council president we ready to begin yeah okay go ahead Council agenda Township of precipi Troy Hills Township Council agenda meeting of March 5th 2024 introduction posting of notice adequate notice that this meeting has been provided in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings law by filing the notice in the office of the Township Clerk and by posting the meeting notice on the Bolton board at the municipal building on December 20th 2023 where has remained posted since that date a legal notice appeared in the daily record in the New York Star Ledger on December 26 2023 uh may I please ask everyone to stand up for the flag salute to the flag United unit stes stand indivisible andice for all okay uh roll [Music] call Mr herandez here Mr uh McGrath here Mr Mella Mr Mel can you hear me you there yes y I'm here okay Mr neglia here and uh Mr Ki here okay also in attendance our business administrator uh Jamie cryan Township attorney Michael Avery municipal clerk LED Madden council president uh we have a for I begin yes all right thank you upcoming meetings March 19th 2024 at 7:00 p.m. this is the regular meeting April 2nd 2024 at 7:00 p.m. is the agenda meeting I'm going into ordinances at this point ordinance 20243 in ordinance of the township Council of the township of precip Troy Hills County of mois state of New Jersey amending and supplementing chapter 290 parks recreation areas and public lands article one Motor Vehicles fees section 2904 No Country Club utility fees and chapter a445 fees compilation section a445 d37 No Country Club utility of the code of the township wasy Troy Hills in the county of Morris New Jersey the notice for ordinance 20243 was published in a daily record the official newspaper of the township of pcip Troy Hills on February 26 2024 and introduced at the February 20th 2024 regular meeting motion to accept ordinance 20243 be heard in their second and final reading motion motion second motion made by Mr Hernandez seconded by Mr neglia roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mel yes uh Mr neglia yes and Mr Ki yes okay public hearing motion to open the public hearing for ordinance 20243 any motion motion second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by M Hernandez roll call M Hernandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes and Mr kifi yes the floor is open to the public on this ordinance only come on up Nick uh Nick call me at how will these fees at n or wait hold on Nick there you go all right um how will these fees in any way be used to improve the facility itself being it doesn't benefit the taxpayer now we can improve the uh Source separation up there the recycle the garbage uh we can uh uh improve the historical value of that property it does have some history to it which uh I spread around up there U I heard they're getting Ramstein beer up there and that's really a good thing cuz it's probably the best beer this side of the Atlantic and um Greg Zakaria uh grandfather's brothers own the mill before the Bluefield College the Alo uh brothers so that's completing the circle so so that's a good thing but what I'm the point I'm trying to make is these fees and everything if they don't benefit the pound they should go to make the facility more efficient more ecologically conscious more conscious how they control their uh uh garbage and to enhance the history of the landscape itself because despite the fact that it's a uh the u a golf course it is the larg largest Green Acres property in Pappi and it's in a river sensitive Green Acres area and the the Green Acres is uh virtually neglected it's it's not uh it's not actually part of the um maintenance of the golf course itself so if you guys can do anything to help these fees improve those uh as uh aspects thank you thank you Nick anyone else uh my name is Davey Willams at Jamaica Road I wasn't planning to speak tonight but thank you Nick for giving that observation uh because I've been on the N null golf committee Advisory Group for a number of years and a member there and I got to tell you that group does have a lot of attention to the historic value of the prod uh and by the way there's a book recently written by historian about the course okay that every one of you should have a copy of because the null other than crafts and Farms is the second best or most uh wonderful resource we have as a Township the monies that are raised there go towards making it a self-funded utility and the staff we have there are incredible okay as far as taking care of the township property the facility and making one of the best golf course golf courses in the world and that's a fact so over for 44,000 rounds of golf were played at the null in the last years or so that brings a lot of people to this town and it's highly acclaimed highly rated that's a credit to the crew they stay within all of the uh guidelines by state all the USGA guidelines and everything else so Nick I appreciate your comment on there but the funding that is raised by that utility stays within that utility for the purpose of running it maintaining it and not having a burden to the taxpayers thank you thank you Dave anyone else okay seeing no one may I please have a motion to close the public hearing motion second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr Hernandez roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes and Mr kifi yes okay the floor's closed where as the above ordinance was read entitle on second reading and a hearing held there on now therefore be it resolved that set ordinance be passed on Final reading and that notice of final passage of set ordinance be published in a newspaper according to the law may please have a motion to approve resol uh uh to approve the resolution above for ordinance 20243 motion second motion made by Mr herandez seconded by Mr McGrath roll call Mr herandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes Mr kifi yes okay ordinance passes um ordinance number two and three are just there for uh just for you guys to peruse they will be um voted on at the next meeting uh at this time we're going to move right into the public session I'd like to entertain a motion to open up the public session please motion second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr McGrath roll call Mr herandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mela yes Mr neglia Mr kifi yes okay at this time the floor is open to the public to speak on any matter you have 5 minutes to speak we ask that once you speak you please go back to your seat and the council may or may not address the question thank [Music] [Music] you Bob vzi of poran a few weeks ago the mayor mentioned that a proposed New Jersey assembly Bill A4 would replace COA and redesign affordable housing rules and regulations for the purpose of speeding up the construction of affordable housing units the assembly has already passed this bill and it now awaits action in the Senate where there's almost no chance it'll be defeated but it may be possible to shame the Senate into eliminating an unfair clause in the bill that will at least reduce the affordable housing obligation that Mars County and parcion will be assessed with little known to the public and even to many of our Representatives is wording in the existing affordable housing law that exempts 62 Urban Aid municipalities from having to build any affordable housing units at all and that's the list I that you have that I gave you the 62 you um municipalities the exemption rules have nothing to do with the amount of affordable housing that a a municipality may or may not need rather they're based primarily on op on population density per square mile 87% of Hudson County and 75% of Essex County are exempt from any affordable housing obligation simply because they meet the density requirements however a high population density has not prevented Hudson County from adding tens of thousands of market value apartments in the last decade why shouldn't some of them be affordable and why is it that parcion must comply with the affordable housing obligation calculated by the fair share housing Center's