three [Laughter] hours well welcome everyone thank you for coming out this evening I just want to make a brief um announcement it appears that on February 27th Lawrence Township celebrated its 327th birthday and it we did not have cake but we will be looking forward to cake in the future so I just wanted to celebrate our town and recognize all of the years that we've been in assistance so with that I'll read the proper [Applause] notice adequate notice of this meeting of Lawrence Township Council being held on Tuesday March 5th 2024 has been provided through the posting of the annual meeting schedule of St Council and in accordance with Section 13 of the open public meetings act said notice was forwarded to The Trentonian the times and the princ in packet on December 11th 2023 Madam clerk if we could now have our inspiration may we carry out our work at this meeting in a just honorable and sincere manner always bearing in mind our duties in continuing to keep Lawrence a wonderful community in which to live to flag the United States of America stand indice Madam clerk if you could please call the Mr Bob here Mr Kaki here M Perry here mayor Ryan I me Mr Ryan here mayor here okay we're making just one slight adjustment to our um schedule for special um presentations this evening we're asking for the presentation of the Elsa notice of sewer connection um by Mr Robert filler who is the executive director we will go in advance of the department head presentation for the budget Mr Oakley Emergency Management forat so Mr um philler if you would please come forward and if you could just sign into the record for us please I can do what sign your name yeah okay [Music] and you like me we here oh if you'll be at the podium for us please yeah so we can hear you my name is Bob Piller I am direct Authority I'm sorry we into the mic my name is Bob Piller uh director of the U dep uh we'll start out by saying that uh as we all know W water comes in in the waste water is ammonia we during processing take the ammonia and becomes a nitrate then it becomes a nitrate uh we discharge the nitrate we have been dealing with the discharge of nitrate for probably the last 30 to 40 years when I say dealing with it uh monitoring it measuring it discussing concentration with the d u in 2009 uh the D decided to uh uh include the concentration of the nitrate discharged into the asate creek uh and at the same time they put a limit they gave what they call a state which is a whole in other words we continue to monitor uh measure but uh we were not found to that 14 years later uh the commissioner decided to remove the stepy um now I put my glasses on uh as you know uh the Ying Lawrence SE Authority Elsa is a SE service provider for Ying Lawrence and portions of oakwell townships Elsa for directors were compelled by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection regulations and the actions of the D to adopt a resolution imposing a sore connection ban and uh we uh adopted the resolution January 16th and I believe on January 26 we had mailed it out to uh the count ships that we serve which is doing laws and hope Township uh what I'd like to do at this moment is make it a little easier for me particularly is I'm going to in introduce the U uh environmental attorneys that have been working with Elsa and the nitrate limitation and uh that's George Tyler me and uh and and and Matt and I'll turn over to you all right well we're done if there are questions more thany may for the record for the record that we had asked Mr Phil to come before Council because of the connection ban and this is why you're here thanks as Bob said my name is George Tyler the firm is Tyler abiso and CR we're located in Robinsville um we've been in business there since the year 2000 and uh one of the primary focuses of our practices environmental law as Bob indicated um as also indicated the effluent limit that triggered the sban has been in effect since the year 2000 and Elsa has been litigating that issue with d for that entire time however for the first 14 years D Granted an administrative stay of that limit and they did So based on the fact that there was no harm to the environment or the public health while the issue was being resolved after the 2018 permit uh was issued uh the matter proceeded into the office of administrative law uh DP became very aggressive uh in in the 2017 2018 became very aggressive in that process and pursued the hearing with a motion for summary disposition the administrative law judge that heard the case granted that motion although she found that it was a problem in search of a excuse me it was a solution in search of a problem and and she agreed with our arguments that uh the situation defied common sense but D argued in the hearing that the law gave them no choice and gave the administrative law judge no choice so she ruled against us that decision went to the commissioner he sustained it and we are now before the appell division challenging that decision the big difference in the last year is that in February as Bob indicated the commissioner lifted the stay that had been in effect although the conditions haven't changed one thing I'd like to point out before we're accused of being terrible polluters is that the Elsa discharge is into the lowest reach of the asinate creek the nitrate limit is established solely to protect human health and there are no pable water intakes uh in that point in that portion of the Asen pink Creek excuse me in fact in the hearing there's an affidavit submitted by the D chief of Permitting of surface water discharges that indicates there is no possibility of a portable water intake there the Department's position at that point was we don't have a choice our argument to the H division is yes you do under the under the regulations governing discharges uh in New Jersey the department can find that that that the designated use of a drinkable water body uh is inappropriate we think based on their own findings they should have done that um in any case under the regulations once the stay was lifted Elsa had no choice but to impose a sewer connection ban and that's what is now facing you and Lawrence as well as portions of Hope well um you're not in this alone we are arguing the same case with the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority they've been involved uh basically side by side with us and are in the Appel Tradition at the same time there are at least three other authorities facing similar situations right now uh Western mon Utility Authority panic and I think ston Brook is also in in facing a similar situation although they're at different point points in the litigation process so the surban is only in effect right now youing Lawrence and hell um we've got one one more application we've tried twice to have the commissioner um recognize that there's no Public Health uh problem as as as at least three of his predecessors did by the way and lift the ban or allow us to lift the ban by granting a stay where we were denied twice and the third application is now back before the commissioner uh we made a new argument um based on uh the affordable housing issues several several uh developers with large affordable housing components in their projects um have come to Elsa um Mr filler was able to in one case convince the to Grant What's called the treatment work supp approval widen the pipe anyway despite the fact that we can't certify that we're in compliance without the stay in so I'm sorry if I got down in the weeds a little too much or too Technical and um Matt's here to answer all your questions that that I can't just kid if there are any questions that's where we are now I guess I should add um developers or or property owners who meet certain conditions can get an exemption from the band but they're very stringent and very limited and we have submitted two exemptions so far come to the mic pleas so Caren we we have submitted two exemptions so far and I have signed two more uh today which means we will have four uh within a week or so with the D the question is how long are they going to sit on sit in on they are single family homes they are simple exemptions and they do fit the we have to and also we we review the application for an exemption first and upon uh seeing that it meets the statute requirements we then submit it to the D to get their approval it's it's like another layer of and uh we have other projects that we are getting ready to address uh multi family uh low and moderate income housing projects within our own Township sh and LS and uh you know we will go through them we will submit them and uh and hopefully uh it doesn't take a long time for the D to act on it should but but who knows in addition and you know I like so you know know me well I like to talk but and I I promise you I will not hold you work uh March 22nd we are going to be meeting with the D and uh we are going to be number one is remove the B number two uh there was discussion when Charley Turner met with the commissioner that uh they would help us uh with respect to the buy Bank The Lending of the state of New Jersey uh I like low interest rates but I also like grants and I'm going to be asking for them uh as well as time to examine alternative roots to reduce the nitrate concentration um and uh and U we're going to see see what uh they have to say and so so it's two problems one what we're we're doing with the courts and and two we're discussing with if the courts do not see our way then we'll see what we can do toh to get relief for our Township and to accommodate this uh reduction of the nitrate concentration and now we'll stop and back away I I I probably should have added the reason for the F if you will uh is that the nitrates are very difficult to control especially um in in our situation where it's unnecessary uh and the estimated cost we have from the consultants for the controls is $18 million just for the capital and then there's a very high operating cost High electrical consumption each year to run so so that's the reason we've been litigating uh again I can't stress enough or everyone agrees there's no pable water intake possible in this portion of the creek and we just need uh the department to I'd say come to their senses over it the BL okay well thank you gentlemen for your presentation I'll now look to council are there any questions I have a question that's all right yes thanks mayor um I guess my first question is um how far out of compliance is Elsa with the DP regulations is it a lot is it a little is it you know and has it been ongoing at a certain base level I'm trying to understand how how it's been I don't know if it's 2000 2009 when this first started um sort of the being out of compliance with with the regulations I I would I would defer to Matt who looked at more of the data than I have uh but I as I recall we were discharging at a level of or 15s per million yeah and the standard the DP set in the Stream is is 10 qus per million so it's it's not a gross violation but it's a violation and and in fact there's been a month or two even since the commissioner's decision where we have been in compliance um but it's not consistent um and and there this limit has only been in effect since really February so going back further than that there was no limit at the time and then my sort of followup is is are there regulations that sort of look at a cumulative effect of sort of nitrates in the water in terms of you know whether that you know because the Asing doesn't just stop in Tren it goes into the Delaware River and then Downstream to other municipalities who may be drawing from water I mean so so you've touched on an issue that's very contentious in the litigation um B originally set the standard and indicated a belief that we were discharging Upstream of the Trent surface water intake for portable water when we corrected that there was a Scramble for new facts and then they indicated well we found a Del Ran New Jersey portable water it's 22 Mi down river the only testimony about it in the hearing was from our expert who said you can't measure it once it hits the Delaware it's gone the DP has permitted about a dozen other municipalities going in that 22 Mile Stretch and none of those permits have a nitrate limit they didn't think about Del Ran until we corrected the record with respect to tra so I I think right now we're faced with the Department staff that's looking to win the case more than to do the right thing I'm not gonna pull any punches you know pretty and and I'm not I don't think it's the kind of that it's not like a metal like copper or nickel where you can't get accumulation in settlement it it disappears dispat in Delware and mayor I just wanted to add that I appreciate Mr test uh testimony about sort of looking at the alternative right that that if if D is is sort of hesitant in granting we're getting positive feedback from theic and if I could continue I'm an old school teacher deleted the record the D is receptive to these conversations and uh when I start when I start asking not for reduced uh interest rates when I start asking for dollars behind you know Grant not to help and uh the number that we have for treatment on an annual basis is in the area of $4 million so after you get done spending 18 million in capital that's that's about a million a year in debt service and you got close to 4 million in operating cost but we're talking about and and not that we should do anything but discharge the cleanest water that we can our our entire plant is based on uh making nitrates I mean that's our process taking ammonia and turning them into nitrates that's not obviously it's not acceptable today but if I send you an annual charge