good evening this is a meeting of the township committee February 5th 2024 the notice requirements provided for in the open public meetings act have been satisfied notice of this meeting was properly given by transmission to the asur park press the two of times and by posting at the Middletown Township Municipal Building and filing with the Township Clerk all on January 11 2024 um committee man Clark here commit woman crafts here and S brino here Deputy Mayor hell here mayor Perry here please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible at this time I'd like to ask for a moment of silence to honor our troops serving worldwide defending our constitutions freedoms and way of life thank you IDI real quick yes just if everyone could just stand for one quick second um and just honoring the three Americans that were killed uh obviously the growing conflict in the Middle East has now unfortunately claimed the lives of three three more Americans one of them being a New Jersey resident from Willingboro so if we could all just pause for a brief second all right thank you all right thank you Heidi at this time uh we have introduction of proposed ordinances our first ordinance 2024 3404 an ordinance amending sections 24-9 and 24-12 of the code of the township of Middletown expanding fire lane and Zone enforcement authority to the please motion to introduce second comman Clark yes committee woman Katz yes commit sen brino yes Deputy Mayor hell yes mayor Perry yes motion carries a pass this ordinance on first reading with a public hearing to be held February 20th 2024 at this time we have uh proposed ordinance 202 24- 3405 an ordinance authorizing and accepting subdivision D to effect lot line adjustment between block 502 lot 5 and block 502 Lot 2 motion to introduce second committee Clark yes committee woman Katz yes committee sen brino yes Deputy Mayor hiel yes mayor Perry yes motion carries to pass this ordinance on first reading uh with a public hearing to be held February 20th 2024 at this time we have a few Proclamation for the record we have a proclamation recognizing January 28th through February 3rd 2024 as Catholic schools week in the township of middl toown and Proclamation recognizing January 22 through 26 2024 as the great kindness challenge in the township of Middletown we have a proclamation recognizing February 2024's Black History Month in the township of Middletown and a proclamation recognizing February 2024 as Children's Dental Health month in the township of Middletown at this time I'd like like to ask the township committee to adopt a consent agenda which would include resolutions 24-50 through 24- 83 motion to approve the consent agenda second commean Clark yes committee woman Katz yes commean sen bino yes Deputy Mayor hell yes mayor Perry yes motion carries to adopt consent agenda at this time we have the township committee acting as the ABC issuing authority we have resolution 2484 a resolution authorizing the renewal of liquor license with a 1218 special ruling for the 2022-2023 uh licensing term and a 12.39 special ruling for the 21-22 and 22-23 and the 23-24 licensing terms motion to approve second commit Clark yes committee woman Katz yes minman s bro yes depy mayor hell yes mayor Perry yes motion carries to pass this resolution or adopt resolution 24- 84 at this time we have agenda items for the next regular meeting which will include proclamations and certificates approval of minutes public hearing of proposed ordinances introduction of proposed ordinances and a consent agenda we have no discussion items for tonight so we have Township committee comments all right committee Clark Seno nothing for this evening mayor thank you woman CR I'll have mine also mayor until next time thank you Deputy Mayor me as well thank you all right um welcome everybody glad I just want to say a quick welcome to Pastor Frank thank you for being here from the Clinton Chapel uh we had a great meeting earlier today if you don't know it off on Red Hill Road 210 I think right 210 Red Hill Road uh so just wanted to welcome you and thank you for your time earlier today um all right I'll open up for public comment um any member of the public wish to make a public comment may do so this as that you state your name and address for the record when you um have four one minute left I'll let you know uh I'll signal to you that you have one minute remaining um with that being said any member of the public wishing to make a a public comment how you doing sir hi your name my name is Nick stov I live at 46 Fish Hawk Drive and the reason I'm here is because we've noticed that uh when the Sun goes down it gets Mighty dark on our street and I think our street and maybe others in the town need more lights now uh couple of weeks ago anyway I brought this up with mayor Perry on the side here and the mayor mentioned that there's a plan of foot to replace the lights with light emitting diodes which of course would give more light um and then he asked his assistant to help me uh track down some more details on that we couldn't find anyone who was actually working on putting in more LED lights so um just saying that's what I found I'm not saying that's the case but uh certainly I think needs to be looked into uh and um while I was um waiting uh to bring this up again I decided to do a little research at our library our beautiful Middletown Library to uh see if this had been brought up before there was any record of this I couldn't find any of that but I did find a report uh issued in 2010 an energy report issued by ruers I guess suggesting how we could save energy and I think part of that plan was to put in these light emitting