methodology but Montclair is exempt from its 185 unit obligation New Jersey assembly Bill A4 which will govern affordable housing in for the next 10 years also contains language that exempts these same 62 Urban Aid municipalities from having to build any affordable housing units in the interest of fairness I think the same methodology for calculating affordable housing uh needs should be applied to all municipalities in New Jersey without exception but there's another good reason why residents of Mars County and pory should be motivated to have exemption language removed from the new law the 62 Exempted municipalities which contain about onethird of the state's population contribute heavily to the number of affordable housing units that are needed at the state and Regional level however because these municipalities are under no obligation to actually build affordable housing units their obligation must be absorbed by the remaining 2/3 of the state that do have quotas affordable housing quotas for parcion as well as for Mar Mars County are I estimate are inflated by at least 40% because of the Exempted municipalities from Essex and Union counties that are in our region on my own I have tried but I haven't been able to make any Headway in drawing attention to the issue of affordable housing exemptions that's why I'm asking the entire governing body to use its influence to make people aware of the existence of these exemptions and the way they harm our town and our County excuse me I would also like to urge uh I would like you to urge Senator pinacho to fight to have all of the exemption language removed from the bill voters tend to get angry when they find out that certain rules apply to them but not to others if there's enough publicity I believe that the New Jersey senate can be shamed into removing the indefensible language that allows affordable housing exemptions to exist there's nothing to lose by challenging these exemptions and your constituents will have very much to gain by their elimination thank you uh ni call again Lake K uh just quick what uh what Bob said in a lot of ways prpi set themselves up for this affordable housing because of the overdevelopment so what else are these corporate real estate people going to do with their vacant uh real estate structures so precipitating set themselves up with it the part that Disturbed me uh when the police chief was here and mayor barbaros says you know we need more police more police no we need enough police not more police but the chief says we're going to need more police anyway because of the affordable housing so that cost for the uh additional police is just going to be pushed on the taxpayers of ppin that's there's something wrong here you can't just take uh the residents or a taxpayer of any town for granted that because some developers are coming to to town and most of these units are not affordable anyway so it's ridiculous and anybody's living space should be affordable but because the government doesn't subsidize It Whatever the market will bear but we shouldn't have to bear if if that's a a um if we need more police then the federal government better cough up the money for for the extra police If there really is a need for we see right away all affordable housing going to have low class people are going to have crime you shouldn't think that way and it it shouldn't be necessarily so uh uh councilman McGrath the uh replies you gave me to my uh questions dealing with the pilot deal I'm a little uh disappointed in the response and it seems like um I don't remember any ongoing transparency I remember the mayor when he first came in says I make deals with developers that's what I do and I go to a lot of these Council meetings and the pilot deals kind of crept in there but when 900 people show up and they're Disturbed and they make a little noise that's not uh inappropriate that's Grassroots uh democracy uh talking so I you know there there's a we the transparency was nonexistent it shouldn't have happened and it it was a FasTrack deal and I again I can't help thinking there's some element of corruption there because this is the way the country works now the dark money money is freedom of speech but it also funds the campaigns for politicians who are in the service of these people who are getting tax breaks so I saw on my level as a senior citizen not so much with a board of education but as this Council and mayor supporting a reg a reget aggressive tax system that's already working against the American people so is another element added toward that regressive tax system against a Grassroots uh democracy the people who really work so we're paying for a way of life when we get very little in return so uh there is a lot of transparency and lastly here and a part of your response you say that every council person sees the occasion to learn about the projects well in advance of the introduction well I would hope that all of you would learn and participate as you didn't before which I mentioned about a storm water utility tax that all this impervious surface around here is impacting it's it's not a Rain Tax it's a tax on large impervious surface that affects the very water we drink in the end when you think about it you see all this trash and all this oil and everything it all winds up in the water and the attack like I said has a loophole in it and remember if you go back 20 30 years Republicans were that the green elephant they cared about the environment that M of the Republican Party seems to be lost and I think they they need to re regain it no you can't have a a economy without an ecology and a simple time tax like that you should all get together and learn about it so so Mr hom I before uh Nick I'm sorry because you just have to take a seat yep and then we'll have Mr McGrath thank you Nick for your comments it's appreciated okay all right are we closing doing it after we close close session no no he's going to make he's going to respond so Mr hak I did want to kind of point out a couple things just when I sat there and I looked at a lot of the data for me it's really important to understand all angles because there there is no you know right answer there's the best answer and I think in some of the data I provided you we've had 312 tax appeals in the last few years and that's over $2.3 million that we now as taxpayers everybody in this room that's a parity resident myself included we pay for additionally on top of that you have to look at the revenues we don't pull in from those locations that are now gone I believe the mayor told me it's around 185 million in revenues that we collect our tax against so again that's another 3 to four million that we don't collect year-over-year that combined is over $6 million that parci residents have to pay so when it goes into what happens when we start to lose commercial properties there is never a great answer right if we could keep everybody it'd be awesome as I sat with councilman Mella we talked about potentially lowering the tax rate from 3 to 2% but that also means we collect less tax money but maybe we attract more people or we have to open up to different things mayor talked about opening up to things like cannabis for distribution for cultivation there's things that we now need to go look at that we have to consider because all of these things affect us in town and if we don't do anything that means we collect less money we go from say 40% commercial tax 60% residential to 3565 or 3070 but that means that we as the taxpayers are responsible for catching up our tax rates go up that's what we need to work on is how do we stop that from happening so everybody in the room doesn't have to pay more taxes how do we stop the bleeding and improve it and I am always open to sitting with anybody and Mr homak in that email I offered you let's sit down and talk about the data points that I see and how do we combat that because I'm open to it Nick I just want to address something you brought up about with the mayor and the and the police chief okay um it's a known fact that with all this affordable housing and all these new units