with a 35 to 40% increase but I promise you that it's not going to make life better you're going to say Bob what are you doing there and that's the issue that that we're dealing with and why we have been and although it it got heavy in 2009 this has going on for more than 40 years now uh there was a time that uh the DP actually was going to make us an exception and uh we thought we we put this almost to bed and then we had a 180 and instead of being an exception of course it took 14 years to remove the stay as long as it wasn't painful when the stay was in place but stay was removed a few months ago and it's now and now you're here and now I'm here but I want to tell you at the same time we very seriously take the exemptions and it's it's painful another layer it costs time and money to the people that are trying to expand Etc improve our communities but uh the reality is hopefully uh it's still going to move forward but we're not sitting and waiting as you know that and mayor I just want to I just want to finish by saying thank you for hearing the for for for bringing up the two prog approach because my concern was before when we got the letter for the for the sewer band that it just felt as if and and and sort of looking at Old agendas from Elsa uh meeting minutes and things like that that it seemed as if it was just you were taking the the the tiges route and not sort of working hand inand with how do we work with d to to addressing the issue because at the end of the day the body here and the people out there would love to see proper development in this town Rejuvenation renovation things like that so so thank you gentlemen for coming before us today and we'll look to have some more information after the March 22nd meeting with the D thank you Kevin I'm sorry I just have one quick uh quick question the the appeal is before which which court it's before the Superior Court appell division uh they indicated that we should have our argument probably in April and then it's up to the court how fast they decided there's no fixed time frame but most likely by June we should hear that's all the discovery has been exchanged all the all that we had a hearing with all of that at the office of administrative law and now it's simply just we it's all been brief everything's done we're just waiting for the argument okay great thank you again thank you for coming us than okay moving on right with our agenda for the 2024 department head budget presentation by Mr Jack Oakley Emergency Management [Music] coordinat AG GRE later on s thank you very much oh Mr filler left already yes the deal was that he went before me and I yielded my time to him first 20% discount my store Bill good luck right good evening mayor farmer member of council manager Mr cek and clerk Carter and thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you regarding Emergency Services budget for 2024 I also want to thank you for um being understanding about me not being at the the last meeting I was not feeling well and there was no way that I was going to be able to cover a two and a half hour presentation feeling the way I did T shut the lights out yeah you may have to take a break [Music] I want to address the uh the different uh divisions within the uh the Emergency Services uh operation and uh first I'd like to start off with um with the fire Division and an overall comment about um about where we're at as emergency services today uh we still find ourselves dealing with the everchanging conditions and outbreaks of covid 19 variables the variants have posed challenges to us when servicing clients who require emergency medical and Fire Protection transports the hospitals at times that are overcrowded continual decontamination of our equipment and personnel and of course dealing with our members of service who fall victim to the virus present unprecedented levels of work and commitment thanks to the continued support from the man manager CFO and you the members of council We are continuing to offer First Rate emergency responses to our customers citizens of of Lawrence Township I want to address the fire division first um we have six career of firefighters as of the beginning of 2023 um we had two units that were deployed one down south in station 2011 which is a slack with fire company that was the ladder crew and then one up north which was rescue 20 um at the lawrenville fire station 203 uh they work from 8: a to 400m Monday through Friday um as of December 11th as we know we put an additional three members into the fire service so we were able to put up another unit a teles unit at station 23 and now we have two units that ride out of the lawrenville station and one that rides out of the S station so it gave us um it gave us an opportunity to expand our coverage in the township maybe not by hours just yet because that's something that we're working towards but it gave us that opportunity to be able to get more equipment on the road quicker to handle the calls we go on in addition to responding to all the uh the emergencies in the township um hold on [Laughter] second like a horror movie in addition to responding to all the emergencies that c requiring a fire toart response firefighters duties include regular running and inspecting of fire apparatus exercising the pumps in the aerial ladders exercising and refueling Power Equipment such as fans saws and rescue tools maintaining our breathing apparatus and uh mounting equipment and hose on the apparatus and make a mindor repairs if they go along as part of their role in responding to Medical emergencies the career firefighters are individually trained and certified as emergency med medical technicians and First Responders which gives our assistance to the EMS this is a very important part of the the fire division's operations this is the education of uh young people in schools and pre preschools that uh come to the fire station and for the first time meet firefighters in a in a uh in a controlled atmosphere uh during 2023 the career staff conducted fire safety presentations to nearly 600 students from eldrich Park slackwood the chapen school and numerous daycare facilities throughout the township we are very proud of those presentations and we look forward to doing those as well um it might seem a little bit uh of a problem with younger kids when they when they come and they get all excited about looking at the fire trucks and the firefighters what we want to do is we want to present the firefighters as you would see them in an emergency and that's why they dress up in that that gear in front of the kids they want them to see these are the people that are coming to assist you these are the people that are coming to help and want to put them a little bit more at ease that these are the people you want to navigate towards if there's if there's a problem there are um also Safety Town demonstrations that we do in conjunction with the with the police division and we have three career firefighters I think we're have now three EMS staff as well that are certified passenger safety technicians those are car seat installers this is another great program that we have um expecting parents can come and meet and they can learn how to install a car seat in their vehicles the proper way so these technicians show the people how to do it we don't want to actually Mount the equipment in car but we show them how to do it of course we give them a hand once we get it in of course when they buy a new car who shows back up at the firehouse but parents which we're happy to help them uh our request for car seat installs is uh is a little bit down it hasn't gotten up since since preco but um they did it I think 15 as of November 30th last year calls for service this is where we get down into the nitty-gritty stuff um we haven't really over we haven't seen an increase uh again since pre-co um but to the total amount of calls seems to be consistent in the past couple of years so if you look at uh 2020 2020 2021 and 2022 they're fairly uh fairly on on online uh we had uh in 2023 as of putting this Pro program together we had 1,120 CRS so we were kind of like on target again to meet that consistent number of the the 1200s it's a breakdown of the responses by stations um you see the career staff is station 20 Station 201 is the slackwood fire company station 202 is the Lawrence Road fire company and station 203 is the Lawrence Fire Company since we Consolidated and we became a department these are now not individual fire companies but stations part of the L Town fire so this is an all-inclusive response you see that as of uh the 2023 data that we have there was 1,120 incidents as I reported and this is the breakdown of who responded and how they responded to those particular incidents some notable responses that we had throughout the year this was a motor vehicle accident on Interstate 295 where we worked with the Hamilton Township Fire Department to extricate a person from uh that vehicle this is a notorious spot on Interstate 295 it's uh 295 southbound just before the Hamilton border it appears that in inclement weather as the cars come around and over top of the overpass P route one they hydr plane uh probably because of access speed and then they end up flipping over and going into the woods this particular accident was the third one we had in about a week and a half almost in the same exact spot uh the infamous tornado February 21st we had an a ef2 touchdown at the laen square Village as part of our response we had to go and and go through the complex where there were many many down trees and some of the the damaged buildings it was it was remarkable that we didn't suffer have one injury suffered by anybody that was there um I was about less than five minutes away from it when the when the call came in to respond and when I pulled into it it looked like something that happened in a war zone uh treeses toppled down in front of buildings on top of cars partial roofs that that were ripped off how somebody wasn't injured or even killed in this is is a godset it really is and the career staff was committed as well as the volunteers to do that search and rescue mission is what we call it we had to search individually throughout the whole entire complex that was affected by this to make sure that there were no uh people that were either injured or trapped this was an accident on Interstate 295 again where a couple of dump trucks Ed and spread their material across the road closing the complete road down this uh we were in service here for a couple hours trying to get this cleaned up but it's just another example of the responses that we have in the township because of the interstate highs this is the old Junior High School number one fire which happened in the daytime in Trenton um the career staff and the volunteers responded mutually Aid to this call Trenton asked for help and we responded down to help the building was completely destroyed by the fire and and um the career staff with the tower ladder that they had at the time was in service for four hours at that part um we exchange Mutual Aid with our surrounding communities that's that's how we operate we make sure that we go to help them when they call they come to us when we this was a major fire if you're familiar with this location it's on wh Head Road it's the old good all Rubber Factory came in a little bit uh little bit before 1:00 in the morning I guess on May the 18th U this was a very very difficult fire um spent a lot of hours there but it was responded to by the C by the volunteer staff the volunteers one piece of apparatus that they man put in 10 hours at that fire scene the other piece of apparatus that came from Lawrence Township was there for almost 17 hours so when you're talking about volunteers that commit the volunteers that commit their time this is why so difficult to get people because people don't have that kind of time to donate to to dedicate to things like this and this was a major major operation that took place there was a uh a major fatal accident that occurred almost almost a year down the road where we had a young student that was killed um on Route One this was a uh this was a a rapid response by us um we got there we were able to extricate the uh the victim get to the victim and there was one thing that was uh that was bothersome to us when we pulled up there was a car seat in the back of the car with the amount of damage that was there that we saw with the vehicles we weren't sure if there was actually a child in the car so the rescue crews went to work and cut components out from the car to make sure that they could get in there to check to make sure that there wasn't an infant in the car and you got you to think that the victim was was still there and all so these guys had to operate in that kind of an ATM another couple jobs that we went on viewing Township and uh there was a fire on October 13th and we spent a few hours in that one too uh across the street birdie way I don't know if you're familiar with this or not um this was a uh a tar truck fire attack truck they caught fire um basically run across from the municipal building here uh is where it was it was fully engulfed with fire there was an injury one of the guys that was driving the truck realized that his wallet was still in the truck and he tried to run back into the truck to get the wallet well we was to say he took a lot of smoke he went down our EMS Personnel attended to him but he uh this is the amount of damage that uh was done to um six adjacent homes six adjacent homes for where this truck was burning this Tac oil truck were damaged outside siding things along those lines our career staff responded in four minutes and