combined agenda and regular meeting of the Monroe Township Council for those who may be wondering our council president uh Miriam Cohen is out six this evening so as vice president I will uh take control our first order of business of course will be salute to the flag please rise 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 with liberty and justice for all thank you madam clerk may I have a roll call please councilwoman Miriam Cohen let the record show that councilwoman Cohen is absent this evening councilman Charles toiro here councilman Michael marel here councilwoman Rupa P seagull here councilman Terence vanzora here may we read the sunshine one to the record in accordance with the open public meetings act it is hereby announced and shall be entered into the minutes of this meeting that adequate notice has been provided by the following one posted on the bulletin boards within the municipal building on December 29th 2023 and remains posted at that location for public inspection two printed in the home News Tribune and the cranberry press on December 29th 2023 three posted on the Monroe Township website and four sent to those individuals who have requested personal notice in accordance with chapter three section 17 of the Monroe Township Code public comment shall be limited to 5 minutes unless further time is granted by the council vice president at this time I will be asking the council for consideration of the following resolution of appointment a three-year term from February 1st 2024 until February 1st 2027 under resolution r224 04 4 6 which is a resolution appointing Christine Robbins as municipal clerk for the township of Monroe some of you probably know many of you know Christine Robbins was hired by Monroe Township back on May 18th 2015 as a deputy Township Clerk she came to us from Englishtown where she had worked since 2004 ending her career there as a deputy clerk she received her certified Municipal registar certification in January of 2007 and her registered municipal clerk certification in October of 2009 so I would need a a motion from one of our council members please mve I hear a second second okay um can I have a roll call vote please all those in favor say I I I it's a roll call roll call roll call oh never mind councilman Charles depiro definitely yes thank you councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes motion carried congratulations we will now have uh Christine sworn in um by Tanya Panucci who will be the she's going be she's our Deputy who is our Deputy CL okay um holding the Bible will be her mother Moren accompanied by her husband Brian her son Alex and daughter Allison also in attendance at tonight's meeting are her best friends Lori and Barbara her niece Ava and her neew Angelo so we're going to go ahead and have that taken care of take pict we need know you bible holders and guys come on up there microphone sure you want to get out picture Okay Christine left hand down right hand up ready repeat after me I Christine Robbins I Christine Robbins do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the state of New Jersey and the state of New Jersey that I will bear true faith that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and to and the governments established in the United States and in this state and in this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully impartially impartially and justly perform and justly perform all the duties of municipal clerk all the duties of municipal clerk in the township of Monroe in the township of Monroe according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations thank you right at this point I would ask any of our council members who would like to say a word or two to go ahead I'll start on my left with uh Rupa seagull Christine I wish you all the best welcome to your first official meeting I look forward to working with you through the years thank you Charlie yes I just want to say um you know you you do a great job as a deputy I know you're going to do a great job as a Township Clerk just continue the great work your office has always put out and good luck Ser Mike I just like to congratulate you um could we couldn't have found someone better I'm sure thank you so much and Christine I'll say that my one and only time that I've had the opportunity to sit in this chair and chare one of these meetings I get Christine on her first day so I'm very honored and and I wish you nothing but the best and I'm sure you'll do wonderful so we're going to take about a two-minute break just so we can take some pictures with the family and then we'll get back to regular business at the next order of business will be uh uh a public hearing on application for oh let me backtrack a second a proclamation first American Heart month for February 2024 and then we will go on to a public hearing an application for Green Acres uh funding and Mr rot I wonder if you could help us out with this soun this is for 2024 jakea playground funding application and also 2024 Park development application which I believe pertains to a program over at the community gardens am I right yes that's correct it's actually two two Green Acre Grand applications uh and it's uh for the Monroe Township community garden park um uh in in 2022 the master plan was updated the open space element of the master plan included recommendations for Parks and Recreation the township did an extensive public outreach program they received uh new uh they received extensive public input citing the need for recreation facilities in the southwest quadrant of the township uh the master plan made recommendations at the Township community garden uh be for active Recreation and additional parking areas um my office prepared a conceptual layout plan and environmental impact assessment for the park which the council has copies of and I I believe somewhere distributed out to the public it's also on the website the township website as well um so my office prepared the conceptual layout of the park for an inclusive playground restrooms additional parking and an expansion of the existing community garden the concept also includes a sidewalk connection to Woodrose Lane in the Arbor's development as well as a shade structure and additional Landscaping the project will be designed and constructed in compliance with current NJ doot storm water management rules and no environmentally sensitive areas will be disturbed tree clearing will be minimized and a tree replacement plan will be provided the project cost is estimated at $2,876 th000 uh the two Grant requests under the Jake's law we're seeking 75% of that amount and under the green acers Parks development the remaining 25% and if the council has any questions I'll take some questions at this time any council members with questions and so at this time uh uh this is something subject to a public hearing do I hear a motion open it to the public motion any second second second Mr marel so um all those in favor I I I any members of the public wish to be heard on the application for Green Acres funding Mr busman welcome welcome welcome welcome nice to see you Gary bus s monar road obviously Monroe New Jersey welcome um as a member of the garden being its uh a Treasurer and also a member of the Parks and Recreation board I commend the town for seeking this grant uh there are no parks in the southern part of the municipality this is going to be a wonderful Improvement it's uh something that the community will uh appreciate and enjoy for a very long period of of time thank you so much for obtaining These funds thank you anyone else come up come up know the drill name and address for the record Lucio Panos 128 seal Ander Plaza in this is there going to be like a compost pile is there going to be a compost pile uh council president the compost pile is part of the gardens they currently have a compost pile and that's not being disturbed as part of this project not Disturbed I in addition to it I'm a big compost I'm work compost pardon you want more comp yes I don't know if that's part of it certainly something we can take a look at but again that is part of what the garden uh Community is doing out there now they are composting they have a a really good program um as well I just want more all right thank you thank you for your input anybody else want to be heard okay hearing no one else uh can I have a motion to close the public portion motion second second second Charlie those in favor I moving along on the agenda we now have ordinances for a second reading at February 20 at February 5th 2024 regular meeting would you to read them yes I will I will ask our new clerk to do the honor of reading these uh ordinances for second reading ordinance 01 20241 supervisory Personnel 2024 salary and wage ordinance for Monroe Township middlex County ordinance 01 20242 Bond ordinance of the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey appropriating 2.5 million expected to be received as a grant from the state of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to supplement the 2 million appropriated by Bond ordinance 06 2023 022 finally adopted August 7th 2023 to provide for improvements to the police building and the expansion of the parking lot okay and then we have our ordinances for introduction tonight ordinance 02 20243 an ordinance of the township of Monroe and the county of middle sex New Jersey to authorize a conservation restriction agreement for real property no known and designated as tax block 60 LGE 28.4 and 28.4 Q form also known as 330 Schoolhouse Road on the official tax map of the township of Monroe for open space ordinance 02 20244 Bond ordinance providing for various Capital Improvements in and by the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey appropriating 2,900,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of 2, 396,000 bonds or notes of the township to finance part of the cost thereof ordinance 02 20245 Bond ordinance providing for improvements to Applegarth School in and by the township of Monro in the county of middlex New Jersey pursuant to a shared services agreement with the Township Board of Education appropriating 5 million therefore and authorizing the issuance of 4,761 n00 bonds or notes to finance part of the cost thereof ordinance 02 20246 ordinance appropriating 4,300,000 2,300,000 of which is from a state of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Grant and 2 million of which is from the middle sex County open space Recreation and farmland and historic preservation trust fund grant for the acquisition of property for use as open space in and by the township of Monroe in the county of middle sex New Jersey okay any comments from Council Members okay uh we'll move on now to resolutions for consideration under the consent agenda has everyone had a chance to uh review the resolutions exceptions none tonight not tonight here's the first for everything quite a few first tonight as a matter of fact I'm good thank you all right um we don't need any vote on this just okay all right so we have now reached the uh public comment section for agenda items only so if anyone wants to be heard on any of our agenda items at this time you're welcome to come forward we have a 5 minutes per speaker um if it's if you have comments on non-agenda items you'll have your chance at the end of the uh regular meetings any all right make a motion to open someone so moved open to the public second second all those in favor I I I see one hand come up good evening name and address sir Joe atanasio 21 Wellington Place Monroe nice to meet you my question is on R2 2458 the purchase of the Ford Explorers and also on R2 202 467 the purchase of the Chevy tahos are any of these electric I'll refer to Mr Weinberg uh no neither of them are electric including the police vehicles no hyers either uh no there actually we've been trying to purchase council president if Council vice president if I may we've been trying to find some uh electric vehicles but it's been harder to find within the uh government uh purchasing uh process um so they are not they are not hybrids okay thank you thank you anyone else hello again we see panel is 128 Candera Plaza uh 202 24005 and I guess 047 I sort of want to combine that because it alludes to shared services with the Board of Ed let me say this I hope that all you people last council meeting somebody came up and said do you have a plan for the migrants well Jamesburg just got a 25 families using the same address and how many going to US schools hold on a second now you're talking about migrants in Jamesburg and I don't see that okay no no no no let's get it goes to our schools now can we get the School portion right now we're getting to the school portion these people that come into Jamesburg and are attending Monroe High School all right hold on that's not what this res what's on the agenda is not the school you're right you're right you're right sir which brings me to the next question 2448 you get an additional the township attorney gets an additional $65,000 for what how much is wait I didn't finish please question okay I didn't finish it so I have two questions for what how much is the overall salary and three when you go online you should look at the typo because it's not 65,000 online in the verbiage part it's 65,00 okay then my last one is like this person said I know Vehicles electric vehicles might be hard to find but I think I was here last year if you have any foresight to please go put your order in now if you're if we're going to if people are going to be mandated at a certain year to have vehicles then have some foresight here and go put your orders in and you can't say we can't find them so those are three questions on the last one I I am all in favor of trying to do whatever we can well then vote no on this T but it's not always I they tell me it's not always easy but I think it's something to at least strive for I know I see that in your eyes when I when I speak of that you know so vote no on it and give a little pressure you don't have to follow the crowd and the salary how much is the overall salary it's not a salary that's the point it's the contract with my Law Firm I don't get a salary I'm not a salaried employee okay so you get are you hired by contract with your Law Firm yes ma'am okay so how much did your Law Firm make off this town I could tell you what the total for all of the Township's legal work including all it so I think out of the current fund I've made notes for myself I think we were at $446,000 um previously um uh our law budget has been as high as 700,000 when I first got here so this is significantly lower um and part of the increase is the fact that we have a couple different areas of litigation that we have to defend ourselves on and I see it's environmental this one particular 65,000 is that the B what's going on with that largest the largest driver of it is the right what's going on with that well we can't I mean we can't discuss litigation um in public it's just not no one does that um so that we are in Act of litigation with them and and I think everything that we can say um certainly has been said we're trying to certainly protect uh the interests of uh Township residents so councelor that you getting paid for this how long has this litigation been going on this litigation well actually the dispute with BFI has been going on for almost three actually more than 3 years now the actual litigation got filed um about 18 months ago there's about I don't know 120,000 documents that are involved in the case it's a very extensive litigation all right so then you're saying you're well worth your your firm is well worth the money I think we are oh yeah would thank you thank you Lucille anyone else wish to be heard on agenda items I know who you are but if you could please state your name and address for the record we appreciate it I am Beth deiro 404 Spotswood Gravel Hill Road in our great town of Monroe welcome once again thank you and welcome Christine thank you Beth um I have a question on R2 20245 about the shared service agreement with the township of Marboro with their Swim Club is that for students is that for public um I have an idea but I'm going to refer to Mr Weinberg anyhow so it gives a discount rate uh for neighboring towns who do the shared services agreement I think the three categories are uh family uh I want to say uh uh married couple and senior citizen there's three different rates it's the same rates not the same exact rates but the same categories that I believe marrow have marbor has for its own for its own residence family individual and Senior sorry family individual and Senior right got okay beautiful that's all I have so thank you thank you nice to see you again anyone else on the agenda items Mr gunman are you coming forth fast as I can didn't know if you were stretching your legs or you wanted to be heard that's all you're welcome as always if you could uh again George Gman 5 Kelly Court Monroe welcome again um on on page two um 005 uh which is the $5 million um why is this coming from the municipality and not uh from the school district which uh one are we talking about page two ordinance 2045 ordinance ordinance 2024 d05 Allan that's the 5,000 5 million 5 million 5 million yep so um as I as I understand and hopefully I get this all correct um the school district was fortunate enough to win what's called a regular operating District Grant something that doesn't happen a lot um I think it's been about 10 years since the state gave out grants to what are called regular operating districts they put in an application for a $10 million project and they were awarded a $4.05 million Grant from the state they also received I believe a $1 million Grant as part of the last budget so I believe they have $5 million give or take 50,000 and in order to move forward on the project they needed an additional $5 million to match that what is essentially $5 million in state money without that $5 million um I I I would imagine that the money could potentially go back to the state or what have you I don't believe that the school district and I can't be a complete expert on this has the ability to ra you know raise that money um themselves um within their budget um you know obviously so we can do that um and this becomes an opportunity uh for to keep important Grant dollars within the township that were successfully won by the Board of Ed and ultimately save taxpayers money in the long run um got it yeah got it basically yeah no I understand perfectly what's going on here but here's the issue um the school district is a separate entity yes and and we're they're not matching the grant that they applied for we're matching it for them the reason they don't have the money is not because they didn't look around in their budget is because they can't get the community to support them in their actions in a bond issue oh I'm not going to speak for the school no we've gone through the bond issue it went down it's it's history it's not speculation it's history well I add one thing but it's a dangerous territory for us I'm look I'm in favor of Education I'm in favor this is an opportunity that I think we need to cash in on but let's be clear here the the school and the school board in particular particular um needs to find it in itself an ability to communicate with the community to get its support rather than to come to the municipality and say bail us out because we don't have community support and that's I don't think that's where we want to go I mean we we have separate budgets and now we're crossing over into there and and and I I think it requires a hard look but I'm not saying pass up the opportunity because in the end it will be a taxpaying thing but tax saving thing for them mus but pouring $10 million into appleg gar school um is probably not many people's idea of money well spent but that's why it didn't pass in the first opinion I appreciate it okay uh the next question I had was on 006 which is is the um the appropriation of of um money for uh acquiring open space land is that site currently under Farmland preservation bber so uh thank you uh Council vice president the the site is currently Farmland assessed but it is not Farmland preserved so I want to make that clear you know uh different properties can be operated as Farms that give them a lower rate but it is not preserved in any way okay thank you that was my question there um going to the consent agenda uh 047 shared services agreement what are these shared services what are we getting for this that's the that's the bond I I I think that that's the companion to the bond issue you just obviously it is but what are the shared services that we're supposedly getting give to Mr rinberg again so we we so that's a good question and I I should mention earlier too and I I'm pretty sure of this I don't think for a rod Grant which is what makes it a unique opportunity you can partner with a bond referendum it has to be actual cash that's ready so um Fair points that you made earlier but I'm just just want to clarify that um the shared services agreement here is that we obviously work cooperatively with the board of education on a whole host of things including our Recreation and at times our Cultural Arts and other programs the green fair and so as part of this agreement we will continue to use um the schools for the benefit of those programs um collectively with the with the school whether it be wreck practices and a variety of other wreck activities and continue to work with them around the issue of security as we always you know look at that as well so it's a shared services around accessing School spaces for our for our uh residents um as part of our Recreation and other programs continuing to do that in the future George you've run out of time for the moment certainly welcome to come back later on your tedor us is overwhelming thank thank you Gary Gary busman 7 Monarch Road Monro I want to pick up on what Mr gunkelman just said uh the board of education is an entity under its own therefore responsible for its own well-being raising of financing spending of money uh what so as George said it's a known fact that the residents of Monroe don't want to spend any money for more education they've been two budgets they've been voted down every referendum that they put forward has failed the township has purchased property the golf course on appleg goth road with cost us a couple of million dollars I'm not sure of the dollar amount we conveyed that to the board of education and nothing has come from that that municipality has seen no benefit at all from that acquisition just like the $5 million that we're talking about now I voted positive on every education budget that's been put forward so it has nothing to to do with education as it relates to our children we need to be cognizant of fiscal responsibility to the residents of this town that pay taxes to the fire department the Board of Education and the municipality to complete the function and their responsibility to serve our community please consider this it you know we're we're spending five M you want to spend $5 million to raise $5 million what are they going to do with the $10 million thank you all right thank you you want to respond or not I I understand that there even if we're not going forward with the same extensive uh repairs and additions and things at the uh appleg school that may have been proposed there are still some things that are somewhat necessary in order for the safety of the children so just to add in and I'll let the Board of Ed speak to this cuz it's their application but I believe it's basically HVAC and roof work that is the significant part of it and I will reiterate that um Rod grants don't happen a lot um and getting a 50% match in any investment is a really great thing for the community normally when you go out to Debt Service that percentage of State assistance can fluctuate depending on the type of project and be much less so this is really a good bang for your buck to get a 50% match um from the state which is why I know the you know the mayor was uh supportive of of this opportunity and uh moving forward anyone else uh have any public comments on any of the agenda items this evening anyone there can I have a motion to close the uh public comment SE motion Charlie second second second Rupa all those in favor I can we now have a motion to uh uh adjourn the uh agenda meeting motion second second Mike um roll call councilman deiro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanora yes time the time is 7:06 I don't know how much it matters I always wanted to say that time thing next all right at 7:06 now um I'd like to call the regular meeting to order um can I hear a motion please Mo Charlie's motion second second Rupa we have a roll call on that councilman deiro yes councilman marel yes councilman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes okay first motion to approve the the payment of claims per run date January 31st 2024 do I hear a motion motion second second second by Mike roll call