there's going to be more people in town you have to remember when you talked about the commercial properties you had people in town for 40 hours a week 40 to 50 hours a week Monday through Friday now these people are going to be here 247 they're going to be living here okay so you're going to have a lot more calls a lot more calls for assistance by the police department whether it's for investigations medical calls whatever it is anything that police respond to they're going to go up okay I know I have many contacts I talk to a lot of law enforcement in other towns that have already had affordable housing units these apartment buildings that are up and running they have a lot more calls for assistance in these units they definitely have a lot more calls so there are going to be there's going to be more of a burden on our police department so I think that's what the police chief was talking about because I know the police Chiefs have a monthly meeting they all get together they all talk about different things that are going on in each town and that is definitely one of them so I I do want to add one more thing so we talked about transparency as well so I sat with the clerk and we walked through what is the process for going through these and one of the big things that stuck out to me is there's a lot of sessions that people don't attend whether it's planning board zoning board all these different sessions where these things come up and there may be one or two people in the audience those things get pushed through based upon the ordinances in our town they're approved they come here in front of the Town Council we approve them for things like Redevelopment they go back and they go through what are the things required to go and build those one of the things that's Paramount to me is is showing the data out to everybody and I was going to bring it up in our our next piece where we talk about our committees we are going to go back to our transparency committee we're having our first meeting on the 11th so we're trying to bring back where we go and get all that data and we show back to the public all the information that you're you're curious about make sure you have an understanding and that way we will make sure that any of these questions you will be well in advance understanding what were the problems what are the things we're up against and making sure that you have a voice early and often like I said I was just at planning board yesterday I think there was one person in the crowd and that was to build a warehouse that again you may have come and said hey I have a different opinion but there's also some good things they're improving impervious ground they're removing a lot of the black tops so they're removing what would be Wastewater with more chemicals going into our groundwater so they're actually doing some good things that would probably align to the things you want to hear uh but again i' highly recommend you you come to those sessions as well can I make a few comments so I'll start where you ended off I agree with you Matt a lot of people don't come I used to sit on planning board however when there's something that's unique I think we still have to do our due diligence and let people know hey this is something special we have a lot of pilots and and then maybe people will come to those meetings and maybe understand a little bit more and I'm glad to hear that they're doing the Imp uh making it more per permeable but that's also part of our master plan they should be everybody that comes through that plan board should be and the other comment I wanted to make to Bob is this there are so many towns and and people from other towns that I'm talking to that are putting resolutions about the affordable housing AF A4 s50 Bill and we're doing that tonight we're opposing that adding our voice Pip's voice to the collective voices and trying to get some of it's bipartisan some of the Democratic state senators to understand that yes nobody likes this Bill thank you for pointing out about the exemption Parts cuz there's so much of that that's not great that I wasn't hearing the exemption part so that's important and the good news is that it seems like with this this at it passed the assembly it's going to the state senate but they're trying to change some they're trying to put in some of the wording to elect towns that like ours that have conformed the highlands to for them to consider water and sewer and Science and environmental considerations when making those number of decisions so that's a good that's a good part for us so let's keep our fingers crossed but thank you for for your comments thank you okay uh anyone else seeing no one I'd like to entertain a motion to close the public session please motion second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Miss Hernandez roll call Mr herandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes Mr kifi yes okay I just like to ask the council uh just to take a look at the consent agenda and the approval of minutes before we move on to the presentations and reports we'd like to take a short recess to go into a close session to uh discuss an attorney client privilege matter uh regarding a collective bargaining agreement so I'm going to go ahead and read the resolution uh executive session resolution whereas the open public meetings act PL 1975 chapter 231 permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting in certain circumstances and whereas the township councils of the opinion that such such circumstances presently exist and whereas the township Council wishes to discuss attorney client privilege collective bargaining agreement and whereas minutes will be kept and once the matter involving the confidential of those above no longer requires confidentiality the minutes can be made public now therefore be it resolved by the township council at township of P Troy Hills that the public be excluded from this meeting can I have a motion to um adjourn the close to ad journey to close session motion second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr herandez roll call Mr herandez yes U Mr McGrath yes Mr melum yeah are you going to bring me with you uh no we're going to keep you out here no phones allowed I'm just kidding man and Mr we said Mr neglia and uh Mr kifi yeah okay uh just want let the public know we'll be in there about 10 minutes max and we'll be right out uh thank you all right we're uh going back into um open session may I please have a motion to reconvening to open session motion second motion made by Mr neglia and uh and seconded by Mr Hernandez let me uh just get a roll call Mr M Hernandez yeah here oh yes Mr Hernandez uh Mr McGrath yes here Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes Mr kifi yes before we move on I just uh going to turn it over to the township attorney sure thank you uh we emerged from executive session at 7:48 p.m. where we discussed one matter which was uh contract negotiations which falls under the labor or Personnel exemption no official action was taken copies of these minutes will be available at such time as the council determines there is no harm to the public interested thank you Mr Lavery okay moving along to uh presentations and reports I'm going to go ahead and um send it over to the mayor right on time mayor I can say right now is um as you know we going we're working on the budget right now um and I know we spoke before Paul we're going to have these meetings shortly but we're going to be meeting uh just to narrow things down um budget wise I just came from um the Pini High School uh it was actually fun students versus the teachers and faculty and uh it was a Slaughter I mean students killed them to's put it that way it got to the point where um every point that the uh faculty scored was 10 points for one shot so but it was a lot of fun um and really not much else to add other than the fact that as you know uh that affordable housing bill that was well I don't know if it's passed yet I think it still has to go to the Senate how detrimental it's going to be to the township of porcion with regards to the number