got on the scene so in four minutes six houses were still damaged and we were there fighting the fire when we talk about response times a little bit later on and getting to scenes quickly to try and mitigate circumstances this is what we're talking about so the houses were saved they were damaged but if we didn't have such a quick response it would have been a lot worse some different things that the uh that the career and the volunteer staff did did they did some live burn training we require live burn training every year from our fire staff um and they have to do fit testing for to wear the scbas so uh we did those in April and May um we sent a couple of firefighters to a uh a fire service leadership program called the point of the spear it was sponsored by the Tre fire department so like a uh a mid-level supervisor's class these people are going to be the ones that are going to be coming up in the fire server so we're trying to prepare them give them an idea of what supervision is all about some more training that they did you can see the names that are up there uh the people that are the the car seat installers and we also had a combination training in advanced vehicle extrication as you know we just showed you a couple pictures of the different accidents that we were on and we did that in conjunction with the volunteer sta so each entity each discipline knows how the other operates so we're trying to to formulate that working together uh format and and it seems to be a very successful thing right I'm going to show this video real quick with my trusty it man right here the life of a deadly fire has begun this scenario occurs in millions of homes every year around the world okay we have plan just coming up the back of the sofa might be from a uh a cigarette that was left there for a few hours or a little kid playing with a lighter and giv it a little at this stage the small flame is relatively harmless to grow the important thing to look at here to remember produces decomposes chemicals in its wood and synthetic material Rising is a complex concoction of flammable gases they combine with oxygen in the room to produce a dazzling chemical reaction Flames as the Flames radiate heat downward onto the sofa more and more fuel is consumed as this deadly cycle repeats itself the fire grows with frightening speed okay we had two smoke detectors in the hallway that uh were getting activated early morning devices impress that [Music] enough that's H gas it's trapped there by the ceiling experiments like this have led scientists to a simple but alarming Discovery the hot gases in the Smoke level that you see at the top you you see that really dark black smoke that is the vicious killer right there carbon monoxide is embedded in that smoke the byproducts of combustion that are in there generate temperatures that are unbelievable probably at the sealing level right now they're going to have about 200 degrees at the ceiling level which doesn't seem like a lot that's why firefighters stay low to the ground that's why they crawl into a groom or a building because they get below that heat level because standing up it's untenable you can't you can't do it there's no way so at 200° right now and we're superheating the air above this fire you're going to see how it progresses fires are changing 107 seconds into the burn this fire is much hotter than it would have been 20 years ago the reason modern Furnishings ignite more easily and burn faster than traditional products like wool and Timber we can see the radiation from the fire just on the sofa starting to affect other objects in the they're smoking they're pying they're giving off additional fuel that's additional fuel that's going up into that lay that's going [Applause] to in the 1950s the average apartment fire took more than 15 minutes to Peak at around, 1400° F today I can he a staggering 2000° you know a little over 150 seconds this test fire Grew From a harmless flame to a raging Inferno the heat and energy it released destroyed the apartment in less than 3 minutes this is why we stress escape plans this is why we want families to practice this is why we want to get to scenes quicker if you noticed in the beginning of the video the incipient stages of a fire most times the fires aren't reported at that point the fires get reported much later 3 minutes later and you saw the amount of damage that you had in the amount of fire that was there most times fire department hasn't even been notified yet so that fire has an advancement that far down the road before the fire department even gets notified the company that's a challenge that's a major challenge this is Christmas Eve morning 299 Fontaine Lane I stood up here for the past couple years and and told uh told the council told everybody in the audience that Lawrence toson doesn't see that many working fires not many we've had four in the past six weeks so it happens it does happen it's just cyclic but that's what happens this is approximately 12 13 minutes into the uh Into the Fire and you can see where the roof is already collapsed things have have already back that up a little bit you see the whole in the street I want you to pay attention as you look towards the top part of the screen where those Flames are coming out in front you're going to see a a grayish whitish Cloud that's going to come out I'll tell you what that is there it is right there that gr PL Cloud that's firefighters in that situation in that building utilizing water to try and control that fire that's what they're doing that's the job that they do as a person that stands outside and puts people's lives at risk the fire fighters both the men and women that that comprise our our uh our organization that's a big burden that's tough not going to I'm not going to do that half and I know that the rest of the staff right here that I'm going to introduce in a minute wouldn't do it either but that's the that's the uh that's the uh the fight that we do on a basis notice our mutual Aid plan Hamilton fire company is in front of the building they responded automatically when we called for them to this scene to give us assistance and it was Christmas Eve Christmas Eve and we still had a turnout from the volunteer staff um is the next one this is six Humphrey's Drive in um on the grounds in the prep school midday fire started in this back room right here eventually because of the the age of the home and the construction uh that's uh that this thing progressed to a point where there was a roof collapse we had to evacuate the Personnel from inside because it just got too unbearable with the heat the amount of heat and fire that was inside so we had to evacuate them and go to what they call a defensive operation outside using aerial ladders in order to control this fire [Laughter] this is how we dress for War this is the ensembles that the firefighters wear this is the equipment that we provide to them the ensembles that they're looking that you're looking at right now the turnout gear the coat the pants the boots the gloves the hood that they wear cost somewhere in the general area about5 to $6,000 the SCBA is on their back that's their Lifeline that's how they breathe inside the fires because of the smoke and that the the uh the areas that they go into $8,000 the portable radios that they carry on their body to communicate to the incident command people that are outside those go for about $4 to $5,000 so you're looking at a complete Ensemble to outfit somebody somewhere approaching $20,000 $20,000 to Output one of these guys okay now the problem is we can't buy gear and put it on a shelf and give it to somebody because as you can see Captain dores in the middle is definitely not the same size as Captain Negron over here to his side so he's not going to fit in each other's gear we have to purchase the gear for the firefighter that's what we have to do and that becomes a very expensive operation however I will give you good news right now that we were just notified of uh late this afternoon Brenda Kramer um who uh filed a a grant on behalf of UN the statistical information that we gave her under the um the American rescue rescue rescue plan we just got a $75,000 Grant to purchase that's going to get us that's definely get us some more set of year to be able to have these guys along with the capital that we're ask okay F just good thanks thank [Applause] you [Music] just a little bit of information about the volunteer staff um they still continue to contribute there's a small core of them that are involved um we we find that uh it's very slow to uh to beef their ranks uh last year I think we had five applications that we processed for volunteers but you have to realize that you see what what what kind of uh what kind of atmosphere that these gu that these men and women go into there's mandatory training that they have to take there's drills that they have to attend so there's a lot of things 1,200 calls in a year that you have to summon people out of their houses to come at all different times of the day and night so sometimes we find ourselves not being able to answer a call in in the amount of time that that's necessary you know we sometimes don't get out to answer a call after hours uh for 5 10 15 minutes that's that's not acceptable so that's why we try to get the uh the volunteers more involved after hours and try to give them incentives and we put in a a volunteer incentive program which we supplement the volunteers based on their responses to the fire calls to put gas in their vehicles to buy clothes or clean clothes that they dirtied up either in a drill or fire uh last year we spent uh slightly over $38,000 for this uh volunteer and Center Program uh we have duty nights where the a volunteer staff of four people uh go on duty at 10 o'clock at night till 6:00 in the morning they don't have to stay at the fire station but they're required to respond to the call we pay them $50 for that now you may sit at home one night and you know make 50 bucks because nothing really happens but then there's other nights where you're out three four five times filling on a call so it it washes out in the just some more statistical information some data about the fire department responses one of the things I wanted to point out uh if you see Building 111 building fires you notice that's 15 15 building fires and that might not be 15 building fires in lence Township but 15 fires that we responded to either Mutual Aid wise or here in town as well that was last year in 2023 um also uh under 311 you'll see medical assist or assisted EMS crew 168 calls our EMS crew Works a uh which we'll talk about just in a couple minutes but they work a 12-h hour shift they work a Pitman schedule uh there's a day and a night crew they work seven days a week uh 365 days a year we have one ambulance on and then sometimes we put a second ambulance on uh dependent on availability to answer calls um as a backup to the uh the duty crew when the ambulance is tied up we put our career staff to respond to emergency medical calls a fire truck pulling up in front of somebody's house who's having a heart attack seems crazy seems crazy nobody would ever think about it but that's where the fire service is nowadays the fire service is lend in a hand to make sure that people are attended to and safe even though other Mutual Aid EMS unit will be coming in to try and help our firefighters get there and they administer a they evaluate the people they'll give them oxygen they'll do things like that they go on Cardiac Arrest any Cardiac Arrest that we have here in the township our career stamp goes on so they're uh they're in the trenches with the EMS crewp and I think that since we did the reorganization and we have everybody under one umbrella works so much more seamlessly little pie chart I know Peter likes these Pon seers our emergency medical division as I told you 365 days a year 24 hours a day 7 days a week we have an EMS crew on one rig two EMS um they provide basic life support they're not paramedics they can't administer drugs but they they do basic life support and and they respond to all types of incidents we have a chief and we have 10 full-time staff members total of 11 about 18 perms that fill in when the career staff is off as of December 12th of last year when we put the program together we responded to 3,647 EMS calls of those 3, 647 calls we transported 2,289 people to secondary medical institutes for for for more advanced medical treatment you could do the math on that for a day 365 days in a year that's a busy schedule that's a very busy schedule for these days and they do it day in and day out the second ambulance we did a we did a little statistical information about the second ambulance they since we had them in place um they've answered about 300 calls as a secondary so those 300 calls that they answered ordinarily would have been given up to a mutual Aid company but with the second ambulance that's there answering the call one service the community quicker two was able to generate a little bit of revenue for town so that Revenue just goes for reimbursement of you know the the the EMS stamp towards their salaries ongoing problems that we have with covid-19 as we explained in the beginning RSV cases you name it these guys deal with it before they get started we're going to reenact a little situation here with the two EMTs hold on one minute Fells with the two EMTs if you notice both the EMT Diaz and in the uh Trad they're dressed for battle different than the fire Fighters This Is How They handle respiratory problems with Co this is what they have to wear when they go on each call you say well they got ballistic vests on what are they doing