councilman toiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes we now move to approval of the minutes motion to approve the minutes of the following meetings as written and presented December 4th 20 2023 agenda and regular combined meeting December 20th 2023 agenda and regular combined meeting do I hear a motion motion second second roll call councilman deiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanora yes we now move on to our ordinance ordinances for a second reading um first one 01224 1 supervisory Personnel 2024 salary and wage ordinance for Monro Township middlex County um public hearing a motion open okay can we have a motion to open a public hearing on this issue motion second second all in favor all in favor all in favor I I I okay anyone wish to be heard on this issue seeing no hands and seeing no one arise from the back of the room I will assume there no one wishes to be heard can we now have a motion to close the public hearing portion motion Charlie second second Rupa all in favor I move down to we need a motion to ad roll call I'm sorry apologize um at this point I'm going to ask for a motion to uh adopt motion motion by Charlie second second okay roll call vote councilman deiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council Vice President Van Zoro yes next one is uh 01224 002 at Bond ordinance of the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey appropriating $2,500,000 expected to be received as a grant from the state of New Jersey Department of Community official to supplement the $2 million appropriated by Bond ordinance number 06-22-18 finally adopted August 7th 2023 to provide for improvements to the police building and the expansion of the parking lot this includes a $2.5 million Grant from the state can I have a motion to open this for public hearing motion we hear second second okay anyone from the public wishing to be heard on this issue come on forward I know who you are but for the record how you doing nice to see you Frank Stein house at 19 Oliver Street uh what are the prop I know I've asked several times let's build up the police department let's give them the facilities adequate to perform the great job they're doing in the street so what exactly are the improvements that they're going to make to the police station Mr Weinberg would you like to handle that sure so it's a complete Rehabilitation inside inside and I believe I just want to I don't have my numbers right in front of me but I think a 3,000 or over 3,000 ft addition as part of it there's going to be a large new uh dispatching area some additional meeting rooms um upgraded Locker areas and we'll allow the police department building to right now it has 67 sworn officers I think when it first opened um if I recall correctly I believe there was only about 27 or 28 officers that moved into that building so it's grown quite significantly this will also allow us to uh have a a parking lot in the back that'll be secure and be able to handle uh the volume of uh cars that we have and really be able to handle the growth of our Police Department uh for the year you know for the years to come so this was designed uh by an architect in coordination with the police themselves and I think everyone's really excited for it to move forward having experienced it firsthand up in the city a couple times um I I would really urge if they haven't done or considered it at least may be installing um bulletproof glass on the exterior W obviously they're all exterior windows but I think that would be uh tat himount to the safety of our offices like I said having experienced it firsthand in a city it ain't fun yeah it's a great point and we do follow there's very specific rules about constructing police buildings including things like you just mentioned and a whole variety of locks and other things that are specifically uh designed for the police department and safety and mind so so thank you thanks thank you anyone else wish the SE repeat it all the time my name yes 128 seander plaz like to make sure that you still remember it in my old town they the police department had a shooting range downstairs does this one have they're having trouble hearing you maybe I don't know if the thing is not up to your mouth oh sorry is this does this um have a shoo a shooting range downstairs I know my the township I came from they did I was just curious yeah we we do not have a shooting range within the building um at this point um certainly can take that under advisement but at this point we don't we don't have a shooting range within the building this expansion wouldn't create a shooting range either within the building the benefit of the police officers understood thank you anyone else seeing no one else can I have a motion to close the public portion motion Charlie second second ruper all those in favor I right close the public now you need a motion to adop okay now um we have a motion to adopt the ordinance motion and second second okay we need a roll call vote on this councilman toiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president Zora yes thank you motion approved number five ordinance for introduction 02- 224003 and ordinance of the township of Monroe in the county of middle sex New Jersey to authorize a conservation restriction agreement for Real Property known and designated as tax block 60 Lots 28.4 and 28.4 Q for also known as 330 Schoolhouse Road on the official tax map of the township of Monroe for open space can I hear a motion motion second second a roll call vote councilman zapiro yes councilman marel yes councilman seagull yes Council vice president vanora yes 02 d224 004 Bond ordinance providing for various Capital Improvements in and by the township of Monroe and the county of middle sex New Jersey appropriating $ 2,900,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of 2,396 640 bonds or notes of the township to finance part of the cost thereof do I hear a motion motion second second roll call please councilman toiro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes 0-2-2 24-5 Bond ordinance providing for improvements to appar school in and by the township of Monroe County of middle sex New Jersey pursu to a shared services agreement with the Township Board of Education appropriating $5 million therefore and authorizing the issuance of $ 4,761 n00 bonds or notes to finance part of the cost thereof do I hear a motion so moved second second roll call vote councilman toiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes 0-2 d224 d006 ordinance appropriating 4,300,000 2,300,000 of which is from the state of New Jersey Department of community of fairs Grant and $2 million of which is from the middlex county open space Recreation and farmland and historic preservation trust fund grant for the acquisition of property for use as open space in and by the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey motion please motion second second second roll call please councilman toiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanora yes we now move to our resolutions for consideration under the consent agenda do I hear a motion to approve motion second second roll call vote please councilman deiro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes um item seven would be resolutions removed I believe we do not have any resolutions removed this evening confirmed by our clerk so we will now move to our administrator's report and I will turn that over sure to Mr Weinberg thanks uh Council vice president appreciate it um the mayor unfortunately is out sick today so I'm going to share some comments from him as well um he did want me to report that he's uh reached out to the governor and the legislators on the proposed upcoming state budget asking for more money for school funding um keeping anchor at ,750 or more expanded senior freeze um which is going to come into fruition this year uh more down payments on stay andj and even more uh energy receipts tax which helps over here on the municipality side continuing the focused on affordability so hopefully more to come on that um do want to mention the Green Acres Park improvements is a positive Grant application so very excited about that a special thank you to uh uh DPW and uh Mt and Parks who assisted them on a great job uh in the last snowstorm it wasn't actually an incredible amount of snow but the way that it fell and the way that the temperatures dropped so quick um I thought that the uh the team of DPW as the lead team and Mt and parks and everybody did a great job of trying to get as much salt down and clean it up as quick as as quick as possible because of the quick freeze it's certainly not an easy job um and so we just want to say thank you to them for that um the local Recreation Grant was also on here last year we got $75,000 for volleyball courts over by Avenue K and there's an application on here for hopefully 100,000 that's the maximum you can apply for for some pickle ball and volleyball courts over by the senior center as well that's in addition to the Green Acres application um with the uh approval of the bond ordinance for the $2.5 million Grant we can move forward on the groundbreaking soon hopefully in a couple of weeks on the expansion of the police building um thanks to to that $25 million Grant from the state so we appreciate that as well and then finally um there's some new carpeting in the building in the process uh much needed safety improvements where it was coming up a couple decades old uh so I want to thank the employees and the residents uh for their patience it's a it's a big job um and we should be uh done by the end of the week looks a little bit different in here um with the improved parking lot outside and the new carpet and a little bit of new paint um hopefully Town Hall continues to be a good experience for our residents as we move forward and we appreciate everyone's patience thank the council thank you so much Mr R thank you Council vice president uh given a winter weather conditions out there uh uh I'll give you an update on the one project that the county is doing Oldbridge English Town Road mounts Mills Road uh intersection improvements and traffic signal uh they they continue working through the winter months out there as uh conditions allow and just use caution in that area as it's an ongoing construction site that's uh that's my quick report thank you very much we can now move on to uh Council reports I'll start on my left with councilwoman Rupa seagull thank you Council vice president good evening everyone um I have a few updates we had a ribbon cutting ceremony a couple weeks ago um welcoming Joe Bella hair salon to the community so I wish them all the best and their new business and I Echo Mr Weinberg with thanking DPW Parks and Recreation and all the other departments that that helped us during the cold weather extreme temperatures and the little bit of snow we got amazing job the roads looked amazing and I was in the south at that time and just seeing the difference between how much salting really makes an impact on your roads is tremendous and I wanted to just send a remind everyone about the Betty Schneider food pantry at the senior center I've had a couple people reach out to me asking me where they can make donations for food so I just wanted to remind everyone we have a food pantry right here in Monroe in our senior center and also um if you haven't seen please mark your calendars we have the Mon Monroe Police Department is presenting their Community safety tips this month um it's a great presentation where they discuss current crime Trends scams and ways to say safe I know I've attended a couple in the past and there's always something new I picked up pick up from it um the to mark your calendars it's at the Monroe Township community center Room 101 on February 16th that's 6:30 and then Monroe Township senior center at 12y Reed Road February 22nd at 3:30 so please do mark your calendars and try to come thank you thank you Mr deiro councilman welcome oh thank so um on the uh resolutions tonight we rejected the bid for uh mtud for the roof I was just wondering I know that was um what's our plan going forward for uh for future bidding and also are we going to get a quick fix because of the situation uh with the roof and and the animals getting in and all that type of thing so what's our what's our game plan with the the bidding of the mrin thank you thank you Council vice president uh yes councilman that's a great question uh as you know one of the initiatives that uh we are also considering uh as part of the township is putting uh new solar panels up and uh the new bid that we're going to re-evaluate is actually going to repair that flat roof uh on mtud so that it would be able to support solar panels in the future and uh we're also taking a look at a couple of other improvements as part of the 2024 budget year and also revising the spec to make sure that uh all the contractors understand the scope of work so we'll get a more competitive bid this time around because with in this building here we all went through it a couple months ago we had a big change order because the plywood was insect properly and we had to go for a big change order so um that wasn't the same situation on this this rejection of this bid no it was not all right so we just want to make sure that we put the bid out you know so we don't have a change order going in before we even start the job like like we did in this building all right thank you thank you um oh also I received an email from a resident in the Heritage Chase in reference to the water tower um requesting what was going on with the painting of the uh 522 water tower so I sent that email over to Joe and I forwarded it to Allan did anybody get back to that Resident Joe do you want to comment Sor uh no we have not gotten back to that Resident as of yet uh we're finally anzing the plans uh for the 522 tank uh right now uh it is not sized appropriately for supporting the uh the Water Tower so we're waiting for the uh introduction of we 25 to see how hydraulically it works within the system once that uh is accomplished we'll be able to go ahead and make the improvements to the tank uh that will allow it to function at that same time that the improvements are made we are going to paint both the inside and outside that tank all right so if somebody can get back to that Resident and let and let us also all of us know what the future plan is it'll be well uh appreciate it because that's a water tower that's getting a little bit of rust on it like Halfacre Road one while you're there Joe we got another question um well 25 uh I haven't noticed any signs there yet um you know with the location of being well 25 five um I'm just concerned First Responders uh 911 calls got forbid when our employees get hurt um you guys there's not there's not an address or there's not even a sign even on a fence I went there twice today to look um there's no sign at all there's no sign out on the lawn it says well 25 I missed it um maybe but I went twice I didn't see it um if we want to get signage on all our wells all our Pump Station and stuff like that this a brand new uh facility but I think we need a sign on there for First Responders and for employees to make sure you know nobody gets hurt absolutely we're uh subject to appropriate security concerns cuz it's critical infrastructure yeah yeah so I'm not quite Joe and I haven't had this conversation yet but we probably should have a conversation about whether or not you really do want to put signage where our Township Wells are and pump stations for security well we do need to have or put an address on it put put the physical address uh you want to have a physical address cuz then how's her how's her 911 uh going to be able to respond you know and also dispatcher is going to be able to dispatch if there's no physical address so uh if it doesn't have a sign well 25 call it uh you know 4772 Spotswood Englishtown or 474 whatever the number is fair enough we need some kind of signage I I believe um thank you Jeff and also L thank you you're welcome um I was reading um our governor is reaching out to Federal funding along with seven other Governors uh it was like a $3.1 billion um he's looking for some funding our our governor Murphy in reference to illegals and migrants and trying to get some funding for the state of New Jersey so seeing it I know last month was a big uh question uh and previous here in this building we talked about it and now our Governor's talking about it so we are we going to have a plan u in a reference if our Governor's asking for funding um I know since last meeting I spoke to people in Jamesburg there are uh 10 families living in a local church right now there's 28 more students in the Jamesburg school system from uh 1 to 8th grade I don't know how many are in their uh 9th through 12th which happens to be minor schools and US taxpayers will be funding that um are we do we have a plan uh on what's going on uh with if Murphy's asking for it is anybody responding uh can anybody respond in reference to what the governor's doing Go I mean uh so I did read a couple news reports on that I don't know if there's any specific specifics around what he's doing I know that there have been uh some uh buses that have come to uh train stations in I guess the Northern end of of town where people would take the I guess the bus hypothetically into the city or into other large cities um I'm not aware of any specific plan uh for towns or Suburban towns on how they would how anyone would uh would handle such a situation I we certainly don't have in Monroe uh any of the services or resources that folks who would need services and resources would normally look for um in terms of uh emergency housing and a variety of other things as we discussed at previous meetings there were a lot of we got a lot of phone calls um from rumors that you know everyone would be moving into the uh New Jersey training school for boys that we asked that question at the meeting of the training school Representatives that is absolutely not the case they're going to be here for another four five years or more um so so to answer your question and I don't I don't I'm not aware of any set of plans I certainly welcome any input from the council if they have any ideas of things we we could be doing we'd be careful to use uh taxpayer uh resources uh our taxpayer resources are somewhat limited we don't have those services and it hasn't been something uh that has impacted us and I haven't seen um any plans coming down from the state or seen I've seen any other middle six County towns that I talk to um that have done anything in particular so that's the report that I can basically give okay it just it just seem I mean you turn the TV on every channel no matter what you turn on they're all over over state every state um and you know being uh being I guess proactive we have to look at it and say look what's our plan going to be what if um and that's as a fire commissioner I always say that's a what if what if this situation happens what if that and then then we get a flood and then we get or we get a storm that our our firefighters and First Responders are out their day and night and they never know what they're walking into and they're all trained and they're all prepared and they have all of the equipment and they have all the the Manpower so my concern my concern is um it's all around us and it's getting closer and it's just to the point where uh if they're in our schools already you know um I watched on on social media I saw one Illinois councilman you know put a motion up to say oh if anybody wants to volunteer home or they want to volunteer their empty building you know put a start a list at the at the township level so we did have residents come here in the past that said oh I have one bedroom or two bedroom or whatever and I'm I'm willing to you know house some some person if they need a home um but I'm just concerned if the governor's asking for it that we need to keep a close eye and we also need to keep a plan uh with our school system along with with their housing and everything that's the reason why I brought up that question because our governor is asking for the funds um thank you for the explanation no Allan thank you um Council Vice uh vice president budget 2024 do we have any Workshop date scheduled yet I will refer to Mr warberg do have any work I don't have anything scheduled yet we normally do the uh introduction in uh April at the first meeting in April and then the approval at the first meeting in May um so that's when the budget would be uh introduced and then in May we'd have a public hearing um on the budget as well um so uh so that's that's how we've done it probably the last four or five years well we used to meet with the directors and they used to come to us with their with their uh plan for 10 15 minute presentation uh we used to meet here sometimes downstairs sometimes in this room are we going to be doing meeting with the directors of each department well you could um that's certainly something you could discuss with the council president and Council vice president that wasn't really a budget update that was more of a department update uh we never went through budget line items or anything that that happens as part of the budget hearing um so if it's something that Council wants to do a department update we can certainly you know accommodate that request and you could have a conversation amongst your colleagues about that and and we could we could certainly work on it but it's always historically been like a department update but it's something that's helpful if we can do it maybe you know Terry if you could make something happen I'd appreciate it with our director uh in each department you know I will confer with my council president not overstep my authority and see what if anything thank you and I think it was I think it was her idea years ago she and it was it was a very good idea had a lot of the guys come forward and it was helpful it was very helpful so thank you I wanted to um I see the liquor license that we did a uh resending and then we we uh you know we had to do some housekeeping I had a a question um with the new laws that our governor just signed in January my concern is there's a 2-year pocket license if you have pocket license to two years and then each town can ex extend that um on a I guess on a town to toown basis along with the um when I was reading through it if you have joining town and you want to transfer from a Township to a Township um are we is our Council I know we just had another uh change order for our Law Firm I don't want to get too crazy here but in a way is it going is it going to be something that you would be advising us with Lou as far as the new law changes and what our options are of course um and where it might be helpful we could start is the the clerk's office maybe can just give you a um G give you a memo and tell you where our licenses are how many we actually have in Pocket how many we don't waiting ABC hasn't um I haven't seen it um the a ABC hasn't um issued regulations yet so I think we're all kind of waiting for ABC to tell us how it is exactly that's going to work because while it's authorized by the legislature there really isn't the mechanism in place to explain exactly how that those steps are but certainly when we get them we'll pass them on to council and Adam Clark if you could forward that to me that would be helpful I cuz I actually don't know how many pocket licenses okay I believe they we have 21 active license and they they did Patty and Tanya and Christine they did send it I believe the rest of the council got it I asked for it and I believe the whole Council got it um one of the concerns I have and I had a conversation with Tanya today and she was very helpful so I just want to share this um uh garvey's bar for instance we closed on it um it's a pocket license now so that time would be ticking once we closed on that property cuz if you I asked Tanya today and the address is still at 405 spots with Gravel Hill which we own that property so if the if the governor has that 2-year time ticking we we needed to when we closed we should have put them on notice that you need to make your license inactive with ABC and then and what what what I'm concerned about is it needs to be updated the list needs to be updated there there's a lot of licens that are pocket license and now the governor is changing the law so we have to be prepared are we going to give a one-year extension or are we going to just give two years and follow the governor's uh recommendation so these are my questions so I don't know if you want if you want me to answer that so I know normally the clerk's office handles the uh liquor licenses and they can give you any information I believe about any current license that that we have I think what Lou reiterated is despite the fact that a new law was created no one has uh the department has yet to promulgate any regulations or have any hearings about how that'll be