of units that we'll be looking at as you know we'll be carrying over 463 units um from the last round so we're going to have our hands full with regards to the affordable housing as you know um I did speak to the auditor and um right now we're on a financial stability but as you know things can change uh with regards to and I've been pounding this home for a while with regards to um ratables being lost in town uh you know we have God I can't tell how many tax appeals coming our way not just tax appeals we have companies that will most likely be moving out of Paran so we have to find a way to keep them here which you know we've been successful so far in some of them but I don't really see a a really you know it's a pretty much a a a grim um forecast but that being said this Administration is going to continue to work hard to keep as many companies we can here in parcion because of course we don't want to balance this shift dramatically over to the residents and that's what can happen with regards to losing ratables and not only do we you use ratables it affects a lot of things I'll tell you what it does affect and nobody really wants to ever hear it but it affects the amount of Revenue that comes in which means when we we don't get the certain amount of Revenue that we expect to get in from a uh a rable um it affects all our departments affects the police it affects DPW it affects all that why because then we have to start to make some tough decisions um if it gets to that way meaning with you know possible layoffs in the future and all that kind of stuff which we're trying to avoid uh as much as we can uh the fact of the matter is though I don't I don't see how we can turn it around considering uh these commercial lenders uh I mean these commercial developers are handing over their properties right over to the banks they leaving and we know that for a fact and we continue to fight it with regards to we talked about the pilot programs and that's a way that we keep we keep some companies in here with regards to parcion not all not all pilot programs are popular but some do work out for the town and I can tell you I know the ones that I worked on prior worked out very well for the the town and they will work out for the town or you just have no Revenue coming in that's a decision that will be the council to make in the future because be honest with you a lot of companies are going to be coming in asking for them some are going to say no to some are going to have to say yes to but that's a decision we're going to have to make if we want to keep our our you know this town on stable ground in stability um with regards to the police department um you know there's a lot of things that have been going out on social media and it's really frustrating I'll tell you why we have a very very good Police Department very good probably one of the best in the county if not the state and it's constantly being like they're not doing their jobs they're not doing this you know we had a um neighborhood watch uh meeting and the meeting was going well and it got very political at some point with regards to the meeting and it's not about politics when you have a neighborhood wants it's basically about what the residents want to hear us they ask questions and and it got to a point where it got real political and um I and I'm sorry to the to and I spoke to the two individuals that ran it and I apologize to them that it got that way because what was what their main concern in the residence of Lake P siony all p siony is what Public Safety that's their main concern that's what they wanted to hear from our Police Department that night they wanted to hear from our chief they wanted to hear from our captain they wanted to hear from our lieutenants who are there our W chief that was there that's what they wanted to hear well that didn't happen it got to the point where it got lost and that's not that's that's what that's about that's not what it's about as we know we have we talked about some of the statistics and crime has gone down over the last year not significantly but it's gone down we're beefing up our Police Department as much as we can I would like to add some more police officers but our budget might constrain us from doing the amount the number that I really wanted to put in there because we we have to be you know financially U responsible and a lot of people go on Facebook and they talk about fiscally responsible when they don't deal with fiscally responsible they come up here they can make any shot they want to make on Facebook and with regards even with regards to some of the contract contracts that we're dealing with right now uh they go out there publicly and I got to tell you something that's that's that's not good it's not good for you the resident support sypon and and I say that for a reason because you're supposed to do negotiations what and close session you're not supposed to do it out in the public okay and and and that's that's that's a shame that that just happened this week um but that being said we are doing everything that we can in the town to keep it stable and we're going to keep it as stable as we can I can and I and I'm going to work very hard Jamie's going to work very hard at the council's going to work with us um but we have to bring a a budget not only works for the town but it works for the residents we cannot you know we can't continue to you know sit here and ignore the fact that we have an economic problem here in Pary we have one and it can't be ignored and you know what people want to come up and say you know uh affordable hasing it's the mayor's fault it's that fault well you know what F of housing rules have been in effect I can't tell you for how long they've been in effect before who knows any mayor I mean the previous mayor I mean he got hit he got hit really hard with the affordable housing now it's going to be our trying to get hit hard with it uh why cuz the assembly and the Senate they're forcing something down our throats that we can't handle no town can be able to handle it but they're going to force us to handle it okay I'm I'm glad to see that the schools got a 14% almost a 14% increase in um Aid the township got I don't think got any increase whatsoever we didn't uh and from what I I spoke to our CFO last no our our funding the same it's the same almost every year ours doesn't increase so we have to find means to make it increase the revenues that we get and um and I think one of the things that hurts us with regards to um not getting a fair share because I don't know if anybody knows what comtra is comtra is Consolidated Municipal property tax relief Aid well we don't get that anymore the state takes it all and they decide how much we get that money was supposed to be 100% Township money and it's not anymore the state directs decides what they're going to give well we collect the money but we have to give it to the state it's totally it's totally unfair but I am glad that the schools got $ 1.47 million um that should help them out with the budget at least I hope it does because I know 1.47 million on a on $197 million budget is less than 1% of an increase uh to the state really didn't do well by the uh by the school board if by the schools if you ask me but could have given a lot more to the schools but they they didn't so that's my report for today um I can keep going on and I will to the next meeting I'm sorry I was late but I had to um uh throw to I had I had to be there it was great actually I'll be back but thank you um council president thank you thank you Township Council any member from Township Council oh um I just we doing our reports right okay um pory environmental committee and the green team are having a green screening of a movie on May 12 called American river and it's about the pic River somebody who kayaked from its the pristine beautiful Environmental Green place where it's starts all the way to nework Bay and then they meet people along the way so it's going to be at the New York public the New York I'm from New York but not going to be at the New York Public Library it's going to be