with Ballistic vests the places that they go domestic terrorism they become targets they're people to help and they've become targets so we outfitted them with a ballistic vests to protect them a little bit more they go into shooting situations Mutual Aid into the city of Tren um you name it combative people so they're geared up like this to be able to protect themselves from the people that they serve we're going to simulate a cardiac arrest right now so both uh Ben and Felix are going to attend to one of our ex employees here CH partner remember we said this is a cardiac arrest so soon as the EMTs arrive they start CPR Ben at the head is ventilating the uh the patient while Felix administers CPR now what we have there is two EMTs that are tied up that can't do anything else they're both committed to try and help this particular uh victim we now carry a equipment on our ambulances that we can address this situation and free up one or two of the emps first what they're going to do is they're going to apply an AED a shocking treatment to the we're they're going to try and Shop the heart back into Rhythm notice Felix isn't giving up with the CGR is continuing the CPR how long do you think you could really do that before you have to switch out to something else we're fortunate that the police department rides with us and of course like I said the fire connect Electro and we're able to alternate members to do CPR but now we've increased we increased our abilities with a new piece of equipment that we've had in service for a couple years check connector and [Music] electrodes check connector and electrodes check connector and electrodes we're simulating now a couple of extra hands coming in this is called a Lucas system this is an automatic CPR machine so instead of somebody having to do CPR manually this machine will do [Music] it it prefers real people that's the problem yeah that's what it is it doesn't it doesn't like working on the mannequin it likes working on the real people anyhow we're get we're getting the idea of what it does it actually does what Felix is doing for CPR it automatically does the CPR process shocks the shots aren't working because there's it's not picking it up because it's not a person that's why I keep saying to connect them even though they're connected it's yeah it's just because it's a d okay so now they'd be ready just about now to transport the person so you can see the stretcher that they're on right there is a uh is a power stretcher it's automatic in the days of manual stretcher both the EMTs would have to pick that up and move it this not only helps the EMTs with physical things that they are involved in you know it saves their back a little bit but it's also a much safer way to transport the patient we're looking at some equipment right there between the Lucas system the uh the AED and the stretcher you're talking about somewhere in a general area about 30 to $35,000 Worth equ right there okay guys I know you're you're strained out with that stuff so you can take [Applause] out [Music] spoke about the training about the equipment that we use what's really important to note out of this is that we have um we have two full-time EMTs um that are paramedics now they can't practice as paramedics because we're only a basic life support system but the knowledge that they have from all the training that they had as Medics they can Institute when they're on a scene with somebody so they've done some things with the help of the par helping the paramedics that do respond because they're familiar with what to do so they definitely can help the uh the patients victims we've also started to move out into Swift water both the fire Division and the EMS are trained now as as Swiftwater uh technicians and operators um we say well Swift water I mean we're not around any rivers or anything right so where do you use that flooded roadways many of the floods that suffer here people don't turn around and try to drown then drive into the big pudles so now what we have to do is we have to go in and try and assess whether anybody's in the car and possibly rescue them so being trained as Swift water technicians and operatives that gives them the ability to go in they have the equipment now they can go in we have a high water truck at the station 3 in lawrenville that we use during those flooding conditions and also we've had in the past couple of months um the experience of Jackie Creek right behind the shopping center there behind Burling Co Factory where everybody does all their driving practices well we find that some people are not hitting the brake and they're hitting the gas and they're ending up through the woods into the canal so we end up having to fish them out of the canal and this is where the Swift water training comes in to to effect once again so it's good for us it's really good for the people that are in the car just a lot of different things we stand by at football games uh we do trunk Retreat the medical division they're involved in all kinds of things Santa Claus you name it they're all involved in it and it's a it's a testament to the career State uh they uh they really do a great job these are just some of the uh it's a breakdown again of the the calls for service that they've been on I just want to address real quickly something um I'm not an EMT um you know I've never been an EMT but I've been out on enough emergencies in my life that I see these people but you know their job doesn't stop just when they go somewhere to help out a patient especially when it's a tragic incident where somebody passes away and I've watched the EMT staff while I've been there console the family sit down and be with them compassionate sympathetic Help the People get through that that trauma that tragic moment that they're in motor vehicle accident that's where there's a fatality same thing I know a couple of the EMTs that you know sometimes elderly people call and they kind of make up an ailment that they have because they're lonely the EMTs will go they'll sit there they'll be in service but they'll sit with the people console them a little bit I even think a couple times they even may have cooked them a little lunch or a little breakfast you know that helped them out but that's that's the compassionate side to the EMS to the EMS Community touch very quickly on a fire study initiative um as we know the fire study initiative they there was 38 recommendations that came out of those 38 recommendations we have instituted 27 of them some do not pertain to us at this particular rate our rever age and um we're still uh evaluating those things some that we are trying to move towards um putting together it's a slow process but I think that we've accomplished a great deal um with what we've done so far with the recommendations and I think it has definitely improved our service especially in the combination Department that we have right now uh the combination of career and volunteer staff it's a cohesive unit and it had to do with following some of the recommendations that were in the fire stud [Music] just the enumerated uh things in the in the fire study um I'm sure everybody's pretty much aware of what's in it so we're not going to kick it around that much but here's something that uh that we need to uh to touch on when the independent fire companies were by themselves each one had their own separate rules regulations policies procedures um when we combined into an organization a combined organization um was Troublesome because something that was different in one organization was not the same in something else so we undertook a year-long project uh with the help of our CFO and the manager supporting it um to go over and produce a clear concise and complete set of policies and procedures that apply to everybody in the fire in the fire department it also sets the parameters for the Township as basically employers we know what we're supposed to do we know how to do it these people also know how to act pre-planning our fire marshal at tenza uh he does a a great job with this usually on his inspections he goes out and he'll he'll take a layout of the of the buildings and he'll put it into our our uh emergency reporting system so that the uh the the the firefighters when they responded to a call have an idea what the building looks like First Responders we spoke about that recommendation 19 we've already done created a singular combination of volunteer and career fire division definitely used the department wide training program we do that now in addition to that training program with sub note is that we um we utilize an online training platform so we post all the mandatory training that volunteers and career staff have to do in this online training so it's accessible it's a web- based program it's accessible from home so they don't have to come to a particular place and give up time with their family they bed down to kids at night or they're they're at home kicking back a little bit they can sign into the program they can watch a 30-minute video they can learn about bloodborne pathogens or whatever and it's not taken away from their time that they're invested at home so we try to relieve a little bit of that for the uh for the volunteers in a career here uh let's see agencies social media policies which are important the other thing here you'll notice 35 talks about the VIP and the losap program the losap program is also another recognition program that the township maintains for those that don't want to participate in the uh volunteering Center program so there's others that can uh that can still maintain the loap program it's another contribution of 500 I think it is a year um that's held until the uh the firefighter the volunteer retires from from fighting fires and then they can draw on it like almost like a social security thing real quick jump into the fire Marshall's office they have two full-time um fire inspectors they have a housing inspector and an administrative assistant Fire Marshal office uh they enforce all the uniform fire codes and all the businesses they uh they they look at uh permit inspections for food trucks for fireworks displays large Gatherings and they also investigate fires that occur in town so far 2023 as of uh when we put the program together uh they conducted uh 1,494 inspections of local and life hazards and they also did reinspection of 1,75 now to to to just put this in perspective a little bit U I told you we have two fire inspectors the second fire inspector was not hired to assist um fire marshal tenza until I think it was the beginning of this year so last year there was two people in the office that did this work it's amazing it's amazing work plus they had to handle complaints they had to do permits and they did their fire investigations so it's an amazing accomplishment commitment on the on the fire marshal Department the revenue that they generate from their uh from from their inspections and registrations so you see the total Township Fire registrations gross in uh $132,000 a little over that um total permits $222 40 and uh fire lane Summit IS350 bucks I think that could get stepped up a little bit but you know I don't want to do too much with the unfortunate uh and alarm registrations findes and penalties and dedicated penalties so got a little bit more uh a little bit more money in that in that part the housing inspector the housing inspector is one person on Aron he conducts all kinds of uh Motel Department buildings he he goes to uh to transfer properties and does inspections there were 3,380 multiple dwelling units inspected in 2023 and there's because of the uh of the new rules there are and and the building that we have now the the the construction in the town it looks like that's going to jump up to about 3,481 in 2024 for one person and this is what he generates in Revenue $ 71,2 n73 not a bad piece hard work for one man a lot of work these are just the years prior 103,000 and I just want to get in real quick to uh to some of the uh the requirements of my [Music] position I spoke to you uh briefly about the responsibilities and the burdens of being a uh a supervisor especially with sending people into very dangerous situations to where they go the Command Staff is seated here in front I just want to introduce them very quickly I have uh deputy chief da bour deputy chief Mike Oakley deputy chief Ray nagie Fire Marshall Ed tenza and our EMS Chief Chrissy vinent this is the backbone to our operation these are the people that are there that make sure things get done not only the administrators but they are also responders they're operatives on the fire ground the years of experience that these people have right now is hundreds of years hundreds got two guys that have over 35 30 years worth of experience sitting up here right now so these are not people that are just in these positions because they're good looking no they're in the position because they are skilled at what they do their knowledge their expertise and what they put down every single day in their job is utterly amazing to me and and I I appreciate what they do day in and day out uh maybe uh sometimes we get used to it you know because it just happens all the time but they deserve recognition for what they do believe me uh five years of supervisor experience for the chief of Emergency Services uh the draft standard operating uh guidelines ensure all federal rules are are met uh review departmental training and make sure that it uh that it's done right I respond to fires just as a little side note whenever they happen um authorized training courses for Department staff which is extremely important because want a broaden the horizons of our staff so they'll