implemented so I'm not sure that that clock started I'm not sure how any of that works until the alcohol beverage commission takes the law and tries to turn it into a series of regulations which we can comment on and anyone can comment on so I think we have to let that process move forward but if there's any questions about an existing license the clerk's office uh usually can can answer the question under the current rules that exist today for the alcohol beverage commission okay so so Alan way I understand and I've been here six years now sitting up here so every June they get re renewed so it's their responsibility to let us know if they're active or they're not active the bar or establishment and they file a documentation with ABC and and all of that but when we purchase garvey's we we we're the owners now so we know that that business is no more you know active so their license should be as the date of the closing it should go into a pocket license and so that's I'm using as an example and but councilman so the the answer is as soon as we know we'll let you know so probably between now and June we'll know that but I I it's hard for me to answer a question that you just made three legal assumptions and I don't know whether any of them are true or not so I don't know that the state is going to consider the date of the closing to be the date that they went into pocket I don't I the answer is as soon as we get the state regulation will'll let you know it's a relatively new law um it took a long time for them to Hash it out so it's probably going to take the department a little while for them to get the regulations in place but as soon as we have it I'm going to assume that the clock is going to be that before we do the renewals in June we all going to know what the rules are I do find it hard to believe that they're going to go back backwards and say to somebody oh okay it's now June you've been in pocket for 2 years so you can't get an extension I I don't think it goes backwards so so the answer is is I'm I'm not really quite sure it's going to work that way but we'll know as soon as the regulations come out they'll tell us how to handle people who have been who are currently in pocket and how how to handle people going going forward so we know know we'll let you these are all good questions we just don't know the answers to any of them until you know right the other concern I have with it is when I read through it it's the adjoining townships or Burrows that they can buy a license in adjoining town and move it into another town with the consent of the municipality correct so it so that's that's something that would require that that I I do know for sure that the law says that this isn't going to be a circumstance where the 20 licenses in Jamesburg can end up in Monroe unless of course you you all decide that you want them to be here um so I I think that that is is a um and once again we're going to have to see the state rules and regulations on that because I need to understand for me what it means when a license comes from Jamesburg to Monroe does that mean it now becomes a Monroe license and that if that person decides to move they can't move back to Jamesburg so at at some point in time the the division of ABC who is very good about giving handbooks to the clerks that they all follow and we all follow um and as soon as they do it we'll let you know okay thank you you're welcome um Bley road we received an email in reference to uh water sewer uh flooding did anybody respond to that to that Resident I believe we responded Joe you responded yeah Joe responded to the Pres all right thank you cuz when when they send out emails and you guys respond you don't respond back to us that everybody's on emails that's why I have to ask if when they when they ask us an email um I'm not the councilman on Bentley so I did not respond but they did include all of us mayor councel and everybody um you know we are we are careful about not doing that because it violates the open public meetings act so the reason why when somebody files a complaint through a council person we don't copy every member of the governing body on it is because there is a concern that that's an open public meetings act violation typically what we'll do is we'll deal directly with the resident and Sol and then when you ask a question we'll answer right or they could respond to us individually you know like you guys send us the agenda out and stuff like that but either way I'm just asking a question cuz they the resident included all of us um Mount SM Road who who approved the uh traffic pattern for the construction Mark do you know I'm not sure what you're talking about the county construction site or what what what talk I'm talking about the traffic Improvement that's being done on Mount SM and Oldbridge English toown Road the The Detour who approved the traffic pattern when when the when Oldbridge English Town Road is only going one way who who approved using the township loop on Mount SM road so that that was approved through the county through the township uh PD my office um we were all part of that um there was a road closure where they had to close the road to install the water lines um and we utilize that Loop for a portion of the project okay so so our our professionals including our police they approved that so if you go out there if you look at the the loop on mounts Mill Road which goes from Franklin Plaza to where the water main break was on Christmas Eve uh day and go come back out to where where uh Farmers you know Salters used to to have his his uh stand there come back into or Englishtown road that road needs to be all all reconstructed it's being it's being used as a main thare to go through and it's not built to be having Truck Equipment construction equipment detours detour road so I would highly recommend to middlex County Road Department hopefully they're going to pick up the tab to redo our road and on this project and do a change order uh or hire put out another bid but it's something that the taxpayers of Monroe should not be paying for it's something that the middle six County you always told me this is a middle six County project so this is something that middle sex County should be redoing and and in a full curb to curb uh reconstruct which I'm talking Stone base binder course and top course everything should be redone out there not just to Mill and pave so um that's something that if you go out there take a ride out there and you and you'll see what I'm talking about the road is destroyed in and and it's not a road that was built for heavy equipment so um that's something that we need to council vice president uh middle sex County did do the repairs on the road there were some areas that broke up there were some potholes as you know there was a water uh service breake that had to be replaced so that trench was paved all that was done by the contractor on the site uh you know doing the construction out there The Detour is not being utilized unless the entire roadway of Old Bridge English toown Road has to be closed within that area so as of right now I don't Envision that closure until they come to the final Paving of the project and when they're Paving that strip at that point they may be utilizing the loop again but as of right now they're not utilizing a loop um and it has been repaired okay but it's something that we need to to keep very close eyes on and Mark you're an engineer I'll stress it again I'm sure down the road but right now it's something that I would look at uh to for having them reconstruct and rebuild because they're they're using it in a heavy in a heavy way where that road is was never constructed understood as you know uh councilman um that project the construction cost of the project are split between uh middle sex County and the township so so any work out there uh we are picking up a portion of that tab right and they hit us with a nice Hefty build to move a water man that was in a conflict that they said you know good luck so we did that so I want to I want to return the favor by saying hey you you just destroyed our Township Road by doing your county project uh I want to say you know to thank you middle sex County for coming into our town doing the Improvement but I have another question when will that light be constructed uh you're looking at uh I don't have a schedule of when it will be complete it was anticipated to take about a year so I think believe that puts us sometime uh late summer uh if if if I remember the schedule correctly um Al also um I lost my train of thought for a moment um with regard to the agreement that you know that is has been agreed to with the county and the uh um the shared services out there and the shared cost of the project um the water line all the water utilities and as far as Gas Utilities all that is responsibility of the utility company in this case we own the water lines and uh Our obligation was to relocate that water line and we had meetings to reduce it I believe there might have been some minor changes to limit the amount of work but yes we we were obligated to do that under the agreement that U because they designed it to move that way so they designed it and we ate the design and we ate the cost of removing that water line and they did it and our water company did it in a timely manner very timely manner and I and and we work hand inand and don't get me wrong we work hand inand with the county I I think you made your point well on this right right so and and and another thing you know Council vice vice chair is this the light they did by my house we waited 6 months for the cabinet so I don't want to sit up here and say is the cabinet ordered because if I ask a cabinet tonight you said in the Summertime Summertime will come and they say oh they forgot the light bulbs they can't get the light bulb there's going to be something so the simple question is is everything ordered is everything coming and is the light going to work in 9 months 6 months so that's the question that I would ask and that's what we rely on our professional and Mark you do a good job with them just continue the work but just look at that road and please for the taxpayers right you know thank you all right and the other question I had railroad crossings I always ask about Schoolhouse Road Prospect ples forsgate Drive are there any updates on those railroad crossings Mark you again uh with regard to potholes is that is that the question and in regard to when you go over the railroad crossings you have to hold on to your your steering wheel and they need to be repaved so uh Force gate Drive Prospect PL Schoolhouse Road um you and I had the conversation a few times so starting with Prospect PL as you know middle six county has a project uh that has been designed as you know the township uh has been acquiring the properties out there for uh through uh Acquisitions uh I believe there's some condemnation on a couple of the parcels that we're going through once all those properties are acquired that portion of Prospect Road uh Prospect Plains Road will be uh will be reconstructed as well as the intersection of Applegarth Road and Prospect planes that traffic signal that is all pending the the outcome of acquiring the land but the plans are designed the crossing will be improved as part of that County project uh forsgate Drive I've been in contact with the railroad as far as the potholes I don't know if they've been out there at at the end of last week if they got there Friday or or today um and with regard to Schoolhouse Road um I was in contact with them back in a fall uh I haven't heard anything back as far as a new Crossing out on Schoolhouse Road okay thank you um we got a lot of emails this month in reference to the hotline to the BFI um it's it kind of it's kind of um depressed to hear over and over that they're still getting odors and it's depressing to see the emails come by and I'm sure everybody when we see it we feel for our residents um that what they're going through in the future uh after all they've been through so if there's the hotline and nobody responds to our residents from having a hotline I I just don't know what we can do I mean in that sense I mean without having L say yeah we're under litigation and all of that but what are our residents what other options do we have other than calling the police and calling the fire which they do so I put an email out if I may Council Vice president I put an email out to all the residents and I think you were on it as well that you know two of the best things you can do is and this is regarding outdoor air which is obviously much more complicated as many of you know historically uh when this issue began um we were dealing with what we believed um was air coming up through the sewer system into people's homes if you've been following this issue and we were able to build a a uh Force main that moves the leate which is the product that comes from the uh landfill directly to the sewage treatment plant without having to go through our open sewer system so that it would not be possible for lee8 to come in uh through the home so that was that was the the major focus of that um there is a there are as you mentioned a couple of folks who said um that they had uh some unique smells um gaseous smells or what have you Outdoors which is obviously a lot more complicated because it's hard to tell exactly where something's coming from um in an outdoor environment in my memo I suggested two places that always know would always answer the phone um or at least at least certainly get back one is the County Department of Environmental Protection uh which can look into uh outdoor odors um through um as well as the njd warrn hotline if someone thinks something is wrong and as I always put in the email if someone thinks something is an emergency you can always dial 911 um particularly if you smell something that smells like gas we are all sort of in tune to know that if you smell something like gas inside your house or around around your house you you know you dial 911 or you call psng and they come out and take a look at it so those are probably the best mechanisms and outdoor air is obviously a lot more you know a lot more complicated and certainly appreciate the frustration we do get calls as you can imagine from other parts of the area um within the town of of of smells sometimes on the South Brunswick border with the international fragrance we get calls from a variety of different areas about smells which is always a little bit more difficult but the groups that handle that are the count uh Environmental Protection unit um and and the uh d uh War line are probably the right places uh to go for that and I thank you Alan for sending that email but just that for our residents they're asking and we can't answer for BFI unfortunately and the sign is up and the numbers there if they don't call them we're trying our best and lose firm is trying to get this resolved the last thing I want to talk about is um G Bal the Avenue I did get your email in reference to the gate that we installed um that the gate is I guess it looks like it's going to remain open the gate the MTM Mt right so I guess the the you know the temporary gate or I don't know if it's a new gate was put in because we had someone uh who was uh this garabaldi is like a a dirt road for those of you who don't know off of Avenue K near Old Forge behind the homes there and between the park and the homes you can see like a dirt road that goes back heading what I would say spr Street South Spring street so um so so there was a we put a temporary gate in there because along that line are some manholes and we had an incident I believe last summer where someone uh took some debris from the area we're trying to figure out where they took debris opened the manhole and try and put it in and that could be a dangerous situation um when you put uh debris inside a sewer line if it clogs up um of course when that happens too you also make certain notifications so we've since uh well did that manhole shut um yeah so that people couldn't use it for that I don't know who exactly was doing it but we're looking into it um and we put a cinder block on top so that should be in place um in terms of the safety of that manhole there so the gates going to remain open I mean for the purposes of of of that sewer system I believe the the gate could could be open for that there's a certainly a a separate issue I don't know what you're referring to in particular but from an mtud point of view um I believe that issue has been resolved okay but the gates going to remain open is my question well I I think it's it's a matter that's an active litigation now so we don't generally take self-help we're going to let it play through the courts which is what we kind of always do um but it's our property and we own the gate we pay for the gate once again I I it's not always about legal fees but if you want the township to do something proactive like sue the property owner in order to stop them from using that property there's a cost to doing that as opposed to just allowing this to proceed through the process when it is resolved then that issue will be resolved unless you tell me that there's some imminent danger that we that would require us to do something on an emergent basis that's well Jud my my question was is are we going to leave the gate open because we went through the expense of putting the gate up we paid for it I think that the answer is is that we don't the the purpose of the gate was not to stop somebody from using their property it was to it was to protect the manhole but we now protected the manhole so there's no need to keep the gate closed if that's the question okay so then we spent the money for the gate we're going to leave the gate open and we know the vandalism that's going on and we're just going to leave it the gate open no we we've already secured the manhole cover by welding it shut so we don't need to have the gate anymore that's but we did that twice we we did the manhole we welded it the welds were broke we know who's who who put this the debris into the manhole and I don't I don't know that we do if you do you should you should give that to us well you do and you have proof we I asked for a copy of the police reports and and I didn't get a response yet uh from that email but I don't I don't know how you know what we don't know and what the police don't know so if you know and I don't by the way I don't want you to give it to me in a public meeting God forbid that you should say something that's not true in a public meeting about somebody I would prefer that you just provide that information to MTD or to the police department because when you say we all know who it is we all don't know who it is you you might but you should you should give us that information offline but I would I would I asked for a copy of all the police reports and the email I sent on Friday and I I will o them because I did not get a response but it's an act councilman it's an act you know you've made enough opah request to know that you're you're we're in an active investigation and we have litigation so you filed an Oprah request you didn't get the Oprah request but you know the answer already so if you have information that's more information than we have I think you should just share it with the police department yeah so this is not about you getting an O because you didn't get the police report so you can't say well I got the police reports so I could see in the police reports this is who did it because I don't think we know who did it and you haven't gotten the police reports yet so if you have information that would be helpful to us offline I would ask that you give it to well when when we we had a meeting on Thursday and I think you were part of that meeting I was right so we had a discussion on that topic and also on Friday I sent to the chief of police a I requested a copy of all police reports on garabaldi Avenue and reference to the vandalism there was no it's crickets nobody responded I copied did you send that what day was that Friday you sent it Friday and I I'm going to tell you once again I'm going to say this again I know we're going around and around in circles it's an AC of Investigation we had a conversation on Friday and I generally don't disclose conversations that we have that I was on the call it's a conversation with Council about pending litigation but I'm so I'm not going to get into it on public but what I'm telling you is that you may have filed a request for documents you're not going to get them because they're a active criminal investigation and if you have more information just like any citizen who has more information on this you should give it to the police department or to Mt right and then Allan you responded today 2:30 you responded about it and said there was no such you know but you what you wrote in an email back to us was basically um the the there's a there's local investigation local investigation and there's a lawsuit right so I and I get but two SE there's two separate items here two separate items that's why I was trying to ask you to clarify so two separate items all right thank you hello Charlie thank you all right thank you Mike be anticlimactic here you know uh I just have a few things to say one thing I'd like to say is I want to thank the people at work in this building for all the extra work they had to do for putting down this carpet I'm sure they weren't dragging all their equipment all over the place and making room so the carpet could be done they should be commended um for the job they helped with um also a shout out to the police department um everybody had read I think uh of the arrest they've done with stolen cars recently as usual we can be proud of the police department it's one of the I feel it's probably the best in maybe the state I would say um it it's black Heritage Month uh this month which is very important uh and I just want to make out and say that on February 15th in the library there's going to be a u celebration of black music uh by the Universal singers which should be very interesting it's it's basically they're going to go over music of various black artists from the past mostly from the past but even Uh current black artists another thing uh as far as black heritage month on uh February 28th uh Marvin uh jeder jeterson rather who's an actor and a professor of uh of um in one of the colleges he's making a presentation on Paul Robison um Paul Robison was a baritone singer he's an actor and he was a pro football player and an act black activist so he's going to do a nice report and stand up on on this gentleman um April 28th I know it's in the future but it's very important to me um there's going to be a holocaust I'm going to mention this every month till April there's going to be a holocaust Remembrance Day at the senior center um so mark your calendars for April 28th um one other thing I just wasn't going to mention it but uh I just wanted to throw this in um the people that are coming into this country are not illegals they're undocumented the word illegal is totally inappropriate and I think everybody should be aware of that um they're undocumented people there no such thing as an illegal person and I think we should make public note of that thank you very much thank you Mike um black stay in order ma'am you're not being recognized at the moment no one is going to be speaking up when I'm running a meeting I please hope you understand that we're going to maintain order you're not hanging out on a street corner here this is a public meeting well I'm sorry but I'm not going to have that when I'm conducting a meeting all right now my turn um my first order uh uh that I wanted to mention was a very sad thing um back on January 31st just uh I believe it was uh last Wednesday week ago Wednesday um three of our residents were killed in a car accident on Route 30 Route 130 um our condolences go out to the family of all of our residents Ellen brotman Alba alencia and Wilson alencia all passed away accident on 1:30 apparently they were trying to uh cut across got hit by a school bus um the school bus driver was had minor injuries two children on the school bus thankfully were not injured um but we lost three of our residents so that I think that's a sad day for the township um following up on two things that Mike said number one Paul Robison Rucker graduate my Elma moer so I think that's a very uh that's a very good thing and and he is very well respected so uh I'm sure that's going to be a wonderful presentation and the second thing is talking about what the great job our police have been doing and they have been doing an outstanding job this is not the only instance but now this last one this let me tell you what happened two guys are trying to sell a stolen car to one of our residents and uh it was listed and the resident said yeah I'm interested in buying the car so they said well we're going to come to your house and somehow things weren't adding up our resident became