at our pany library on Hy Road and um I hope we can put it on the town web website to advertise it um it'll be on a Saturday the day before Mother's Day and I think it'll be around 10:00 in the morning so it should be a nice event and that's all I have thank you anyone else any member any other member from tonum Council yep so I got a couple reports so I'll do Economic Development first on Thursday February 22nd the economic development team in mayor James barberio Express there congratulations and officially welcome the Morris Golf Shop to parney business Community the new establishment is situated at 96 North beverick Road the next meeting of economic development committee is on Thursday March 21st 6:30 at 90 East Hy Road Third Floor conference room please note this is a change of date public is invited please rsbp with chairman Frank kahill at 97355 96000 and also the economic development committee collaborated with New Jersey Economic Development Authority to offer several grants I mentioned this a little bit last time tailored for local companies these grants aim to assist businesses in offsetting leasing expenses for newer extra space ranging from 250 to 10,000 sare foot at street level furthermore there's a provision of 5,000 to 50,000 to reimburse business Proprietors for expenses linked to Interior or exterior enhancements and the acquisition and installation of new furniture fixtures and equipment the economic development committee has already engaged with 12 Paran businesses eligible for these grants newly established business is currently in the process of submitting their applications upon approval the business stands to receive approximately $75,000 in grant funding so this is really important for folks especially if you think about the improvements we're making on uh beverick Road make sure you're reaching out to Frank kahill and again phone number 973-559-6787 is right up here in front great opportunity for any new businesses additionally I mentioned transparency advisory committee so that was not on the books and I got that reestablished with the members that were elected and announced and our first meeting will be on March 11th at 6:30 at 90 East Hy road which be our first sort of inaugural inaugural excuse me uh meeting so it'll be setting up who's going to be the president all those great things uh the expectation is we would like again public participation in this so that there is not confusion not questions and again everybody here has access to my email if you want to talk more about this more about transparency more about the things you desire to see as I see Ken in the back there has multiple times reached out to me that's what the point of this is going to be is to make sure that the the data is out there for everyone that's it thank you Mr McGrath any other member of council okay seeing no one at this time uh we have a presentation by Craftsman Farms [Laughter] yeah while this is warming up I'm going to take the mic because I need to look at the screen okay I think that looks pretty good so um is the mic everybody can hear me now um this is the first time I'm making a presentation for many of you of course I know the mayor and councilman kifi and I want to introduce myself I'm Bond given I'm the executive director of the cly museum at Craftsman Farms I've worked at Craftsman farms for 16 years and I'm in my 10th year as the executive director and we have some supporters here uh in the audience as well our board president Barbara we Scuttle is here several of our board members are present if you want to raise a hand advisory council members and volunteers and I want to thank them for coming out and showing support tonight I haven't done a presentation for the council for a couple of years now so uh my apologies for taking advantage and this will take me a little bit to get through because I'm introducing the um property to some of you and I want to um take just a moment to explain a little bit about who we are but I I'll try to keep it snappy so um we already got this through this part I wanted to just introduce myself and um I also just wanted to say I'm from a little town outside of Nashville Tennessee and have lived and worked in New Jersey for more than 20 years it's been a great place for my husband and I to um to live and I think it's worth noting with a lot of people leaving that there is a lot of people who come and stay so um I'm not going to talk much about history tonight but it seemed weird to have a presentation with about Craftsman Farms without a picture of Gustaf Stickley so I'm hoping if you haven't taken a tour of the pla that you'll come and take a tour at some point this is a picture of gustof Stickley who established Craftman farms in the early 20th century and there's a photograph of um Craftsman farms at the time when he lived there he only lived there a short time and his fortunes began to change around the time of World War I he sold the property in 1917 the family who purchased it their name was Farney and they lived there for three generations and the third generation mostly rented out the property so if you've been in parity for a while you may think of it as a property that was Arenal and there was also a store burned in the in run 1970 that you could see from Route 10 East so now it's salt storage but um you might be familiar with that part of it so the history I do want to talk about tonight is really the history of this organization and our relationship with the township so back in 1989 Craftsman Farms was threatened with development the township purchased the property the remaining 30 Acres um thetically established the property as an estate with 650 Acres originally and um by 198 1989 there were about 30 Acres remaining the township purchased the property the purchase happened um there was a lot of discussion about what to do over about 10 years and um a feasibility St study suggested what actually happened which was the township purchased the property and it's um daily management was turned over to what we are as a nonprofit we're a public charity so the year after the property was saved from development and the partnership with what was then called the Craftman Farms Foundation but is now the stickly museum at Crossman Farms um the year after that the um property was designated a National Historic Landmark so I just just to take you down memory lane this is what the property looked like when the township took possession there was some pretty epic renderin there in the front you could ask Jimmy Walsh about taking it out I think it was his job and uh here's what it looks like today and uh back in 1989 it was empty of all of its furniture and the walls were white and uh here's what it looks like inside today our goal is to try to make it as much like it did looked in stickley's time and um we've come a long way and um I'm happy to say this year we're celebrating our 35th Anniversary as a museum as a an organization and this also means we're celebrating 35 years of a partnership with the township and we take the partnership really seriously we aim to be a good partner to the town and um you know some of the people here well surely Nancy willings here has been involved for all those 35 years and Davey nearly as long so um it's a great thing to be standing up here in front of them and saying that we've made it to 35 years so um I'm not g to this all this is available on our website but I wanted to point out a couple of things about our organization one is our responsibility to the township is for preservation interpretation and daily operations of the site and our annual operating budget is currently 665,000 it's entirely self-funded now we do receive support from the township but not financial support um I do want to point out that our caraker works for the um Parkson Forestry Department he is responsible for mowing the entire property and uh for plowing it and we also get support from the buildings department and and really departments throughout the the township so we do benefit from this partnership in many ways but the funding comes from what we raise we have 25y year