dial um now putting in the lighted meing diodes is a great idea I'm all for it uh but even if that was the case I think at least in our street and some of the other streets I've been on the lights are just too far apart there's too much darkness in between we have no sidewalks on our street so if someone's going for a walk they're walking on the street uh it might be a little dangerous if a car comes along and may not see them uh in you know initially there are also some places where the asphalt is broken up so it's easy to trip you know if you don't see that also uh one thing we've noticed is that we have guests coming over for dinner and almost all of them say wow how dark your street is and that to me suggests that they're coming from surrounding neighborhoods that are better lit and uh I I think maybe we should follow suit in that regard as well uh so in summary what I'm really asking for is perhaps uh a report on where we stand on that energy plan have we done what's was recommended or we halfway through or is more on uh being planned uh also an evaluation of the need for more street lights and I noticed that there's a master plan review coming up so this might be a these two things might be topics for for that as well yeah so well thank thank you very much I know we um I know we've been talking quite a bit about uh we've been going back and forth uh and I know that we so jcpnl owns all these lights we pay for them um but uh we pay for the the lights there's a small fee that we've already committed on your street as you've requested to pay to have a light put in um now it's just simply a matter of jcpnl installing that light because they're owned by the utility company s i I complained about one light that was flickering no no no you with regard to with regard to your aspect of increasing the lights near your uh on your drive on your stre yeah yeah um the the the idea was that jcpnl now is taking a look at your street in particular your neighborhood okay to determine whether or not there needs to be any recommendation for additional lights to be placed with the understanding that the um uh I'm forgetting the technical term the I want to say candle light ratio lumens or illumination whether or not that that uh tracks throughout your entire neighborhood there okay so that that's was there a timeline on this any Mar can get you a timeline on on what jcpnl uh where where they stand on it I I know we made the request probably a week or two ago oh oh okay so I know that we've been talking since basically the end of last year right um you know December of last year about this so right um I know that we went and had one of our police officers go out and check the the lighting of of the area as to whether any of them were out at that at that time during the night um and whether or not there was some type of sense of overall Darkness compared to other areas on the on the uh on your block right so um but Laura we'll be happy to get you a timeline from Frank who who works for jcpnl and is our our contact there I see okay and uh what about the energy uh audit or the energy proposal from 2010 that was a Rucker study correct yes okay um I don't know if we finished that with their recommendations or you know just where we stand uh I I'll be happy to take a look and and let you know uh what what was if anything implemented from that study that they did for the entire state of New Jersey for no this was just from Middletown it was yeah okay I didn't know that yeah a little bit predates me yeah right it's a while back yeah install uh lighting changes in the old town hall so this affected the Old Town Hall mostly in Johnson Gill at that time oh okay yeah well these lights are better in this building anyway well yeah we don't all look like we have jaundice in this in this uh in this building as opposed to the old one right Don sir I just have one question is is your neighborhood uh is it underground utilities or you have t no that's all poles okay yeah makes a lot easier that way yeah of course yeah thank you thank you sir all right any other member of the public wishing to make a public com yep Richie mayor real quick just on on that comment about the energy audit the street lights since they're owned by jcpnl are actually we don't pay an electric bill for them it's up to the jcpnl to determine whether they upgrade them no we we pay for their power oh I know but we pay it at a discounted rate to rent the law correct correct it's up to them to determine when they want to upgrade it based on their maintenance schedules and everything else it's not something that we necessarily control I think like 75 polls were actually just completed last month in the linkof section of town so not too far from you where where they're working their way up with the LED sorry Rich yes uh Richard Ison 812 Tilton Place Middletown I'm the president of bord cood coop I just come up here to inform Middletown Township uh committee man here that the the bord seafood C is not for any Redevelopment down bord it will destroy that fishing industry from Maine to Florida anytime they redevelop anything by a fishing port the fishing port's gone that fishing port dates back to lappi Indians it's always been a fishing port and it's going to be destroyed with any building down there that's why when we bought that piece of property we took that 9 Acres Long size and put it deep restriction in it so no development over there of condos any condos come into that area it' be an end of us that's why we' put that deed restriction in there as far as over on the county property the county took that Pro property with the taxpayers money now it wants to turn it over to