a little bit suspicious called the police and they set up like a little sting operation so they caught the two guys in the action of selling this vehicle to our resident turns out the vehicle wasn't in fact stolen so they got the guy but then on top of it to make it even better there was a second vehicle that was there which was going to pick up the first two guys after they stole the first stolen vehicle and they were in a stolen vehicle too the police officers came up they managed to also arrest those two guys eyes and recover that stolen vehicle so as a result of the action of a smart Citizen and our Police Department we were able to have four bad guys arrested taken to the middle sex County jail and recover two stolen vehicles so great job by our police department and not the first time they've they've done good things and I don't know whether this was a big factor in it or not but a few months ago we were talking about our our license plate readers that we've been uh uh purchasing and that helps tell the officers when a car enters the town whether or not it's stolen and they have it in all the police vehicles and different setups so great job with that and for my personal view I I also think it's a perfect example of why everything does not go out on nixel many times people come in here and they go there was a car stol why wasn't it put on nixel well bad guys they listen they got the nixel too you know so if you tell them what's going on and the you you let them know that the police are on to them you know and chances are they wouldn't have stopped but I like to say that our police are experienced we rely on their discretion when to use the nixel when not to use the nixo when people need to know stuff and when they don't need to know stuff so that's a little bit more important than just some of the impulsive nature you know some of our citizens have just wanted on everything we're all curious we all have that that sense of curiosity hey I read about this I read about that um we want to know what's going on did I know that guy that was in the accident you know but sometimes let the police do their work we are one of the safest towns not just in Middle sex County not just in the state of New Jersey but actually in the entire country we have one of the best police forces I will continue to support them and I rely on them to do their job I don't ask them to do my job and I'm going to let them do their job so thank you again to our police for another outstanding job and then lastly um yeah thank they desert not for me for them not you know um Super Bowl Sunday is coming it's next Sunday February 11th my birthday as a Rucker guy I'll be supporting my boy Isaiah Pacho and the Kansas City Chiefs another Ruckers guy although there are two Ruckers guys on San Francisco also um on the defense so they're going to be trying to tackle each other but I always enjoy rooting for uh for My Boy Pacho I like momes and Kelsey you got a whole Taylor Swift thing going on in there people that goes both ways and by the way San Francisco is a great team too I I think they're this is going to be a fine representative Super Bowl on on both sides should be a fun game if you do go out and you go to a party please be careful and if you're having alcohol please make sure you got to designate a driver so we don't have any any more bad stories like these poor people that got killed in any other accident I'm not saying there wasn't any alcohol involved in that but still let's let's be careful and keep the town safe so thank you for indulging me in those matters um with that we would normally move to the mayor's report but uh I know you spoke earlier Mr Weinberg was there anything else from the mayor no that's it all right you already filled Us in on that so we now go to the public comments portion you are not limited to uh just agenda items anymore it's open on anything uh 5 minutes per speaker uh can I have a motion to open to the public motion second second thank you all those in favor I I okay um first up George you actually moved closer so appreciate that the interest of expediency we will take you first George gunman 5 killer one WR on the consent agenda item uh 073 which is the um ex modification to the the fit uh for the thing why is this number not included in the item earlier tonight for funding the thing why why are we doing it now as a separate item Mr Weinberg so what that is earlier that is a uh a capital ordinance that allows us to put in place uh the money to be able to award contracts to effectuate both the construction and the Professional Services associated with it the earlier item the ordinance is putting the money in place it's called the capital ordinance and this is a regular resolution by which we spend some of that money in the capital ordinance to actually build the project it's not an it's not an addition to the capital ordinance in addition to their previous contract correct all right all part of the 5 million so this it's sort of strange architectural services and and construction Administration in the same house uh how does that happen and how do they supervise themselves no they're supervising the construction correct so the the AR the architect who designed the building is the one who's who's who's uh overseeing the con administration of the construction of what they designed so they're the they're the people that are best to know all right I'm sorry but this this is my old trait okay and the idea that in the management of construction that there are never issues about the the inputs from the architectural side is not accurate that's not how it works there often times there are issues that come up where there are problems that need to be adjudicated and it's unusual to have construction management and Architectural under the same roof and and extremely unusual they have them under the same roof for the same project not Not Unusual in the public sector though okay correct it's not in fact it's usual in the public sector that might be a whole completely different discussion we should have over coffee but that's that's normally this is what happens did we was that number bid then yeah the answer is yes and and in the public sphere you find firms like Aloo sorry Alo and other Alo and other firms that do everything from design uh bid to construction management on a project they do all three segments and in this design segment it's a little less uh uh uh it's it's it's a building so you get a lot more architectural involvement than just uh you know doing site plans and Roads and things like that so the answer to your question is the one firm has all those components within it and they do the design which includes both a you know both the architectural for the building and the uh civil sorry I'm trying to use the right words then that same firm bids out the project and then that same firm has a wing of it that does the construction management hearkening back to their designers where there's an issue that's how it's done yeah yeah I I'm I'm sure you're explaining it accurately but we should have the coffee it's a real bad idea it costs us all a lot of money I'm sorry you know we've we've seen it in other public projects item 74 and 75 there transfer items um how much money are we talking about so in uh 74 it's just $200,000 out of the $70 million budget that we're moving around yep and then item uh item uh the next one I believe it's a hand it's a it's a transfer sorry uh the first one was the reserve transfers and the second one is emergency temporary just for some grass bags that we're going to need to buy before the full budget is done and yeah it's a negligible amount of money it's yeah okay that's based on the whole budget there um when someone was talking earlier I think Joe was talking about the possibility of putting solar panels on one of the buildings in general I think we ought to be as a town thinking about where we could have sites for solar panels and and you know there's a lot of open space uh that might be suitable I I see a lot of open land under power lines I don't know what the rules are in New Jersey in other states they're putting panels under power lines I don't know if we can here or not possibly if someone would reach out to Wayne D'Angelo he's on all the appropriate committees and in Trenton that relate to that he's not to interrupt you but just to let you you know that um we are starting to uh work at UH finding appropriate places for that and uh Kevin's helped us out a lot we hired a firm that's actually starting to help uh coordinate so that uh uh we might have something that we could uh look forward to uh and what it be roofs parking lots a lot a lot of different things so um it's in the works we're not there yet we're not ready I'm more interested interested in large Open Spaces we have uh a lot of power lines that run through that are just mowed underneath and and maintained and as I say I know that in some other states they're actually putting panels I mean and we're talking about acres and Acres not talking about area of debate because I personally am not fond of putting solar panels over grass and streams and things like like that I like to cover them over parking lots cuz they're already you know they already have an impervious coverage um but these we're looking at everything so we're we're trying to do the environmentally right thing it doesn't affect the impervious coverage uh if it's doesn't look very it's unelevated the grass is still underneath and and and and it still perks I hear you and and if it's on near the power lines it's near where it needs to go to all right thanks app appreciate your input you're welcome to come up [Music] please my name is Naomi Holzer and I live at 4553 Bluebird Drive Monroe all right welcome now's your your time to be heard so I am sympathetic for what you said because we have to be very careful with the way we speak about people I'm a retired Midwife and for years I used to hear babies born out of wedlock being called illegitimate okay like when does a baby become legal a legal you know a legal person a legal entity okay it's a baby so I feel for what you say about these PE you know about the people that are migrating into our country that we shouldn't refer to them as illegals okay I I get that but on the other hand you know we were talking about you were just talking about you know we all say things that are not completely woke okay like you were saying repeatedly Black America black what are the black black Americans African-Americans what yeah but the more appropriate term for somebody who wants to be you know hold themselves in high regard for for regarding other people we should be calling it Black his not Black History Month anymore because it once used to be called um they used to use the word negro the Negro month you know like so we've moved away from that we went to black but now we should be more elevated and we should be calling it uh African-American history month so you know this repeatedly and I I tolerated it while you said it because I felt like we're all a product of our past you know some of us haven't moved on yet to the new terms but we we should all say it to each other nicely yeah you're right we should all say it to us nicely yes exactly some says you know what the word but means forget about what I just said and that and you use that word quite a bit but well let me put the word and then and we should all say it to each other nicely okay I'm a little nervous I'm not a public speaker and so you're taking me apart thank you okay it was a big effort for me I'm not taking you that was taking me apart okay it was big effort for me to come up here and I think I was being kind to you by saying to you that you meant well and I I accept what you said but and we all have room for improvement including yourself all right well thank you and you know what let's all try to get along we're all we're all people of Monroe we all care about our town we a lot of us have different views okay we don't agree with everybody body but thank you and I do think that was very nice of you to come up and say what you had said so who else would like to come forward again uh sorry good even joean asio 21 witon Place welcome again hey happy birthday man thank you very we share one I appre oh wonderful us Cheryl Crow Thomas Edison that's right Thomas Edison was our um we are a sanctuary state are we a sanctuary town all I'm saying is this I worked on a New York Stock Exchange floor for 37 years I was co-chair of the security and Safety Committee also on 9/11 our our mission was to be prepared we had a plan for snowstorms Transit strikes before the word pandemic was even uttered we had a plan for that all I'm saying guys have a plan a plan doesn't cost you one dime the implementation of the plan costs money having no plan cost a lot of money all I'm saying folks have a plan for housing for schooling for health care because it's coming and it's coming soon thank you very much sir that mic may have got out you may have to use the other mic yeah use the other one if this microphone's not working feel free to sit at the other chair welcome and again we'll meet your name and address uh Harold Kane 40b Newport Way in Rossmore hi Harold hi uh question from Mark he alluded to a whing of prospect planes I'm sorry I didn't hear the whole question uh you mentioned the widening of prospect planes that the tracks were being bought up or tracks of land so it could be widened is that in progress now yes that's been in progress for several months now and I believe there's two properties in condemnation that we're going through that process right now as well I'm guessing this is a county project this is a middle sex County sponsored project or Our obligation under the agreement is to acquire the necessary RightWay and I want to say there was about 13 Parcels Plus 18 parcels and we have most of them uh have been have been acquired and there's a couple still in uh combination all right let's go back to 2012 you were probably sitting there I was sitting here and it was after the second flood in Rossmore since I lived there since then we've had a third flood and I brought up the fact that when it was mentioned this project they're doing uh like 11 or 12 right was the first time this came up you you guys weren't here so you wouldn't have known but it did come up um mayor pooie and Wayne Hamilton were sitting over there and my comment after the flood was um we can't move water out of Rossmore fast enough to preclude it now this last flood was really somewhat tragic here because councilwoman SCH was flooded out and at her age and the stress it couldn't have helped uh and my recommendation to them was and they agreed if you want to move more water out of Rossmore you have to start a prospect planes and why in the channel under Prospect planes to at least equal that of the channel on Granite Drive in Cranbury which is maybe 50 yards away if you have to go over there and actually walk it out a little bit to see it but again um if they're going to be widening it this would be the time for a change order it's a lot less money to do a change order on existing project that hasn't even started yet than it is to finish the first project then go back and dig everything up all over again it'll cost you three or four times as much and they agreed with me they understood that so I'm I guess I'm back to where we were 10 or 12 years ago that this should seriously be looked at it would be one of the keys to start to hold eliminate some of the uh flooding coming in rosor after bad rainstorms uh' 05 was a freak Sunday afternoon storm where I believe we had 8 inches of rain in two hours 11 was hurricane Irene and 21 was the remnants of hurricane came asore in Louisiana and just came up over the southern part of the United States and we got the end of it 150 units flooded out um this last one was actually the worst as as far as the storms went it was the least um as far as wind or anything like that but it flooded the most units uh water came up as far as New Haven way which had never gone up that far before and people were flooded in that entire area plus uh the other part was flooded out hadn't flooded before up uh right off forestgate drive but this would be one of the first steps you would have to do is widen Prospect planes and increase the throughput underneath it so if they're really going to do this again which apparently they are this would be a great time for a change order for it to expand the channel to at least equal what's over in Cranbury you increase of throughput by about 50% and that would lower the water level when uh from the lower bridge on Newport over the prospect planes so anyway well thank you for your input um seems to make sense I wouldn't know it's not my my area of expertise but I you know you've been here a while so been here a while I appreciate you're caring for your fellow people at Rossmore too yeah I I hate to see your neighbors and all that get flooded repeated times I got it no reason thank you thank you again council president if I can just say on that there there has been uh grant money provided by middle sex County and there uh there is a uh a study underway um U certainly Rossmore and her professionals are uh spearheading that with the grant money provided by the uh by the county is there any way to communicate these thoughts to the county that they may consider it more since 2012 the project was scaled back as far as a widening at one time they were looking at a believe a you know uh five Lane Road uh now it's scaled back to be uh you know a total of three lane so the widening has been signif signicantly reduced the area of the the Culvert I believe is not getting widened in that area um there is uh storm water management being provided at the Eastern end of the project um so that has been taken into account and and again as I said there's been uh there's more of a regional look at the uh at that Channel at that drainage in that area because that that channel not only runs to R Monroe it runs into cranbery and and uh also also uh you know heleta comes out of heleta Jamesburg so it is more of a regional uh matter that the county is looking at one other question that you may or may not know do we have any idea when that study may be completed uh at the moment I don't I do not no okay just wonder but thank you for your help and thank you Mr Kane um luil come on again welcome again yes thank you Luc Lucio Panos 128 Candera Plaza um I haven't had much dealings with many departments in this Township except for the clerk's Department I want to say thank you pdie I wish you the best of luck you you over when I've been politically involved more so there was never there was never any question you just did your job and you did it well you have a nice life and I think you had a good teacher you got big steps to fil um okay so now this um we talked about shared services is this on yes it is it shared services with the Board of Ed and things like that well and then I watched the tape of the last council meeting when somebody came up and spoke do you have a plan it was like embarrassing the mayor brought up oh what do you want us to build a wall Mr Ron you were you were disrespectful at at one point I disagree okay well let's is there any council person maybe you could take a vote here who thinks they not taking a come on who thinks they should be who there should be a plan it it's happening you know talk to his a new mayor in Jamesburg maybe you could have a meeting with him and see what's going on there because I you know St James Church does there's a number of families using that address so will they come to Monroe Schools we don't know you know the governor join the governor join say thank you Governor Murphy for asking for money could just trickle some down to us because you know we have whatever you want to call them illegal immigrants undocumented arose by any other names they're C causing money and health concerns are these are these people do they have their vaccinations do they have anything they're human beings we want to make sure they're taking care of we want to make sure our families are taking care of so folks you need a plan for for whatever reason monetary health or whatever so please don't take this as a political statement nobody here is up for election okay so find a plan as far as uh solar Farms I think she cover BFI and make it it's a Brownfield and solo f it that is something that has been done uh covering a plan fill so my cousin probably just built the biggest landfill in North America so uh solar farm in North America um so if you ever want any advice I'm sure he'll do me the favor I'm his older cousin okay so now finally it has come to my attention somebody drew this up to me a lawyer because I don't want you to take this I don't want you to take this personal it has come to my attention that the mayor plans to assign the township business administrator to serve as an employee design on the planning board I urge the mayor to reconsider because the business administrator cannot serve both functions without creating the appearan appearance of impropriety if not an outright conflict as administrator the ba is expected to run the day-to-day operations of the township which includes dealing with the daily issues that arise with developers and property owners for the same person to also vote on applications and variances creates a perverse incentive to justify various thoughts there are dozens of employees in this Township that could fill the role without creating such conflict I ask I request the mayor resend this I ask for your support and maybe put out ask anybody else in this Township employee if they would sit on the thing on the planning board this definitely you always look at the worst that could happen and the worst that could happen is there's a conflict here so um please consider that and I have to think the word is illegal immigrants not undocumented illegal immigrants thank you thank you for your time anyone else wish to be heard so you're already heard you don't get seconds you get your one bite at the Apple but if it's a very quick question I'll accommodate you please just somebody else is going to come up you can do that really it's you about a minute left from before Jo atanasio 20 Place P Township my question is when are we going to enforce the pro prohibition on the engine brake in Monroe the prohibition on engine brake that's a a brake that's used by the 12 wheeel dump truck jockeys they activate it and when it goes past behind your house my house backs up to Pleasant box Plains the whole house shakes in 2004 Monroe Township had an ordinance put in place prohibiting this I think Wayne Hamilton was involved at that time and cranberry also cited it as a as a great big trucks sorry big trucks dump trucks diesel trucks okay they used the jake break as they call it to preserve their breaks but it shakes your whole house and we put an ordinance in place in 2014 and at the bottom of the ORD had said that there were going to be signage put up there's no signs in this town I'm here 17 years okay I'd appreciate it very much if you would look into it the ordinance is in place really I mean we with the increased truck traffic it's getting really annoying thank you very much thank you thank you anyone else wish to be heard tonight I see no other hands um at this point I will entertain a motion to close the public portion motion second second second all those in favor I I before we adjourn I have a statement to make that I wanted to make um I too am uh concerned about a couple of things going on uh first of all we have a we have a family in Monroe um Edward Murrow and his wife they formed a foundation called the Leonid Foundation they help the people in Ukraine who have been uh suffering and and put out of their uh homes and they send humanitarian Aid it's now been 2 years of that war and um I would like to we're now at a point where there seems to be a question on supporting the Ukraine as a public official take an oath and my oath is to uphold the Constitution and try to do what's best right try and do what's best for the country and I hear that they're withholding the aid first they started to say it was because they wanted to wait until there was aid for the the Border I understand that because you know why help those people if there's other people coming here I get it but now I hear that our Senate has put together bilateral uh a bilateral Bill to provide funding for the border to address a lot of the problems with the border to put limitations on how many people can come in at a given time and give the president the powers he wants to do problem is that even though we somehow miraculously have Republicans and Democrats coming together on this issue when it goes to the House of Representatives we're already told it's a dead Bill why not because they're considering the bill as whether it's a good bill whether it's for the best interest of the country whether it's something that's in the best interest of our constitution but because they've