operating agreement and lease with the township and our current Agreements are through 2031 which makes it sound like something I should probably not even mention tonight but I'm going to because our ability to get grants depends on how long that contract is and um in particular the New Jersey historic trust would like to see 15 years remaining on that agreement and we don't have that many years without that many years it means that a grant that we pursue when we get the grant we will be asked to have a co-signer on the Grant and we can do that I know we have a nice relationship but it's something to consider that if we could move forward with um renewing the agreement it would be good for everybody so if you haven't visited Craftsman FS or it's been a while here is a map of the property there are nine buildings on the property and tonight we're going to talk about three of them the logous the building that you can see that's kind of connected to it I'm going to get my here we go my pointer so this is the log house and that is the annex we're going to talk about the white cottage which is one of three cottages on the property and kind of isolated from the rest of the property and I should also have oriented you this is rout Route 10 is right over here and this is Manner Lane that goes into Powder Mill all of Powder Mill would have been part of Craftsman Farms originally and the Farney family sold off all the acreage by the time uh except for the raining 30 by the time the township took ownership and in 35 years we have not done a lot with the buildings over here these are the farm buildings this is what you can really see from Route 10 East you can see this particular that's where there's some salt storage now um that the road department is using in a barn that burn the barn that burned in 1970 and we are hoping to get started on some work in the Horse bar because over the years it has not been really addressed we've focused most of our attention on this area here that's shaded called the historic Zone and it really is the part of the property that most visitors come to we would like to use other parts of the property but we really have to address some of the needs on the other side of the property on the other side of Manor Lane so um in the work that we do it's about at least the work I do about half of it is with fundraising and the other half is with preservation and our director of Collections and preservation johnan Clancy is here tonight as well I asked him to come because a lot of this is about preservation and it's I do most of the fundraising he does most of the day-to-day work but I just wanted to point out that with so many buildings if we're doing our job properly we always have a project in the planning stages a project that's current or about to begin and one that's wrapping up and right now this is what we have we have a we're looking to do a hallway Restoration in the log house we are just about to start logins restoration and we hope to soon be finishing up our Annex Rehabilitation and logous kitchen restoration which I'm going to talk about in a moment and just before I move on to talk about some of these projects I want to just make sure that it's going to be important to you kind of Orient yourself the logous here has this building attached to it that's called the annex it's the log house the kitchen and the annex and if you've been there before you'll surely recognize the buildings because that'll become important in a moment so in talking about the three buildings that I'm covering the logous is the most important it's the hardest the property it always was in stickley's time and remains that today it is the building that people come to when they come to visit for the most part we give tours of this building and it houses the Museum's collections as well we've worked hard to build a Furnishings collections um that is uh as good as any Museum that's devoted to arts and crafts so in in the logous we have been doing some small projects and for us this is weird to say small projects are $50,000 or less it seems really big but it's kind of small for preservation so one of the initiatives that we've started over the last few years and really probably since I have spoken here is that we have been going to Morris County histor preservation trust for with a Grant application if the project is less than 50,000 we've been trying to match it instead of coming to the township for the match so the first project was fire fireplace restoration and you can see here um this photo from the restoration which was a really fascinating and complicated project that project we thought would be about 45,000 it actually came in at just under 58 so our initial investment was about 21,000 $22,000 um and so the initial investment was the key part but once we made that initial investment then we are what we want to do is roll that money into the next project and that's the next project you can see the deterioration of the logins here on the logous we're about to start this project as soon as we can get it going and um our match there will be 20% of the project it's just under 10,000 and after that so this is the upcoming one that we're planning for we are hoping to get started with logous hallway restoration and um this is on the consent agenda that you already I think you already approved it tonight I got kind of lost in there in the in the uh throughout the agenda but it was on the agenda we aren't asking for money with this one we are asking for support of the Grant application so um anyone is who's a grantor who's giving money for preservation wants to know you have a stable relationship with the owner of the property and so the the uh resolution says that the um Township approves the grant uh pursuing the Grant and also the work if the grant is awarded so we are this grant is coming due this month and then um and then we'll have about a $110,000 match for it so I can't talk about the log house without talking about um what happened at the log house in 2020 I used this slide another time and it just kind of pleased me so I put it back up here but um 2020 a lot of people think it was the year of covid which it was for us we closed because of covid in March of 2020 but a few months later a tropical storm ripped through the property and um did really significant damage so if you're new to the property the reason I showed a really old picture of the log house the anex is I had to show one that was before the tree came down so this storm uprooted a massive tree and it landed on the annex the building that is attached to the log house that building was an open air dining area when the stickly lived there and it was later enclosed this tree came down um it happened so suddenly as these things do it took a little bit to even figure out what had happened um um the sprinkler system engaged flooded a lot of most of two buildings and almost reached the logous which would have been a much bigger catastrophe but as you can see there the mount Taber fire department arrived the police department arrived Joe Jon's building department arrived they helped us get the sprinklers turned off and um empty the building of water it was unbelievable how fast they got there so we're we're very grateful for that assistance that day um in some really bad conditions so P some more pictures of the interior and once the tree was removed we see that the Upper Floor of the building was essentially demolished so we began to work over a couple of years to plan to rebuild uh we do a lot of construction on the property but this is really in the heart of the property and it's a trying trying to reopen it's going to make it very difficult so we elected to remain closed except on weekends during construction so um um we are currently hopefully nearly finished with a $1.5 million project it was jointly funded by the township and by the New Jersey historic trust um it's a onetoone match so when we came to the township with a plan we said we should we need to rebuild the annex but it's attached to the logous kitchen and they both at the time shared problems with mechanical