lot of the town the historical uh Society of um Hamilton Township Hamilton historical society was there and the Rotary Club and the different ones and got a chance to walk around and just chat a little bit with everybody it was very very very nice they even had portable toiles this year you didn't have to run to the library to go to the bathroom so I thought that that was very nice and today I went to leapy field and I met Kurt Clifford he's an inspector from M and Watkins Associates and I toured uh the facility the um that's right on the tip of my tongue where they just built it's not bar yeah it was real nice just to see the bathrooms and and all of that I even went up the steps and the it's well built the steps are still and I looked at the kitchen and it was just a very it was just very very nice to see um for so many years that there's hasn't been anything out there and to see something there this year and going I can't wait to go to a game and I don't even have no grandsons playing uh this year but I just want to go to the game just to see how the concession sayand is going to go and where they're going to call the gains right up from the second floor and all of that it was just very very nice I was very very happy very pleased um The Bu building was well put together if you haven't seen it I'm sure most of you have but I it was the first time that I seen it in this form it's almost completed now not quite but before football season starts it will be completed so this is a wonderful thing for me and for the township um when my grandson started playing with the Knights they were 10 and they graduated high school and one of them's in college working and just to see 11 years later something like this to go up for the field for the kids of course it's for everybody mland lak is everybody the soccer field everybody's going to use it but it's very very nice they don't have to use portable toilets they don't have to U take uh jugs and wash their hands I was just very excited about that so and I just want to say there's a lot of projects going on in our Township you know we have the Halloween spirit that's coming and um they going to that's coming it's going to bring a lot of jobs here to and abalon carpet I actually found out about that from a student from Atlanta County Special services and he said to me his name is Daniel Miss thma did you know Evon was coming I said no but it's been a lot of information in the paper and just to see businesses coming to Hamilton Township and Redevelopment I'm very happy about that because that helps the taxpayers and helps our tax bays and people are looking at Hamilton Township they're not just going to EHT and Gallaway they're looking at Hamilton Township and I'm very excited about that that's my report thank youe M yes I went I went out to leapy field over the weekend also and uh it's nice to see that that buil and getting close to being completed um when I first got into politics that was my uh that was my big thing was was getting some stuff completed out there so seeing that first phase almost almost done is very exciting for me um of course the dam um I didn't didn't expect to see the work that got done today um but they they're already uh ripping up the one face of that uh where all the I guess the otters live they're ripping all that apart in front of the uh fish ladder and I see uh the crane is getting staged out there so and I I went by there at 5:00 this afternoon and they were still out there working so that's um it's it's exciting it's a long time coming for me and everybody in town uh been on I was on the dam committee since I think 2011 and uh it's this is uh it's it's a big deal for me um back when the dam was broken back in the 70s my mom was one of the ones that was up there yelling and screaming to try to get the damn fixed so here here I am just many years later doing the same thing so very happy to see where we are um and that's uh CL toown celebration I was there briefly briefly didn't make it back but uh it was a beautiful day and uh there was a lot of people there when I was there in the morning so I was I was glad that that's that's successful and coming up we have the wake up wakeboard competition later in July we have National Night Out we have Night of Lights um August I'm looking for somebody that might tell me 17th I think it is 20th 20th ah look at you I'm probably wrong but I'll let you know at the next meeting um so we got that coming up uh boat races on Lake Len September 7th and 8th so more things coming up in maze landing and that's really all I have So Reagan I'll see you later Maddie miss you love you hope to see you soon lot of good stuff coming that's good and CH I was also at the juneth celebration was very nice and very hot that day but it was very nice everyone here was at the hometown celebration this weekend which was very very nice the music th you're right the music was astronomical that was very nice I have to thank the Merchants Association for putting that on and for everyone we have July 4th coming our independent day and God bless America the best country in the world that's all I have thank you minimum loss yeah hate to be redundant however we all were in the same spots this week but it could have gotten R of all of us with one shot right um so I did both juneth events uh there was one out in mispa um I know a lot of other committee men went out there also um and uh the one in uh gasal Park uh as I already stated they were both great