submit to go to particular training it's reviewed to make sure that it's something that pertains to the field of firefighting um monitor sick sick people sick time um budgets of course tonight um disciplinary actions which are not always easy um unions uh really sometimes I think that that's more towards the the manager of part he does uh he does most of the Union issues um if there's any problems in any of the any of the Departments either EMS or fire um you know we treat the people with with respect and we get them the health that they need these are for employees some other things that we do provide replacement equipment that we uh that we need you saw some of the equipment that we use on a regular basis and you know the the toys are expensive you know they're they're not the they're not things that are are wish on a wish list they are things that we need in order to do our job new Fire Equipment buy our trucks we have to look at the bids when they come back to make sure that they're adequate um while we're on the uh the Fire Equipment stuff our three fire stations that we have right now um and the EMS building U the three fire stations were built in the early 1900s they've been renovated um they are um Antiquated is is the best thing I can tell you one of the stations is a little bit condusive to our operation and that's the North Station lawrenville um they have you know a pretty a pretty good setup up there sizewise they do have um sleepover um accommodations but they're short on you know gender specific things you know showers and and breaking down in other sleeping quarters for you know for females um so we need to really give a hard look at these stations which I know what we're doing right now but there's reasons why U we need to improve the conditions that the employees operate under two major things that kill firefighters and EMS cardiac disease and cardiac disease most oh cancer cancer I'm sorry and the the cancer part is something that has just come to light um o over the past uh 20 25 30 years uh and the reason that they find that cancer not only because of the atmosphere that firefighters go into the smoke and everything that comes there but also when they come back from a call and they store their gear in the same area that they live and sit in the carcinogenic materials that are are are burned into their equipment now off gas and they sit there and they bre the in and it's it's documented that that's a problem a new facility we could control that we could put a decontamination area in we can have it isolated from the areas that the that the firefighters and EMTs actually going into so it's important that we build something to be able to make our First Responders safer just some other things about the NFPA standards that we all know about um incident command system which we don't operate anything other than incident command and what's important too is that um LK Township is a NYSE compliant the national National information management system compliant Community which means we are we have a lot stricter um guidelines of things that we have to do here and training that we have to go through inclusive of our staff of of of the council and and some of the staff that's here as department head so we have to train everybody in in because as we're going to get into here the Emergency Management aspect of my my position um you know the our Emergency Operations plan has components in it it has addendums in it um there's there's things that that need to be put in place for continuance of operations if something occurs uh it's an all hazards plan the all Hazard plan means that no matter what occurs we can put this emergency operation plan towards it and it gives us a framework to be able to uh mitigate and work through whatever the event is I don't care if it's a natural disaster I don't care if it's a man-made disaster you know I don't care if it's an IT problem you know where all of a sudden we suffer a major breakdown in in in our in our communication system our Emergency Operations plan is is is fully uh ready to be able to uh to to work on those particular things so some of the training that is necessary for the Emergency Management [Music] coordinator in the Emergency Management uh Department I have an administrative assistant Donna Kan um I know other department heads have spoken about their Administrative Assistant well Don Kanye is the The Hub of the wheel for our Emergency Services um the manager gave Donna to to us a couple years ago go and she has been uh an outstanding individual um as far as her work ethic and what she can get done there's things that I come up with that I think about that she's already done uh because she's motivated and she knows what's going on and as she's learning her job a little bit more she becomes a lot better of a person and so we're very thankful to have uh Donna in in in our group um I review all kinds of plans from outside agencies nursing homes schools they they develop their own Emergency Operations plans they submit them I have to review all those things and I don't authorize them I don't I don't give the the stamp to them but I do actually look at them and make sure that they can that they have all the components that are necessary for an all hazards approach through a plan opening up the EOC our emergency Operation Center um by and large there feeling far between times that we have to do that which we're fortunate about about but in any kind of an emergency we are always ready uh with our partners in public works health and the police division uh to open up uh the emergency Operation Center and get that up and running so that we can manage the incident a lot easier from one particular location and just to let you know it's something to look forward to if we do have to open up the UC you guys will be invited to assess the hazards uh analyze the assessments of disasters and emergencies so in other words an after action after something occurs we do an after action we look at it what did we do right what did we do wrong how can we better respond to our particular incident and that's that that's a very important part of uh of our process talked about the NS budgets in expenses so under the yosha budget this is some of the stuff that we actually purchased um the SCBA masks that you saw on the uh on the the firefighters we have to give an a mask to each individual because we in the old days in the firehouse you would run in and you would take a mask off the wall and you know the the air pack and The Mask would be sitting there and if it hadn't been a long time since it was put on there you get a face full of dust when you turned it on or you know somebody else from have to clean it out and here you are putting your PA into it now each individual U firefighter has their own SCP uh repairs certifications testing all that stuff comes out of ocean hydrostatic testing fire helmets which is another part of the the personal protective gear that we have the fit test machine the fit test machine uh we we medically examine each and every firefighter every year based on a um they they they submit a a questionnaire and it goes to uh pen medicine for review Once it goes to pen medicine if they don't find find anything that that they need to to flag or have a question asked about then we have they're pass to be able to do a fit test and fit test is a machine that is the scva mask that makes them do particular movements and operations to make sure that one the mask fits properly to that they can actually do the operations when they go out and and and do the the firefighting operations that they did so in the capital expenditures for this year we're looking for uh personal protective equipment I told you we were just uh very fortunate to receive $75,000 with the additional monies that we're asking for we we should be able to outfit uh about 36 sets of GE which would greatly enhance um where we're at right now it'll help us tremendously um our scbas they have a shelf flight they're only good for certain amount of time we have to replace them as well um our portable radio equipment you see that uh the the portable radio equipment in 2011 we were a part of a regional U grant that was obtained by Mercer County um assistance the firefighter Grant where there were uh millions of dollars that were um actually given uh in the grant to purchase radio equipment um for all of the fire departments H so Lawrence Township got $347,000 worth of radio equipment and our contribution was only $66,000 however that stuff is well P pass that serviceability as with anything there's new advances in the portable radio communications the lifeline of what the firefighters and EMTs use nowadays are those radios we need to start to replace those radios and it's going to be an incremental thing we're not going to be able to do it all at once but we're going to have to start to replace those radios because they're just not serviceful anymore we can't buy parts for them you can't do anything uh to to make them you know hold them together with Band-Aids anymore so they need to be replaced apparatus replacement and then uh you know we're trying to get the apparatus replacement up and running we're starting to put a little bit of money every year um fire trucks nowadays uh a regular pumper truck is general area about $800,000 um and a lad truck probably somewhere in general area about 1.8 1.9 million so you're you're looking at Great expenses um coming up but we're trying to peace meal that in uh with our CFO that we we're making contributions into the capital every year so that we're not going to be hit too hard but we have to actually replace that fire inspector the the fire Marshall's office and housing it's just some of the things that they're looking for in their budgetary expenses it's it's in your it's in your handouts you guys to look at and just as I wrap up before I see if you can have any questions um I'm the last one to talk as a department head you saw the other department heads that came before you uh over the past couple of meetings um I've uh I've been a lot of different places in my life I've been on a lot of different teams um both recreational and and professional I've worked with a lot of highspeed people I I've uh I've done things in in my in my careers um that would probably make the hair stand up on the back of your neck but I always knew that my training my experiences my knowledge and the people that I worked with made my life and made my job a lot easier and and gave me a vot of confidence the other department heads that are part of this team unprecedented I've never worked with such a great group of individuals as these people and it's a day in day out working relationship that I'm just amazed at how much we get accomplished and I hope that you see the same thing U that we do because they are great people and they are dedicated to making Lawrence Township a better place to live in and I think that they deserve a round of applause after all these different [Applause] present the people that we spoke about the people that came before tonight First Responders those are the people that do this job day in day out you see it in the audience they're here tonight because they're vested they want to be here they want to know that or want you to know that they continue to put forth an effort that most people wouldn't do I'm going to ask them all to stand up real quickly any First Responders I want you to stand up real fast come on don't be shy let's go I Know Who You Are [Applause] that's your to service in closing I would like to take this opportunity to thank the men and women who comprise the emergency services department when we speak of Pride honor heart dedication and everyday soldiers we describe these people who regularly risk their lives to protect us they can continue to place themselves In Harm's Way making sacrifices most people would consider unimaginable real heroes don't wear capes masks or cows real heroes wear uniforms and badges and stethoscopes these heroes are members of our military our law enforcement and our first responder they ask for nothing in return for their actions and find great joy in helping people sometimes at the cost of their own lives please join me and recognizing those Heroes as we just did and make sure that you real you realize that they are here to make Lawrence countship better thank [Music] [Applause] you thank you Mr Oakley for um that interactive and tremendous presentation um little shocking all there um and thank you for all of the service and all of your commitment um in my short time I've been out there and seeing you all firsthand have stood and uh seen you at work and just you know thank you on behalf of council for all of the work that you do and your commitment and dedication and service to our town you really make lence a better place to live we feel safer because we know you're there so um with that open for Council councilwoman Perry If you have a question thank you very much and um as many of you know I am a living witness of how well our Township takes care of their residents but I'm asking you um what are some challenges you think are coming down the line in the next year to two that um you're going to be facing that you may need assistance with the biggest thing that we're looking looking at is um Personnel of course career staff um our volunteers do do a Yan's effort uh as far as what they do and and how they service the town but as their numbers dwindle I think it's the responsibility of the township to uh increase the career sta to be able to cover more hours and to relieve some of the responses that the volunteer staff have to do um of course everything comes with a doll figure