been told that if that bill passes it would make Joe Biden look good and and would hurt Donald Trump that's wrong that's simply wrong if there is a reason for not passing something that's different if you say that the provisions are not right that's that's it but here to come forward and say that we're not going to support and by the way this was not a Joe Biden bill this was a James Langford who's one of the most conservative Republicans in the US Senate who put this bill together with the help of Schumer and and couple of the other Democrats and IT addresses so many of the exact problems we're talking about so I'm going to ask those people to please reconsider do what's right follow your oath that you took when you became a member of the House of representives do what's best for the United States of America and with that I just want to say thank you and I I thank you for uh all of your uh kind attention tonight and all of you people who came forward to you know give your opinions on things so at this time I'll entertain a motion toour the meeting motion so move second second second all in favor I I time time is 8:33 we are adjourned thank you everyone --------- 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 with liberty and justice for all thank you madam clerk may I have a roll call please Council let the record show that councilwoman Cohen is absent this evening Council Charles councilman Michael marel here councilwoman Rupa P seagull here councilman Terrence vanzora here may we read the sunshine one to the record in accordance with the open public meetings act it is hereby announced and shall be entered into the minutes of this meeting that adequate notice has been provided by the following one posted on the bulletin boards within the municipal building building on December 29th 2023 and remains posted at that location for public inspection two printed in the home News Tribune and the cranberry press on December 29th 2023 three posted on the Monroe Township website and four sent to those individuals who have requested personal notice in accordance with chapter 3 section 17 of the Monroe Township Code public comment shall be limited to 5 minutes unless further time is granted by the council vice president at this time I will be asking the council for consideration of the following resolution of appointment a three-year term from February 1st 2024 until February 1st 2027 under resolution r224 d46 which is a resolution appointing Christine Robbins as municipal clerk for the township of Monroe some of you probably know many of you know Christine Robbins was hired by Monroe Township back on May 18th 2015 as a deputy Township Clerk she came to us from Englishtown where she had worked since 2004 ending her career there as a deputy clerk she received her certified Municipal registar certification in January of 2007 and her registered municipal clerk certification in October of 2009 so I would need a a motion from one of our council members please moves I hear a second second okay um can I have a roll call vote please all those in favor say I I I so roll call roll call roll call oh never mind councilman Charles depiro definitely yes thank you councilman Marquel yes councilman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes motion carried congratulations now have uh Christine sworn in um by Tanya Panucci who will be the she's going to be our Deputy who is our Deputy clerk okay um holding the Bible will be her mother Moren accompanied by her husband Brian her son Alex and her daughter Allison also in attendance at tonight's meeting are her best friends Lori and Barbara her niece Ava and her nephew Angelo so we're going to go ahead and have that taken care of we you know you bible holders and guys come on up there Christine left hand down right hands up ready repeat after me I Christine Robbins I Christine Robbins do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the state of New Jersey and the state of New Jersey that I will bear true faith that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and allegiance to the same and to the governments established in the United States and to and the governments established in the United States and in this state and in the state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people and that I will faithfully and that I will faithfully impartially impartially and justly perform and justly perform all the duties of municipal clerk all the duties of municiple clerk in the township of Monroe in the township of Monroe according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability so help me God so help me God congratulations thank [Applause] you at this point I would ask any of our council members who would like to say a word or two to go ahead I'll start on my left with uh Rupa seagull Christine I wish you all the best welcome to your first official meeting I look forward to working with you through the years thank you Charlie yes I just want to say um you know youve you do a great job as a deputy I know you're going to do a great job as a Township Clerk just continue the great work your office has always put out and good luck Mike I just like to congratulate you um could we couldn't have found someone better I'm sure thank you so much and Christine I'll say that my one and only time that I've had the opportunity to sit in this chair and share one of these meetings I get Christine on her first day so I'm very honored and and I I wish you nothing but the best and I'm sure you'll do wonderful so we're going to take about a two-minute break just so we can take some pictures with the family and then we'll get back to regular business we'll continue with our agenda at the next order of business will'll be uh uh a public hearing on an application for oh let me backtrack a second a proclamation first American Heart month for February 2024 then we will go on to a public hearing on an application for Green Acres uh funding and Mr rimot I was wonder if you could help us out with this certain council president this is for 2024 jela playground funding application and also 2024 Park development application which I believe pertains to a program over to Community Gardens all right yes that's correct it's actually two two Green Acre Grant applications uh and it's uh for the Monroe Township community garden park um uh in in 2022 the master plan was updated the open space element of the master plan included recommendations for Parks and Recreation the township did an extensive public outreach program they received uh new uh they received extensive public input citing the need for recreation facilities in the southwest quadrant of the township uh the master plan made recommendations at the Township community garden uh the for active Recreation and additional parking areas um my office prepared a conceptual layout plan and environmental impact assessment for the park which the council has copies of and I I believe somewhere distribute it out to the public it's also on the website the township website as well um so myof has prepared the conceptual layout of the park for an inclusive playground restrooms additional parking and an expansion of the existing community garden the concept also includes a sidewalk connection to Woodrose Lane in the Arbor's development as well as a shade structure and additional Landscaping the project will be designed and constructed in compliance with current NJ doot storm order management rules and no environmentally sensitive areas will be disturbed tree clearing will be minimized and a tree replacement plan will be provided the project cost is estimated at 2,876 $6,000 uh the two Grant requests under the Jake's law we're seeking 75% of that amount and under the Green Acres Parks development the remaining 25% and if the council has any questions I'll take some questions at this time any council members with questions right so at this time uh uh this is something subject to a public hearing do I hear a motion open it to the public motion any second second second Mr marel so um all those in favor I I I any members of the public wish to be heard on the application for Green Acres funding busman welcome welcome welcome welcome nice to see you Gary busman s monar road obviously Monroe New Jersey welcome um as a member of the garden being its uh a Treasurer and also a member of the Parks and Recreation board I commend the town for seeking this grant uh there are no parks in the southern part of the municipality this is going to be a wonderful Improvement it's uh something that the community will uh appreciate and enjoy for a very long period of time thank you so much for obtaining These funds thank you anyone else come up come up he know it's real name and address for the record Lucio Panos 128 SE andera Plaza in this is there going to be like a compost pile is there going to be a compost pile uh council president the compost pile is part of the gardens they currently have a compost pile and that's not being disturbed as part of this project not Disturbed i i in addition to it I'm a big compost compost pardon you want more comp yes I don't know if that's part of it certainly something we can take a look at but again that is part of what the garden uh Community is doing out there now they are composting they have a a really good program um as well I just want more all right thank you thank you for your input anybody else want to be heard okay hearing no one else uh can I have a motion to close the public portion motion second second second Charlie those in favor I I moving along on the agenda we now have ordinances for a second reading at February 20 at February 5th 2024 regular meeting read yes I will I will ask our new clerk to do the honor of reading these uh ordinances for second reading ordinance 01 20241 supervisory Personnel 2024 salary and wage ordinance for Monroe Township middlex County ordinance 01 20242 Bond ordinance of the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey appropriating 2.5 million expected to be received as a grant from the state of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to supplement the 2 million appropriated by Bond ordinance 06 2023 022 finally adopted August 7th 2023 to provide for improvements to the police building and the expansion of the parking lot okay and then we have our ordinances for introduction tonight ordinance 02 20243 an ordinance of the township of Monroe in the county of middle sex New Jersey to authorize a conservation restriction agreement for Real Property known and designated as tax block 60 L 28.4 and 28.4 Q form also known as 330 Schoolhouse Road on the official tax map of the township of Monroe for open space ordinance 02 20244 Bond ordinance providing for various Capital Improvements in and by the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey appropriating 2,900,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of 2,396 640 bonds or notes of the township to finance part of the cost thereof ordinance 02 20245 Bond ordinance providing for improvements to Applegarth School in and by the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey pursuant to a shared services agreement with the Township Board of Education appropriating 5 million therefore and authorizing the issuance of 4,761 n00 bonds or notes to finance part of the cost thereof ordinance 02 20246 ordinance appropriating 4,300,000 2,300,000 of which is from a state of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Grant and 2 million of which is from the middle sex County open space Recreation and farmland and historic preservation trust fund grant for the acquisition of property for use as open space in and by the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey any comments from Council Members okay uh we'll move on next now to resolutions for consideration under the consent agenda has everyone had a chance to uh review the resolutions exceptions none tonight not tonight there's the first for everything quite a few first tonight as a matter of fact I'm good thank you all right um we don't need any all right so we have now reached the the uh public comment section for agenda items only so if anyone wants to be heard on any of our agenda items at this time you're welcome to come forward we have a five minutes per speaker um if it's if you have comments on non agenda items you'll have your chance at the end of the uh regular meetings any all right make a motion to open someone so moved open to the public second second all those in favor I hi I say One hand come up good evening name and address sir Joe atanasio 21 Wellington Place Monroe nice to meet you my question is on R2 2458 the purchase of the Ford Explorers and also on R2 20 2467 the purchase of the Chevy tahos are any of these electric I'll refer to Mr Weinberg uh no neither of them are electric including the police vehicles no hyers either uh no there actually we've been trying to purchase council president if Council vice president if I may we've been trying to find some uh electric vehicles but it's been harder to find within the uh government uh purchasing uh process um so they are not they're not uh hybrids okay thank you thank you anyone else hello again Lu Panos 128 C Lera Plaza uh 202 24005 and I guess 047 I sort of want to combine that because it alludes to shared services with the Board of Ed let me say this I would hope that all you people last council meeting somebody came up and said do you have a plan for the migrant well Jamesburg just got a 25 families using the same address and how many going to US schools hold on a second now you're talking about migrants in Jamesburg and I don't see that okay okay no no no no let's get it goes to our schools now we get to the school portion right now we're getting to the school portion these people that come in that we have to defend ourselves on and I see it's environmental this one particular 65,000 is that the bfi's going on with that largest the largest driver of it is right what's going on with that well we can't I mean we can't discuss litigation um in public it's just not no one does that um so that we are in Act of litigation with them and and I think everything that we can say um certainly has been said we're trying to certainly protect uh the interests of uh Township residents so counselor that you're getting paid for this how long has this litigation been going on this litigation well actually the dispute with BFI has been going on for almost three actually more than three years now the actual litigation got filed um about 18 months ago there's about I don't know 120,000 documents that are involved in the case it's a very extensive litigation all right so then you're saying you're well worth your your firm is well worth the money I think we are oh yeah we so thank you thank you Lucille anyone else wish to be heard on agenda items I know who you are but if you could please take your name and address for the record we appreciate it I am Beth deiro 404 Spotswood Gravel Hill Road in our great town of Monroe welcome once again thank you and welcome Christine thank you Beth um I have a question on R2 20245 about the shared service agreement with the township of Marboro with their Swim Club is that for students is that for public um I have an idea but I'm going to refer to Mr Weinberg anyhow so it gives a discount rate uh for neighboring towns who do the shared services agreement I think the three categories are uh family uh I want to say uh uh married couple and senior citizen there's three different rates it's the same rates not the same exact rates but the same categories that I believe Mar Marboro has for its own for its own residence um Family individual and Senior sorry family individual and Senior right got okay beautiful that's all I have so thank you thank you nice to see you again anyone else on the agenda items Mr gunkelman are you coming forth fast as I can didn't know if you're stretching your legs or you wanted to be heard that's all you're welcome as always you could uh again georgean 5 K cour Monroe welcome again um on on page two um5 uh which is the $5 million um why is this coming from the municipality and not uh from the school district which uh what are we talking about page two ordinance 2045 ordinance ordinance 2024 d005 Allan that's the 5,000 5 million 5 million 5 million yep so um as I as I understand and hopefully I get this all correct um the school district was fortunate enough to win what's called a regular operating District Grant something that doesn't happen a lot um I think it's been about 10 years since the state gave out grants to what are called regular operating districts they put in an application for a $10 million project and they were awarded a $4.05 million Grant from the state they also received I believe a $1 million Grant as part of the last budget so I believe they have $5 million give or take 50,000 and in order to move forward on the project they needed an additional $5 million to match that what is essentially $5 million in state money without that $5 million um I I I would imagine that the money could potentially go back to the state or what have you I don't believe that the school district I can't be a complete expert on this has the ability to ra you know raise that money um themselves um within their budget um um you know obviously so we can do that um and this becomes an opportunity uh for to keep important Grant dollars within the township that were successfully won by the Board of Ed and ultimately save taxpayers money in the long run uh got it yeah got it basically yeah no I understand perfectly what's going on here but here's the issue um the school district is a separate entity yes and and we're they're not matching the grant that they applied for we're matching it for them the reason they don't have the money is not because they didn't look around in their budget is because they can't get the community to support them in their actions in a bond issue oh I'm not going to speak for the school Bo no we've gone through the bond issue it went down it's it's history it's not speculation it's history well I one thing but it's a dangerous territory for us I'm look I'm favor of Education I'm in favor this is an opportunity that I think we need to cash in on but let's be clear here the the school and the school board in particular um needs to find it in itself an ability to communicate with the community to get its support rather than to come to the municipality and say bail us out because we don't have community support and that's I don't think that's where we want to go I mean we we have separate budgets and now we're crossing over into there and and and I I think it requires a hard look but I'm not saying pass up the opportunity because in the end it will be a taxpaying thing tax saving thing for them you say but pouring $10 million into Apple gar school um is probably not many people's idea of money well spent but that's why it didn't pass in the first place opinion I appreciate it okay uh the next question I had was on 006 which is the um the appropriation of of um money4 uh acquiring open space land is that site currently under Farmland preservation so uh thank you uh Council vice president the the site is currently farmland assessed but it is not Farmland preserved so I want to make that clear you know uh different properties can be operated as Farms that give them a lower rate but it is not preserved in any way okay thank you that was my question there um going to the consent agenda uh 047 shared services agreement what are these shared services what are we getting for this that's the that's the Bond I I I think that that's the companion to the bond issue you just obviously it is but what are the shared services that we're supposedly getting give to Mr rinberg again so we we so that's a good question and I should mention earlier too and I I'm pretty sure of this I don't think for a rod Grant which is what makes it a unique opportunity you can partner with a bond referendum it has to be actual cash that's ready so um Fair points that you made earlier but I'm just just want to clarify that um the shared services agreement here is that we obviously work cooperatively with the board of education on a whole host of things including our Recreation and at times our Cultural Arts and other programs the green fair and so as part of this agreement we will continue to use um the schools for the benefit of those programs um collectively with the with the school whether it be wre practices and a variety of other wreck activities and continue to work with them around the issue of security as we always you know look at that as well so it's a shared services around accessing School spaces for our for our uh residents um as part of our Recreation and other programs continuing to do that in the future George you've run out of time for the moment certainly welcome to come back later on your generosity is overwhelming thank you thank you Gary Gary busman seven Monarch Road Monroe I want to pick up on what Mr gunman just said uh the board of education is an entity un its own therefore responsible for its own well-being raising a financing spending of money uh what so as George said it's a known fact that the residents of Monroe don't want to spend any money for more education they've been two budgets they've been voted down every referendum that they' put forward has failed the township has purchased property the golf course on Apple goth road with cost us couple of million dollars I'm not sure of the dollar amount we conveyed that to the board of education and nothing has come from that that municipality has seen no benefit at all from that acquisition just like the five million doll that we're talking about now I voted positive on every education budget that's been ped forward so it has nothing to do with education as it relates to us children we need to be cognizant of fiscal responsibility to the residents of this town that pay taxes to the fire department the Board of Education and the municipality to comp complete the function and their responsibility to serve our community please consider this it you know we're we're spending five mill you want to spend $5 million to raise $5 million what are they going to do with the $10 million thank you all right thank you you want to respond or not I I understand that there even if we're not going forward with the same extensive uh repairs and additions and things that the the uh Applegarth school that may have been proposed there are still some things that are somewhat necessary in order for the safety of the children so just to add in and I'll let the Board of Ed speak to this because it's their application but I believe it's basically HVAC and roof workk that is the significant part of it and I will reiterate that um Rod grants don't happen a lot um and getting a 50% match in any investment is a really great thing for the community normally when you go out to Debt Service that percentage of State assistance can fluctuate depending on the type of project and be much less so this is really a a good bang for your buck to get a 50% match um from the state which is why I know the you know the mayor was uh supportive of of this opportunity and uh moving forward anyone else uh have any public comments on any of the agenda items this evening anyone there can I have a motion to close the uh public comments motion motion Charlie second second second Rupa all those in favor can we now have a motion to uh adjourn the uh agenda meeting motion second second Mike um roll call councilman deiro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes time the time is 7:06 how much it matters I always wanted to say the time thing though all right at 7:06 now um I'd like to call the regular meeting to order um can I hear a motion please motion Charlie motion second second Rupa can we have a roll call on that councilman deiro yes councilman marel yes councilman seagull yes Council vice president vanora yes okay first motion to approve the payment of claims per run date January 31st 2024 do I hear a motion motion second second second by Mike roll call councilman toiro yes councilman marel yes Council seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes we now move to approval of the minutes motion to approve the minutes of the following meetings as written and presented December 4th 2023 agenda and regular combined meeting December 20th 2023 agenda and regular combined meeting do I hear a motion motion second second roll call councilman deiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanora yes we now move on to our ordinance ordinances for a second reading um first one 01- 224-1 supervisory Personnel 2024 salary and wage ordinance for Monroe Township middlex County um hearing a motion open okay can we have a motion to open a public hearing on this issue motion second second roll call all in favor all in favor all in favor I I okay anyone wish to be heard on this issue seeing no hands and seeing no one arise from the back of the room I will assume there no one wishes to be heard can we now have a