events uh extremely hot um but the perseverance of the people who put those events events on was tremendous so they did a great job um super proud of uh the the job that you know everybody did with Hometown celebration was a really nice event like to see it more well attended I think if we do a better job of you know kind of promoting it next year we could get more people out not exactly sure if it was just that it was so close to Fourth of July I'm not sure where you know usually Falls if it falls this close to Fourth of July in the past but uh I noticed that it wasn't as many uh people attending it as as usual um so next year we'll do a we'll do a better job of marketing it um but it's a great event the people that did come enjoyed themselves children adults alike uh yeah the music was great um but most of all it was just great seeing people in the community it was just great seeing everybody out there and you know committee uh amazes me every year man uh in these things no matter what's going on you know especially this group um hats off to you guys because you know we're one cohesive unit when we go to those things and you know and the people in the community see that you know that that there's Unity um in our in our um board here um so I'm very proud of that um I think that's that's all I have yeah I did see the um the uh development going on out at leapy um excited about that obviously but uh we don't have to that just a great job guys just outstanding job out there um pretty much that's that's that's all I have Mr okay thank you uh yeah I'm going to Echo the hometown celebration was again uh they do a good job every year um I want to do a special shout out to John CTS because John is out there every year and I don't know a harder Working Man uh he just goes and goes and goes all morning and all afternoon and uh a lot of people put a lot of effort but John's been doing it for a long time and I I just want to uh send a special thank you to him uh also the rest of the Merchants Association without them this doesn't happen so I think uh I think the township committee needs to uh try and help them a little more with with their uh efforts next year uh and we can make it um as good as it can be uh I did attend like filma said Dr Withers Smith said the board of election officials it was very nice uh we got to uh talk to a bunch of people about our town um you don't sometimes you forget how nice it is here until you start talking about it so it was very we had people as far as Mammoth County uh Ocean County uh Kate May County uh so they all came to here to see and talk about the upcoming elections which is you know the job that those people do is you don't really think about it too much but without them uh you know they we don't have the process that we have to put people like myself and others up on a dis like this so they're they're very much needed and very much appreciated um the leapy concessions the one thing I have to ask you Bob is do we have a date when we're going to be done like grand opening ribbon cutting um so right now we're trying to finalize some well um test test just got back we have to get a pH neutralizer uh in installed in there and we're working on getting a new variable speed speed switch um installed that the one that's existing out there is not working okay so that was unfortunate it's not the contractor's fault it just hasn't been working so um we're working on we have the quote from Oban Motors and we're ready to get it um on like planed to have it installed next week if that happens I would say within two weeks we should have everything wrapped up so by August uh I'm going to say by the end of the month we should have it but yes yeah all right very good um that's all I have I would like to open it up to the public if anybody in the public has uh anything they'd like to say we're all ears anyone motion to close public a second oh wait a minute on a second hold on where yes come up to the mic hi not sure if this is the right place to address this but um other residents told me to come on down can you just tell us your name and your address and then you can say whatever you got to say my name is tree Myro I'm at 2083 Gil Avenue okay um and uh I just have some safety concerns with uh the holiday coming up and the overcrowding at the weth furnace okay um well uh it's starting to pick up again the trespassing the littering the drunken public the noise levels disorderly conduct traffic and parking there was almost an accident last weekend because of pedestrians crossing over the bridge um parking on the sides of the streets where there is no parking um uh I was just wondering how the township was going to support the Rangers and the township officers um since last year it was also an issue and we were told by both Rangers and officers that there just aren't enough of them to deal with all of the people in the park okay Captain is there anything we can do about this think that's it okay thank you we can talk with the chief when he comes back and see if we can't do some I know it's a problem area he proactive yeah uh anyone else from the public like to speak oh I'm not saying anything nowbody else can close motion to close a motion to close have a second please uh all those in favor signify by saying I all those opposed eyes have it um I need a motion for adjournment I'll second that we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed the eyes have it thank you for coming everyone thanks thanks for coming