as you know but we we definitely want to try and expand the amount of time that we cover uh with with a career step both fire and EMS I mean EMS we do a good job now but you're only talking about one ambulance that's on on a 12-hour Shi so uh you know that that that's some of the things right there the personal protective equipment replacing that that's very important to us right now as I tried to explain during the videos and and and show that when when you place these men and women into Arenas such as those fires that they were fighting and you saw those Little Squirts of uh of water coming out and turning to to steam as as they were trying to knock down the fires that they were in that's real life that that's things that that we need and to protect them with the best equipment that's out there that's possible that's that that that's a challenge as well and the last thing is I think our EMS crew uh just pertains to them more than than the fire division um when they faced all these variables with Co um the EMTs when when it first started when the co uh uh problem occurred the EMTs retrofitted the ambulances that we had with makeshift decontamination um equipment they built decontamination in tents over top of the um the stretchers that they had they forced air into the patient compartment to try and decontaminate they physically wiped down the ambulance after every single call plus the conon themselves so they didn't take any of the stuff home now ambulances are equipped with u with these decontamination uh components they're automatic you pull into the station you plug it in the rig gets it gets decontaminated we have an ambulance on order right now we were able to get that ambulance through a grant that we got from uh from Co was just a a whim that I tried to do it but uh we received $198,000 for a new ambulance and it's going to be outfitted with those decontamination uh components that we need so it's going to make it safer for the emcs when they're transporting these people who uh who are defitely sick so those are some of the challenges that that we face and recruitment of course that's always thank you you're welcome Council Bobby thanks mayor I just want to say thank you for the presentation um it's just a reminder of just how much goes into this town um both from your services and from the other departments but especially yours having people come in was was eye opening to me um that had never happen before so thank you um but I just want to say um I I think this what what you all do is is just a testament to this community um the care and love that you show to this community in terms of protecting us and taking care of us I think again and working with the incredible team the incredible staff that we have here we are very fortunate in war toship so I just want to publicly say thank you thanks may I have a quick comment first of all Jack thank you and thank you all for uh coming here supporting uh Mr Oakley um for the new members and uh of council um there is work to be done but there has work that has taken place over the last seven years at least I'm just I just have personal knowledge of it when I first came on as Municipal manager uh the fire department was an emergency management um coordinator that was under the police chief and had a small office at the police station in 2017 um we knew there was a reason and a necessity to raise the level of fire and EM EMS in our organization and so we moved fire out brought them over to Municipal Building somehow he got the best office in the building I don't know how that happened whatever uh we got an administrative assistant to help we moved the fire marshal from uh another department put them under the fire department and when you see all of these people here they they never they were never here years before because we are now a combined fire department and and the volunteers are as invested as the career those that respond for the volunteer are are are heroes plain and simple and they should be supported always and I do firmly support them and their continued contribution to the town but for the EMTs the one the one consistent thing that I get as a manager letters of thanks are for the entes because they treat people that they're most vulnerable I was one of them um and they have compassion and professionalism and experience and those that's what drives people to say hey Mr nnsky you've got good people to and I know that already and I want you to know that I know you that oh yeah um so there has been a lot of work that has taken place over the last seven years there's more work to be done we're in the middle of this merger transition and it's difficult it's challenging for leaders because everybody has an opinion everybody has an idea what they think is best but you know the one thing that I Know Jack is committed to and the leadership here is getting the information and making the best decision with the information and the resources you have and so I just wanted to thank I'm proud to work with him and all the staff members here thank you yeah thank you spech okay so we um we welcome you all to stay or I understand if you you know have to head home after 8:00 but again want to thank you um for your service and as you know many of us here sitting here on this day as know firsthand um and have had experience with the incredible work that you do so thank you thank you as a Lone Ranger used to say clouded dust and a Hardy H silver here they [Laughter] go as they're heading out um I want to just State this is the first opportunity now for public participation there's anyone that is interested in making any comments if we come to to the front sign in and right i s yes and I just state your name when you're at the Podi uh my name's Robert B Smith I live just um land um first of all I'd like to say that was about very good presentation and um quite proud of um all Ms and stuff that but I just wanted to just sort of you know I've been going through quite a few of these ones and um I I maybe I misunderstood um there was a study one of the recommendations um that this chat was asking uh to the council I think number five or number six was the study about the last um and I think it was in December that the council said or was it Kevin saying that um the study was uh you had the study and you going to look at it and then you were going to share that study uh with with us all um it's now March maybe I again maybe I misunderstood and that wasn't you know that's been delayed or something um but you know it's very you know important it was a recommendation among the 22 recommendations or something um but I I would like to you know just look at it and have input and uh about what the recommendations on the stations are going to be I don't know if that's you know do we have to study or where is it or and if I can just yeah and I just want to add one other thing I don't know if you um were familiar we also um have added that we are going to to um do additional Community engagement um our um Public Safety and fire committee will be going out into the public to have conversations within the community um so that will also be an opportunity coun like this just in community meetings by committee mayor do you mind I want to can I correct you and I apologize for doing that no so so the council has asked the Public Safety Committee which is an advisory committee that's a panel that's been in service for years to take a look at the issue of consolidation and location of of a site um for a consolida unit that that process has not started those meetings are public but it's an advisory committee it's not like this it's a group of volunteer citizens that are appointed by the council to comprise the Public Safety Committee so it's not going to be a question and answer situation it's for them to study the materials and go through a process that ultimately will lead to a recommendation for for the elected officials to consider on how to move forward um I think the first meeting I'm not sure 14 14 yeah it's it's posted on the website it's next week I think um with regard to the second um study that that was done this is a new governing body the idea was to allow them the time to have the information to get a better sense of it before people came up and started asking question after question after question and they didn't know the information or wanted to get a better sense of the total situation before it was given to the public Mr sebeck is is the new attorney and I think it's important for him to advise the Council on what if anything in the study as it relates to Public Safety and fire and emergency response should be redacted from public consumption because we don't want certain information for public safety reasons to get out potentially in that so that that process has to happen I think everybody's committed to the transparency of that report but we want to do it in a way where the council is fully understanding of what's happening and the attorney has an opportunity to make sure that nothing is in there that uh should be that could be released to the public where people with nefarious um intentions coulde bad people and that's all it's not has nothing to do with secret information that we want to withhold from the public that's not what that's about it's more about we don't release Public Safety information to people that potentially want to do Har and so that's where we are in the process and I think I think it would be fair to say um after the attorneys had a chance to look at it maybe the can make a definitive um decision to publish it the first study is on the website as you know right and so the idea is to get that second study on the website for people to review um in redacted form if anything needs to be redacted and so that's that's my long-winded answer does that make sense it does I just it's nice to get this information um and by the way having this committee Safety Committee um I think it's an excellent idea get the community involved and then they can you know you know good skilled people to do that that's excellent but I think it's very important this transparency as Kevin said is just tell us you know in December you know you said that you're going to do this I just this is like an update yes yes yes we're doing it not quite there the nice gentleman the lawyer is going to have a check over it you'll have a look at it but no in three months time if it's not I'll come up and ask the same question absolutely it'll be up before then I promise okay thanks all thank you thank you thank you [Music] um Ronnie M so I asked this question at the last meeting and I didn't get an answer these studies uh starting with the Rogers 2020 study as many of you know there is no Rogers anymore the company doesn't exist the email is dead I found a press release saying they were bought by some other company called lexicon or something like that one of our neighbors called lexicon they don't know anything about the study they don't have a copy of the study the study has po disappeared Into Thin Air so first why are we giving credibility to this study and backing up even further the land that I come from you go to RFP and everybody competes for a study how do we even find these people or this person or this friend or this brother or this nephew to tell us exactly what we wanted to hear because that's kind of what it's starting to sound like with a lack of transparency with this Rogers Company again I'm talking about the 20 20 study that all of those recommendations are were were were based on so I'd like a little bit more information about the Rogers study who who are they who are these people and why do they have any credibility then the second study that we were just talking about right now again who are these people did we go to out to RFP and select somebody to do this study or are they somebody's brother or somebody's uncle or somebody's cousin so who are these people and where did we find them those are my two questions thank you mayor I I don't know how far you want me to go okay right because when I talk I seem to get in trouble you know what I mean I have a lot to say okay um but I don't know when you want that to happen so maybe if we could just um start with answering the question about the company that did this study the Rogers Group is was comprised of professionals and Consultants with incredible experience they are nobody's brother there was no side deal there there was uh they were engaged through a proposal process and they conducted the study so there was nothing nefarious that was happening there pause there okay okay because there it could it be a possibility that maybe um I'm sorry the the individual who was asking the question I'm sorry your miss miss m um that U maybe do you have the correct information um with regards to you know who were searching there could be oh yeah I read 170 page study I did and we did all of our due diligence and we cannot find these people and the company doesn't exist anymore and the company that purchased them doesn't know anything about the study so I think without U Mr n you having to go into deeper conversation um maybe we can just um not off record but look into the matter a little bit more clearly there's nothing to look into okay just in terms there's nothing to look into the inform the information has been wait a minute please stay at the podium if you would like to discuss please come back up to the podium so we could hear you I would like more information come as you have to be on the record sure okay you know I just want to to that perhaps there could be something that is missing in terms of the communication from what you are researching and from what the manager has access