motion to close the public hearing portion motion Charlie second second Rupa all in favor I move down to we need a motion to ad roll call I'm sorry apologize um at this point I'm going to ask for a motion to uh adopt motion motion by Charlie second second okay roll call vote councilman deiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council Vice President Van Zoro yes next one is uh 01224 Z2 at Bond ordinance of the township of Monroe in the County middx New Jersey appropriating $2,500,000 expected to be received as a grant from the state of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs to supplement the $2 million appropriated by Bond ordinance number 0- 6-22 3-22 finally adopted August 7th 2023 to provide for improvements to the police building and the expansion of the parking lot this includes a a $2.5 million Grant from the state can I have a motion to open a 19 Street uh what are the prop I know I've asked several times let's build up the police department let's give them the facilities adequate to perform the great job they're doing on the street so what exactly are the improvements that they're going to make to the police station Mr Weinberg would you like to handle that sure so it's a complete Rehabilitation inside inside and I believe I just want to I don't have my numbers right in front but I think a 3,000 or over 3,000 ft addition as part of it there's going to be a large new uh dispatching area some additional meeting rooms um upgraded Locker areas and we'll allow the police department building to right now it has 67 sworn officers I think when it first opened um if I recall correctly I believe there was only about 27 or 28 officers that moved into that building so it's grown quite significantly this will also allow us to uh have a a parking lot in the back that'll be secure and be able to handle uh the volume of uh cars that we have and really be able to handle the growth of our Police Department uh for the year you know for the years to come so this was designed uh by an architect in coordination with the police themselves and I think everyone's really excited for it to move forward having experienced it firsthand up in the city a couple times um I I would really urge if they haven't done or considered it at least maybe installing um bulletproof glass on the exterior obviously they're all exterior windows but I think that would be uh tatou to the safety of our offices like I said having experienc it firsthand in a city it ain't fun it's a great point and we do follow there's very specific rules about constructing police buildings including things like you just mentioned and a whole variety of locks and other things that are specifically uh designed for the police department and safety and mind so thank you thanks thank you anyone else wish the seal repeat it all the time my name yes luos 128 cander Plaza i' like to make sure you still remember it in my old town they the police department had a shooting range downstairs does this one have they're having trouble hearing you maybe I don't know if the thing is not up to your mouth oh sorry do this does this um have a that a shooting range downstairs I know by the township I came from they did I was just curious yeah we we do not have a shooting range within the building um at this point um certainly can take that under advisement but at this point we don't we don't have a shooting range within the building this expansion wouldn't create a shooting range either within the building the benefit of the police officers understood thank you anyone else seeing no one else can I have a motion to close the public portion motion Charlie second second rer all those in favor right now you need a motion to adopt okay now um we have a motion to adopt the ordinance motion and second second we need a roll call vote on this councilman toiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes thank you motion approved number five ordinance for introduction 02- 224003 in ordinance of the township of Monroe in the county of middle sex New Jersey to authorize a conservation restriction agreement for Real Property known and designated as tax block 60 Lots 28.4 and 28.4 Q form also known as 330 Schoolhouse Road on the official tax map of the township of Monroe for open space can I hear a motion motion second second a roll call vote councilman zapiro yes councilman marel yes councilman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes 02- 20244 Bond ordinance providing for various Capital Improvements in and by the township of Monroe and the county middle sex New Jersey appropriating $2,900 th000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of 2, 396,000 bonds or notes of the township to finance part of the cost thereof do I hear a motion motion second second roll call please councilman toiro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanora yes 0-2 d224 005 Bond ordinance providing for improvements to Apple gar skull in and by the township of Monroe County of middlex New Jersey pursuing to a shared services agreement with the Township Board of Education appropriating $5 million therefore and authorizing the issuance of $ 4,761 n00 bonds or notes to finance part of the cost thereof do I hear a motion so moved second second roll call vote councilman toiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman SE seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes 0-2 d224 d006 ordinance appropriating $ 4,300,000 2,300,000 of which is from the state of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Grant and $2 million of which is from the middlex county open space Recreation and farmland and historic preservation trust fund grant for the acquisition of property for use as open space in and by the township of Monroe in the county of middlex New Jersey motion please motion second second second roll call please councilman toiro yes councilman marel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes we now move to our resolutions for consideration under the consent agenda do I hear a motion to approve motion second second roll call vote please councilman deiro yes councilman Marquel yes councilwoman seagull yes Council vice president vanzora yes um item seven would be resolutions removed I believe we do not have any resolution remov D this evening confirmed by our clerk so we will now move to our administrator report and I will turn that over sure to Mr Weinberg thanks uh Council vice president appreciate it um the mayor unfortunately is out sick today so I'm going to share some comments from him as well um he did want me to report that he's uh reached out to the governor and the legislators on the proposed upcoming state budget asking for more money for school funding um keeping anchor at 1750 or more expanded senior freeze um which is going to come into fruition this year uh more down payments on stay andj and even more uh energy receipts tax which helps over here on the municipality side continuing the focused on affordability so hopefully more to come on that um do want to mention the Green Acres Park improvements is a positive Grant application so very excited about that uh special thank you to uh uh DPW and uh Mt and Parks who assisted them on a great job uh in the last snowstorm it wasn't actually an incredible amount of snow but the way that it fell and the way that the temperatures dropped so quick um I thought that the uh the team of DPW as the lead team and Mt and parks and everybody did a great job of trying to get as much salt down and clean it up as quick as as quick as possible because of the quick freeze it's certainly not an easy job um and so we just want to say thank you to them for that um the local Recreation Grant was also on here last year we got $75,000 for volleyball courts over by Avenue K and there's an application on here for hopefully 100,000 that's the maximum you can apply for for some pickleball and volleyball courts over by the senior center as well that's in addition to the Green Acres application um with the uh approval of the bond ordinance for the $2.5 million Grant we can move forward on the groundbreaking soon hopefully in a couple of weeks on the expansion of the police building um thanks to that $2.5 million Grant from the state so we appreciate that as well and then finally um there's some new carpeting in the building in the process uh much needed safety improvements where it was coming up a couple decades old uh so I want to thank the employees and the residents uh for their patience it's a it's a big job um and we should be uh done by the end of the week looks a little bit different in here um with the improved parking lot outside and the new carpet and a little bit of new paint um hopefully Town Hall continues to be a good experience for our residence as we move forward and we appreciate everyone's patience thank the council thank you so much Mr resume thank you Council vice president uh given the winter weather conditions out there uh I'll give you an update on the one project that the county is doing Oldbridge English Town Road mounts Mills Road uh intersection improvements and traffic signal uh they they continue working through the winter months out there as uh conditions allow and just use caution in that area as it's an ongoing construction site that's uh that's my quick report thank you very much we can now move on to uh Council reports I'll start on my left with councilwoman Rupa seagull thank you Council vice president good evening everyone um I have a few updates we had a ribbon cutting ceremony a couple weeks ago um welcoming Joe Bella hair salon to the community so I wish them all the best in their new business and I Echo Mr Weinberg with thanking DPW Parks and Recreation and all the other departments that helped us during the cold weather extreme temperatures and a little bit of snow we got amazing job the roads looked amazing and I was in the south at that time and just seeing the difference between how much salting really makes an impact on your roads is tremendous and I wanted to just send a remind everyone about the Betty Schneider food pantry at the senior center I've had a couple people reach out to me asking me where they can make donations for food so I just wanted to remind everyone we have a food pantry right here in Monroe in our senior center and also um if you haven't seen please mark your your calendars we have the Mon Monroe Police Department is presenting their Community safety tips this month um it's a great presentation where they discuss current crime Trends scams and ways to stay safe I know I've attended a couple in the past and there's always something new I picked up pick up from it um the to mark your calendars it's at the Monroe Township community center Room 101 on February 16th at 6:30 and then Monroe Township senior center a 12 housy Road February 22nd at 3:30 so please do mark your calendars and try to come thank you thank you Mr deiro councilman welcome oh thank you so um on the uh resolutions tonight we rejected the bid for uh mtud for the roof I was just wondering I know that was um what's our plan going forward for uh for future bidding and also are we going to get a quick fix because of the situation uh with the roof and and the animals getting in and all that type of thing so what's our what's our game plan with the the bidding of the re mrin thank you thank you Council vice president uh yes councilman that's a great question uh as you know one of the initiatives that uh we are also considering uh as part of the township is putting uh new solar panels up and uh the new bid that we're going to re-evaluate is actually going to repair that flat roof uh on mtud so that it would be able to support solar panels in the future and uh we're also taking a look at a couple of other improvements as part of the 2024 budget year and also revising the spec to make sure that uh all the contractors understand the scope of work so we'll get a more competitive bid this time around because with in this building here we all went through it a couple months ago we we had a big change order because the plywood wasn't spec properly and we had to go for a big change order so um that wasn't the same situation on this this rejection of this bid no it was not all right so we just want to make sure that we put the bid out you know so we don't have a change order going in before we even start the job like like we did in this building all right thank you thank you um oh also I received an email from a resident in the Heritage Chase in reference to the water tower um requesting what was going on with the painting of the uh 522 water tower so I sent that email over to Joe and I forwarded it to Allan did anybody get back to that Resident do you want to com uh no we have not gotten back to that Resident as of yet uh we're finalizing the plans uh for the 522 tank uh right now uh it is not sized appropriately for supporting the uh the Water Tower so we're waiting for the uh introduction of we 25 to see how hydraulically it works within the system once that uh is accomplished we'll be able to go ahead and make the improvements to the tank uh that will allow it to function at that same time that the improvements are made we're going to paint both the inside and outside that tank all right so if somebody can get back to that Resident and let and let us also all of us know what the future plan is it will be well uh appreciate because that's a water tower that's getting a little bit of rust on it like Halfacre Road one while you're there Joe I got another question um well 25 uh I haven't noticed any signs there yet um you know with the location of being well 25 um I'm just concerned First Responders uh 911 one calls got forbid when our employees get hurt um you guys there's not there's not an address or there's not even a sign even on a fence I went there twice today to to look um there's no sign at all there's no sign out on the lawn it says well 25 I missed it maybe but I went twice I didn't see it um it we want to get signage on all our wells all our pump stations and stuff like that this is a brand new uh facility but I think we need a sign on there for First Responders and for employees to make sure you know nobody gets hurt absolutely we're uh subject to appropriate security concerns because it's critical infrastructure yeah yeah so I'm not quite Joe and I haven't had this conversation yet but we probably should have a conversation about whether or not you really do want to put signage where our Township Wells are and pump stations for security well we do need to have or put an address on it put put the physical address uh you want to have a physic phical address cuz then hower hower 911 uh going to be able to respond you know and also dispatchers is going to be able to dispatch if there's no physical address so uh if it doesn't have a sign well 25 call it uh you know 4772 spots with English town or 474 whatever the number isir enough we need some kind of signage I I believe um thank you Joe and also L thank you you're welcome um I was reading um our governor is reaching out to Federal funding along with seven other Governors uh it was like a $3.1 billion um he's looking for some funding or or Governor Murphy in reference to illegals and migrants and trying to get some funding for the state of New Jersey so seeing it I know last month was a big uh question uh and previous here in this building we talked about it and now our Governor's talking about it so we are we going to have a plan u in a reference if our Governor's asking for funding um I know since last meeting I spoke to people in Jamesburg there are uh 10 families living in a local church right now there's 28 more students in the Jamesburg school system from uh 1 to 8th grade I don't know how many are in their uh 9th through 12th which happens be monor schools and US taxpayers will be funding that um are we do we have a plan uh on what's going on uh with if Murphy's asking for it is anybody responding uh can anybody respond in reference to what the governor's doing know I mean uh so I did read a couple news reports on that I don't know if there's any specifics around what he's doing I know that there have been uh some uh buses that have come to uh train stations in I guess the Northern end of of town where people would take the I guess the bus hypothetically into the city or into other large cities um I'm not aware of any specific plan uh for towns or Suburban towns on how they would how anyone would uh would handle such a situation I we certainly don't have in Monroe uh any of the services or resources that folks who would need services and resources would normally look for um in terms of emergency housing and a variety of other things as we discussed at previous meetings there were a lot of we got a lot of phone calls um from rumors that you know everyone would be moving into the uh New Jersey training school for boys that we asked that question at the meeting of the training school Representatives that is absolutely not the case they're going to be here for another four or five years or more um so so to answer your question and I don't I don't I'm not aware of any set of plans I certainly welcome any input from the council if they have any ideas of things we we could be doing we'd be careful to use uh taxpayer uh resources uh our taxpayer resources are somewhat limited we don't have those services and it hasn't been something uh that has impacted us and I haven't seen um any plans coming down from the state or seen I've seen any other middle six County towns that I talk to um that have done anything in particular so that's the report that I can basically give okay thank it just it just seem I mean you turn the TV on every channel no matter what you turn on they're all over over state every state um and you know being uh being I guess proactive we have to look at it and say look what's our plan going to be what if um and that's as a fire commissioner I always say that's a what if what if this situation happens what if that and then then we get a flood and then we get or we get a storm that our our firefighters and First Responders are out there day and night and they never know what they're walking into and they're all trained and they're all prepared and they have all of the equipment and they have all of the Manpower so my concern my concern is um it's all around us and it's getting closer and it's just to the point where uh if they're in our schools already you know um I watched on on social media I saw one Illinois councilman you know put a motion up to say oh anybody wants to volunteer their home or they want to volunteer their empty building you know put a start a list at the at the township level so we did have residents come here in the past that said oh I have one bedroom or two bedroom or whatever and I'm I'm willing to you know house some some person if they need a home um but I'm just concerned if the governor's asking for it that we need to keep a close eye and we also need to keep a plan uh with our school system along with with their housing and everything uh that's the reason why I brought up that question cuz our Governor's asking for the funds um thank you for the explanation Allan thank you um Council Vice uh vice president budget 2024 do we have any workshop dates scheduled yet I will refer to Mr warberg do we have any I don't have anything scheduled yet we normally do the uh introduction in uh April at the first meeting in April and then the approval at the first meeting in May um so that's when the budget would be uh roduced and then in May we'd have a public hearing um on the budget as well um so uh so that's that's how we've done it probably the last four or five years well we used to meet with the directors and they used to come to us with their with their uh plan for a 10 15 minute presentation uh we used to meet here sometimes downstairs sometimes in this room are we going to be doing meeting with the directors of each department well you could um that's certainly something you could discuss with the council president president and Council vice president that wasn't really a budget update that was more of a department update uh we never went through budget line items or anything that that happens as part of the budget hearing um so if it's something the council wants to do a department update we can certainly you know accommodate that request and you could have a conversation amongst your colleagues about that and and we could we could certainly work on it but it's always historically been like a department update but it's something that's helpful if we can do it maybe you know Terry if you could make something happen I'd appreciate appr it with our director uh in each department you know I will confer with my council president not overstep my authority and see if anything thank you and I think it was I think it was her idea years ago she and it was it was a very good idea had a allot of the guys come forward and it was helpful it was very helpful so thank you I wanted to um I see the liquor license that we did a uh resending and then we we uh you know we had to do some housekeeping uh I had a a question U with the new laws that our governor just signed in January my concern is there's a two-year pocket license if you have pocket license the two years and then each town can ex extend that um on a I guess on a town to toown basis along with the um when I was reading through it if you have an adjoining town and you want to transfer from a Township to a Township um are we is our Council I know we just had another uh change order for our Law Firm I don't want to get too crazy here but in a way is it going is it going to be something that you would be advising us with Lou as far as the new law changes and what our options are of course um and where it might be helpful we could start is the the clerk's office maybe can just give you a um G give you a memo and tell you where our licenses are how many we actually have in Pocket how many we don't we're waiting ABC hasn't um I haven't seen it U the a ABC hasn't um issued regulations yet so I think we're all kind of waiting for ABC to tell us how it is exactly that's going to work because while it's authorized by the legislature there really isn't the mechanism in place to explain exactly how that those steps are but certainly when we get them we'll pass them on to council and Adam Clark If you could follow that to me that would be helpful I cuz I actually don't know how many pocket licenses okay I believe they we have 21 active license and they they did Patty and Tanya and Christine they did send it I believe the rest of the council got it I asked for it and I believe the whole Council got it um one of the concerns I have and I had a conversation with Tanya today and she was very helpful so I just want to share this um uh garvey's bar for instance we closed on it um it's a pocket license now so that time would be ticken once we closed on that property because if you I asked Tanya today and the address is still at 405 spots with Gravel Hill which we own that property so if the if the governor has that two-year time ticking we we needed to when we closed we should have put them on notice that you need to make your license inactive with ABC and then and what what what I'm concerned about is it needs to be updated the list needs to be updated is there's a lot of licens that are pocket license and now the governor is changing the law so we have to be prepared are we going to give a one-year extension or are we going to just give two years and follow the governor's uh recommendation so these are my questions I don't know if you want you want me to answer that so I know normally the clerk's office handles the uh liquor licenses and they can give you any information I believe about any current license that that we have I think what Lou reiter at is despite the fact that a new law was created no one has uh the department has yet to promulgate any regulations or have any hearings about how that'll be implemented so I'm not sure that that clock started I'm not sure how any of that works until the alcohol beverage commission takes the law and tries to turn it into a series of regulations which we can comment on and anyone can comment on so I think we have to let that process move forward but if there's any questions about an existing license the clerk's office uh usually can can answer the question under the current rules that exist today for the alcohol beverage commission okay so so Alan way I understand and I've been here six years now sitting up here so every June they get re renewed so it's their responsibility to let us know if they're active or they're not active The Bard or establishment and they file a documentation with ABC and and all of that but when we purchase garvey's we we we're the owners now so we know that that business is no more you know active so their license should be as the date of the closing it should go into a pocket license and that's I'm using as an example and but councilman so the answer is as soon as we know we'll let you know so