a developer come in there and make a pile of money and go up the road and leave us with that Belford's had enough Do's been destroyed first we got the sore plant then we got the Leaf company post leavea compost stuck so bad the last two days people are complaining about it it stinks down there we don't need that I don't know how they could take our tax dollars buy a piece of property and then bring the developer in they're going to build it up they don't need no more parking they got plenty of parking over there if they get away with that they'll go right down at Coast Building condos destroy the whole area we're 100% against it thank you thanks sir and one more thing mayor yes sir these seats out here are disgrace to come here and sit here in this seat them seats are nice and comfortable up there but the taxpayer deserve better than this might as put a bench over a piece of wood it's all it is put something in there it's a little comfortable people can't sit here for a couple hours if I had to come up here and sit here for a couple hours I won't be able to stand up I would love to put chairs out there unfortunately the administrative office of the courts doesn't allow chair put a better bench the ones we had in the Old Courthouse was better than these These are terrible if you think they're good rip all them out put them back there I live the seat sitting them seats thank you okay any other member of the public wishing to make a public comment Don come on down great my name's Don Watson living at one Collinson Drive in new Mammoth um this gentleman talking about the lights as a good idea um my neighborhood could use some lights too um I noticed in my neighborhood there's only lights at the intersections if you get a stretch a road with no intersections there's no lights so it gets dark so I think some type of a survey needs to be done because I'm sure it's not just my neighborhood it's um the whole town um just thought i' add a couple couple pennies to that um it's too bad Ted's not here tonight um he did send a street sweeper down my street it must have been the first street but um the new one what's that the new one the new one yeah um but the day he sent it down um was garbage collection day so we it in and out bobin and weaving we'll send it back what's say we'll send it back well just last week it came through my neighborhood again it didn't do my street because it already did my street twice but it did the other streets and it was not garbage collection day so write that down Jim if they're going to use the street sweeper make sure it's not recycling or garbage collection day great so we can only use it two days a week no you can use it three days a week every other week yeah so two days every other week three days every other week yeah so I said three days every other week and two days on the oppet exactly so you got five days to use it in half the town well the whole town anyway um I had to go out and take a video of it too just to because it was the first run but um glad to see the street sweeper come down in the middle of the winter because I was always told that after Thanksgiving street sweepers don't run anymore because they got water in them and the water lines freeze so now we know street sweepers can run in the winter time well it's what happens when you buy a new one rather than one that's 25 30 years old you just drained the lines at the end of the day well I don't pretend to be a mechanic no they're done I wouldn't want you to you don't want me to we'd be buying Street speakers every other week I'll go I'll go work on your your car add to this that's all I got thank you okay all right thanks Don yes sir any other member of the public wishing to make a public comment John come on down John spell 91 Burlington um so I had a question about the uh the street signs on the exit of Tindle Road and uh 35 um so I'm part of the uh St Mary's parish council and uh we just we were just kind of we had a meeting like probably about a month ago I was talking to Father Jeff about kind of the when you take that right on 35 to go to Middletown North you have signs that say um like North uh the train station I think the Presbyterian Church has a sign I think the Reformed Church has a sign so we were just kind of talking about if uh same Mary's parish could get permission to put up a sign kind of showing what which direction where to go to it uh like one for the elementary school and church and the other for the uh the shrine the same marage Chapel so I I just don't I don't know where to go to kind of ask that question um I'm I'm assuming we would probably need the township committee approval to put a sign up um I don't I don't know if you'll need Township committee approval um it may just be it has to fit some certain criteria I'm not aware of of what that may be but we can go back and take a look at what's existing out there and just make sure that we're following the same process for everybody else okay but uh yeah you're talking about where that says like Lion Country yeah yeah yeah yeah okay I got it yeah because that there used to be two moderate a signs there and obviously it's they forn down now CU but we were just thinking maybe we could try to replace it and obviously the church would pay for it but sure um no problem something we can look into and I'll call you all right all right that's good thanks you got it any other member of the public wishing to make a public comment seeing no member of the public stepping forward move to close the public portion and adjourn second yes committee woman CRZ yes commit bro yes Deputy Mayor IO yes mayor Perry yes to adjourn have a great day everybody great night