to but first of all I apologize I would have had all of the information here in front of me we're in the middle of doing a budget so it was not prepared for that type of information you're going to hate that I'm gonna say that on my blog but it has the information on there right um and definitively definitively from my mouth to all of your ears there was no want for a conclusion to be reached if the volunteer fire companies who were providing service to our town for more than a hundred years were firing on all cylinders and providing the level of service that we needed and expected in terms of a public safety response there would be nothing happening right now we would be going on but around the country volunteer firemen have decreased in numbers significantly and our town is no different no so in 2020 when that study was conducted it was conducted because the volunteer fire forces were unable to meet the needs of the community so we wanted to do a study to determine what we need to do to better provide Public Safety fire response to our community and that's the Genesis of it and wherever those experts took us in their conclusions we were going to review consider discuss and make a plan moving forward correct there's no personal gain by a combined fire response what it is is a responsible government officials elected and administrative seeing a need addressing a need based upon data and information that's reliable and that we have in order to move forward with the proper response and we have been doing that systematically since 2017 this new company is made up of experts Consultants they exist they are aware of the 2020 study they are aware of the study that you all have y they exist they could be contacted um and I guess once you all get to that point where you want to release the study we can put it on the website and then all the residents could have that information okay my concern just the U the accusation that the company that we're using is for some reason um nonexistent or that there's question about the company that we're using and I think that's a matter that can be clearly um rectified just you know in terms of that's why I don't know you know so the 2020 study you can do your own due diligence just try to figure out who the Rogers Group is and contact them you're not going to get very far we don't know anything about them we don't know who they are we don't know if they exist and the company that acquired them doesn't know anything about the study that just seems a little bit odd and you can talk all you want about volunteer firefighters and necessities and whatever but that's not the question that I'm asking right now the question that I'm asking right now is who's the Rogers Group what credibility do they have and what was the process or the RFP process or whatever process you went through and hiring them that's the question that I'm asking a second time and then I have the same question for the second study that we're talking about who are these people where do they come from what credibility do they have MH you know what was the bidding process I I'd like that information as a Township president well thank you for your question and we'll look at thank you okay hello I'm Vicky Russa I sent to the Township Clerk I'm not the best with technology so I just want to make sure that you got my video that I sent I did you did were you able to distribute it I was okay um any comments or opinions or not at this time I'm assuming okay well I just happy that you saw it I apologize for the language if you heard language which I'm sure you did but as you can see my concern is just the traffic and the safety we couldn't even get into the neighborhood and I think you know in Lawrence based on what you saw with the fire department and ENT we are a very big Community focused place so to have a real Community Center would be lovely but I just don't think logistically uh here would be the best and also another thing I just want to say listening to everything my husband is from this Township his father and mother I think their house is like 70 or 80 years old they've been here forever um the russos and um they had all these you always had slackwood lawrenville and uh the Lawrence Township and everybody liked having those little fire companies near them it was a sense of security so I don't know whether or not a one place is a great idea or not I I don't think so but I think everybody's used to the multiple locations and uh they feel secure about that thank you for your comments um we haven't made any decisions yet the future so we appreciate your comments mayor do I do have a comment about I did I did review the video and it's important for everybody to understand the video was about the holiday tree lighting that happened and unfortunately leading up to the holiday tree lighting one night there was no ability to park on the grassy area for the cars so um so for the visitors that were celebrating Community for one night were um assisted parking along West long drive one night it happens throughout the community events that we celebrate here in town people gather and at times that's what happens and and there there was a comment in the video um I want to be very very clear if if there is a facility that exists here it would be a municipal facility filled only with Municipal Employees much like the police department there will be no weddings there will be no uh events to raise money because it's a professional building filled with with professional firemen EMTs and 911 dispatch if that's something that happens but there will be no events there will be no weddings there will not be consistent hundreds of vehicles it's one night that we celebrate Community here at the municipality and everybody L it okay I'm back well like well two things um one thing is there's more than one night usually there's that um the night out the safety night we know people hanging out uh parking there too I've never seen people park on the grass so don't know what that is uh for this one night a year but um it is possible that I was misunderstanding that at one meeting that they said that they wanted it to be a community center as well so okay well that's not the C you did hear okay so that's what I heard but if that's not the case then um I can absolutely assure you 100% that there will not be a community center at the fire department facility if one should one be made that would never happen on that location at at at any location well that right now I mean the the one in Lawrence I mean they used to have tricky tra lawrenville used to have the tricky tra and the Bingos you're talking about halls for Volunteer Fire companies is much different than a community center so that's that's totally different no I get that I get that but I'm talking that if you're planning on having a hall in this fire department that would affect the traffic absolutely and the reason for sending that was because I sat here at those meetings and heard Community Center I just didn't like Dre that up okay but okay thank you for your comments we've heard you and um I don't um yeah professional buildings but not okay right so we're closing off the um public comments for this time we do not have any uh review or revisions to the agenda and there are no adoptions of minutes from a previous meeting and awarding and or rejection of bids we don't have any re this us to the introduction of ordinances um if I could ask councilman Bob would you like to make the motion name check thank you mayor all right I guess I'll I'll take this I'd like to make a motion to introduce 10A ordinance number 2 465-2484 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget Appropriations limit limits and to establish a c bank for the township of Lawrence County IM Mercer njsa 40 a 4- 45 14 I second okay is there any um Mr nnsky would you like to provide an explanation yeah this this is a standard budget practice among municipalities it allows Miss municipalities to create a bank uh uh of of uh potential funds that could potentially be used in the next two budgets if necessary um and the amount that would be involved in this would be $55,200 uh 22 and it's not money it's not tax it's not real it is space and time potential to utilize should we need it and you know if we don't need it it's expired okay okay may I ask a question M um Mr manager what would be an expense that would go against this money like for example so it's a cap toward it's a cap towards the municipal budget so if we have a budget that has a shortfall in it so it's not towards specific things that cap can be used that cap Bank funds could be used to manage the municipal budget and if it's necessary we would be advised to buy item what it would be spent for yes yes okay thank you you P you want to me to expound on it I think we're good good yeah we're good okay we have a motion in a second Madame clerk if you could call the RO please Jamie Mr bobit yes Mr Mr Kaki yes M Perry yes Mr Ryan Yes mayor farmer yes okay um now councilman bar if you'd like to make a motion I'll keep it rolling I'd like to make a motion to move 11a ordinance number 2463 -24 ordinance amending ordinance number 2375 D20 providing certain job classifications and providing compensation for the Municipal Employees of the township of Lawrence County of Mercer state of New Jersey Chief of Police salary for 2024 through 2027 I second um this ordinance is open to the public for participation of resing public participation mayor may I ask one question of the manager do um could you provide us with a comparison report I'm just curious as far as how we stand versus other yeah I have that I will by the thank you m CL call we have to close the public I'm closing public participation 11 Mr B yes Mr Kaki yes M carry yes Mr Ryan Yes mayor farmer yes mayor I'd like to make a motion to move 11b ordinance number 2464 d24 ordinance amending ordinance number 2456-20 salary ordinance of the township of Lawrence unclassified Andor exempt seasonal emergency non-union employees for 2023 2025 adding Grant coordinator stien for 2024 and 2025 I second okay is there any public participation seeing none I close public participation Madam cler if you could please call the role Mr B yes Mr Kaki yes M Perry yes Mr Ryan Yes mayor farmer yes it's a 12 the manager may I yes I'd like to table um 12b please on that may may I ask why um it's incomplete we didn't we asked for like table of organizations and stuff like that we give all that I second that I would like to review more information on it before we go ahead and was in a big [Music] complete table mayor under mayor if I may yes motion to the table under Robert's Rules is non debatable you need need a vote up or down and then well I'd like to be heard yes I'd like to know what information is doing o see here's the thing here's the thing um a lot of work goes into the preparation of the municipal budget we provided a recommended budget that only deviated by the uh grants that we received so there's no change since when we first handed you the recommended budget except for the addition of some grants and that's it and we have waited for questions from Council I've heard from Mr bobit I heard from Mr Kaki um mayor we we've talked about at the about the budget and last week when I heard nothing for anybody for a very long period of time I sent a communication to everybody saying I'm concerned if you have questions please ask the questions so Peter and I can have confidence that we're meeting the timeline that you all set for us for the introduction we are Guided by state budgetary laws we are set on a schedule and to undo this schedule because of some information that you think is due now tonight is I have to say just disappointing and upsetting we we need to be better than that in terms of how we function I I haven't received a single email Mr Ryan from you or a phone call about the budget at all you asked for what you say a table of organization that was provided to you and there's a record of it being provided to you so you you routinely every year ask for a list of all the salaries correct right the so all of the salaries corre so that's all information that's available to you so if you could just for the council's purposes identify exactly what is causing the tabling of the most major document that we do um and on under a timeline that we have to meet and over a period of time that there was so much opportunity to converse to exchange information so when we're out in public we're ready to go and it's happened every single year we have been ready to go this year due to the silence all of a sudden I'm fighting a table to motion this critical document and so if if you could just very specifically so the council can when they vote uh can understand what the information is because I'm going to ask the council to take to to take this seriously and vote to introduce this budget to keep us on the timeline there's still a public hearing that has to take place on April 2nd okay we can keep ourselves on track and have that public hearing as it's going to be advertised um so so we can do the work that we're that you're elected to do and that I've been appointed to do and that Pete spends a lot of time preparing for us so what's the information the information is line by line jobs salaries titles how does that factor into the missile budget because the recommended budget is is a I'm not here to argue with I'm ask you I want a table but we are talking and we should talk this through and and we're all about transparency here absolutely AB so the recommended budget that you were provided was a line by line budget yes and it and it provides all of the salaries that that information exists when within