probably between now and June we'll know that but I I it's hard for me to answer a question that you just made three legal assumptions and I don't know whether any of them are true or not so I don't know that the state is going to consider the date of the closing to be the date that they went into pocket I don't I the answer is as soon as we get the state regulation we'll let you know it's a relatively new law um it took a long time for them to Hash it out so it's probably going to take the department a little while for them to get the regulations in place but as soon as we have it I'm going to assume that the clock is going to be that before we do the renewals in June we all all going to know what the rules are I do find it hard to believe that they're going to go backwards and say to somebody oh okay it's now June you've been in pocket for two years so you can't get an extension I I don't think it goes backwards so so the answer is is I'm I'm not really quite sure it it's going to work that way but we'll know as soon as the regulations come out they'll tell us how to handle people who have been who are currently in pocket and how how to handle people going going forward so we know we know we'll let you these are all good questions we just don't know the answers to any of them until you know right the other concern I have with it is when I read through it it's the adjoining townships or Burrows that they can buy a license in a joining town and move it into another town with the consent of the municipality correct so so it so that's that's something that would require that that I I do know for sure that the law says that this isn't going to be a circumstance where the 20 licenses in Jamesburg can end up in Monroe unless of course you you all decide that you want them to be here okay um so I I think that that is a um and once again we're going to have to see the state rules and regulations on on that because I need to understand for me what it means when a license comes from Jamesburg to Monroe does that mean it now becomes a Monroe license and that if that person decides to move they can't move back to Jamesburg so at at some point in time the the division of ABC who is very good about giving handbooks to the clerks that they all follow and we all follow um as soon as they do it we'll let you know okay thank you you're welcome um Bentley road we received an email in reference to uh sewer uh flooding did anybody respond to that to that Resident I believe we responded Joe you responded yeah Joe responded to the res all right thank you because when when they send out emails and you guys respond you don't respond back to us that everybody's on emails that's why I have to ask if when they when they ask us an email um I'm not the councilman on bent Le so I did not respond but they did include all all of us mayor counsel and everybody um you know we are we are careful about not doing that because it violates the open public meetings act so the reason why when somebody files a complaint through a council person we don't copy every member of the governing body on it is because there is a concern that that's an open public meetings act violation typically what we'll do is we'll deal directly with the resident and solve then when you ask a question we'll right or they could respond to us individually you know like you guys send us the agenda out stuff like that but either way I'm just asking the question cuz they the resident included all of us um Mount s road who who approved the uh traffic pattern for the construction Mark do you know I'm not sure what you're talking about the county construction site or what what what I'm talking about I'm talking about the traffic Improvement that's being done on Mount SM and Oldbridge English town Road the The Detour who approved the traffic pattern when when the when oldridge English toown Road is only going one way who who approved using the township loop on Mount SM road so that that was approved through the county through the township uh PD my office um we were all part of that um there was a road closure where they had to close the road to install the water lines um and we utilized that Loop for portion of the project okay so so our our professionals including our police they approved that so if you go out there if you look at the the loop on mounts Mill Road which goes from Franklin Plaza to where the water main break was on Christmas Eve uh day and go come back out to where where uh Farmers you know Salters used to have his his uh stand there come back into or English town road that road needs to be all all reconstructed it's being it's being used as a main thare to go through and it's not built to be having Truck Equipment construction equipment detours detour road so I would highly recommend to Middle sex County Road Department hopefully they're going to pick up the tab to redo our road on this project and do a change order uh or hire put out another bid but it's something that the taxpayers of Monroe should not be paying for it's something that the middle six County you always told me this is a middle sex County project so this is something that middle sex County should be redoing and and and a full curb to curb uh reconstruct which I'm talking Stone base binder course and top course everything should be redone out there not just the mill and pave so um that's something that if you go out there take a ride out there and you and you'll see what I'm talking about the road is destroyed in and and it's not a road that was built for heavy equipment so um that's something that we need to address sure Council vice president uh middle sex County did do the repairs on the road there were some areas that broke up there were some potholes as you know there was a water uh service break that had to be replaced so that trench was paved all that was done by the contractor on the site uh you know doing the construction out there The Detour is not being utilized unless the entire roadway of Old Bridge English toown Road has to be closed within that area so as of right now I don't Envision that closure until they come to the final Paving of the project and when they're Paving that strip at that point they may be utilizing a loop again but as of right now they're not utilizing a loop um and it has been repaired okay but it's something that we need to keep very close eyes on and Mark you're an engineer I'll stress it again I'm sure down the road but right now it's something that I would look at uh to for having them reconstruct and rebuilt because they're they're using it in a heavy in a heavy way where that road is was never constructed understood as you know uh councilman um that project the construction costs of the project are split between uh middle sex County and the township so so any work out there uh we are picking up a portion of that tab right and they hit us with a nice Hefty build to move a water main that was in a conflict that they said you know good luck so we did that so I want to I want to return the favor by saying hey you you just destroyed our Township Road by doing your county project uh I want to say you know to thank you middlex County for coming into our town doing the Improvement but I have another question when will that L be constructed uh you're looking at uh I don't have a schedule of when it will be complete it was anticipated to take about a year so I think believe that puts us sometime uh late summer uh if if I remember the schedule correctly um Al also um lost my train of thought for a moment um with regard to the agreement that you know that is has been agreed to with the county and the uh um the shared services out there and the shared cost of the project um the water line all the water utilities and as far as Gas Utilities all that is responsibility of the utility company in this case we own the water lines and Our obligation was to relocate that water line and we had meetings to reduce it I believe there might have been some minor changes to limit the amount of work but yes we we were obligated to do that under the agreement that U because they designed it to move that way so they designed it and we ate the design and we ate the cost of removing that water line and they did it and our water company did it in in a timely manner very timely manner and I and and we work hand inand and don't get me wrong we work hand inand with the county I understand you made your point well on this right right so and and and another thing you know Council vice vice chair is this the like they did by my house we waited six months for the cabinet so I don't want to stand sit up here and say is the cabinet ordered because if I asked for the cabinet tonight you said in the Summertime Summertime come and they say oh they forgot the light bulbs they can't get the light bulbs there's going to be something so the simple question is is everything ordered is everything coming and is the light going to work in 9 months 6 months so that's the question that I would ask and that's what we rely on our professional and Mark you do a good job with them just continue the work but just look at that road and please for the taxpayers right you know thank you all right and the other question I had railroad crossings I always ask about Schoolhouse Road Prospect planes forsgate Drive are there any updates on those railroad crossings Mark you again uh with regard to Pooles is that is that the question in regard to when you go over the railroad crossings you have to hold on to your your steering wheel and they need to be repaved so uh forsgate Drive uh Prospect PLS Schoolhouse Road um you and I had to conversation a few times so starting with Prospect PL as you know middlex county has a project uh that has been designed as you know the township uh has been acquiring the properties out there for uh through uh Acquisitions uh I believe there's some condation on a couple of the parcels that we're going through once all those properties are acquired that portion of Prospect Road uh Prospect Plains Road will be uh will be reconstructed as well as the intersection of Applegarth Road and Prospect ples that traffic signal that is all pending the the outcome of acquiring the land but the plans are designed the crossing will be improved as part of that County project uh forsgate Drive I've been in contact with the railroad as far as the potholes I don't know if they've been out there at at the end of last week if they got there Friday or or today um and with regard to Schoolhouse Road um I wasn't contact with them back in the fall uh I haven't heard anything back as far as a new Crossing out on Schoolhouse Road okay thank you um we got a lot of emails this month in reference to the hotline to the BFI um it's it kind of it's kind of um depressed to hear over and over that they're still getting odors and it's depressing to see the emails come by and I'm sure everybody when we see it we feel for our residents um that what they're going through in the future uh after all they've been through so if there's the hotline and nobody responds to our residents from having a hotline I I just don't know what we can do I mean in that sense I mean without having L say yeah we're under litigation and all of that but what are our residents what other options do we have other than calling the police and calling the fire which they do so I put an email out if I may Council vice president I put an email out to all the residents and I think you were on it as well that you know two of the best things you can do is and this is regarding outdoor air which is obviously much more complicated as many of you know historically uh when this issue began um we were dealing with what we believed um was air coming up through the sewer system into people's homes if you've been following this issue and we were able to build a a uh Force main that moves the leate which is the product that comes from the uh landfill directly to the sewage treatment plant without having to go through our open sewer system so that it would not be possible for lee8 to come in uh through the home so that was that was the the major focus of that um there is a there are as you mentioned a couple of folks who said um that they had uh some unique smells um gaseous smells or what have you Outdoors which is obviously a lot more complicated because it's hard to tell exactly where something's coming from um in an outdoor environment in my memo I suggested two places that always you know would always answer the phone um or at least at least certainly get back one is that County Department of Environmental Protection uh which can look into uh outdoor odors um through um as well as the njd warn hotline if someone thinks something is wrong and as I always put in the email if someone thinks something is an emergency you can always dial 911 um particularly if you smell something that smells like gas we are all sort of in tune to know that if you smell something like gas inside your house or around your house you you know you dial 911 or you call psng and they come out and take take a look at it so those are probably the best mechanisms and outdoor air is obviously a lot more you know a lot more complicated and certainly appreciate the frustration we do get calls as you can imagine from other parts of the area um within the town of of of smells sometimes on the South Brunswick border with the international fragrance we get calls from a variety of different areas about smells which is always a little bit more difficult but the groups that handle that are the county uh Environmental Protection unit um and and the uh d uh War line are probably the right places uh to go for that and of I thank you Alan for sending that email but just that for a residents they're asking and we can't answer for BFI unfortunately and the sign is up and the numbers there if they don't call them we're trying our best and lose firm is trying to get this resolved the last thing I want to talk about is um gab Bal the Avenue I did get your email in reference to the gate that we installed um that the gate is I guess it looks like it's going to remain open the gate MTM Mt right so I guess the the you know the temporary gate or I don't know if it's a new gate was put in because we had someone uh who was uh this garabaldi is like a a dirt road for those of you who don't know off of Avenue K near Old Forge behind the homes there and between the park and the homes you can see like a dirt road that goes back uh heading what I would say ising Street South Spring street so um so so uh there was a we put a temporary gate in there because along that line are some manholes and we had an incident I believe last summer where someone uh took some debris from the area we trying to figure out where they took debris open the manhole and try and put it in and that could be a dangerous situation um when you put uh debris inside a sewer line if it clogs up um of course when that happens to you also make certain notifications so we've since uh welded that manhole shut um so that people couldn't use it for that I don't know who exactly was doing it but we're looking into it um and we put a cinder block on top so that should be in place um in terms of the safety of that manhole there so the gate's going to remain open I mean for the purposes of of of that sewer system I believe the the gate could could be open for that there's a certainly a a separate issue I don't know what you're referring to in particular but from an mtud point of view um I believe that issue has been resolved okay but the gates going to remain open is my question well I I think it's it's a matter that's in active litigation now so we don't generally take self-help we're going to let it play through the courts which is what we kind of always do um but it's our property and we own the gate we paay for the gate once again I'm not it's it's not always about legal fees but if you want the township to do something proactive like sue the property owner in order to stop them from using that property there's a cost to doing that as opposed to just allowing this to proceed through the process when it is resolved then that issue will be resolved unless you tell me that there's some imminent danger that we that would require us to do something on an emergent basis that's well my my my question was is are we going to leave the gate open because we went through the expense of putting the gate up we paid for it I think that the answer is is that we don't the the purpose of the gate was not to stop somebody from using their property it was to it was to protect the manhole but we've now protected the manhole so there's no need to keep the gate closed if that's the question okay so then we spent the money for the gate we're going to leave the gate open and we know the vandalism that's going on and we're just going to leave it the gate open no we we've already secured the manhal cover by welding it shut so we don't need to have the gate anymore that's but we did that twice we we did the manhole we welded it the welds were broke we know who's who who put this the debris into the manhole and I don't I don't know that we do if you do you should you should do give that to us well you do and you have proof we we I asked for a copy of the police reports and and I didn't get a response yet uh from that email but I don't I don't know how you know what we don't know and what the police don't know so if you know and I don't by the way I don't want you to give it to me in a public meeting God forbid that you should say something that's not true in a public meeting about somebody I would prefer that you just provide that information to MTD or to the police department because when you say we all know who it is we all don't know who it is you you might but you should you should give us that information offline but I would I would all I asked for a copy of all the police reports in the email I sent on Friday and I I will open them because I did not get a response but it's an act councilman it's an you know you've made enough Oprah requests to know that you're you're we're in an active investigation and we have litigation so you filed an Oprah request you didn't get the Oprah request but you know the answer already so if you have information that's more information than we have I think you should just share it with the police department yeah so this is not about you getting an oak because you didn't get the police report so you can't say well I got the police report so I could see in the police reports this is who did it because I don't think we know who did it and you haven't gotten the police reports yet so if you have information that would be helpful to us offline I would ask that you give it to well when when we we had a meeting on Thursday and I think you were part of that meeting right so we had a discussion on that topic and also on Friday I sent to the chief of police a I requested a copy of all police reports on gab Baldi Avenue in reference to the vandalism there was no it's crickets nobody responded I copied did you send that what day was that Friday you sent it Friday and I'm going to tell you once again I'm going to say this again I know we're going around and around in circles it's an active investigation we had a conversation on Friday and I generally don't disclose convers ations that we have that I was on the call it's a conversation with Council about pending litigation but I'm so I'm not going to get into it on public but what I'm telling you is that you may have filed a request for documents you're not going to get them because they're a active criminal investigation and if you have more information just like any citizen who has more information on this you should give it to the police department or to mtud right and then Allan you responded today at 2:30 you responded about it and said there was no such know what you what you wrote in the email back to us was basically um the the there's a there's local local investigation and there's a lawsuit right so I and I get but two SE there's two separate items here two separate items that's what I was trying to ask you to clarify so two separate items all right thank youo Charlie thank you all right thank you Mike I'm be anticlimactic here you know uh I just have a few things to say one thing I'd like to say is I want to thank the people at work in this building for all the extra work they had to do for putting down this carpet I'm sure they weren't dragging all their equipment all over the place and making room so the carpet could be done they should be commended um for the job they helped with um also a shout out to the police department um everybody had read I think of of the arrest they've done with stolen cars recently uh as usual we can be proud of the police department it's one of the I feel it's probably the best in maybe the state I would say um it it's black Heritage Month uh this month which is very important uh and I just want to make out and say that on February 15th in the library there's going to be a u celebration of uh black music uh by the Universal singers which is should be very interesting it's it's basically they're going to go over music of various black artists from the past mostly from the past but even Uh current black artists another thing uh as far as black heritage month on uh February 28th uh morvin uh jeder jeterson rather who's an actor and a professor of U of um in one of the colleges he's making a present on Paul Robison um Paul Robison was a Barone singer he's an actor and he was a pro football player and an act black activist so he's going to do a nice report and stand up on on this gentleman um April 28th I know it's in the future but it's very important to me um there's going to be a holocaust I'm going to mention this every month till April there's going to be a holocaust Remembrance Day at the senior center um so mark your calendars for April 28th um one other thing I just wasn't going to mention it but uh I just wanted throw this in um the people that are coming into this country are not illegals they're undocumented the word illegal is totally inappropriate and I think everybody should be aware of that um they're undocumented people there's no such thing as an illegal person and I think we should make public not of that thank you very much thank you Mike um stay in order ma'am you're not being recognized at the moment no one is going to be speaking up when I'm running a meeting I please hope you understand that we're going to maintain order you're not hanging out on a street corner here this is a public meeting well I'm sorry but I'm not going to have that when I'm conducting a meeting all right now my turn um my first order uh uh that I wanted to mention was a very sad thing um back on January 31st just uh I believe it was uh last Wednesday week ago Wednesday um three of our residents were killed in a car accident on Route 30 Route 1:30 um our condolences go out to the family of all of our residents Ellen brotman Alba olivencia and Wilson alencia all passed away accident on 1:30 apparently they were trying to uh cut across got hit by a school bus um the school bus driver was had minor injuries two children on the school bus thankfully were not injured um but we lost three of our residents so that I think that's a sad day for the township um following up on two things that Mike said number one Paul Robison Rucker graduate my Elma moer so I think that's a very uh that's a very good thing and and he is very well respected so uh I'm sure that's going to be a wonderful presentation and the second thing is talking about what the great job our police have been doing and they have been doing an outstanding job this is not the only since but now this last one this let me tell you what happened two guys are trying to sell a stolen car to one of our residents and uh it was listed and the resident said yeah I'm interested in buying the car so they said well we're going to come to your house and somehow things weren't adding up our resident became a little bit suspicious called the police and they set up like a little sting operation so they caught the two guys in the action of selling this vehicle to our resident turns out the vehicle was in fact stolen so they got the guy but then on top of it to make it even better there was a second vehicle that was there which was going to pick up the first two guys after they stole the first stolen vehicle and they were in a stolen vehicle too the police officers came up they managed to also arrest those two guys and recover that stolen vehicle so as a result of the action of a smart Citizen and our Police Department we were able to have four bad guys arrested taken to the middle sex County jail and recover two stolen vehicles so great job by our police department and not the first time they've they've done good things and I don't know whether this was a big factor in it or not but a few months ago we were talking about our our license plate readers that we've been uh uh purchasing and that helps tell the officers when a car enters the Town whether or not it's