issues Plumbing issues security issues and we could fix a lot of things if we could do both at the same time instead of mobilizing later so we were asked if we if um we could come up with half of the funding and the New Jersey historic trust awarded this Grant and um in June of 20121 we started construction and the construction should have been completed in March of 2022 is construction completed it is not so we have been sort of stuck in construction uction it has been one of the hardest challenging most challenging projects I've been involved with uh in my career um and I don't really want to go into it further here except to say we've just faced innumerable delays and um many challenges with it um but we are beginning to see a path forward and the consent agenda included a change order which is actually a really good sign because it means that the project is um the administration is moving forward on it it's being managed and so um so a change order is a good thing because when nothing is being issued then um the project just falls behind so I'm happy to say that we move from this to this this is early on in construction this is kind of where we lagged for a long long time but um here's what it looks like today these beautiful Windows across the front are meant to refer to what the probably look like when the Stickley lived there and use this area for dining for the first time in many years you'll have a view just like the stickle did so I do expect that we'll fully reopen in the summer I don't have a date yet because I'm nervous about setting dates for these things but I will invite you all to the Grand re opening and looking forward to that happening in the meantime we are open on weekends we just had kind of shut down the property on the weekdays but we have a special rate for um parity residents and many parity residents take advantage of the library pass programs they can come for free just check out the library pass and uh incidentally our visitor services manager mentioned to me today that every weekend recently we've had somebody using the past so it's great so we encourage people to do that and we also have free open houses we had three um last Christmas and we'll do more this year especially once we reopen so um now comes the part where I actually ask for money so we have been trying working to stabilize the white cottage um it is the building that is kind of isolated but one of the first cot ages built on the property we are essentially planning to moth ball it it has significant deterioration we want to bring it to a stable uh a stable State we finished phase one I came in 2022 and requested support for a grant to do phase two the grant is a grant for $268,000 and it's a one toone Grant and the resolution I was showing there was um the resolution to support uh the Grant and also the funding for it so um what I'm asking for is capital funding to get this project started the entire project is $268,000 the township once the once the project gets underway will be reimbursed half of the funding for it so it is initially a significant outlay but the Township's uh portion will be modest in comparison and that will bring this building to a good place where we think it will be in good condition until you know we can decide or at some future date it's decided what to do with it and then the third building I want to talk about is the horse barn as I mentioned this has not been a barn where very little has done has been done in 35 years we've there's been a lot of buildings to work on and sometimes trees fall and it really changes priority list really quickly but the roof on the horse barn is in bad condition this building was a rental unit when the township took possession and um the roof on it is not historic it's a shingle roof there's some historic um on the some historic fabric on the exterior particularly but at the moment it just really needs a shingle roof and um it needs a heating system um Chris Smith the town plumber called me a couple of months ago and said I've been patching this thing together I can't get much more out of this system so um in a future resolution this one and the previous resolution I mentioned We'll be asking for $100,000 to make this replacement um I can we can pursue a grant but even the best Grant you don't get any funding until two or three years after you write it if you get the Grant and this is a little more pressing than that so I wanted to bring it in front of the council and ask for it um I did speak to Joe janone about it he said he thought that the heating system would be that that it would be less than this so the two together should be under 100,000 we're working on the estimate and once you get the resolution it'll have a better uh um idea you'll have a better idea of what the full cost will be so in closing I just wanted to show a little bit about who our organization is today we have um 334 member households they're spread all over the country and um this is a map of our recent visitors so it it would be normally there would be more of these little points on it because we have more visitation than we in in in the past we would have had more visitation but there's 200 unique zip codes here from people who have visited while we've been most partially closed for construction so so one of the interesting things about our our our site is that 60% of our visitors and just coincidentally 60% of our members don't live in New Jersey um and I wanted to mention that we're a National Historic Landmark there's we're one of only you can't really read that from here but it says we're one 2600 Ellis Island is a National Historic Landmark as well and it just got me to thinking about something that I'll I'll just mention in closing that I know there are pressures on townships immense pressure to uh deal with finances and expenses I mean we Face the same thing where I work so asking for money is not something I do um without a serious thought given to it um but I do hope you'll think of it as an investment a couple years ago I visited falling water which is arguably Frank Frankl wri's finest house that he built it's in a tiny town called Barun Pennsylvania and um and when I was there I found out about this Consortium of Frankl Wright sites so falling water is one of 31 historic house museums and other kinds of museums that are dedicated to Frankl Wright so you may know frankly brigh is you may not be aware that Frank L brigh and Stickley have some things in common and Stickley fans tend to be frankly brigh fans and vice versa so there's a lot of tourists who are interested in obviously 31 frankly bright sites but it made me want to ask how many historic house museums Nationwide are devoted to stick there's one it's here in parity so um in terms of spending on the property you already own it and um uh we're trying to keep the Investments modest um but the payoff could be significant uh there is a house Museum or there's a house in Syracuse that was stickl prior to moving to Pary that's getting some attention but as far as I understand it will be a bout Boutique Hotel the museum that's a multi-million dollar multi-million dollar Museum down in Florida it is incredible they do have an incredible stickly collection but it will never be gusta stickley's dream home that's the bottom line it's here in Paran and so we will always always have that in our favor and one of the cool things about it is we already have the infrastructure here in parci to support the tourism the tourists who want to come here I went to the state tourism conference a couple years ago and the thing that was really clear is that tourists want an a comprehensive experience they want to stay at a hotel that's nice they want to dine they want to shop and we have the ability to give that to them so we get people to come for a half day we want them to come for a day two days and we can do that um the investments in the property will help us get there visitors want amenities but um the current changes on the property are really taking us two-third of the way there um so it's something that I wanted to mention when it's difficult financially