all of the information that you've been provided okay can I just um make an observation so tonight we we heard from the uh from Mr Oakley that was the last presentation for the budget is it um unreasonable to want to digest all of the information that we've heard from all of the lead all of the directors to you know we've just finished the one presentation this evening the final one to be fair that was a presentation of the work that's done by his department and and but the budget information you have all had you've had for a long time I may mayor may I have I have a few questions if I may while we're talking this through one I'm trying to understand councilman R the councilman's um why he needs to have a table of organization when we have a municipal budget that is funded at a 0% tax increase that addresses everything that the the municipal manager sees as the day-to-day operations that apparently we can fund fully through grant money and the tax levy and other another uh fees and everything else I'm just trying to understand why when it was the the the materials were given to us in January and it is now March why this came up now without any any email any call any conversation until now at the last minute I just find it I find it surprising I find it I find it perplexing that we're going to hold up a budget that as as we saw with the the emergency services tonight provides valuable services to the public and our residents we're going to hold up a budget and potentially be in trouble with DCA because a table organization in which in which in which Council doesn't really have a say in the hiring and firing of those people but but Councilman Ryan has a right to request information when and how he wishes I mean that's part of his Ro correct and I got a second on it he has a right to that okay all right I mean we we'll I guess we'll we'll see what the the motion table turns out to be um so I have a question if we proceed with this at the next meeting does that completely throw us off the timeline because I thought we had more time than that we have till May correct so if you could please come thank you councel so Arthur please correct me if I'm wrong but I think we would need to do schedule an emergency meeting for this week sometime to redo the resolution that was adopted that um that changes the timeline to be compliant with the local Finance notice of the dates that they have set um I think maybe then we'd have to do resol an emergency meeting to set the resolution to to do the introduction at the next meeting uh there's a there's a difference in time that's set by Statute I think it's at least 28 days and then we would have to have the adoption these are last these are the last options the next meeting we'd have to do the introduction and then we'd have to do the adoption the second meeting of April that would be April 19th yes is that right calendar that that would be the timeline is that the date well I believe you I believe you have under the uh the revised uh deadline line extension that uh local government services came out with you have uh uh through April 30th to adopt the so the next closest somewhere somewhere on that local Finance Finance notice is in asteris that or the the closest meeting or the closest meeting were the next regularly scheduled meeting of the governing body which would be that late April meeting the 16th right and it's actually April 15 no I'm sorry April that would be the that would be the timeline that would be the new timeline any filings with the DCA required this in this in the that resolution the the emergency meeting that would reopt a change to the resolution because that they look at that timeline and did did they provide a response no it would be it would be sent with the introduced budget so I want to just be clear so Councilman Ryan if the information that you're requesting which is a breakdown line by line of salaries Personnel information if that was provided to you you would be satisfied and you could proceed and yes with the job and don't want the employees with the job and their their title job description yes a job description as well 200 M with with all due respect that should have absolutely no impact on on the introduction of the municipal budget I I can get that to him tomorrow okay I can get him to it tomorrow we know what the total total salaries are you you you guys as an elected officials you don't look at positions and say they they they shouldn't be there and they shouldn't get that much money that's not your role the role is the total salaries as Appropriations under our budget so the breakdown I again if you could get that tomorrow and that would satisfy councilman Ryan's request yes then we could proceed this evening or would we would you be in agreement with that yes mayor I think we have a solution right okay we still have a motion on the table okay you have a motion moved and seconded so you you got to vote to votee or withdraw it yeah okay all right but we we've had the discussion everyone is clear and understands what we're requesting and asking for well the the motion the motion is straightforward the motion isly to to table 12 excuse me 12b 12b uh that's all you're voting on yeah that's all we're voting on but I just want to get a consensus from everyone that we're on the same page okay okay okay am I clear every voting on to table that's all that's what we're voting on that is the motion that is on the board okay so I already have a second so I'm going to call the R thank you madam clerk Mr bobin no Mr Kaki no Miss Perry yes Mr Ryan providing that we can get the information tomorrow is that what yes that's what has been agreed upon correct so I'm vote now V mad Madam clerk I just need a clarification for that my vote will be no if we are provided that information tomorrow thank you Council per okay so she withdraw her so she's now no yes correct we're going to do a motion to introduce the budget can I finish the roll call okay Mr Ryan you said no yes ma'am mayor farmer no motion fails okay now who can have a motion to introduce theion yeah before the motion is made I just have to say this on the record this is the introduction of the municipal budget for the township of Wars for the uh year 2024 it represents a no tax increase a no Cent budget um for a total Municipal budget of $60 million 72022 of4 uh if if approved tonight a hearing on the budget and tax resolution will be held at at the municipal building on April 2nd 6:30 p.m. um to to discuss the budget further and with this with that I ask that there be a motion to introduce the municipal budget 12 Bob if you could please give it a try mayor I'd like to introduce 12b number 136 authorizing the introduction of the municipal budget of 2024 second Madam clerk motion second call the RO Please Mr bobit yes Mr Kaki yes Miss Perry yes Mr Ryan Yes mayor Farm yes thank you council members for working together on this appreciate we have now the attorneys report May mayor May point of order 12 okay be with me if we can have a motion now to move the next item on the agenda councilman I'll take a swing you're doing good I'd like to make a motion to introduce 12a number 135 authorizing open space tax rate for 2024 do I have a May second oh okay this is just for informational purposes only this doesn't stablish a tax rate tax rate's already established this is an informational um docum okay I'm sorry madam CL just a motion you did get the second I do it was it was missar missar okay just wanted to make sure Mr Bob yes Mr Kaki yes M Perry yes Mr Ryan Yes mayor F yes not the attorney's report okay uh I have nothing uh other than I have in process a uh litigation report will be a report that I will have for the next meeting um I did have other information but it was well covered involving the Elsa litigation which I looked into I have nothing to add to that uh and uh uh as I say we'll have a uh caseby case report I think we should probably do that in executive executive session okay so Madam Clark will will do that in ex session at the at the next meeting thank you thank you that brings us to the CL report uh just um March just a reminder that March 25th is the cut off for um County committee petitions nominating petitions um there is a powers and duties uh class for Council to take I've already registered you may if any uh other members of council uh would like to attend just let me know and I'll register you as well when is the date for that April 13th and it's online they have a April 3rd and a April 13th thank you do we have any unfinished business I don't believe so mayor I have one quick question since we are being sticklers for process I want to ask in our mou that was discussed on the special meeting of January 5th we spoke of this meeting and the next meeting as going line by line over the budget is that still the case or are we skipping that I just want to be clear on that now so that we don't have any issues come our next meeting we can plan for it is there any discussion on that um I think it's really just a question whether we're doing it or not I'm say yes I would agree well then what why didn't we do it today at this meeting when it was in theou to discuss at this meeting I did I did not see it on the agenda so I I just I thought we had had skipped it skipped it you asked a question so um the answer is yes we completed the last presentation this evening okay all right than since M um councilman Baba can you repeat that since our manager was not in the didn't know that we're oh I I was just asking that in our mou from the special meeting of January 5th we had a timeline for the budget and not wanting to throw it off anymore with any unexpected surprises I asked if we were going to do a line by line review of the budget um to which the mayor say yes but that we delayed it from having it at this meeting to go through the beginning of the half of the budget because I guess we were waiting on on on the last presentation before we could go so I don't I I leave it to the mayor to to to guide us forward all right moving along to new business um we've met and we've made two additional appointments we enter them would you like to um enter the Council on the appointment for a Committee Member a volunteer for um the Public Safety Committee we have U voted unanimously to um extended the invitation to Chris lard you have a motion yes Councilman Ryan Madam clerk if you could call the role Please Mr Bob obain Mr Kaki no M Perry yes Mr Ryan Yes mayor farmer yes mayor I think we have a uh interest in uh appointing a position on zoning board there was only one application on that and a motion to approve uh Andrew with uh s k a for the zoning board okay we get a second thank you can we get a um second Council I second Madam clerk if you could call the RO Please Mr pet again because I I'm I apologize for missing the interviews I'll have to abstain from this one as well thank Mr Kaki yes Miss Perry yes Mr Ryan Yes mayor prer yes this this brings us to the second opportunity for public participation there's a 3 minute limit if you would come to the [Laughter] [Applause] prum Sylvia kovas good evening um I would just like to thank all of the department heads I've attended every meeting with all the presentations and they were very informative and um me and as the resident I would like to thank all of you for all the hard work you put in to make our Township wonderful and very pleasant to live in um public uh public works very very important uh part of our community um we live in an area where we get there's a lot of green areas and every time we call if there is uh some littering issue of whatever Public Work shows up immediately cleans it up and we truly truly appreciate the graffiti at the end of the cherry tree line um constantly reappearing there and Public Works immediately shows up and um uh covers it up for us and we appreciate it course engineering Police Department absolutely wonderful uh fire department all of the uner firefighters um as in today's tonight's presentation we can really truly appreciate um how big part of the fire department of lawence Township they are so we truly appreciate it and um thank you for all the hard work to the council council members for to the township Council for all the hours you put in to put up that budget so thank you very much for all your hard work seeing no additional public participation we'll close up on Section 18 resolution have a motion if there's no objection I'd like to move 18 A1 through H6 in the block thank you do I have a second second with a motion in second Madam CL if you could call the Mr Bob yes Mr Kaki yes Miss Perry yes Mr Ryan Yes mayor farmer yes it brings us to Grant you can have another motion you did everything okay you did that all right I don't know why I was going to six oh that six okay um brings us to council initiatives and L on yours do we have any okay this time written communication Madam clerk there's no written communication and we are no not in need of an executive session for this evening we are are yes we do may I make motion to go into executive session okay thank you thank you okay thank you everyone for your attendance [Music] might have gotten here an hour and a half late but I got here hey you're here right better late than never well I priv oh are you do came back from no no I'm saying I don't know that [Music] in your own time right at your own reliable dependable and they're there and I hope you still doing it ask doing she does well we cels Celtics and Sixers games all right I'm gonna go to the Le I'll be back [Music] bu last I [Music] again yeah it's in it's been approved it's in the Federal grant system at this point so it's just it's making through the process