stolen and they have it in all the police vehicles and different setups so great job with that and for my personal view I also think it's a perfect example of why everything does not go out on nixel many times people come in here and they go there was a car stolen why wasn't it put on nixel well bad guys they listen they got the nixel too you know so if you tell them what's going on and the you you let them know that the police are on to them you know and chances are they wouldn't have stopped but I like to say that our police are experienced we rely on their discretion when to use the nixel when not to use the nixel when people need to know stuff and when they don't need to know stuff so that's a little bit more important than just some of the impulse of nature you know some of our citizens who just wanted on everything we're all curious we all have that that sense of curiosity hey I read about this I read about that um we want to know what going on did I know that guy that was in the accident you know but sometimes let the police do their work we are one of the safest towns not just in Middle sex County not just in the state of New Jersey but actually in the entire country we have one of the best police forces I continue to support them and I rely on them to do their job I don't ask them to do my job and I'm going to let them do their job so thank you again to our police for another outstanding job and then lastly um yeah thank they desert not for me for them not you know um Super Bowl Sunday is coming it's next Sunday February 11th my birthday as a Ruckers guy I'll be supporting my boy Isaiah Pacho and the Kansas City Chiefs another Ruckers guy although there are two Ruckers guys on San Francisco also um on the defense so they're going to be trying to tackle each other but I always enjoy rooting for uh for My Boy Pacho I like momes and kelse see you got a whole Taylor Swift thing going on in there people that goes both ways and by the way San Francisco is a great team too I I think there this is going to be a fine representative Super Bowl on on both sides should be a fun game if you do go out and you go to a party please be careful and if you're having alcohol please make sure you got a designated a driver so we don't have any any more bed stories like these poor people that got killed in the other accident I'm not saying there wasn't any alcohol involved in that but so let's let's be careful and keep the town safe so thank you for indulging me in those matters um with that we would normally move to the mayor's report but uh I know you spoke earlier Mr Weinberg was there anything else from the mayor no that's it all right you already filled Us in on that so we now go to the public comments portion you are not limited to uh just agenda items anymore it's open on anything uh five minutes per speaker uh can I have a motion to open to the public motion second second thank you all those in favor I I okay um first up George you actually moved closer so appreciate that the interest of expediency we will take you first um George gunman 5 Kelly Court Monroe um on the consent agenda item uh 073 which is the um modification to the the bid uh for the thing why is this number not included in the item earlier tonight for funding the thing why why are we doing it now as a separate item Mr Weinberg so what that is earlier that is a uh a capital ordinance that allows us to put in place uh the money to be able to award contracts to effectuate both the construction and the Professional Services associated with it the earlier item the ordinance is putting the money in place it's called a capital ordinance and this is a regular resolution by which we spend some of that money in the capital ordinance to actually build the project it's not an it's not an addition to the capital ordinance it's in addition to their previous contract correct all right part 5 million so this it's sort of strange architectural services and and construction Administration in the same house uh how does that happen and how do they supervise themselves no they're supervising the construction correct so the the AR the architect who designed the building is the one who's who's who's uh overseeing the con administration of the construction of what they designed so they're they're the people that are best to know all right I'm I'm sorry but this this is my old trait okay and the idea that in the management of construction that there are never issues about the the inputs from the architectural side is not accurate that's not how it works there often times there are issues that come up where there are problems there that need to be adjudicated and it's unusual to have construction management and Architectural under the same roof and and extremely unusual they have them under the same roof for the same project not Not Unusual in the public sector though okay correct it's not in fact it's usual in the public sector well that might be a whole completely different discussion we should have over coffee but that's that's normally this is what happens did we was that number bid then yeah the answer is yes and and in the public sphere you find firms like Alo sorry Alo and other Alo and other firms that do everything from design uh bid to construction management on a project they do all three segments and in this design segment it's a little less uh uh uh it's it's it's a building so you get a lot more architectural involvement than just uh you know doing site plans and Roads and things like that so the answer to your question is the one firm has all those components within it and they do the design which includes both a you know both the AR chitectural for the building and the uh civil sorry I'm trying to use the right words then that same firm bids out the project and then that same firm has a wing of it that does the construction management hearkening back to their designers where there's an issue that's how it's done yeah yeah I I'm I'm sure you're explaining it accurately but we should have the coffee it's a real bad idea it costs us all a lot of money I'm sorry you know we've we've seen it in other public projects items 74 and 75 there transfer items um how much money are we talking about so in uh 74 it's just $200,000 out of the $70 million budget that we're moving around yep and then item uh item uh the next one I believe it's a hand it's a it's a transfer sorry uh the first one was the reserve transfers and the second one is emergency temporary just for some grass B that we're going to need to buy before the full budget is done and yeah it's a negligible amount of money it's yeah okay that's based on the whole budget there um when someone was talking earlier I think Joe was talking about the possibility of putting solar panels on one of the buildings in general I think we ought to be as a town thinking about where we could have sites for solar panels and you know there's a lot of open space uh that might be suitable I I see a lot of open land under power lines I don't know what the rules are in New Jersey in other states they're putting panels under power lines I don't know if we can here or not possibly if someone would reach out to Wayne D'Angelo he's on all the appropriate committees in in Trenton that relate to that he's you not to interrupt you but just to let you know that um we are starting to uh work at uh finding appropriate places for that and uh Kevin's helped us out a lot we hired a firm that's actually starting to help uh coordinate so that uh uh we might have something that we could uh look forward to uh and what it be roofs parking lots a lot a lot of different things so um it's in the works we're not there yet we're not ready well I'm more interested in large Open Spaces we have uh a lot of power lines that run through that are just mowed underneath and and maintained and as I say I know that in some other states they're actually putting panels I mean and we're talking about acres and Acres not talking about area of debate because I personally am not fond of putting solar panels over grass and streams and things like that I like to cover them over parking lots because they're already you know they already have an impervious coverage um but these we're looking at everything so we're we're trying to do the environmentally right thing it doesn't affect the impervious coverage uh if it's unelevated the grass is still underneath and and and and it still perks I hear you and and if it's on near the power lines it's near where it needs to go to all right thanks appreciate your input you're welcome to come up please my name is Naomi Holzer and I live at 453 Bluebird Drive Buro all right welcome now's your your time to be heard so I am sympathetic for what you said because we have to be very careful with the way we speak about people I'm a retired Midwife and for years I used to hear babies out of wedlock being called illegitimate okay like who when does a baby become legal IL legal you know a legal person a legal entity okay it's a baby so I feel for what you say about these PE you know about the people that are migrating into our country that we shouldn't refer to them as illegals okay I I get that but on the other hand you know we we talking about you were just talking about you know we all say things that are not completely woke okay like you were saying repeatedly Black America black Amer what are they black black Americans African-Americans with yeah but the more appropriate term for somebody who wants to be you know hold themselves in high regard for for regarding other people we should be calling it Black his not Black History Month anymore because it once used to be called um they used to use the word negro the Negro month you know like so we've moved away from that we went to black but now we should be more elevated and we should be calling it uh African-American history month so you know this repeatedly and I I tolerated it while you said it because I felt like we're all a product of our past you know some of us haven't moved on yet to the new terms but we should all say it to each other nicely yeah you're right we should all say it to us nicely yes exactly when someone says you know what the word but means forget about what I just said and that and you use that word quite a bit but well let me put the word and then and we should all say it to each other nicely okay I'm a little nervous I'm not a public speaker and so you're taking me apart thank you okay was a big effort for me I'm not taking you that was taking me apart okay it was a big effort for me to come up here and I think I was being kind to you by saying to you that you meant well and I I accept what you said but and we all have room for improvement including yourself all right well thank you and you know what let's all try to get along we're all we're all people of Monroe we all care about our town we a lot of us have different views okay we don't agree with everybody but thank you and I do think that was very nice of you to come up and say what you had said so who else would like to come forward again uh sir good even Joe atanasio 21 Wellington Place welcome again hey happy birthday man thank you we share one I appreci oh wonderful us Cheryl Crow Thomas Edison that's right Thomas Edison was our um we are a sanctuary state are we a sanctuary town all I'm saying is this I worked on a New York Stock Exchange floor for 37 years I was co-chair of the security and Safety Committee also on 911 our our mission was to be prepared we had a plan for snowstorms Transit strikes before the word pandemic was even uttered we had a plan for that all I'm saying guys have a plan a plan doesn't cost you one dime the implementation of the plan cost money having no plan cost a lot of money all I'm saying folks have a plan for housing for schooling for health care because it's coming and it's coming soon thank you very much sir that mic may have got out May the other mic use the other one this microphone's not working feel free to sit at the other chair welcome again we'll get your name and address uh Harold Kane 4B Newport Way in Rossmore hi Harold hi uh question for Mark can you alluded to the widening of prospect planes I'm sorry I didn't hear the whole question uh you mentioned the widening of prospect planes that the tracks were being bought up or tracks of land so it could be widened is that in progress now yes that's been in progress for several months now and I believe there's two properties in condemnation that we're going through that process right now as well I'm guessing this is a county project this is a middle sex County sponsored project our obligations under the agreement is to acquire the necessary right away and I want say there was about 13 Parcels Plus 18 parcels and we have most of them uh have been have been acquired and there's a couple still in uh combination all right let's go back to 2012 you were probably sitting there I was sitting here and it was after the second flood in Rossmore since I lived there since then we've had a third flood and I brought up the fact that when it was mentioned this project they're doing uh like 11 12 right was the first time this came up you you guys weren't here so you wouldn't have known but it did come up um mayor pooie and Wayne Hamilton were sitting over there and my comment after the flood was um we can't move water out of Rossmore fast enough to preclude it now this last flood was really somewhat tragic here because councilwoman Schneider was flooded out and her age and the stress it couldn't have helped uh and my recommendation to them was and they agreed if you want to move more water out of Rossmore you have to start a prospect ples and why in the channel under Prospect planes to at least equal that of the channel on Granite Drive in Cranbury which is maybe 50 yards away if you have to go over there and actually walk it out a little bit to see it but again um if they're going to be widening it this would be time for a change order it's a lot less money to do a change order on existing project that hasn't even started yet than it is to finish the first project then go back and dig everything up all over again it'll cost you three or four times as much and they agreed with me they understood that so I guess I'm back to where we were 10 or 12 years ago that this should seriously be looked at it would be one of the keys to start to eliminate some of the uh flooding coming in rosor after bad rainstorms uh' 05 was a freak Sunday afternoon storm where I believe we had 8 Ines of rain in two hours 11 was hurricane Irene and 21 was the remnants of hurricane came ashore in Louisiana and just came up over the southern part of the United States and we got the end of it 150 units flooded out um this last one was actually the worst as as far as the storms went it was the least um as far as wind or anything like that but it flooded the most units uh water came up as far as New Haven way which had never gone up that far before and people were flooded in that entire area plus uh the other part was flooded out and flooded before up uh right off fors gate dve but this would be one of the first steps you would have to do is widen Prospect planes and increase the through put underneath it so if they're really going to do this again which apparently they are this would be a great time for a change order for it to expand the channel to at least equal what's over in Cranbury you'd increase your throughput by about 50% and that would lower the water level when uh from the lower bridge on Newport over the prospect Plains so anyway well thank you for your input seems to make sense I wouldn't know it's not my my area of expertise but I you know you've been here a while so here a while I appreciate you're caring for your fellow people at rossore too yeah I I hate to see your neighbors and all that get flooded I got it no reason thank you thank you again council president if I can just say on that there there has been uh grant money provided by middle sex County and there uh there is a uh a study underway um certainly Rossmore and her professionals are uh spearheading that with the grant money provided by the uh by the county is there any way to communicate these thoughts to the county that they may consider it more since 2012 the project was scaled back as far as a widening at one time they were looking at I believe a you know five Lane Road uh now it's scaled back to be uh you know a total of three lane so the widening has been significantly reduced the area of the the Culvert I believe is not getting widened in in that area um there is uh storm water management being provided at the Eastern end of the project um so that has been taken into account and and again as I said there's been uh there's more of a regional look at the uh at that Channel at that drainage in that area because that that channel not only runs through Monroe it runs into cranberry and and uh also also U you know heleta comes out of heleta Jamesburg so it is more of a regional uh matter that the county is looking at one other question that you may or may not know do we have any idea when that study may be completed uh at the moment I don't and I do not no okay just wonder but thank you for your help and thank you Mr Kane um lu come on again welcome again yes thank you Luc Lucio Panos 128 Candera Plaza um I haven't had much dealings with many departments in this Township except for the clerk's Department I want to say thank you pdie I wish you the best of luck you you over when I've been politically involved more so it was never there was never any question you just did your job and you did it well you have a nice life and I think you had a good teacher you got big steps to fill um okay so now this um we talked about shared services is this on yes it is yes'am it is shared services with the Board of Ed and things like that well and then I watched the tape of the last council meeting when somebody came up and spoke do you have a plan it was like embarrassing the mayor brought up oh what do you want is to build a wall Mr Ron you were you were disrespectful at at one point I disagree okay well let's is there any Council PR maybe you could take a vote here who thinks taking come on who thinks there should be a plan who thinks there should be a plan it's happening you know talk to is a new mayor in Jamesburg maybe you could have a meeting with him and see what's going on there because I you know St James Church does there's a number of families using that address so will they come to Monroe Schools we don't know you know the governor join the governor join say thank you Governor Murphy for asking for money could just trickle some down to us because you know we have whatever you want to call them illegal immigrants undocumented arose By Any Other Name is they're C causing money and health concerns are these are these people do they have their vaccinations do they have anything they're human beings we want to make sure they're taking care of we want to make sure our families are taken care of so folks you need a plan for for whatever reason monetary health or whatever so please don't take this as a political statement nobody here is up for election okay so find a plan as far as uh solar Farms I think she should cover BFI and make it it's a brown field and solar farm it has been done uh covering up landfill so my cousin probably just built the biggest landfill in North America so uh solar farm in North America um so if you ever want any advice I'm sure he'll do me the favor I'm his older cousin okay so now finally has come to my attention somebody drew this up to me a lawyer because I don't want you to take this per I don't want you to take this personal it has come to my attention that the mayor plans to assign the township business administrator to serve as an employee designate on the planning board I urge the mayor to reconsider because the business administrator cannot serve both functions without creating the appear appearance of impropriety if not an outright conflict as administrator the ba is expected to run the day-to-day operations of the township which includes dealing with the daily issues that arise with developers and property owners for the same person to also vote on applications and variances creates a perverse incentive to justify various thoughts there are dozens of employees in this Township that could fill the role without creating such conflict I ask I request the mayor resend this I ask for your support and maybe put out ask anybody else in this Township employee if they would sit on the thing on the planning board this definitely you always look at the worst that could happen and the worst that could happen is there's a conflict here so um please consider that and I happen to think the word is illegal immigrants not undocumented illegal immigrants thank you thank you for your time anyone else wish to be heard so you're already heard you don't get seconds you get your one bite at the Apple but if it's a very quick question I'll accommodate you please just all right you do that really it's you about a minute left from before Joe atanasio 21 Place P Ro Township my question is when are we going to enforce the pro prohibition on the engine brake in Monroe the prohibition on engine brake that's a a brake that's used by the 12-wheel dump truck jockeys they activate it and when it goes past behind your house my house backs up to Pleasant prox planes the whole house shakes in 2004 Monroe Township had an ordinance put in place plays prohibiting this I think Wayne Hamilton was involved at that time and cranberry also cited it as a as a great great TR sorry big trucks dump trucks diesel trucks okay they used the Jake Brak as they call it to preserve their brakes but it shakes your whole house and we put an ordinance in place in 2004 and at the bottom of the ordinance it said that there were going to be signage put up there's no signs in this town I'm here 17 years okay I'd appreciate it very much if you would look into it the ordinance is in place really I mean with with the increased truck traffic it's getting really annoying thank you very much thank you thank you anyone else wish to be heard tonight I see no other hands um at this point I will entertain a motion to close the public portion motion second second second all those in favor I I before we adjourn I have a statement to make that I wanted to make um I too am uh concerned about a couple of things going on uh first of all we have a we have a family in Monroe um Edward Murrow and his wife they formed a foundation called the Leonid Foundation they helped the people in Ukraine who have been uh suffering and and put out of their uh homes and they send humanitarian Aid now been two years of that war and um I would like to we're now at a point where there seems to be a question on supporting the Ukraine as a public official take an oath my oath is to uphold the Constitution and try to do what's best right trying to do what's best for the country and I hear that they're withholding the aid first they start to say it was because they wanted to wait until there was aid for the Border I understand that because you know why help those people people if there's other people coming here I get it but now I hear that our Senate has put together B bilateral uh a bilateral Bill to provide funding for the border to address a lot of the problems with the border to put limitations on how many people can come in at a given time and give the president the powers he wants to do problem is that even though we somehow miraculously have Republicans and Democrats coming together on this issue when it goes to the House of Representatives we're already told it's a dead Bill why not because they're considering the bill as whether it's a good bill whether it's for the best interest of the country whether it's something that's in the best interest of our constitution but because they've been told that if that bill passes it would make Joe Biden look good and and would hurt Donald Trump that's wrong that's simply wrong if there is a reason for not pass in something that's different if you say that the provisions are not right that's that's it but here to come forward and say that we're not going to support and by the way this was not a Joe Biden bill this was a a James Langford who's one of the most conservative Republicans in the US Senate who put this bill together with the help of Schumer and and couple of the other Democrats and IT addresses so many of the exact problems we're talking about so I'm going to ask those people to please reconsider do what's right follow your oath that you took when you became a member of the House of Representatives do what's best for the United States of America and and with that I just want to say thank you and I I thank you for uh all of your uh kind attention tonight and all of you people who came forward to you know give your opinions on things so at this time I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting motion so move second second second all in favor I I time time is 8:33 we are adjourned thank you everyone thank you