I hope you'll think of it as an investment and that is everything I had thank you for your time thank you thank you any close up am I any questions before I go okay thank you Von thank you T patney uh the only report I have is that um after many months we have a meeting finally with a developer in Glenmont to discuss the roads and that will take place this Thursday so uh I'll report back to you before the next meeting thank you thank you Mr lvery uh our business administrator Mr cryan thank you thank you council president uh just real quickly uh there is a um Ramadan celebration uh this Friday uh here at 5:00 um on the 9th no Saturday sorry Saturday the 9th also on Saturday is the Morris County uh St Patrick's Day Parade um it's in Morris toown unfortunately wish it was here in pory uh the um other item uh to that I want to mention is um there's a bunch of open positions here on our website please uh um tell a friend uh visit if you're interested in a position or if you know somebody who is uh we have some open positions in town and we appreciate uh you reaching out for us it's a great place to work with great people um also we just relaunched gov pilot so uh our report of concern and the mayor's action center now uh is going to be more robust and uh every department has been trained on it and will'll be uh um well making sure that it's uh more useful for residents and we're answering your concerns better uh that's all have thank you thank you also happy St Patrick's Day on March 17th thank you Mr cry uh I have no report I ask the council to to briefly take a look at the ordinances for first reading which will be adopted at the next meeting okay any questions seeing none I'm moving along to the non-consent agenda I got Township offices committee reports so I have something oh go right ahead Mr n thank you um about a week or so ago uh as my role is Council Lea on to the board of ed along with Matt mcgr met with Allison kogan who's the uh liaison to the council from the Board of Ed along with uh Judy mayor and uh it's just kind of like a meet and greet opening first meeting um we talked about different ways we can possibly share some of the services we both have try to save the taxpayers some money and we just kind of threw a bunch of ideas out there they gave us some needs they may have in the future and um just it was just a good discussion good opening round discussion to talk about different ways we can help each other I think the meeting went very well um we uh it was very productive I thought I brought some of those ideas and and uh some of the thoughts back to the administration which I'm sure I'll will consider some of them in the future and uh I hope to continue discussions with Allison as the liaison uh along with myself just keep the lines of communication open and you know try to get uh us talking to each other more often thank you thank you thank you Mr nean uh moving along to the non-consent agenda R 2024 24 approving engineers and Architects to provide services to the township of PCI Troy Hills motion to approve please motion second second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr uh Mr Fernandez roll call Mr herandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mel yes Mr neglia yes Mr kifi yes motion passes R 2024 25 approving attorneys to provide services at Township siany Troy Hills motion to approve the resolution yes M Hernandez second second by Mr McGrath roll call Mr nandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes Mr Kiki yes resolution 2024 26 approving Consultants to provide services to the township ory Troy Hills motion to approved motion motion made by Mr neglia second second second by Mr McGrath roll call Mr herand yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mel yes Mr neglia yes Mr kifi yes motion passes R 202 2427 authorizing the award of contract for Professional Services to Michael ly Esq of the firm ly Salia brontis and Cohen as Township attorney for 202 for the year of 2024 motion to approve motion who made that motion second motion made by Mr kifi seconded by Mr McGrath roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes Mr kif yes uh motion passes congratulations Mr ly thank you r224 28 authorizing the award of contracts for Professional Services to John Paul valz and alons de Mayo as public defenders for the 2024 year motion to approve motion a motion made by Mr kifi second that was Mr negli oh I'll second it okay so motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr kifi roll call Mr herandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr negia yes Mr kifi yes motion passes R 2024 29 authorizing the award of contracts Professional Services to Monica Madden of the firm Madden and Madden and Lisa Thompson The Firm Mason Thompson as Municipal prosecutors motion to approve the above resolution motion second okay motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr Hernandez roll call Mr mes yep Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes and Mr Ki motion passes R 202 430 award a contract to nisaia LLP for Professional Services Township aerator motion to approve resolution motion second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr kifi roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr McGrath Mr Mella yes Mr neglia Mr kifi yes motion passes R2 2439 award a contract of fair viiew Insurance Agency Associates as broker of record and risk manager of the 2024 year motion to approve motion motion made by Mr neglia second second by Mr McGrath roll call uh Mr herandez yes Mr Mella yes Mr McGrath yes Mr neglia Mr Ki motion passes R 202 440 award a contract to DNH alter alternative Risk Solutions for insurance services to provide administration of claims processing for workers compensation for the 2024 year motion to approve motion motion made by Mr Nea seconded by Mr mcgr roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes Mr kifi yes motion passes r224 41 awarded contracts for professional Financial engineering environmental architectural appraisal archaeological housing and planning services for the 2024 year motion to approve motion second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr McGrath roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr Mella Mr McGrath yes Mr neglia Mr kifi yes motion passes r 202442 Award of contract to Millennium strategies Al as Grant consultant for the 2024 year motion to approve motion motion made by Mr negle a second second second by Mr McGrath roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes Mr kifi yes motion passes R 202443 authorizing the appointment of new special law enforcement officer class 3 motion to approve motion motion made by Mr neglia second second by Mr Hernandez roll call Mr Hernandez Mr McGrath yes m Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes and Mr kifi motion passes R 2024 44 approving assembly bill number four Senate bill number five which proposes to overhaul the fair share Housing Act in a way that imposes unrealistic obligations and unrealistic times based uh upon owner standards motion to approve motion second motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr Hernandez roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr melum yes Mr neglia Mr kifi yes motion passes moving on to the approval of payroll and bills list CFO Leonard H recommends the authorization for payment uh number one authorizes payment of the March 3rd 2024 regular and miscellaneous payroll estimated at 1, 650,000 and number two payment of bills from voucher list of 3124 through 3324 which is 1,444 77939 motion to approve motion second motion made by Mr neglia second by M Hernandez roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr Mel yes Mr McGrath yes Mr neglia Mr kifi yes okay finally may I please have a motion to adjourn the meeting motion second Mo motion made by Mr neglia seconded by Mr Hernandez roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia yes Mr kifi yes motion passes is adjourned have a great night everyone good night everyone so we just passed this and this is they're going to hear it on Monday the Senate though